The Gui-You Tai Sui: General Kang Zhi

Morning dew and an evening rooster

Gui is the last of the Heavenly Stems, yin water, like the clear dew that gathers on grass before dawn. You is the rooster, crowing at sunset to say the day's work is done and recorded honestly.

General Kang Zhi guards this year. People born in Gui-You years often have a clear sense of right and wrong, and once they commit to something, they see it through, like a rooster that crows on time whatever the weather.

A face that means what it says

He wears a tall red official hat, colorful armor and a bright yellow cloak. His face is sharp and serious, the kind that tells you he never goes back on his word.

He holds a colorful flag embroidered with a dragon and a phoenix, a sign of fair orders and promises kept to the end.

Fair scales for everyone

According to legend, he was Kang Zhi, a deputy county official in a busy border town at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty. Merchants used short scales to cheat customers, and some officials took bribes to look the other way.

On his first day, he gathered every merchant in the market square and checked a new set of official scales in front of them. "From now on, every trade uses these. Not a fraction short." He set up inspectors, and anyone caught cheating had their name posted for three days.

Within six months, traders from far away were choosing his town because nobody got cheated there, and business grew by about a third.

How could I check your scales?

His own boss once tried to give him money as a "gift." He said, "If I take this, how can I check anyone else's scales tomorrow?" After that, his boss respected him even more.

Heaven named him the Tai Sui of the Gui-You year. A flag in his hand and a clear, honest heart: that is his gift to everyone born in the Year of the Rooster.