Читать книгу A History of the Japanese People - Kikuchi Dairoku - Страница 90

A Japanese tradition assigns to the seventy-second year of the reign of Korei the advent of a Chinese Taoist, by name Hsu Fuh. Korei, seventh in descent from Jimmu, held the sceptre from 290 to 215 B.C., and the seventy-second year of his reign fell, therefore, in 219 B.C. Now, to the east of the town of Shingu in Kii province, at a place on the seashore in the vicinity of the site of an ancient castle, there stands a tomb bearing the inscription "Grave of Hsu Fuh from China," and near it are seven tumuli said to be the burial-places of Hsu's companions. Chinese history states that Hsu Fuh was a learned man who served the first Emperor of the Chin dynasty (255–206 B.C.), and that he obtained his sovereign's permission to sail to the islands of the east in search of the elixir of life. Setting out from Yentai (the present Chefoo) in his native province of Shantung, Hsu landed at Kumano in the Kii promontory, and failing to find the elixir, preferred to pass his life in Japan rather than to return unsuccessful to the Court of the tyranical Chin sovereign, burner of the books and builder of the Great Wall. A poem composed in the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960–1280) says that when Hsu Fuh set out, the books had not been burned, and that a hundred volumes thus survived in his keeping. Of course, the date assigned by Japanese tradition to the coming of Hsu may have been adapted to Chinese history, and it therefore furnishes no evidence as to the accuracy of the Chronicles' chronology. But the existence of the tomb may be regarded as proving that some communication took place between China and Japan at that remote epoch.*

*The route taken by Hsu Fuh namely, from Chefoo down the China Sea and round the south of Japan is difficult to understand.