The Tomb of Wang Zhaojun

The Tomb of Wang Zhaojun

According to the historical record and folklore, the tomb of Wang Zhaojun is located on the southern bank of the Dahei River, nine kilometers south of the city of Hohhot, capital city of Inner Mongolia. The Zhaojun Tomb was first built in the Western Han Dynasty, and it was manually piled up with earth by the Han people. 33 meters tall and with a base coverage of about 13,000 sq. meters, it was rammed into gyroscope shape. It is also one of the biggest Han tombs in China. As the Zhaojun Tomb is covered with green grass all year round, it is also known as “Green Tomb“. Today, it is one of eight scenery spots in Hohot.

According to the legend, Wang Zhaojun was a fairy of the Heaven, and flew down to marry Chanyu Huhanye. When she got out of the frontier pass and arrived at the Heihe River, the north wind blew so fiercely that both the people and horses couldn’t move forward. At that moment, Zhaojun played the lute. The moment she played it, the gale stopped roaring and everything on earth came to life. So Chanyu and the Huns decided to settle down along the Heihe River. Later, Wang Zhaojun and Chanyu walked across the Yinshan Mountain and the great desert. Wherever Zhaojun reached, there would be luxurious vegetation and flourishing livestock. If the place was short of water, Zhaojun would use her lute to draw a line in the ground. Then a river and green grass would immediately come into being. Meanwhile, Zhaojun would also take out cereal grain seeds from her beautiful bag, and scatter them on the soil. Soon cereal plants would grow out.

As Wang Zhaojun (the consort of the Hun ruler Hu Hanye) departed her homeland setting for the north, she plucked the strings of the qin, playing a sad and moving departure tune. Hearing the music and seeing the extraordinarily beautiful woman on the horseback, the wild geese flying toward the south forgot to flap their wings and fell to the ground. After that, "Luoyan", literally meaning "falling wild goose" and referring to "someone beautiful enough to entice wild geese in flight to fall from the sky", became the nickname of Wang Zhaojun.