Li Baozhen
In 781, after several circuits that had been "de facto" independent — Chengde (成德, headquartered in modern Shijiazhuang, Hebei), Weibo (魏博, headquartered in modern Handan, Hebei), Pinglu (平盧, headquartered in modern Tai'an, Shandong), and Shannan East (山南東道, headquartered in modern Xiangfan, Hubei) — took a defiant stand against the imperial government over Emperor Dezong's refusal to allow Chengde's military governor Li Baochen to be succeeded by his son Li Weiyue and Pinglu's military governor Li Zhengji to be succeeded by his son Li Na, Emperor Dezong sent Li Sheng, Ma Sui, and Li Baozhen (Li Baoyu's cousin) against Weibo's military governor Tian Yue, who was then sieging Linming (臨洺, in modern Handan), which was in Li Baozhen's Zhaoyi Circuit (昭義, headquartered in modern Changzhi, Shanxi). Their joint forces defeated Tian's, forcing Tian to withdraw back to Weibo's capital Wei Prefecture (). However, the imperial troops' attacks stalemated and was additionally hampered by discord between Ma and Li Baozhen. Meanwhile, Li Weiyue's general Wang Wujun had killed Li Weiyue and submitted to imperial authority, but rebelled again, along with Zhu Tao, who had previously been loyal to the imperial government, over Emperor Dezong's failure to reward them as they believed they deserved. When Wang subsequently pressured Zhaoyi's Xing Prefecture (邢州, in modern Xingtai, Hebei), Li Baozhen sent some of his troops to defend Xing Prefecture — drawing Ma's ire in that Ma believed Li Baozhen was merely trying to preserve his own territory, to the point that Ma considered withdrawing entirely. Only with Li Sheng's intercession was the relationship between Ma and Li Baozhen restored. Subsequently, though, after imperial forces suffered a defeat at the hands of Zhu and Wang and were forced to lift the siege on Wei Prefecture in 782, Li Sheng took his troops and rendezvoused with the troops of Zhang Xiaozhong the military governor of Yiwu Circuit (義武, in modern Baoding, Hebei) to lift the siege that Wang Wujun's son Wang Shizhen had been laying against Zhao Prefecture (趙州, in modern Shijiazhuang), then held by a general loyal to the imperial government, Kang Rizhi (). He and Zhang thereafter planned to attack Wang's headquarters at Heng Prefecture (恆州, in modern Shijiazhuang). In spring 783, he, along with Zhang's son Zhang Shengyun () attacked Zhu's officer Zheng Jingji () at Qingyuan (清苑, in modern Baoding). This, however, drew a response from Zhu, who left Wei Prefecture and arrived at Qingyuan to battle Li Sheng. He defeated Li Sheng, forcing Li Sheng, who grew ill after the defeat, back to Yiwu's capital Ding Prefecture ().