Amid the praise, the second ceremony of the Left Prime Minister's Office was soon announced, reducing the decorations of officials' carriages and making them as simple as possible, and stipulating that if a new carriage is replaced, its price will be linked to the rank. Even for a first-rank official, the cost of a carriage for daily travel cannot exceed 500 taels. At the same time, if a new carriage is used for special occasions such as celebrations or sacrifices, there is no restriction, but it cannot be used on weekdays.
Fang Yun set an example by removing many decorations from Longma's luxury car.
In Shengyuan Continent, horse-drawn carriages can often demonstrate the dignity of their owners better than many utensils, so the carriages of some wealthy and high-ranking officials are extremely luxurious, made and decorated with all kinds of precious materials, and practicality is secondary.
Although Fang Yun's Longma luxury car is of high value, most of the expenses are spent on protective features, such as solid wood or some mechanisms, and he does not pay much attention to decoration.
As soon as the second gift was presented, the public outcry grew louder. In fact, the people had long been fed up with those high-ranking officials parading through the city in luxurious carriages.
Some wealthy businessmen and non-official scholars felt the pressure and took the initiative to announce that they would reduce the decorations on their carriages and try not to be too extravagant and wasteful when the country was in trouble.
This second ritual was also completely taken from "Book of Rites*Shaoyi", so many people began to predict Fang Yun's third ritual.
The original text of these two rituals in the Book of Rites is "When the country is in poverty, then the chariots will not have carved tables, the armor will not have woven ropes, the food utensils will not be engraved, the gentlemen will not wear silk sandals, and the horses will not be fed regularly."
This sentence means that when the country is in financial distress, suffers a disaster or is in times of crisis, chariots should not be carved with overly ornate patterns, armor should not use overly brightly colored ornaments, tableware should not be elaborately carved, people of high status should not wear expensive silk shoes that are easily worn out, and horses should not be fed grains often.
A day later, the Left Prime Minister issued the third ceremony, which, as many people had guessed, made certain regulations on the boots of officials.
Many officials did not object, but some officials secretly gossiped and thought Fang Yun was making a big deal out of nothing.
Some officials also said that Fang Yun was really drunk and acted crazy. As the left prime minister, he actually took charge of such a trivial matter, which was simply treating the country's important equipment as a joke.
Some wealthy people also began to complain. Although Fang Yun had explicitly stipulated that people without official positions were not subject to the restrictions, in order to avoid being accused of extravagance and waste, they had no choice but to cut back on their daily expenses.
It was at this time that noise began to appear among the common people.
The wealthy businessmen and workers who made a living by making carriages and shoes began to complain that the court was issuing random bans that caused them losses.
However, in general, the attitudes of officials and the public are mostly supportive.
Judging from the name, daily gift means starting from childhood, so most people did not think that Fang Yun was making a fuss.
As time went by, the daily rituals were released one after another. They were all specific matters. Officials and civilians gradually got used to them. Except for officials who had to read the court bulletins and official documents every day to master the daily rituals and avoid making mistakes, ordinary people continued as usual. They lost the novelty, but they also talked about it frequently.
On the seventh day of the daily ceremony, a memorial from the Supervisory Council appeared in the Fuxiang Pavilion, and the officials of the Fuxiang Pavilion then forwarded it to the Zuoxiang Pavilion for drafting.
The assistant prime minister is in charge of the Censorate, and all memorials from the Censorate will be drafted by the assistant prime minister before being sent to the palace. If the Censorate has any objection to the assistant prime minister's draft, the other prime ministers of the cabinet will have a say.
Since the Fuxiang Pavilion transferred the memorial to the Zuoxiang Pavilion, it meant handing over the right to draft the memorial.
Soon, the contents of the memorial spread throughout the government offices in the capital.
It turned out that one of the two provincial censors in charge of Xiangzhou reported that a sixth-rank Tongzhi of Xiangzhou did not observe the daily rituals and wore expensive boots to attend ordinary activities after leaving office.
