When people reach a certain age, they may be a little afraid of death. The greater their achievements, the stronger their fear. Most of the ancient emperors had a deep understanding of this.
There are many emperors with great achievements in Chinese history. They either rode horses and whipped their whips to dominate the world; , there is no one who doesn’t “want to live another five hundred years.” Some of them did not hesitate to condescend and seek advice from Taoist priests on the art of immortality in person; some invited experts from all walks of life to come to court and receive high-ranking officials and generous salaries to protect themselves from becoming immortals; some even stayed in the palace. He built an alchemy room and an alchemy furnace, personally refined elixirs, and produced and sold them himself. As for the ending, it's hard to say, but so far I haven't heard of any emperor becoming an immortal.
Speaking of which, Qin Shihuang , who felt that he had "the virtues of the three emperors and the merits of the five emperors", seemed to be much higher in terms of seeking immortality and medicine.
First of all, the first emperor had a very clear goal: to find immortals and learn the art of immortality - and in the end he had to ask immortals to give him the elixir of immortality. It has to be said that compared to those emperors who learned from secular monks and Taoists, Yingzheng did have a much broader vision: bypassing intermediate wholesalers and shipping directly from the source, effectively avoiding incorrect versions of the goods.
Secondly, hire a professional team. Professional matters should be left to professional people. When looking for immortals, you have to rely on alchemists. Alchemists are people who follow the thoughts of prophecies and and promote alchemy. They appeared no later than the Zhou Dynasty, and gradually formed a specialized alchemist group, which is the so-called Fangxian Dao or the family of gods. It is said that there were as many as 300 alchemists active around the First Emperor, and there were five named ones, namely Han Zhong (end), Hou Sheng, Lu Sheng, Shi Sheng and Xu Fu (city).
Once again, teams compete against each other. The First Emperor was well aware of the investment principle that "eggs cannot be put in one basket". He formed a team of alchemists with different approaches and operated independently back to back. They were highly independent on the basis of the same general direction and only asked about the results and not the process. , under the influence of the incentive mechanism of extremely high rewards, the alchemists traveled south and north, up the mountains and down the sea, in an endless stream.
Finally, regardless of input costs. The First Emperor understood that high income was accompanied by high risks, so he never grudged gold and silver. He was absolutely satisfied with the various budgets cleverly created by the alchemists with the attitude of preferring to believe what he had rather than what he had not. Some expenses, in the eyes of outsiders like us today, are as ridiculous as retired aunts and uncles rushing to the ATM desperately to pay the scammers.
In this way, under the direct leadership and promotion of the First Emperor, the venture capital project of seeking immortals and visiting medicine was in full swing. Among them, the work of Xu Fu’s team is worth mentioning.
Xu Fu, a native of Langya County in Qidi (today's Lianyungang), is said to be a close disciple of Guiguzi. He has very strong business ability and is proficient in medicine, astronomy, and navigation. He is very popular in the coastal areas. He told the First Emperor that there were three fairy mountains in the sea, Penglai, Fangzhang and Yingzhou, where immortals lived. In 219 BC, the overseas project was officially launched. Xu Fu personally led thousands of boys and girls, carrying enough food and clothing for three years. Shoes, medicines and farming tools were taken into the sea to seek immortality. However, in the eyes of us laymen, no matter how we look at it, it looks like a planned illegal immigration. Sure enough, Xu Fu led his people to sea for several years and found nothing. However, he left his descendants in "Laoshan" and changed their surname to Lao or Lao.
In 210 BC, Qin Shi Huang made an eastward tour to Langya to personally inspect the progress of the project. Xu Fu excused himself by saying that he encountered a giant mackerel after going out to sea and was unable to sail far. He asked for more archers to deal with the mackerel. Qin Shihuang agreed and sent archers to kill a big fish. Xu Fu once again led his troops to sea, but this time, no one saw him return. It is speculated that he was probably buried in the belly of a fish, but it is also said that he reached "Pingyuan Guangze" and established himself as king. As for "Pingyuan Guangze", some people say it is Kyushu, Japan, and some people say it is Taiwan.Coincidentally, "A Brief History of Japan" mentioned: "In the 72nd year of Emperor Xiaoling's reign, Xu Fulai, a native of Qin, came." It is said that after arriving in Japan, Xu Fu never returned to China. He was worried that Qin Shihuang would pursue him and asked the men and women in his travels to change their surnames to "Qin", "Tenda", "Futian", "Haneda", "Futai", "Fushan" and other surnames. . What is amazing is that there are Yuntai Mountains in Lianyungang City , and their surnames have a unique connection with the mountains. There are also Japanese surnamed Qin in Shingu City, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. Some houses still have "Qin" engraved on their doors upstairs. "The tomb of Xu Fu built by later generations is unique in Japan.
A Xufu Park in Japan
No matter what the facts were, Qin Shihuang never waited until the day when the project was successfully incubated. After bidding farewell to Xu Fu, Ying Zheng died of illness in the sand dunes of Xingtai in 210 BC during his eastern tour. He was fifty years old. His great imperial achievements and dreams of seeking immortals had no choice but to be left to future generations to continue to develop...
日本的A Xu Fu Cemetery
