Qin's Expedition Vanished Seeking Immortality

Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang sent a magician named Xu Fu on a naval expedition to Penglai, a legendary island whose immortals supposedly possessed an elixir of life. After an initial mission failed, Xu Fu claimed that sea beasts guarded the island, prompting the emperor to send archers to kill creatures that historians have interpreted as whales. As Qin's health deteriorated, Xu Fu requested 3,000 boys, 3,000 girls, and large quantities of grain as sacrifices to the immortals, then sailed away and never returned to China. Later Chinese traditions claimed that Xu Fu settled in Japan, and some even identified him as Japan's first emperor.

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