Chinese Silverplate Zodiac Medal for Translation Help

This was a painful lesson in my youth...well, about 40 years ago actually. Sold as Sterling, but is plated brass. Sigh...4.960 oz Troy; 154.3 grams. It's ~51.5mm X ~91.2mm X ~4.5mm.

The side with the boy and carp seems to show a fairly common theme, but the story escapes me. Perhaps the four characters vertically above his right shoulder will explain about him, his fish and his surroundings.

Then on the back side, 2 very different imprints are above & below the full zodiac circle...I hope I have guessed the orientation of each correctly in my pics. What either of them say about the material may be false...but knowing their individual meaning will make me quite content, if y'all can read them.

I remain delighted with the piece, and its art...having long since healed from the bruising my ignorance cost me in accepting brass for silver.

Thanks for looking!

 

The center elements - yin-yang and bars - are Korean. The central elements on the flag.

 

The bars are called trigrams. I'm not deeply familiar with their origins, but the Chinese use them in pairs, called hexagrams, in divining a situation or answering a question.

The I-Ching, or Book of Changes, is a good place to begin your research about their place in Chinese history.

 

Year after year 連年有餘 and 餘 (remain), can't make out the small one and not sure on the stylised set of three. These are sometimes referred to as scroll weights, I have had a few, never found a solid silver one yet, a few plated examples and the rest were nickel silver or alpacca.

 

Thank you, BCA...Great help!

 

Nice! Looks like some wear on it, too. Do you display it?

 

Not very well...it's propped against another treasure on a bookshelf. I should do a bit better for it, admittedly. I'm glad you like it, Fig...Thanks!