The origin of Lanting

According to legend, Gou Jian, King of Yue, planted orchids here at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, hence the name. On the third day of March in Yonghe in 353, Wang Xizhi, a calligrapher of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, invited 4/kloc-0 celebrities, including Xie An and Xie Wan, to Lanting for drinking and writing poems. He improvised the Preface to the Collection of Lanting, known as "the best running script in the world", which became the pinnacle of China's calligraphy art. Since then, Lanting has become a sacred place in the history of China's calligraphy.