The university that took in the evacuated departments

Chongqing University was founded in 1929. Professors born in Chongqing, then working at Chengdu University, wanted a university in the city; the Sichuan military governor Liu Xiang agreed to back it, and the funds were raised in part as a levy on pork. The first term of two preparatory classes opened on 12 October 1929 at Yangjia Garden in Caiyuanba, and Shapingba was chosen as the permanent site the same day. The science building was finished in 1933 and the university moved to the Jialing bank near Shimen Bridge. By 1935 it had three colleges of arts, science and agriculture.

When Nanjing fell in late 1937 the government ordered its agencies inland. The National Central University and the National Central School of Engineering moved to Chongqing, and Chongqing University gave them 200 mu of land at Songlinpo to build on. For the next nine years the two universities ran a joint arrangement: staff taught at both, credits were recognised across both, and a shortage of teachers was shared rather than doubled. Professors who came with the move included Ma Yinchu, Li Siguang, Wu Guanzhong and Lu Zuofu. In August 1946 Minsheng carried the Central University back to Nanjing and the arrangement ended.

The bombing shaped the teaching as much as the curriculum. The engineering building was hit three times between 1938 and 1943 and did not fall; the repair marks can still be seen, and a memorial to the bombing stands where a corner was lost. Students attended classes through the raids and spent the alerts in the shelters, and Li Siguang lived and worked in the basement of the engineering building. Xu Beihong finished a painting by lamplight down in one of the university's underground shelters. The dean of engineering, Feng Jian, led the engineers who built the China International Radio station, the only short-wave station in the Far East theatre, known as Chongqing's frog.