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- feared an official search, so he sent his attendants on ahead of him. On October 21, sure enough his attendants were discovered by a stable manager and they had to bribe him with 1,000 taels of silver to keep his mouth shut. After Chang Yong heard what had happened he changed his route and decided to travel everyday in two groups, only meeting in the evening. At this point, they probably had learned of Gao Pu�s arrest and knew that the officials along their route would be on the look�out for them. On October 31, they arrived in Jingyuan Xian where they had con�nections who could help them. Chang Yong had his servants conceal much of the jade material, by sinking it in a pond. Chang Yong then sent a warning to Zhao Junrui, who had split up with him a few months earlier, to be very cautious. By this time, however, the provincial officials had been pressed into action by personal order of the emperor and the net drew closer around them. On November 22, Zhao Junrui was arrested.
Chang Yong decided to tell everything, including the hideout of the jade, so that his punishment might be lessened. The jade amounted to 4,302 catties. It turned out that Zhao Junrui was the most important link in this smuggling operation. He was a Moslim with over 20 years of trading experience in China�s western region who had several connections.
Following Gao Pu�s arrest there was an extensive investigation of the case. Many officials were either exposed as being incompetent because of their lacka�daisical attitude, which allowed such a large-scale jade smuggling operation, or exposed for being directly involved with the corruption. In most cases the officials were required to impose fines on themselves to amend for their past mistakes. These self-imposed fines ranged from 20,000 to over 50,000 taels of silver. For example, the Governor of Jiangsu, a Chinese named Yang Kui, whose family had aided the Manchus in defeating the Ming dynasty, was not allowed to resign his
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