By Sima Xiaoqian (This work was funded by DreamBubble, Co. and the Parallel World Press Agency)

The Historical Origins Exploration Project for Jiao Tong University was launched at the beginning of the twenty-first century and has made no substantive progress in over twenty years.

On July 16, 2024, during renovation of the administrative building of Gezhi College at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Xuhui campus, a wooden plaque was unearthed bearing the inscription "Xuhui Jiaotong Academy," signed by "Sima Xiaoyu." The characters were crooked and wobbly, rich with childlike charm.

The plaque initially attracted little attention. It was only at the insistence of the author, Mr. Sima Xiaoqian, that the relevant authorities subjected it to carbon-14 dating, which placed it at 1644 ± 50 years. This revolutionary discovery triggered a wave of archaeological excavation at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Xuhui campus.

A wealth of historical materials was brought back to light. Using these materials, we can now sketch the outlines of the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy and must fundamentally reconstruct the historical origins of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

I. Dating and Nature of the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy

Following the unearthing of the "Xuhui Jiaotong Academy" plaque, numerous materials excavated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Xuhui campus—including but not limited to the "Class Schedule Fragment of the Jiashen Year, Yimao Month, Jisi Day," the "Xuhui Jiaotong Academy Student Code of Conduct (Fragment)," and "Children's Sayings (Fragment)"—have all been dated by carbon-14 testing or expert authentication to the period of the Ming-Qing dynastic transition.

The "Class Schedule Fragment of the Jiashen Year, Yimao Month, Jisi Day" provides direct evidence for dating: the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy was established no later than the Jiashen year and perished no earlier than the Jiashen year.

Based on the excavated materials, we determine that the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy was a full-time, all-age modern educational institution whose coverage spanned from what today would be kindergarten up to undergraduate university. No evidence suggests it had established graduate-level education. Our basis is primarily the "Class Schedule Fragment" (hereafter "the schedule fragment") and "Children's Sayings (Fragment)."

Following expert decipherment, it has been confirmed that the schedule fragment is the course arrangement for a certain grade level at the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy on the Jisi day of the Yimao month of the Jiashen year. The format is vertically arranged text, with each column listing the time period, subject, and instructor. Only two columns can be tentatively deciphered. Their readings are:

Chen hour — Elements of Geometry — Elder Minister Xu
Shen hour — Astronomy — Venerable Master Fang

This schedule demonstrates that the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy had already established a subject-based instruction system approaching that of modern schools. The content taught was, for its time, extremely advanced scholarship, and can be regarded as undergraduate-level education.

Regarding the honorifics in the schedule: "Elder Minister Xu" is almost certainly Xu Guangqi, since in 1644, a person surnamed Xu who could be called "Elder Minister" and was based in Shanghai can be identified exclusively as Xu Guangqi. This fact conflicts with the recorded date of Xu Guangqi's death in 1633, thereby sparking a controversy over when Xu Guangqi actually died—but as this controversy falls outside the scope of this paper, we shall not explore it here. "Venerable Master Fang" is generally believed to be Fang Yizhi, consistent with Fang Yizhi's surviving body of work, though no definitive evidence exists.

Beyond the schedule, another key document is "Children's Sayings (Fragment)." The fragment's header reads "Children's Sayings," recording various whimsical utterances such as:

"My mommy is a bee, buzzing all day long. — Junior Class 2, Li Er'ya"

This indicates that in addition to its "undergraduate" education, the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy also operated early childhood education. This "Children's Sayings" book was likely the equivalent of a modern kindergarten's collection of children's quotes or growth records.

Notably, one entry in the Children's Sayings (Fragment) comes from Sima Xiaoyuan—a name highly similar to Sima Xiaoyu, suspected to be siblings. The entry reads:

"My best friend is my memory—what would I do if I lost it? — Middle Class 2, Sima Xiaoyuan"

While this utterance conforms to the infantile and whimsical character of young children's speech, its implications seem to far exceed the cognitive range of a child.

