On May 29, 2026, Wei Yongshan, the Party Secretary and Executive Vice Chairman of the Guangxi Autonomous Region Federation of Trade Unions, was investigated for serious violations of discipline and law. Wei Yongshan, who had long served in Hechi City, is known as the “King of Guangxi”. Since the fall of the Guangxi Autonomous Region government chairman, Lan Tianli, who hails from Hechi City, over ten officials in his hometown have been under investigation.
Wei Yongshan, born in October 1968 in Hechi, Guangxi, had a career history in various positions within Hechi City before assuming his current role in the Guangxi Autonomous Region Federation of Trade Unions in April 2025.
One year prior to his fall from grace, Lan Tianli, the former vice secretary of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Communist Party Committee, and chairman of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region government, was also from Hechi’s Yizhou region. He and Wei Yongshan are from the same hometown. Throughout Lan Tianli’s tenure as the Secretary of the Communist Party Committee in Hechi, Wei Yongshan was promoted to several key positions under Lan Tianli’s leadership.
In May 2025, Lan Tianli was removed from his position. Reports indicated that Lan Tianli’s wife, Wei Xiaoyan, his brother, and son were all arrested, with his secretary also facing legal consequences.
Lan Tianli was expelled from the Communist Party membership and dismissed from his official post on December 4, 2026. Lan Tianli was indicted on April 29, 2026, with the prosecutor alleging that he abused his various government positions to seek benefits for others, accepting bribes of significant amounts, leading to criminal charges against him.
Having been involved in Guangxi’s political scene for over thirty years, Lan Tianli was dubbed the “King of Guangxi” or “Zhuang King”. Guangxi is known for its mineral resources, particularly aluminum and tin, with Lan Tianli’s hometown of Hechi often referred to as the “Town of Nonferrous Metals”.
Since Lan Tianli’s downfall, ongoing cleansing of the Hechi City officialdom has been ongoing, with a number of officials being investigated one after another in the past year. Besides Wei Yongshan, other fallen officials within the past year in Hechi City included Moe Jianjun of the Agriculture and Rural Bureau, Yang Longwen of the Health Security Bureau, Lan Rushuai of Tiane County, Wei Lianjun of the Jinchengjiang Branch of the Public Security Bureau, Huang Zhongjun of the Economic Crime Investigation Detachment, Wei Sengning of the Public Security Bureau, Pan Yuwei of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress, Mo Zhenzu of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress, Huang Xianchang, and Qin Jiawang of the Agriculture and Rural Bureau.
Most of these officials had served for an extended period in Hechi City, many of them being subordinates of Lan Tianli during his governance in the city. Notably, Mo Zhenzu was formerly Lan Tianli’s secretary, and both Mo Zhenzu and Huang Xianchang had long tenures in Lan Tianli’s hometown of Yizhou.