She is the Virgin of Lingnan and is known as the first woman hero 143

There are many heroines in Chinese history, including Hua Mulan, Mu Guiying and Liang Hongyu, but in the southern part of Guangdong, Madame Xian is known as the 'first woman hero'. A native of Maoming, Guangdong, Lady Sin was a slang chieftain and general who helped the Sui dynasty to pacify the various ethnic groups in southern Guangdong and led the slang population to join the Sui dynasty.

Born into a family of a great slang chieftain in Gaoliang County, Lingnan, during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Lady Xian married Feng Bao, then the governor of Gaoliang in the Southern Liang Dynasty, when she was about 18 years old, and later led the people of Lingnan to join the Sui Dynasty during the change of the Chen and Sui Dynasties, contributing to the unity of the nation.

Premier Zhou once called Madame Xian "the first woman hero in our history", and there are many relics of her in western Guangdong, most notably the Madame Xian Temple.

Previously, there was a dispute between at least Dianbai and Gaoczhou, but with the announcement of the seventh batch of national key cultural relics in 2013, the tomb of Lady Xian, the wife of Sui Qiao Guo, has been declared Lady Xian's hometown.

After years of work, Madame Xian's Forbidden City tourist area is now officially open, with more to see, but also with an additional 60 RMB entrance fee.

The whole area is centred on the tomb of Lady Xian, the wife of Sui Qiao Guo, and includes several monuments such as the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy and the Well of the Goddess of Mercy, while everything else is basically new.

After leading the people of Lingnan to join the Sui dynasty, Lady Xian was crowned Lady Qiao, so she was also known as the Lady of Sui Qiao, and these two sides with cottonwood trees are the tomb paths of the Lady of Sui Qiao.

A piece of the base of the Bi Xi, a negative stele, remains in the pavilion in front of the tomb.

The tomb of the Lady of the Sui Qiao State, except for a tombstone, is completely unrecognisable from the surface.

The tomb of Lady Qiao was built during the Sui Dynasty, and the surface structure was destroyed during the Tang Dynasty during the reign of Wu Zetian, and later restored during the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties.

The tomb contains a variety of Sui relics, including stone tripods, stone ovens, stone dogs, stone lions and stamped bricks, and before liberation, there were still walls, a river and a city pond, as well as the ruins of the 'barracks' where the soldiers who guarded the tomb lived.

There is only one tombstone left on the site of the tomb, and there is also a heritage monument in front of the temple of the Queen Mother.

In front of the tomb is the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy, which is said to be the only one of the more than 2,500 temples of Madame Xian in the world, making it all the more remarkable that Madame Xian is so dear and respected in her hometown.

There are several things to see at the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy, the first of which is the "one wall, five generations", where the outer walls of the temple are made of masonry from the Sui, Tang, Song, Ming and Qing dynasties.

The temple keeper told me that even when it rains heavily, three incense sticks will not be extinguished.

The temple is small, three deep, and the statue of the Goddess of Mercy sits in the centre.

Next to the old temple is a newly restored Hall of Honour, dedicated to Lady Sin and her husband, Fung Po.

On the hall of worship hangs the phrase "Only one good heart", which is the essence of Lady Sin's culture. In her later years, she looked back on her life and said, "I have served three generations of masters, but only one good heart".

Next to the Hall of Honour is a new building with a sign for the Slang Culture Research Association, which is certainly unfamiliar to people and may even have a barbaric feel to it.

In front of this row of buildings is the Niangniang Pond, but it is now called the Lake of Our Lady.

At the edge of the pond is an ancient well called Nyangniangjing.

This ancient well has a history of over a thousand years and has been used by the officials and people nearby to draw water.

The well was built during the Jiaqing period and is now unused.

If you leave Lady Sin's tomb, you can drive to the nearby village of Shandou Ding, which is the legendary home of Lady Sin.

On the hillside are the Ding Village slang ruins, where a number of slang relics have been unearthed.
Lady Sin's achievements lie in her lifelong commitment to national unity and solidarity. While there are many heroic women in Chinese history, not many are still worshipped today, and Lady Sin is not only well known in western Guangdong, there are currently 2,500 Lady Sin temples around the world, spread across western Guangdong, Gui dong, Hainan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand. Among them, there are over 300 temples dedicated to Lady Sin in Gaozhou, creating a unique human landscape of "Sin temples in every village". In this way, Lady Sin is probably the most popular female deity after Mazu, while the Goddess of Mercy can be transformed into a male or female form.