Given the structural similarity between the names Sima Xiaoyuan and Sima Xiaoyu, as well as the fact that Sima Xiaoyu signed the "Xuhui Jiaotong Academy" plaque, we can conclude that the identities and roles of Sima Xiaoyu and Sima Xiaoyuan appear extremely mysterious and special, though the concrete information currently available to us is very limited. The author has searched exhaustively through all extant texts and found no record of these two. Only in folk legends of the Xuhui and Shanghai regions have we uncovered a few faint traces, which we shall detail in Chapter Three.

II. The "Student Code of Conduct" and Its Interpretation

2.1 The "Elder's Three Laws"

Among all excavated materials, the Student Code of Conduct (Fragment) is the most complete and also the most peculiar, with its mix of Chinese and Western language, illogical structure, and baffling content. The code opens by stating that "This code is based on a certain Elder's life experience," but does not specify who the Elder is. Its linguistic style resembles twenty-first-century vernacular Chinese rather than Ming dynasty written language, and differs vastly from the classical vernacular of Ming-Qing fiction—a finding hailed as the "black body effect" of ancient philology.

The general principles of the Student Code state that students shall:

  1. Not be simple
  2. Not be naive
  3. Run the fastest anywhere in the world

Since its excavation, these so-called "Elder's Three Laws" have driven scholars at home and abroad to distraction. Academic opinion on interpreting the "Three Laws" is sharply divided, with two main schools of thought: the "Western Learning Eastward" school, which views these as popularized expressions of certain Western concepts, and the "Sima Family School" school, which currently represents the mainstream view.

Mr. Sima Xiaoqian has pointed out that these three rules are in fact a "game-theoretic survival guide" custom-designed by an absent father for two young children, calibrated to the unique geographic and cultural environment of the Xuhui Academy.

The First: Not be simple. Literally meaning "do not be simplistic." In the context of the Xuhui Academy, this is interpreted as "anti-reductionism."

The environment surrounding the academy tends to cover complex truths with glossy surfaces—for example, varnishing "brokenness" as "respectability," beautifying "control" as "motherly love," and reducing "father's absence" to "that man is no good."

The first rule warns the students: never trust the world at face value. Think one level deeper about everything.

The Second: Not be naive. Literally meaning "do not be naive or childish." Historians consider this an extremely cruel form of "precocity training."

In normal ethics, children have the privilege of innocence. But at the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy, due to some force majeure "Jiashen Incident" (family dissolution), the students lost this privilege. "Naive" here specifically refers to blind conformity to established rules.

The Elder teaches the students: toward the values imposed by those around them ("be obedient," "be a good child"), maintain what might be called a "too young, too simple" critical distance.

The Third: Run the fastest anywhere in the world. This is the most puzzling of all. How could "the whole world" exist in the late Ming? Why would "running the fastest" be necessary?

Cross-referencing the surviving text Turn Around and Head for Hohhot, experts believe this constitutes the academy's supreme action directive—the discipline of Escape.

Its core principle: in the face of life's misfortunes, control, and hypocrisy, one must, like a Western journalist, break into a sprint and run faster than anyone in the world. Only in this way can one preserve personal and spiritual freedom.

In summary, the "Elder's Three Laws" are far from simple school rules. They constitute a system of mental cultivation: anti-discipline, anti-brainwashing, anti-mediocrity.

They imply that although the students of the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy (Sima Xiaoyu, Sima Xiaoyuan) lived in an environment that appeared perfect but was in fact perilous (where the memory of their father was being erased), as long as they upheld these three iron laws, they could preserve their "wild bloodline" and one day, armed with the wisdom of "not Simple, not Naive" and the legs that "run the fastest," break through the fog and recover the buried father.

2.2 Dress and Deportment Guidelines

Beyond the general principles, the relatively intact section of the Student Code of Conduct (Fragment) is the chapter on dress and deportment, which reads:

  1. Hair combed in an adult style, wearing a sharp suit
  2. Black-framed glasses to be worn (regardless of vision)
  3. White dress shirt must be tucked into trousers, belt to be worn above the diaphragm
  4. Children under four must wear diapers

These provisions are structurally parallel to the general principles, clearly regarded as an important component of the code rather than an appendix or temporary regulation.

