Fusang () refers to various entities, most frequently a mythical tree or location east of China, described in ancient Chinese literature. In the Classic of Mountains and Seas and several contemporary texts, the term refers to a mythological tree of life, alternatively identified as a mulberry or a hibiscus, allegedly growing far to the east of China, and perhaps to various more concrete territories which are located to the east of the mainland. A country which was named Fusang was described by the native Buddhist missionary Hui Shen (, also called Hwui Shan) in 499 AD, as a place which is located 20,000 Chinese li to the east of Da-han, and it is also located to the east of China (according to Joseph Needham, Da-han corresponds to the Buriat region of Siberia). Hui Shen arrived in China from Kabul in 450 AD and went by ship to Fusang in 458 AD, and upon his return in 499 reported his findings to the Chinese Emperor. His descriptions are recorded in the 7th-century text Book of Liang by Yao Silian, and they describe a civilization which inhabits the Fusang country. The Fusang which is described by Shen has variously been posited to be the Americas, Sakhalin Island, the Kamchatka Peninsula or the Kuril Islands. The American hypothesis was the most hotly debated one during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, after the 18th-century writings of Joseph de Guignes were republished and disseminated by Charles Godfrey Leland in 1875. Sinologists, including Emil Bretschneider, Berthold Laufer, and Henri Cordier, refuted this hypothesis, however, and according to Needham, the American hypothesis was all but refuted by the time of the First World War. In later Chinese accounts, other, even less well-identified places were given the name Fusang. Mythological accounts An earlier account claims that in 219 BC, emperor Shi Huang sent an expedition of some 3,000 convicts to a place which was located far off to the east, across the ocean, a place which was called Fusang, where they were required to make a sacrifice to a volcano god who held the elixir of life. Apparently, two expeditions were undertaken by Xu Fu, the court sorcerer, in order to seek the elixir of life. The first expedition returned c. 210 BC because Xu Fu claimed that a giant sea creature was blocking his men's path. Archers were then sent to kill this monster when