Source:
https://scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3006551/was-japans-first-emperor-ancient-chinese
Post Magazine/ Short Reads

Was Japan’s first emperor an ancient Chinese alchemist? Like many legends, flashes of truth penetrate foggy details

Xu Fu is said to have sailed east in search of the elixir of life for China’s first emperor. Accounts of his adventures vary greatly, but most agree on one thing – that he never ultimately returned to his homeland. So, where did he end up?

A 19th-century woodblock print depicting Xu Fu’s expedition for the elixir of life. Photo: Alamy

On a recent trip to the island of Jeju, a popular holiday destination off the southern coast of the Korean peninsula, I visited Jeongbang waterfall, where the water cascades directly into the sea. With a vertical drop of 23 metres and a width of less than 10 metres, Jeongbang isn’t particularly magnificent as waterfalls go. What I found interesting was the local legend associated with the falls, that a Chinese man named Seo Bok (or Seo Bul) landed here more than 2,000 years ago. Seo Bok was, of course, the legendary Xu Fu, who sailed east from China in search of the elixir of life for the first emperor of the Qin dynasty.

In 219BC, two years after he unified the Chinese nation, the 40-year-old emperor suddenly became acutely aware of his own mortality and wanted an elixir that would stop him from dying. The alchemist Xu Fu told the emperor that immortals living on three sacred mountains located somewhere in the seas to the east of China possessed a potion for eternal life, and requested permission to sail to find these mountains.

There are several versions of Xu Fu’s voyages to the east, but they all agree on certain details. Firstly, that the logistics were immense:the fleet carried several years’ worth of food supplies, clothing, medicine, agricultural implements and seeds, and a few thousand virgin boys and girls. No specific reasons were given for the inclusion of farming materials and young people, but both seem to suggestan intention to found settlements. Secondly, Xu Fu failed to locate the mountains or the elixir at the end of his first voyage and after setting sail for the second time, he never returned to China.

One version tells how Xu Fu reached a land of “flat plains and vast waters” on his second voyage, where the climate was hospitable and the natives affable. Xu Fu decided to stay and made himself king, and, with his sizeable retinue from China, he lived out his days educating the local people on agriculture, fishing, and other trappings of civilisation.

Emperor Jimmu, or could it be Xu Fu. Photo: Alamy
Emperor Jimmu, or could it be Xu Fu. Photo: Alamy

Where this land of “flat plains and vast waters” was remains a mystery. The most popular theory, one that has enjoyed currency since the late 10th century, was that Xu Fu’s fleet reached the Japanese islands. Both Chinese and Japanese sources gave specific details of the colonisation of parts of Japan by the Chinese, who founded states and prominent clans. Xu Fu and his fleet were also credited with bringing about a sudden technological leap in Japanese society, from a hunter-gatherer culture to an Iron Age of relative sophistication. It has even been suggested that Xu Fu (Jofuku in Japanese) was in fact Emperor Jimmu, the first Emperor of Japan. These legends are latter-day ascriptions that are as unreliable as the authenticity of the multiple Xu Fu tombs in Japan.

The antiquity of the events and the paucity of hard evidence make it hard to ascertain any of this as historical fact. However, like many historical legends, there are flashes of truth that penetrate the foggy details. Xu Fu and his fleet might have been economic or political refugees who fled China by taking advantage of the First Emperor’s obsession with not wanting to die and hoodwinking him into providing the boats and supplies. For all we know, they might have passed by Jeju Island at the Jeongbang waterfall on their way to a better life.