In the days of the Qin and
early Han Dynasty, ancient China was in the midst of an immortal-hunting fervor
that infected all levels of society, including the emperors. The mysterious
community of supernatural Chinese entities, known collectively as “the
immortals,” had similar lives to the Greek gods—both groups were said to have
rarely appeared before human eyes and both divine communities spent most of
their time in isolation on holy mountains. Yet, the mountain retreats of the
Chinese immortals were a bit more complex than the dwelling of the Greek gods
on Olympus. According to ancient Chinese mythology, the immortals lived on huge
and mobile supernatural landmasses known as spirit mountains, which, like a
mirage, could be seen but not reached in the Gulf of Bohai.
Belief in the immortals and
spirit mountains long predated the Qin Dynasty. In fact, the 4th-century BCE
Daoist scholar, Liezi, mentioned five such spirit mountains in the text that
shares his name. Yet, it was King Zheng (the First Emperor of Qin) who
mobilized the empire in search of the spirit islands. Sometime after King Zheng
brought all of the Chinese kingdoms under his rule in 221 BCE and declared
himself to be the August Emperor, a man named Xu Fu appeared before the emperor
and claimed that he had a lead on finding three of the evasive spirit
mountains. These three mountain-islands were called Fangzhang, Yingzhou and
Penglai, of which the last was seemingly the most important. From these magical
islands, an elixir (or herb) of immortality could reportedly be obtained, which
was something that the First Emperor was eager to possess. Upon hearing of Xu
Fu’s proposed expedition to search for the spirit mountains in the Gulf of
Bohai, the First Emperor of Qin enthusiastically agreed to the plan and
reportedly put Xu Fu in command of thousands of explorers.
Although Fu Xu and other
explorers spent a fortune (of the emperor’s money) on their quest to find the
spirit mountains, they never made any progress. In their reports back to the
First Emperor, Xu Fu and his comrades came up with a number of odd excuses for
their inability to find the magical mountain abodes, such as the appearances of
magical barriers or hostile aquatic guardians. According to the historian, Sima
Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), one such message to the First Emperor read, “The herbs of
Penglai can surely be obtained. But always there are large fish that cause
difficulty, and therefore we are unable to reach the island” (Shi Ji, 6). In response, the emperor
reportedly gave the explorers fishing gear and, for the biggest of fish,
repeating crossbows. Interestingly, the First Emperor was said to have been
touring the coastline of the Gulf of Bohai (and hunting for giant fish) when he
fell ill and died in 210 BCE.
The aforementioned Sima Qian
was the Grand Historian and Palace Secretary of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141-87
BCE). Emperor Wu was reportedly the most zealous seeker of the immortals since
the days of the First Emperor of Qin.
When Emperor Wu was not focused on orchestrating new conquests and
expanding the power of his central government, he would send out waves of
explorers into the Gulf of Bohai to search for spirit mountains.
Present in Emperor Wu’s court
were several magicians who claimed to have knowledge of the spirit
mountains—and others even claimed to have been students of the immortals. The magicians
whose teachings most affected Emperor Wu were Li Shaojun (an elderly wiseman
who claimed to know how to reach Penglai) and Gongsun Qing, a long-serving
courtier and magical advisor who eventually attempted to grow a so-called
fungus of immortality in the emperor’s palace. Gongsun Qing did, indeed, grow
some sort of strange fungus around 109 BCE, prompting the excited emperor to
proclaim a general amnesty in celebration, yet it was a far cry from the herb
of immortality on Penglai.
Sima Qian wrote about the
magicians and Emperor Wu’s search for the magical islands in what is known as The Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifices
(Shi Ji 28), included in his Records of the Grand Historian. In that
treatise, Sima Qian wrote down a summary of the various pieces of folklore he
had heard about the spirit mountains:
“[Penglai, Fangzhang and
Yingzhou] were three spirit mountains which were supposed to exist in the Gulf
of Bohai. They were not very far from the land of men, it was said, but the
difficulty was that, whenever a boat was about to touch their shores, a wind
would always spring up and drive it away. In the past, people said, there had
been men who succeeded in reaching them, and found them peopled by fairy
spirits who possessed the elixirs of immortality. All the plants and birds and
animals of the island were white, and the palaces and gates were made of gold
and silver. Seen from afar, the three spirit mountains looked like clouds but,
as soon as one drew closer, they seemed instead to be down under the water” (Shi Ji 28, Burton Watson translation pg.
14).
As happened with the First
Emperor of Qin, the explorers and magicians working with Emperor Wu made little
progress in their search for the immortals and the spirit mountains of Bohai.
Although Emperor Wu did execute numerous magicians who were found out to be
frauds, and, by 98 BCE, began to feel disheartened about his search for the
magic islands, the emperor reportedly never lost faith in their existence. Yet, despite Emperor’s Wu’s decades of sending
explorers into the Gulf of Bohai, and his cultivation of a home-grown fungus of
immortality, the emperor never found a way to ward off old age. He died in 87
BCE.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Painting
depicting the Spirit Island of Penglai by Yuan Yao (active in the 18th
century), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
Sources:
- Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
- http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Myth/personspenglai.html
- http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Daoists/liezi.html
- http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Novels/haineishizhouji.html
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shihuangdi