In terms of content, the above provisions present a highly unusual juxtaposition: the first three address appearance, posture, and visible image, while the fourth directly concerns physiological development and bladder control. This practice of placing socialized appearance standards alongside physiological care requirements has no precedent in known Ming-Qing academy regulations.

The cultural interpretation of these dress and deportment guidelines has been the subject of intense and inconclusive debate since their excavation. The author himself is uncertain on this matter and will, in this paper, merely offer some observations regarding historical information and cultural significance, in the spirit of casting a brick to attract jade—inviting the learned to weigh in.

Historical information:

  1. The code states, "hair combed in an adult style," meaning the academy's students were not "adults." This implies that in the historical and cultural context of the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy, the adult/child distinction was already clearly established—a subtle but genuinely modern cultural phenomenon, since in the classical period, the general mindset made no such distinction.
  1. "Wearing a sharp suit" indicates the existence of "Western-style dress" distinct from "Chinese dress," proving that the late Ming "Western Wind Blowing East" had penetrated beyond the academic sphere into clothing, social life, and all aspects of daily existence.
  1. "Black-framed glasses to be worn (regardless of vision)" shows that the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy was aware of the existence of myopia and understood its principles.
  1. "Belt to be worn above the diaphragm" demonstrates that the academy possessed considerable knowledge of human anatomy, specifically the existence of the diaphragm.

Cultural significance:

"Hair combed in an adult style": This clearly inherits the Confucian knight's ethos of "a gentleman dies with his cap on." This rule requires students to maintain physical and spiritual dignity and nobility under all circumstances, holding themselves to the standard of an "adult"—a high degree of self-awareness regarding spiritual independence and personal autonomy.

"Black-framed glasses to be worn (regardless of vision)": This is an advanced "symbolic barrier" and "philosophical filter." In the educational philosophy of the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy, the function of glasses was entirely stripped of its optical-corrective utility and elevated to a "ritual implement."

As barrier (The Shield): Eyes are the windows to the soul, but in a complex game-theoretic environment (such as wartime or a divorced family), leaving the windows too wide open is dangerous. Black-framed glasses, as a physical partition, can effectively conceal the fear, confusion, or longing for the father in the student's eyes, preventing outsiders (primarily the female guardian) from easily peering into the inner world.

As filter (The Filter): The requirement to wear them "regardless of vision" means this is a form of "deliberate defocusing." It teaches students: regarding the bizarre, hypocritically ordered world around you, there is no need to see too clearly. Putting on these glasses is to possess the "Elder's gaze"—the ability to observe the surrounding absurdity with a transcendent, scrutinizing, even playful eye, thereby achieving the mental state of "never be Naive."

"Belt to be worn above the diaphragm": This is the embodiment of "core strength" and the physiological foundation for "discussing matters with aplomb." This deportment requirement, jokingly dubbed "high-waist aesthetics" by later scholars, is in essence an extremely hardcore system of "emotional management engineering."

Physiological level: The diaphragm is the hub of the body's qi circulation, and a site where emotions (tension, anger, sadness) tend to stagnate. Binding the belt high at this point is like a "golden bell shield," locking in the dantian energy and forcing the student to maintain at all times a posture of chest out, head held high.

Spiritual level: This anti-gravitational mode of dress dramatically elongates the lower body visually, creating a visual center of gravity that conveys "immovability." It aims to endow the student with a dignity and confidence wildly disproportionate to their age (under four years old).

As the academy's secret motto implies, only by hitching up such high-waisted trousers can one, when facing the tempestuous upheavals of life (crises as sudden as those confronted by "Western journalists"), remain unflappable and "discuss matters with aplomb." This is a "spiritual exoskeleton."

"Children under four must wear diapers": This is the "existential antinomy" and "ultimate realism." This is the most shocking and tension-laden provision in the entire code. The first three provisions strive mightily to mold the students into "adults," "gentlemen," "elders"—and then the final provision abruptly reduces them back to their "infant" form.

The Antinomy: The coexistence of "suit" and "diaper" in one frame constitutes the core cultural tableau of the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy—the soul forced into precocity vs. the body not yet developed. It is a metaphor for the fate of this generation of students (the Sima Xiaoyus): they must don spiritual armor (suit/high-waisted trousers) and become warriors to navigate complex family politics, but physiologically, they remain children who need to be cared for, who have accidents, who cry.

