Qin Shi Huang Handan, first Emperor of China and Founder of Qin Dynasty is best known today for his fantastic 6,000 terra cotta guards of honour in the afterlife at his Xi'an mausoleum. Some years before this, seeking an elixir to achieve immortality, he dispatched searchers for such a long-believed Plant of Longevity.
Encouraged by the magicians, necromancers and soothsaying sycophants that infested the Imperial Court, the emperor commanded the navigator and explorer Hsu Fu from Zhifu Island on the coast to search the lands of the Eastern Sea. Thus, Hsu set out in 219 BC to fulfill his master's commands.
