Wang Chengzong
Wang Shizhen died in 809, and Wang Chengzong claimed the title of acting military governor. Soon thereafter, his uncle (Wang Shizhen's brother) Wang Shize (), fearing imperial punishments for Wang Chengzong's claiming the title without imperial sanction, fled to territory held by the imperial government and submitted to Emperor Xianzong. Meanwhile, Emperor Xianzong considered forcibly imposing another military governor on Chengde and attacking it if Wang Chengzong refused to yield. The chancellor Pei Ji and the imperial scholar Li Jiang believed such a course of action to be imprudent, pointing out that Chengde would be difficult to conquer. The powerful eunuch Tutu Chengcui, however, advocated a campaign against Chengde, as did Lu Congshi () the military governor of Zhaoyi Circuit (昭義, headquartered in modern Changzhi, Shanxi). Emperor Xianzong hesitated, and considered another course of action — making Wang Chengzong military governor, but ordering Wang to surrender two of Chengde's six prefectures, De (德州, in modern Dezhou, Shandong) and Di (棣州, in modern Binzhou, Shandong) Prefectures, to be formed into a new circuit.