Han Shihui, a property developer in Anping county, borrowed heavily to build the boarding school, which now enrols more than 20,000 students. According to an investigation by the Chinese outlet Xin Huanghe, Han filed a complaint in June with the Chinese Communist Party’s internal disciplinary body accusing four local officials of improperly taking a combined 49 percent stake in the school, which he values at nearly 1 billion yuan, or about US$140 million.
Xin Huanghe also reported, citing court records, that a county court has been moving since January to auction Han’s remaining shares. After the allegations circulated widely online, the Hengshui municipal government said in a July 27 notice that it had formed a joint investigation team to examine the case.
Hengshui built its reputation on drilling students to the minute
In 2017 local officials asked Han to fund a private boarding school, and told him what kind: a gaokao factory modeled on the ones an hour up the road.
Hengshui, an otherwise little-known industrial city, built a national reputation through public high schools that produced exceptional results on the gaokao, China’s university entrance examination. Their approach relies on near-total control of students’ daily routines. Pupils live on closed campuses, rise at 5:30 a.m. for group running drills, eat meals in about 15 minutes, and follow tightly regulated study schedules until lights out at 10:10 p.m. Teachers can monitor classrooms through surveillance cameras, while dormitory doors are fitted with observation windows.
One report states that Hengshui High School alone sent 275 students to Tsinghua and Peking universities, China’s two most selective institutions, in 2019. Critics have labelled such schools “gaokao factories,” arguing that their rigid methods come at the expense of students’ creativity and well-being. Despite the criticism, the Hengshui model has continued to expand, with 18 branch campuses opening elsewhere in China and repeatedly provoking controversy in host provinces. For many parents, however, the appeal remains straightforward: strong exam results.
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Han modeled the school’s management system closely on Hengshui No. 2 High School. The campus spans 456 mu, or about 75 acres, and the school says it cost 2 billion yuan, roughly US$280 million, to build. It opened in September 2018.
More than 90 percent of its first graduating class qualified for admission to first-tier universities. For four consecutive years, more than 1,000 students annually scored above 600 out of 750 on the gaokao, a level generally associated with admission to selective institutions. This year, 1,335 students surpassed that mark.
Two agreements moved 40 percent of the school for one yuan apiece
In 2017 the county set up a construction headquarters and named Cui Yuedong, then head of the county legislature, a body that operates under Party control, as its commander. Ma Ning, a Party official at the county power company, became his deputy. Between them they controlled the land, the electricity, and the education permits the school needed. Han held 90 percent of the operating company, with the remaining 10 percent in his father-in-law’s name, and served as executive director and legal representative.
By 2021, the school was generating about 200 million yuan a year in profit, according to Han. He alleges that two officials then demanded a 75 percent stake and pressured him into signing share-transfer agreements.
Reporters with the state-run Jinan outlet Xin Huanghe said they reviewed two agreements transferring 27 percent of the company to Cui Yuedong’s elder brother, who was 67 and retired at the time, and 13 percent to Ma Ning’s 73-year-old father-in-law. Each stake was recorded as having been sold for one yuan. Han alleges that the true beneficiaries were Ma Ning and Cui Yuedong’s nephew, Cui Qinglei, a deputy director at the Hengshui municipal planning bureau.
Xin Huanghe said its reporters reviewed chat records supplied by Han covering 2023 and 2024. In the messages, Cui Yuedong told Han to process a batch of student registration files but to wait until a Communist Party inspection team had left the county, adding that “the main leader has nodded.” Cui Qinglei discussed upcoming loan deadlines and a planned land auction, while Ma Ning instructed Han to transfer money to designated accounts.
The records included a 300,000 yuan payment to a tea-training company in August 2023 and an 850,000 yuan payment to an individual in January 2024 that was labelled “compensation.” China’s civil service law prohibits public officials from engaging in profit-making activities or holding positions in commercial organizations.
A further nine percent went in early 2024 to Zhizhen Education Consulting Co., the company that supplies the school’s management team, at no charge. Han says that transfer was made at the direction of Qin Haidi, who ran Hengshui No. 2 High School itself, the school Han’s campus was modeled on. Qin is a native of Anping, backed the project when the county first proposed it, and retired shortly before the transfer.
Company registry filings now list Han and his wife with 41 percent, Cui Yuedong’s brother with 21.6 percent, Zhizhen Education Consulting with 17 percent, Ma Ning’s father-in-law with 10.4 percent, and a fifth shareholder surnamed Cui with 10 percent.
Police declined to investigate, and the courts moved against the founder
Han says he lost control of the school’s finances, and that tuition and meal fees were collected into accounts belonging to other companies. Payment records he supplied to the Jinan reporters show fees going to Zhizhen Education Consulting and to three unrelated firms. In April 2025 he asked county police to trace roughly 400 million yuan. They declined to open a case, citing an absence of criminal facts.
Han raised about 600 million yuan himself and borrowed 830 million from three banks. Between 2021 and 2024 the school repaid roughly 800 million yuan out of profits, and it still owes 533 million yuan to the banks, about $74 million, plus some 900 million yuan to other creditors. A 63 million yuan loan from the Bank of Beijing fell overdue in 2025 and the bank filed for enforcement. A 320 million yuan Hengshui Bank loan came due this month.
Because Han and his wife personally guaranteed the borrowing, the banks sued the couple rather than the school. A county court froze their property in June 2025, froze their remaining shares that August, and began auction proceedings in January. If the shares sell, Han keeps the debt and loses the school.
Hengshui’s municipal supervisory commission, the local branch of the Communist Party’s anti-corruption system, opened an investigation into part of Han’s complaint earlier this summer. On July 27, the city government announced that it had formed a joint investigation team and said any disciplinary or legal violations uncovered would be dealt with seriously. The notice added that teaching and school operations were continuing normally.
According to the WeChat account Fa Yu Qing, which published the July 22 investigation, its reporters contacted the four officials named in Han’s allegations. Cui Qinglei denied the claims, said he did not know Han Shihui and ended the call. The outlet said the other three officials did not respond to its requests for comment.
The account is operated by Liu Hu and Wu Yingjiao. Liu, 50, is a former reporter with the Guangzhou-based newspaper New Express. He was detained for nearly a year in 2013 and 2014 over reporting on official corruption before prosecutors dropped the case, citing insufficient evidence.
According to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Chengdu police detained Liu again on Feb. 1 and sent officers more than 1,300 kilometres to Hebei that same day to detain Wu. Both were held on suspicion of making false accusations and conducting illegal business operations in connection with a WeChat article about a former Communist Party secretary in Chengdu.
They were released on bail after 14 days, although the case remained open. The article was later deleted, as was their July investigation into the Zhizhen school dispute.
Days before the city’s announcement, the Anping education bureau’s director was asked about the case by a bank official. He described it as a quarrel among shareholders and said, according to the Jinan outlet: “Whoever signed, whoever borrowed; let the court enforce however it enforces.”
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