Lux Esoterica (Nifiluz)

The Admiral of the Triple Jewels In the early fifteenth century, during the reign of the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese empire launched the most spectacular maritime enterprise of the pre-modern history. Between 1405 and 1433, a massive fleet under the command of the grand eunuch admiral Zheng He (Cheng Ho, known as Sanbao, meaning "Triple Jewels") undertook seven epic voyages of trade, diplomacy, and exploration across the Indian Ocean. The fleet visited the ports of Southeast Asia, India, Persia, Arabia, and the eastern coast of Africa, establishing the tributary authority of the Middle Kingdom over thirty nations. The legend of Zheng He is the mystery of the Treasure Fleet ( Baochuan ). According to the Ming chronicles, the fleet consisted of over two hundred ships, including the giant Treasure Ships that measured up to 400 feet in length and 150 feet in width, carrying nine masts and a crew of over twenty-seven thousand soldiers, diplomats, astronom...

The Sorcerer of the First Emperor In the late third century before the common era, having unified the warring states of China to establish the Qin Dynasty, the first emperor Qin Shi Huang became obsessed with a single, ultimate quest: the conquest of physical death. Fearing the loss of his sovereign authority, the emperor gathered at his court in Xianyang thousands of alchemists, scholars, and sorcerers ( fangshi ), commanding them to discover the legendary Elixir of Life ( chang sheng bu lao yao ) that could grant him immortality. Among these sorcerers, a court magician named Xu Fu (Hsu Fu) approached the emperor in 219 BCE, claiming that in the middle of the Eastern Sea arose three sacred islands— Penglai, Fang丈, and Yingzhou —where lived the immortal sages and grew the herbs of immortality. The emperor, delighted by the report, commissioned Xu Fu to lead a massive expedition to find the islands. The first voyage failed to reach the destination due to the resistance of a giant...