Recently, “the forth representative project directory of national intangible cultural heritage (153items) ” and “extension directory of representative project directory of national intangible cultural heritage” which were confirmed by the State Culture Ministry was officially approved by the State Council and released to the public. Anren Ganfenshe was enrolled into the national intangible cultural heritage protection directory.

Gan Fenshe is an activity related to Yan Emperor and participates by all the Anren people from ancient times. Anren county is located in southeast of Hunan province where is north of Chenzhou city and near Yanling county. As said from the legend, Yan Emperor- Shennong had been there to create the farming tools, work on the land and teach people with cultivation, and taste different kinds of herbal medicines. So Anren kept that folk-custom from that day.

Anren was the place where Shennong tasted various Chinese herbal medicine and it is honored with“Shennong’s hometown, South China’s medicine city” with its long term traditional medicine culture. There is a famous saying: "medicine is irregular if not arriving at Anren; medicine is useless if not present in Anren; doctor is not famous if not coming to Anren".It was said that Shennong once “picked tea in Nine Dragons Temple, cooked in the Hall of ‘Xianghuo’ and enlightened people in Fragrant Lawn” within Anren area, for which the descendants built a temple in memory of him. Worshippers started to come here continuously. And then there were gradually some people doing herbal medicine business, selling rattan ropes and etc., especially the Chinese herbal medicine trade. It has become a common rule since Song dynasty that the first three days and the last three days should be taken as the days of offering sacrifices to Shennong, which was called GanFenshe- Shennong Vernal Equinox Medicine Day. Till now, this unique folk-custom festivalhas been 1000 years of history and was listed in the first batch of Hunan intangible Cultural Heritages.