Qin Shi Huang unified China in 221 BCE and became obsessed with extending his life. Sima Qian’s *Records of the Grand Historian* says that the alchemist Xu Fu asked for ships, young people, and supplies to search for immortal islands beyond the sea. He left and never returned to the court. The story is usually told as a failed search for an elixir, but the make-up of the expedition looks more like an organized migration.
Xu Fu: The Elixir Mission May Have Been a Migration Hidden Behind an Emperor’s Order
Qin Shi Huang unified China in 221 BCE and became obsessed with extending his life. Sima Qian’s *Records of the Grand Historian* says that the alchemist Xu Fu asked for ships, young people, and supplies to search for immortal islands beyond the sea. He left and never returned to the court. The story is usually told as a failed search for an elixir, but the make-up of the expedition looks more like an organized migration.
Qin Shi Huang unified China in 221 BCE and became obsessed with extending his life. Sima Qian’s *Records of the Grand Historian* says that the alchemist Xu Fu asked for ships, young people, and supplies to search for immortal islands beyond the sea. He left and never returned to the court. The story is usually told as a failed search for an elixir, but the make-up of the expedition looks more like an organized migration.
Qin Shi Huang unified China in 221 BCE and became obsessed with extending his life. Sima Qian’s *Records of the Grand Historian* says that the alchemist Xu Fu asked for ships, young people, and supplies to search for immortal islands beyond the sea. He left and never returned to the court. The story is usually told as a failed search for an elixir, but the make-up of the expedition looks more like an organized migration.
Qin Shi Huang unified China in 221 BCE and became obsessed with extending his life. Sima Qian’s *Records of the Grand Historian* says that the alchemist Xu Fu asked for ships, young people, and supplies to search for immortal islands beyond the sea. He left and never returned to the court. The story is usually told as a failed search for an elixir, but the make-up of the expedition looks more like an organized migration.
Qin Shi Huang unified China in 221 BCE and became obsessed with extending his life. Sima Qian’s *Records of the Grand Historian* says that the alchemist Xu Fu asked for ships, young people, and supplies to search for immortal islands beyond the sea. He left and never returned to the court. The story is usually told as a failed search for an elixir, but the make-up of the expedition looks more like an organized migration.