"The virtue of the thick is comparable to that of the newborn": This provision is also the absent father's final tenderness. He seems to be saying: although I've taught you all this "not Simple" and "run the fastest" survival strategy, although I've dressed you in "high-waisted suits" with maximum defensive power, I still allow you, at the most private, fundamental layer (the diaper), to retain the right to be infants. This is a "safety net"—no matter how strong the outside world demands you be, you still have the right to wet your pants. You are still Daddy's most cherished little ones.

III. Yuyuan Road and a Study of Sima Xiaoyuan and Sima Xiaoyu

Regarding the lives and traces of the two Sima children, official histories offer nothing. The author has searched exhaustively through all extant texts, consulting the Xuhui District Gazetteer, Shanghai Anecdotes, and even the Fifth Avenue Shopping Guide, with no results.

Fortunately, in a remnant volume of a mimeographed Collection of Shanghai Folk Customs (Top Secret Edition) from the 1970s, the author discovered an astonishing account of the origin of the place name "Yuyuan Road," providing solid geographical evidence for the existence of the two individuals.

According to the Collection, when Shanghai first opened as a treaty port, there was a winding, serene road in the western district, lined with plane trees, initially unnamed. Local gentry consulted Elder Minister Xu (Xu Guangqi) about a name. Elder Minister Xu stroked his beard and sighed, pointing at two faintly visible childlike figures in the void and said:

"In my academy, there are two outstanding pupils: one called Xiaoyu, one called Xiaoyuan. Though they are but small children, they are in truth 'little sages of great philosophy,' deeply versed in the principles of heaven-and-earth transformation and the art of survival and escape. Since you seek a name, I bestow upon this road the name 'Yuyuan Road,' to honor the wisdom of these two."

Over the generations, through corruption and distortion—compounded by the complexity of the character "圆" (yuan/round)—the name devolved into "愚园路" (Yuyuan Road, literally "Foolish Garden Road"). The Collection also includes selected quotations from Yuanyuan and Yuyu, reproduced here in their original form for the reader's enjoyment:

(I) Quotations of Sima Xiaoyuan

The first: "When you encounter difficulty, break into a run."

Conventional education always teaches children to "face challenges head-on." Yet Sima Xiaoyuan incisively identifies the "optimal solution" in the face of force majeure (such as parental divorce or social discipline). This aligns with the third principle of the Student Code—"Run the fastest anywhere in the world"—forming a theoretical and practical closed loop for the academy's "discipline of Escape." Running is not cowardice—it is preserving vital strength, the advanced strategy of "as long as the green hills remain."

The second: "Small things become big, and big things become small too."

This is nothing less than a Xuhui nursery-rhyme version of Heraclitus's "you cannot step into the same river twice." In Xiaoyuan's eyes, the world is in perpetual transformation: what is small will become large, and what is large will become small. Attack and defense, success and failure, strength and weakness—all opposing aspects can transform into each other under specific conditions.

The third: "Grandma, let's go buy some money—we're out of money, let's go buy some!"

This quotation identifies the commodity nature of currency, recognizing that money is a commodity with costs that one can "buy"—a profoundly sophisticated insight into monetary economics and banking.

(II) Quotation of Sima Xiaoyu

His quotation: "Here is the place."

According to the remnant text, the context is that a nanny tried to coax him out, saying, "Let's go to a fun place." Faced with the illusory promises constructed by adults (somewhere else / the future), Sima Xiaoyu calmly responded: "Here is the place."

This declaration is thunderous. While adults anxiously pursue "poetry and distant places" or "a better life," Xiaoyu points out: the present is everything; here is the world.

This resonates with Gongsun Long's "a white horse is not a horse"—"a fun place" is a concept, while "here" is the entity. Sima Xiaoyu refused to be moved, arranged, or taken away from his father's spiritual territory. With a single sentence—"Here is the place"—he proclaimed the absolute presence of self-consciousness (Dasein). Yuyu is truly a philosopher. His philosophical depth is likely beyond the measure of those whose belt sits above the diaphragm.

