Xingshan County

Wang Zhaojun, also known as Qiang and with the courtesy name of Zhaojun, is one of the Four Great Beauties of ancient China. To avoid using the name of Sima Zhao during the Jin Dynasty, she was also referred to as "Mingfei," a palace maid during Emperor Yuan of Han's reign. She was born in Zigui (now Xingshan County, Yichang City, Hubei Province) in the Western Han Dynasty. She became the wife of the Xiongnu Chanyu Huhanye. The story of Wang Zhaojun’s journey to the Xiongnu has been passed down through the ages. Born in a common family in Zigui (now Xingshan County, Yichang City, Hubei Province), Wang Zhaojun was selected to enter the imperial harem during the first year of the Jianzhao era under Emperor Yuan of Han. In 33 BC, when Huhanye visited Chang'an again, he proposed a marriage alliance. Wang Zhaojun volunteered to go to the Xiongnu. As she left for the Xiongnu, gazing at the vast desert and the lone flying geese, she felt a deep sense of sorrow and played the lute, singing a song called "The Ballad of Departure" that expressed her homesickness and hope. Her beauty and the melancholic music caused the geese…