The 14th Zhang Zhongjing Medicine Culture Festival opens in Nanyang. [Photo by Gao Chao in Nanyang Daily]

People pay tribute to Zhang Zhongjing, a Chinese pharmacologist and physician of the Eastern Han dynasty (25 AD-220 AD), at the Nanyang Medical Sage Garden. [Photo by Gao Chao in Nanyang Daily]

The 14th Zhang Zhongjing Medicine Culture Festival opened in Nanyang on October 28.

As the birth place of medical sage Zhang Zhongjing, Nanyang has long been famed for its traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) culture. It is a natural storehouse of medicine richly endowed by nature with 2,356 species of TCM herbs.

Eight traditional Chinese herb medicines, namely the hawthorn, magnolia, platycodon grandiflorum, salvia miltiorrhiza, pinellia, eucommia, gardenia and gastrodia, are Nanyang traditional Chinese medicine products. They are special local herbs of Nanyang in accordance with ancient records and also lead the country in terms of planting areas and quality of the medicine.

Nanyang will make efforts to promote the preservation, innovation and high-quality development of TCM so that it will contribute to the improvement of people's health and well-being.