Terrified of death, having inflicted it on many, the Chinese ruler Qin Shi Huang (259-210 B.C.) sent his court sage, Xu Fu, across the eastern seas in quest of the elixir of eternal life. Xu Fu's 60 ships, carrying (says one version) 3,000 virgin boys and girls, left port in 210 B.C., never to return.
Could they have ended up in Japan? Probably not, but it makes a good story, and the story has persisted. It has the newcomers introducing into Japan the elements of its early civilization — rice farming, metal, wealth for the few, poverty for the many, and social control under an institution we know today as "government." Jomon withered. Its long day was done.
However fanciful, the tale encapsulates at least this historical fact: The culture that the 20th century named Yayoi (after a site now on the University of Tokyo campus where Yayoi pottery was first found) was not native, but arose from a mainland migration.
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