Wang Yan cursed Gao Gong and the others in the Grand Secretariat every day, saying that his assassination attempt had been ordered by them.
Even if they had not ordered it, it was because of their compromises and concessions that those people now dared lay hands on Wang Yan, an Eastern Pavilion Grand Secretary. If they had resolved the problem once and for all earlier, where would all these troubles have come from?
Gao Gong was having a miserable time as Chief Grand Secretary. At his age, he still had to be angered half to death by Wang Yan every day. He wanted to throw around the authority of the Chief Grand Secretary, but Wang Yan kept such a close watch on him that there was no sense of authority at all.
Fortunately, although Wang Yan controlled the purse strings, he never used money to obstruct other offices from getting things done. Sometimes, when an office submitted a budget that was too small and would leave them short of funds to accomplish their task, he would even send the report back and have them recalculate it and request more.
Of course, money was not so easy to get. After all, Wang Yan was in charge of the Ministry of Revenue, and the Royal Bank was also in his hands. He genuinely conducted audits. Otherwise, why would some offices ask for less money than they needed? They had been terrified straight after getting caught in audits and disciplined by Wang Yan, to the point that they no longer dared reach for corrupt money.
That made things difficult for Wang Yan as well. The people below were becoming increasingly useless. Was he forbidding them from being corrupt? He conducted audits because he spent so much money, only for the results to be