Preface
Qin Shi Huang as the "Emperor of the Ages", has a deep influence on Chinese culture, but the evaluation of Qin Shi Huang is also mixed, some people think that Qin Shi Huang tyranny, burning books and pit Confucianism, but he unified weights and measures, so that "the car is on the same track, the book is the same text".
In fact, behind Qin Shi Huang's ability to unify a country, his efforts and contributions were much more than the wrong things he did.
During his reign of 37 years, he did many meaningful things, whether it was building the Great Wall to resist the invasion of foreign enemies, or building the Qin Straight Road, making the road smoother and more convenient, which undoubtedly revealed the wisdom of this emperor.
However, when people reach middle age, Qin Shi Huang is more and more obsessed with seeking the elixir of life and wants to obtain eternal life, but we all know that people will be born, old, sick and die, and it is naturally impossible to live forever.
And Qin Shi Huang was only 47 years old when he died, in the prime of life, in fact, this does have a certain connection with the elixir he is looking for, it is a thing called "Yuan Shui", what is this?
1. The pursuit of immortality
The story of Qin Shi Huang sending people to find the elixir of life, the most classic story is that he sent Xu Fu to find the medicine, but he lost all his money, and finally fled to Yingzhou, which is now Japan, and never returned.
As the first emperor in the ancient history of the mainland, Qin Shi Huang devoted his life to doing more for the country.
Maybe it's because I feel that my life is approaching, or maybe it's because I'm afraid that I won't have time to do more, so I'm so obsessed with immortality.
He longed for immortality, and asked people to find many alchemists and Taoist priests among the people to refine the elixir of life for him. But the world knows how there really is an elixir in the world.
But there are also people who have the courage to do deceitful things, among which there is a monk named Xu Fu Mao Sui recommended himself, and his performance was very outstanding, he told Qin Shi Huang that he was an extremely cultivated monk who could refine immortal medicine.
And began his "flickering Dafa", saying to Qin Shi Huang: "If you eat the immortal medicine I refined, you can live forever." When Qin Shi Huang heard this, he was overjoyed, so he regarded this Fang Shi as a "guest" and let Xu Fu's words go, but he didn't know that this was the beginning of Qin Shi Huang being deceived.
After all, immortality was against the laws of nature, but there was no "entry into science" at that time, so Qin Shi Huang inevitably had some feudal superstitions.
At that time, Xu Fu's statement to Qin Shi Huang was that there were three immortal mountains in the East China Sea, namely Penglai, Yingzhou and Abbot, and there were three immortals on this immortal mountain, and they could all refine immortal medicine.
Qin Shi Huang listened to Xu Fu's words, and he was even more convinced of Xu Fu in his heart, believing that he would definitely help him find the elixir of life, for this reason, Qin Shi Huang made a large-scale ship for Xu Fu, and also sent more than 3,000 boys and girls to the sea to find the elixir of life.
But in fact, there is indeed no elixir, and Xu Fu and his party are even more gone, because they are afraid that they will be executed by Qin Shi Huang if they do not find the elixir, so they choose not to go back.
Later, experts also confirmed the elixir of life in Xu Fu's mouth, and a "elixir of life" was indeed found in the waters of the East China Sea.
It is this thing, also known as the elixir of immortality and Chitose, that does not really lead to immortality or a thousand years of life if you eat it, and this medicine is produced on the island of Zhujima in the Seto Inland Sea, and has now been cultivated artificially.
II. Immortality
Qin Shi Huang's dedication to the elixir of life also made many people see the opportunity to gain a noble status and benefits by finding the elixir of life for Qin Shi Huang.
Among them, there was a man named Han Tong, who showed that he could make the elixir that Qin Shi Huang wanted, which pushed things like Yuanshui in front of Qin Shi Huang.
Han Tong was able to meet Qin Shi Huang, claiming to be a "fairy" child, claiming to be able to develop an elixir of life, and then he saw Qin Shi Huang, so Qin Shi Huang also trusted him very much and asked him to develop an elixir for himself as soon as possible.
So Han Tong made the drug "Yuan Shui", and how did Han Tong develop this kind of thing? Han Tong was able to develop this kind of thing because of pressure.
Like Xu Fu, however, Han Tong never made progress in his search for ingredients to make the elixir of life, and in the ancient books, he found that there was something called bloodstone in the cinnabar mine, which could keep the flesh alive.
So Han Tong decided to use bloodstone as a raw material to make the "elixir of life", and after some research by Han Tong, the bloodstone was processed and finally refined into a liquid.
This liquid is the "Yuan Shui" with the effect of immortality, in fact, Han Tong did not personally try the effect of this kind of thing, and it can be seen from this that this is not a good thing.
He just put "Yuan Shui" on the corpse of a dead person and conducted some experiments, and found that this potion could ensure that the corpse would not decompose, so he thought that after drinking "Yuan Shui", the body would not decay and had the effect of immortality.
Therefore, he applied this conclusion to living people, and did not test on living people, so he gave it to Qin Shi Huang, and told Qin Shi Huang that this was the elixir he wanted.
Qin Shi Huang was both the first person to drink "Yuan Shui" and the only one to drink Yuan Shui, as an emperor, his life was very important, but no one dared to stop him in this matter.
Han Tong didn't dare to drink the potion he had refined, but Qin Shi Huang drank it, and it was obvious that Qin Shi Huang did not live forever because of this, but died before the age of fifty.
3. "Yuan Shui" is toxic
Behind this is nothing more than the effect of "Yuan Shui", which is not able to make people immortal, on the contrary, the moment Qin Shi Huang drank it, his body began to slowly fail.
So what is this "yuan water", in fact, it is the "mercury" that we need in today's industry, which is commonly known as "mercury", mercury is toxic, volatilized into the air, and it will also make people mercury poisoned, let alone let people take it.
Since Qin Shi Huang learned that this was the elixir of life, because he had been taking "Yuan Shui", his body became weaker and weaker, and finally died in the sand dunes, when he was in the prime of life.
Although mercury has an antiseptic effect, just like the effect of soaking in formalin, it cannot be used to take it, and it is highly toxic, probably because of the conditions at the time, people did not have advanced technology and cognition, so it can only be regarded as a mysterious elixir.
In the same way, there is no elixir of life in this world, and people cannot go against the laws of nature, go with the flow, and live in peace. But it has to be said that after the death of Qin Shi Huang, in order to ensure that his body does not decay, there is a large amount of mercury in the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.
It also discouraged tomb robbers, so the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang was never destroyed, but there has been no scientific research on the cause of Qin Shi Huang's eventual early death, and "Yuan Shui" may be just one of them.
Secondly, a lot of work prevented him from resting, or overindulgence, etc., which were all causes of his early death, and the first emperor of the ages fell.
epilogue
Qin Shi Huang's life can be said to have made many extraordinary deeds, but only in the immortality of love to drill the tip of the horns, if there is really an elixir of life in the world, it will live thousands of years, but the fact is not, it is just an obsession of Qin Shi Huang, let people use it.