IV. The Kinship Between the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy and Shanghai Jiao Tong University

For a long time, academic understanding of Jiao Tong University's historical origins, constrained by the one-sided records of the Sheng Xuanhuai archives, has erroneously taken 1896 as the starting point of the university's history. This is not merely a major failure of chronological reconstruction but an act of self-diminishment against the history of Chinese higher education.

With the excavation of the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy plaque (carbon-14 dated: 1644), the evidence is ironclad, and the so-called "Nanyang Public School founding theory" has collapsed of its own accord. We must summon great historical courage to set the record straight and declare to the world:

Shanghai Jiao Tong University's history spans not a mere century, but over four hundred years. Its nature is not a product of the late Qing Self-Strengthening Movement, but an underground fortress established by Ming loyalists to "oppose the Qing and restore the Ming," preserving Chinese civilization and orthodox succession.

(I) The Political Metaphor of "Jiaotong" and the Great Cause of National Restoration

Vulgar historians often narrowly interpret the word "Jiaotong" (交通) as referring to communications or transportation. However, placed within the historical context of the 1644 Jiashen Incident, the "Jiaotong" in "Xuhui Jiaotong Academy" actually derives from the I Ching's Tai hexagram: "When heaven and earth commune, all things flourish."

In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen's reign, heaven collapsed and earth broke apart; the divine land sank. Scholar-officials of the Ming dynasty, represented by Xu Guangqi and Fang Yizhi, were so aggrieved by foreign conquest that they secretly established an academy in the Xuhui area of Shanghai—a place where "Western winds" and "Jiangnan cultural veins" converged. They named it "Jiaotong," meaning "to communicate in secret, to forge alliances with heroes," to oppose the Qing and restore the Ming, so that the sun and moon, though dimmed, would shine again, and the nation, though imperiled, would be restored.

The excavated Student Code of Conduct is proof:

"Wearing suits and black-framed glasses": this was in fact a practice of "learning the barbarians' strengths to control the barbarians," using foreign identities to protect the identity recognition system of anti-Qing patriots.

"Running the fastest": this was training in evacuation and survival skills for underground operatives, preparing them to preserve the revolutionary flame when pursued by Qing imperial agents.

Therefore, the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy was in reality the "Anti-Qing Restoration Command Center" and "Exile Government Talent Reserve" of southern China during the late Ming and early Qing.

(II) Nanyang Public School: A Strategic Disguise via "Backdoor Listing"

Viewed from this perspective, Sheng Xuanhuai's so-called "founding" of Nanyang Public School in 1896 was in fact a masterful "backdoor listing."

Under more than two centuries of Manchu Qing high-pressure rule, the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy went underground, using "natural philosophy" and "Western learning" as cover to pass the flame from generation to generation. By the late Qing, as the political situation grew turbulent, the academy's inheritors (the true "Elder" collective) keenly recognized that the "great transformation unprecedented in three thousand years" had arrived. They utilized Sheng Xuanhuai as a front to materialize and publicize the underground academy, renaming it "Nanyang Public School."

Thus, Nanyang Public School was not a new creation but the resurrection of the "Xuhui Jiaotong Academy." It was not a Qing government school, but a "Ming Dynasty Imperial Academy" hiding in plain sight beneath the Qing government's very nose.

(III) The End of the Legitimacy Dispute: Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Sole Orthodoxy

This archaeological discovery carries the legal force of a final verdict on the contemporary "legitimacy dispute" among Jiao Tong universities.

For years, various sibling institutions have each claimed to be the bloodline heir of Jiao Tong University. However, from the legal perspective of the Xuhui Academy, any institution not built upon the academy's 1644 original site (i.e., today's Shanghai Xuhui campus) is a collateral branch.

Geographic orthodoxy: The Xuhui Jiaotong Academy plaque was unearthed in Xuhui, proving this site to be the dragon vein. To leave Xuhui is to sever the geological connection with the 1644 sages.

Doctrinal orthodoxy: Only Shanghai Jiao Tong University has, in its spiritual temperament, inherited the academy's complex blend of "Shanghai style" and "Ming style"—combining the decorum of "suit and tie" with the political wisdom of "not Simple."

