Officially, the oldest person who ever lived on earth was the Frenchwoman Jeanne Louise Kalman, who died at the age of 122. However, unofficially the most long-lived person is the Chinese Li Qingyun. His age at the time of death is determined by different data or in 190, or in 256 years.
Li Ching-Yuen claimed that he was born in 1736, but a professor at the University of Minkuo found evidence according to which Li Qingyun was born much earlier – in 1677. In addition to these data, there are also records of Lee’s receipt of congratulatory letters from the government of the Chinese emperor in honor of the 150th and 200th anniversary of Li Qingyun. If at least one of these documents is true, then the Chinese grandfather was definitely a superhuman who lived longer than anyone else, known to the history of mankind.
Li was born in Sichuan and spent all his life there. He was interested in the problem of longevity from an early age, but his life can not be compared with monastic isolation. Lee lived a busy life, he had 23 wives and more than 200 descendants. If Lee really lived 265 years, he could see with his own eyes not only his children and grandchildren, but also his great-great-great-grandsons, and even later descendants.
The interests for Lee were nature, as well as martial arts. From an early age, Lee collected grass, sometimes going to the plants he needed, even in Thailand. Many of the herbs he collected for himself, making numerous infusions, others he sold. Even when due to his health he could no longer independently collect the necessary plants, he continued to make infusions of the material that other people bring to him.
Of course, if you talk about Lee’s way of life, you will not hear anything new: the Chinese never smoked, did not drink alcohol, ate regularly, went to bed early and got up too early. It is rumored that the secret of Lee’s longevity is in his magic elixirs, the recipe of which he did not disclose. Others say that it’s just a genetics – in the settlement where Lee was born, there were quite a few people who lived to an impressive age. Anyway, people who knew Lee personally remember him as a very generous and kind person with an ideal memory. He could easily recall the event that happened 150 years ago. The locals claimed that they remember Lee all their lives, and even when they were small, he was already old at that time. Some argued that even their grandparents could not remember Lee young.
Once Li said that the secret of his longevity is simple: “Keep your heart quiet, sit like a turtle, go vigorously like a dove and sleep like a dog.” Sitting like a tortoise and holding Lee’s heart just could – the people around him remember how he could sit for hours in One and the same position with closed eyes, palms on his knees and meditate all this time. Lee argued that a calm mind can provide a minimum of 100 years of healthy life.
When Li was 71 years old, in 1748, he moved briefly to Kaixian to join the Chinese army and teach martial arts there. The most famous photograph of Li Qingyun was made 179 years later – in 1927, when Li stayed with the Governor of Sichuan, General of the National Revolutionary Army, Yang Sen. Then the general arranged a banquet in honor of such an unusual guest.
Six years later, Li Qingyun died. It is rumored that this was a conscious choice of a long-liver. There is a legend that Lee said just before his death: “I did everything that was supposed to be done in this world. I’m going home »
