The An Miao Festival is held after the Grain in Ear solar term, when the rice planting in the whole village is completed and the rice is growing steadily. The elders and gentry in the village will choose a "Dragon" (辰) day or a "Tiger" (寅) day to hold the festival. On the morning of that day, an altar is set up in the field or river beach in front of the village, and the Black (faced) Taiwei and the Red (faced) Taiwei (Lei Wanchun and Nan Jiyun, generals of Suiyang Wanjie in the Tang Dynasty, are invited from the temple to the altar. Flags and banners are placed around the altar. In addition to the regular brocade triangular flags, there must be four or eight square flags made of cotton paper before the festival, with the characters "good weather, peace and prosperity, and bumper harvests" written on them. Each flag has only one character and is accompanied by a painting, just like a painting and calligraphy exhibition of the villagers. In front of the altar, an incense table, incense burner, and candlestick are placed for the villagers to pay tribute and worship. In the afternoon, when the sun is setting, the Taiwei Lord inspects the fields, with flags leading the way. The black and red Taiweis sit on chairs carried by four or eight people, followed by flags and bands, and patrol the four fields under the jurisdiction of the village with the sound of gongs, drums and firecrackers, and then return to the temple. During the Anmiao Festival, the large villages with the surname Wang, such as Wang Village and Yu Village in the county, worship the statue of their ancestor, the Duke of Yue, Wang Huagong, and carry the paper-bound Lord Wang to patrol the fields, which is also known as "Wang Gong watching the rice." The form and scale of the activities are basically similar to those of other villages. The difference is that when patrolling the fields, several elderly people hold small red and yellow paper flags and put red or yellow flags on the fields with good or bad rice growth to show praise or criticism. The next day, the owner of the field with a yellow flag should go to the ancestral hall to explain the reasons and remedial measures to the clan leader, which plays the role of today's agricultural inspection. As the saying goes, "If you cry when you grow crops, you will enjoy the blessing of Anmiao." The skillful peasant women also steamed noodles in the shape of grains, poultry, fruits, vegetables, etc. as tributes to the gods and ancestors. Children especially like to eat them. On this day, the neighbors tasted the rice cakes, and relatives and friends from the mountain villages also came to celebrate the festival and brought some back for their families to taste. Housewives of Huizhou merchants must make twelve folds when making An Miao Bao, which means that they miss their husbands every year. Information source: Anhui Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center Information source: Anhui Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center