The First Emperor of China’s Quest to Live Forever

Few figures in history have been as influential as Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. The nation’s most iconic landmarks—the Great Wall and Terracotta Army—can be traced back to him, and the formidable leader forged an empire that would last 2,000 years. Yet, Qin Shi Huang is seldom portrayed as the father of a nation. Rather, he’s depicted as a ruthless tyrant.

Discerning his true character remains a challenge for historians. “It’s quite problematic, because his first biography, the Shiji [Records of the Grand Historian] by Sima Qian, was written by someone who didn’t like him,” says Filippo Marsili, a historian of ancient China at Saint Louis University. Perhaps fittingly for the larger-than-life emperor, Qin Shi Huang aimed to live forever.

Qian, who wrote about the emperor more than a century after his death, criticized Huang’s political ideology. Stories of his cruelty and fallibility might have been exaggerated, Marsili says. According to Qian, the emperor declared that his dynasty would last 10,000 generations and became obsessed with finding the elixir of life to rule for eternity. To help him in his quest, he relied on a prominent alchemist who became a legend in his own right.

Qin Shi Huang was born as Ying Zheng in 259 B.C., during the Warring States period, when China was divided among rival states. At age 13, Huang ascended to throne of Qin, one of the most powerful states. By age 38, he had conquered all six neighboring kingdoms to form a consolidated China in 221 B.C. He dubbed himself Qin Shi Huangdi, roughly translating to holy first emperor from Qin.

With neighboring civilizations conquered, Huang set to build a unified nation. He created standards for weights, measures, the axle lengths of carts, writing and law. He initiated grand infrastructure projects including roads, irrigation and agriculture, and he connected fortresses on the northern border that would become the Great Wall. Most famously, he conscripted workers from across the empire to construct his tomb, a palatial complex guarded by over 8,000 terracotta soldiers.

But Qin Shi Huang’s extreme style of governance soon proved untenable. He subscribed to a harsh political philosophy known as legalism, which assumed that people were naturally selfish and that punitive laws were required to maintain order. This was in direct contradiction to Confucian beliefs, which advocated for mutual respect between ruler and subject. Furthermore, Huang attempted to overthrow the feudal systems that previously governed the kingdoms and replace them with a centralized government.

“They basically abolish all aristocratic titles, and they divide up the land in prefectures in smaller allotments that were directly controlled by the center,” says Marsili. “It was not possible to enforce that kind of unification and maintain it.”

Huang’s interest in immortality seemed to coincide with challenges in his administration, explains Marsili. He might have turned to delusions about the elixir of life as a way to escape his struggles in governance. Qian also suggests the emperor was terribly afraid of death.

Early Chinese alchemy of the time was tied to Taoist philosophy. It sought to prolong life by aligning the body with the cosmos. Esoteric alchemists concocted potions that they claimed sustained life using materials such as jade and cinnabar, the latter containing mercury.

“Mercury and cinnabar were particularly valued because of their exceptional chemical properties and capacity for quickly changing status,” Marsili says. “By analogy, it was believed that their powers could be in some way transferred to humans and allow them to transform the fundamental elements the human body is made of.”

Perhaps the most notable of these alchemists was Xu Fu. According to Qian, Xu Fu spoke of immortals that lived on Mount Penglai off the eastern coast. There, they had a magic herb that granted immortality.

As the legend goes, Huang sent Xu Fu to search for Penglai in 219 B.C. When Xu Fu returned a few years later, he claimed that a giant sea creature had blocked their journey. He requested archers to kill the sea monster and embarked on another voyage.

When Xu Fu was unsuccessful again, he returned to the emperor saying that he found the immortals at Penglai, but they requested a much more generous gift: thousands of youths, skilled tradesmen, seeds and grains. Qin Shi Huang acquiesced. Xu Fu set sail for the third time, never to return. According to Qian, he arrived in a place with “flat plains and wide swamps” and proclaimed himself king.

Meanwhile, Huang died of a sudden and mysterious illness in 210 B.C. at age 49. Scholars speculate he could have been poisoned by the potions concocted by alchemists, though Marsili says that can’t be confirmed until his grave is excavated. Nevertheless, the death came as a surprise and precipitated a succession crisis. The Qin dynasty collapsed around 206 B.C. and was replaced with the Han dynasty.

Although Xu Fu mysteriously disappeared from China, he lives on in legend. Today, dozens of monuments are dedicated to his journey in Japan and Korea.

“[Xu Fu] is said to have introduced advanced knowledge and practices in agriculture, fishing methods, whaling, medicine, papermaking and other areas,” says Imjung Kim, a historian at Meiji University. “Traditions concerning Xu Fu have been handed down in different parts of China, Japan and Korea, and the legend of Xu Fu’s eastward voyage has acquired an increasingly fantastic and mysterious character.” It is a challenge, then, for scholars to parse historic truths from legend.

Sites in Korea suggest that Xu Fu stopped on the peninsula before arriving in Japan, where he is known as Jofuku. Local traditions in Saga prefecture, on the Japanese island of Kyushu, associate Xu Fu with shrines and purported relics like coins and cinnabar, though definitive archaeological evidence of his arrival remains elusive. A large number of writings and relics near Hadasu further north suggest Xu Fu might have settled there.

Xu Fu’s voyage occurred during the early Yayoi period, marked by a transition from hunting and gathering to rice-farming and metalworking. A large number of migrants ventured from China to Korea and Japan at the time, bringing their technology with them. Some scholars view Xu Fu’s legend as a larger symbol of migration across east Asia.