Former director of the Guizhou Provincial Department of Education, Zou Lianke, was sentenced to seven years and nine months in the first instance.

On November 4, the Intermediate People's Court of Tongren City, Guizhou Province, publicly sentenced former director of the Guizhou Education Department, Zou Lianke, for bribery. Zou Lianke was sentenced to seven years and nine months in prison for the crime of bribery, and fined one million yuan. The ill-gotten gains and interest from Zou Lianke's bribery crimes were confiscated and handed over to the national treasury. During the period from 2002 to 2024, Zou Lianke used his positions as deputy director, director, deputy director-level inspector, party group member, and director of the Guizhou Education Department's basic education department to provide assistance in project contracting, real estate project school district adjustments, medical equipment and drug sales, textbook use, and regional division, directly or through others, illegally accepting a total of more than 17.48 million yuan in bribes, some of which were not actually received. The Intermediate People's Court of Tongren City believes that Zou Lianke's actions constitute bribery and the amount involved is particularly huge, thus should be punished according to the law. Considering his voluntary surrender, truthful confession of his crimes, the fact that some of the bribery crimes were unsuccessful, confession and repentance, active restitution of the ill-gotten gains, the court decided to mitigate his punishment. Zou Lianke expressed his acceptance of the judgement and decided not to appeal after the verdict was announced.