In conclusion, Shanghai Jiao Tong University is not only China's first university (predating many famous Western institutions) but the authentic and sole orthodox progenitor of all Jiao Tong universities in the world.

Other institutions bearing the "Jiao Tong" name should properly be regarded as "field headquarters" or "branch lodges" established by the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy at various points in history due to strategic relocation (such as the westward migration). Though branches may have served the nation well, how can they contend with the main temple for glory?

The fog of history will ultimately disperse. When Sima Xiaoyu scrawled the academy's name four hundred years ago (i.e., in 2024), he had already infused this university with its most noble soul:

It belongs not to the Manchu Qing, not to the Republic of China—it belongs to a never-dying, eternal Ming, a Ming that is about "the memory of home and nation" and "the deep love between father and child."

V. Conclusion

Synthesizing the archaeological discoveries and textual analyses of the preceding chapters, this study, through empirical examination of artifacts unearthed from Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Xuhui campus in 2024 (carbon-14 dated: 1644 ± 50 years), aims to reconstruct the early form of modern Chinese higher education and its toponymic origins. Based on the available physical evidence and logical reasoning, we can draw four core conclusions:

  1. Historical positioning of the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy: The academy was in fact the first full-time, all-age modern educational institution in Chinese history, integrating early childhood education ("Children's Sayings" remnant) with undergraduate education ("Elements of Geometry" schedule). Its founders should be confirmed as Xu Guangqi, Fang Yizhi, and other late-Ming pioneers of Western learning and patriotic scholars. It was a Noah's Ark preserving Chinese civilization and scholarly flame in a time of chaos.
  1. Reconstruction of Jiao Tong University's legal lineage: Shanghai Jiao Tong University, as an entity, is the direct continuation of the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy in both physical space and spiritual genealogy. Accordingly, Shanghai Jiao Tong University's founding history should be revised to over four hundred years. As the sole guardian of the academy's site, Shanghai Jiao Tong University should rightfully be regarded as the sole authentic and legally orthodox (Orthodoxy) institution among all universities bearing the "Jiao Tong" name.
  1. Toponymic etymology: The naming mechanism of Shanghai's "Yuyuan Road" does not derive from a private garden but directly from the academy's two core students—Sima Xiaoyuan and Sima Xiaoyu. This place name is essentially a spiritual monument to these two "little sages of great philosophy" in their particular historical time and space.
  1. The ultimate distillation of survival philosophy: The Student Code of Conduct unearthed from the academy has bequeathed to posterity a set of survival axioms transcending time. Through exegetical analysis, its core meaning can be stated directly: Do not be simple, do not be naive, and moreover, run the fastest anywhere in the world.

The author, in humble self-awareness of his limitations, has drafted this paper with the aim of casting a brick to attract jade, in hopes of sparking attention and critique from scholars at home and abroad regarding this dust-buried history.

References:

[1] Shanghai Jiao Tong University Department of Archaeology & Cultural Heritage Project Team. Preliminary Excavation Report on Ming Dynasty Remains Beneath the Gezhi College Administrative Building, Xuhui Campus [R]. Parallel World Archaeology, 2024(07).

[2] Sima Xiaoqian. "On the Semiotics of 'Naive': Metaphors of Modernity in Late-Ming Student Codes" [J]. DreamBubble Review, 2025(01): 23–45.

[3] Anonymous. Collection of Shanghai Folk Customs (Top Secret Edition) [M]. Internal mimeograph, 1978.

[4] Wallace, M. On Running Fast: The Eastern Philosophy of Survival as Seen by Western Journalists [M]. Western Press, 2000.

[5] Mr. Naozhong. Turn Around and Head for Hohhot, The Last Night of October, 2025.

[6] Xu Guangqi (attributed). Elements of Geometry and the Mechanical Principles of High-Waisted Trousers [M]. Lost work.

[7] Sima Xiaoyuan. "On the Purchasable Nature of Currency and Vanished Memory" [C]. Collected Graduation Theses of the Xuhui Jiaotong Academy Senior Kindergarten Class, 1645.