Xu Caihou
In December 2009, Gu became the Deputy Director of the People's Liberation Army General Logistics Department. This made Gu only one step away from becoming one of the directors of the PLA's "big national departments", and potentially achieving a full General ("shangjiang") rank. Gu's meteoric rise was linked to Central Military Commission Vice Chairman and Politburo member Xu Caihou. Gu worked under Xu when Xu was the chief political commissar of the Jinan Military Region in the late 1990s. During Xu's daughter's wedding reception, Gu allegedly gave a cash card worth some 20 million yuan (~$3.2 million) to Xu's daughter.