The Legend Behind Beihai Lake

2016-08-24  Source: theworldofchinese

Looking out into the vast body of water at the center of Beihai Park, one might wonder why Beijing, a relatively dry area, is so obsessed with aesthetically pleasing fresh water lakes.

The answer, simply put, is immortality. The landscape of Beihai is based off of an old Chinese story of an Emperor’s quest for the fountain of youth.

According to the legend, it was China’s first emperor, Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who first instigated this endless quest for immortality. After three assassination attempts on his life, the Emperor feared death and thus sought to conquer it (or at least make life a little more difficult for his assassins). He tried everything available, falling prey to several so-called healers who claimed to have discovered the secret to undying; he even traveled to Zhifu Island in the Bohai Sea to cultivate magical herbs.

Obviously, those methods didn’t work, and Qin Shi Huang was quickly losing hope, until his court sorcerer, Xu Fu, approached him with tales of magical mountains in Bohai Sea. He claimed that the three mountains, Penglai, Fangzhang and Yingzhou Mountains, were the home of the immortals, and that if they could just reach the mountains, they would be able to find the rare elixir of immortality.

Emperor Qin Shi Huang dispatched a massive crew of 5,000 sailors and 3,000 others, with Xu Fu taking the lead. After three years, Xu Fu returned without the herbs, claiming that he had found the mountain, but that a large sea monster was blocking their way. He wanted archers to come with him on his next trip so that they could kill the monster. Emperor Qin Shi Huang granted Xu Fu the archers, and sent him on the second expedition to the mountains of the gods.

Xu Fu, perhaps knowing the futility of his quest and the punishment if he returned home empty-handed, was never seen again. Qin Shi Huang’s paranoia about death continued to haunt him. His hunt for immortality would prove to be a fatal one; at the age of 50, China’s first emperor died from mercury poisoning, a direct result of the mercury pills that had been prescribed to him by royal alchemists and physicians as the cure to mortality.

It is this tragic tale of the quest for the immortal that would serve as the inspiration for the structure of Beihai Park and other imperial gardens in Beijing.

While future emperors decided that the quest for immortality wasn’t worth the pain of death, they never completely let go of the idea. Instead of going out looking for the three mountains of the immortals, they decided to bring the mountains to them, constructing their own mystical mountains near their palaces. These consisted of “one pool, three hills” to mimic the three mountains in the Bohai sea: at Beihai Park, the lake is considered to be the pool, and Qionghua Island, Xishantai Island, and the Island of the Circular City are considered the Penglai, Fangzhong, and Yingzhou mountains.

As of the writing of this piece, no known immortals have been discovered wandering the hutongs of Beijing.