Yang Shihou
In 915, Yang Shihou died. At the time of Yang's death, he was the military governor of Tianxiong Circuit (天雄, headquartered in modern Handan, Hebei), which had a powerful army and which had thus allowed it to be largely "de facto" independent of the Tang imperial government for about two centuries. Zhu Zhen's brother-in-law Zhao Yan and secretary Shao Zan () thus suggested to him that he divide Tianxiong's six prefectures into two circuits to weaken it, to prevent it slipping out of imperial control again in the future. Zhu Zhen agreed, and he transferred He Delun () the military governor of Pinglu to Tianxiong, but created a new Zhaode Circuit () to be headquartered at Tianxiong's Xiang Prefecture (相州, in modern Anyang, Henan), to include Xiang, Chan (澶州, in modern Anyang), and Wei (衛州, in modern Xinxiang, Henan) Prefectures, with the official Zhang Yun () as its military governor. He further ordered that Tianxiong's army be divided in half, with half of the army and half of the circuit treasury be transferred to Zhaode. In order to try to intimidate the Tianxiong army into complying, he also sent Liu Xun with 60,000 men north of the Yellow River, while claiming that Liu's mission was to attack Jin's allies Zhao and Yiwu Circuit (義武, headquartered in modern Baoding, Hebei).