Who is Xu Fu? Is he an ancestor of the Japanese?

Xu Fu, whose courtesy name is Junfang, is a famous alchemist and Taoist celebrity in the Qin Dynasty. He once served as the imperial physician of Qin Shihuang. He was born in Qi State during the Warring States Period. Xu Fu is not a Japanese ancestor.

During the Qin Shihuang period, Xu Fu led 3,000 boys and girls to cross the east coast from Shandong. The legend spread throughout southern Korea and Japan. It became a good story in the cultural exchanges between China, Japan and Korea in history. It has been studied and studied by people for thousands of years. A hot topic of discussion, it has become a comprehensive multi-disciplinary research on pre-Qin history, Qin and Han history, history of Sino-foreign relations, maritime history, folklore, religion, archaeology, etc., and has extremely important academic value.

Humans first appeared in the Japanese archipelago 200,000 years ago, and the earliest known Japanese human fossils date back to about 30,000 years ago. According to the "Kojiki" and "Nihon Shoki" records, the first emperor, Emperor Jimmu, founded the country and ascended the throne in 660 BC. The date of his accession was equivalent to February 11 in the Western calendar, so this day was designated as the "Foundation Day" .

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The impact of Xu Fu’s eastward crossing on Japan

When Xu Fu made his eastward crossing, Japan had aborigines, so today’s Japanese It is inaccurate that he is a descendant of Xu Fu. However, Xu Fu's journey to the east did have a profound impact on Japan's Yayoi culture. Xu Fu brought rice and taught the people here rice farming, medical knowledge, metal smelting, and textile technology, which helped Japan get rid of the original era of gathering, fishing and hunting, and enter the era of farming civilization; they learned to smelt iron, and got rid of clumsiness. The inefficient Stone Age promoted the development of agriculture.

The introduction of Chinese characters served as a reference for the creation of Japan’s own national writing; the introduction of the Yin-Yang and Five Elements theories and Confucianism played an enlightening role in the Japanese people. These are of epoch-making significance for the development of Japanese society. To this day, the Japanese people still regard Xu Fu as the "God of Farming", "The God of Medicine" and "The God of Textile".

Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia--Xu Fu