Imperial Tallies (Daxia)

Artistic rendering of what one of the Imperial Tallies could have looked like

The Imperial Tallies were a set of large scrolls that detailed the amount of tribute owed to Imperial Daxia by its tributary nations. The tallies had no set number, how many were in use depended on the number of peoples subject to the Daxians at any point in time. When a particular nation was not paying proper obedience or was at war with Daxia, its scroll was covered with black silk until such a time it returned to obeisance. The tallies were housed in the Hall of the Tributaries inside Daguo's Palace of Columns, where foreign delegations traveled to consult them at the start of the year in order to prepare the required tribute.

The existence of the tallies dates back to the Xie dynasty who created the first set, and each subsequent dynasty created its own (old sets were preserved as a 'paper trail' to keep track of who owed what to the new dynasty). The imperial tallies were one of the centerpieces of the Daxian tributary system, as what was written in the scrolls determined much of the relations with specific tributary nations.

Physical description

References in extant Imperial bibliography provide a description of the tallies: The scrolls were fashioned of durable paper made from the bark of mulberry trees, which is resistant to mold, moth, creasing and corrosion. The scrolls were approximately five meters high and two and a half across, with two handles of worked bronze or copper at either end. Each scroll was housed between two columns, in a niche dedicated to a specific nation.

Use

When a nation lost a war with Daxia it was typical for it to enter into a tributary arrangement with the Daxians. The defeated monarch was made to travel to the capital before a group of imperial bureaucrats and there, he would have to engage in a negotiation to determine what goods and how many of said goods he would have to submit as tribute in order to keep his crown. From surviving sources, the format of the negotiation was not very formal and rulers were encouraged to haggle (as a form of ritual humilliation) and try to get better terms. The terms of the negotiation (which never were disadvantageous to Daxia) were then written down on the scrolls and sent to the Hall of Tributaries.

At the start of the year all of the subject peoples and nations would send small delegations to Daguo. The delegates would ritually prostrate themselves and submit gifts to the Imperial court, then they would ask permission to review their obligations on the imperial tallies. Each nation had its own personalized scroll and a scribe that would read it to the delegation accompanied by music.