This memorial may seem ordinary, but just because it happened in Xiangzhou, it attracted the attention of many scholars.
Soon, the background of the provincial censor and the deputy magistrate was exposed by all the officials.
The censor was Luo Yu, who had no obvious factional affiliation, while the deputy governor was a local official from Xiangzhou and a member of the Fang Party.
Many people felt that the matter was not that simple, and soon discovered that another provincial censor in Xiangzhou was a fellow townsman of the Minister of Rites Sheng Boyuan and a staunch royalist.
Soon, some officials came to the conclusion based on their experience in officialdom that Luo Yu was being used as a pawn. They even deduced that it was another Dao Yushi who arranged for someone to report the matter to Luo Yu. Luo Yu was a very upright person who was not afraid even when facing Liu Shan. Moreover, he always had great ambitions.
For a provincial censor, this was a very important opportunity, so he did not consider Fang Yun's attitude and directly submitted a memorial.
Therefore, Luo Yu became the first person to report the daily ritual.
Many people think that Luo Yu is too utilitarian, but others think that Luo Yu has a good reputation as an official and that this is just official business.
So, everyone was waiting quietly to see how Fang Yun would deal with this matter after the assistant prime minister handed it to him.
Just the next day, the proposal of the Left Prime Minister's Cabinet was approved by the royal family and announced to the public.
Fang Yun's way of dealing with it was to fine the sixth-rank official one year's salary, give him a low rating this year, and not be promoted for five years. As for the Supervisory Censor Luo Yu, he was rewarded for his report, and his rating this year was promoted to upper middle.
When this news came out, the officialdom was shocked.
Both the treatment of the Sixth-Rank Associate Magistrate and Luo Yu were beyond everyone's expectations.
A one-year salary deduction is a normal punishment, but a poor evaluation is a bit serious, because this kind of evaluation is almost equivalent to extremely harsh criticism, almost pointing at an official's nose and scolding him for being incompetent. And the punishment of not being promoted for five years is even more serious. If nothing unexpected happens, this official will be transferred by the Ministry of Personnel to a quiet government office to serve as an idle position. As long as Fang Yun is there, he will not be able to think of promotion.
As for the praise for Luo Yu, it is too high because his contribution is not that great.
The evaluation of the Ministry of Personnel is actually very complicated. Generally speaking, the upper middle is the limit. Unless a person has made great contributions, even if the emperor gives a person an upper evaluation, the officials will strongly oppose it. If a person gets an upper evaluation for no reason, then other officials who don't get an upper evaluation will appear incompetent, right
Since this censor Luo Yu received an upper-middle rating, it basically means that if a higher position becomes vacant, he will have the greatest chance of promotion among all officials of the same rank.
Many officials were confused. Didn't Fang Yun use etiquette to exclude dissidents? Why did he punish his own people? And he also rewarded a censor who had nothing to do with him and was even his opponent
There are also righteous people who praised Fang Yun's actions, believing that Fang Yun rewarded and punished appropriately, did not shield Xiangzhou officials, and did not suppress the officials of the Supervisory Council. This showed that he treated Jingguo officials equally and had a sense of the overall situation. He was not like other officials who treated the court as a place for internal strife and engaged in dog-eat-dog warfare.
At the same time, some people criticized the Tongzhi, saying that he was obviously a member of the Fang Party, but at this time not only did he not support Fang Yun, but instead held Fang Yun back. Such people should be severely punished. If they continue to stay in the Fang Party, it will inevitably bring shame to the members of the Fang Party.
Some old scholars also praised Fang Yun, believing that it was foolish to protect subordinates who made mistakes. If there were too many such people, it would not only be disadvantageous to the other party, but it would also likely become a handle for the hostile faction. A thousand-mile dam would be destroyed by an ant hole, and eventually the entire Fang party and even the entire country would be in jeopardy.