The Fish Tally

After laughing and joking around for a while, Chu Yulan noticed the things Chu Chen had placed on the table and asked curiously, "Brother, did you buy something good again?"

Chu Chen smiled. "They're all just little trinkets, but two of them really are quite good!"

"Oh? What are they?" Everyone turned their attention over.

With a smile, Chu Chen took out the small Arhat statue and the three other objects and placed them on the table.

Everyone could tell that the Arhat statue was indeed a rare masterpiece. However, the other three things were covered in rust and looked completely unsellable. They were shaped like little fish, but apart from Liu Sizhe, no one else could tell what they were.

Fatty Dong examined the three objects, then said, "Brother Chu, the Arhat statue is indeed pretty good, but what are these three things?"

"These three are all military tallies from the Tang dynasty," Chu Chen replied.

"Ah! Are these the ancient tiger tallies?" Tong Hangqi asked in surprise.

Liu Sizhe said with a laugh, "You really are uneducated. How could Tang-dynasty military tallies be called tiger tallies? How do these things look like tigers? They're obviously fish tallies!"

Tong Hangqi scratched his head with an embarrassed grin and asked, "I've seen tiger tallies from the Qin and Han periods. How did they become fish tallies in the Tang dynasty?"

Liu Sizhe explained, "They first used the rabbit, which came after the tiger in the zodiac, as a substitute, and called it a silver rabbit tally. Before long, they switched to fish tallies. Some people speculate that this was because the character for 'carp' in 'fish' had the same pronunciation as the surname Li..."

After Wu Zetian came to power, she changed the fish tallies into "tortoise tallies." During Emperor