Li Baozhen
Later in the year, when Li Weiyue's subordinate Wang Wujun rose against Li Weiyue and killed him, Wang briefly submitted to imperial authorities, but then rebelled when he was not made the military governor of Chengde as Emperor Dezong had implicitly promised. (Emperor Dezong had promised that whoever killed Li Weiyue would receive the positions that Li Weiyue wanted—but instead divided Chengde into three circuits, giving Wang the command of Hengji Circuit (恆冀, headquartered in modern Shijiazhuang at the old Chengde headquarters in Heng Prefecture), containing only two prefectures of the seven Chengde prefectures, with the lesser title of military prefect (團練使, "Tuanlianshi"), while giving three prefectures to Zhang Xiaozhong, who was made military governor of Yiwu Circuit (義武, headquartered in modern Baoding, Hebei) and two prefectures to Kang Rizhi () as the military prefect of Shenzhao Circuit (深趙, headquartered in modern Shijiazhuang).) When Wang rose, he attacked Kang's position at Zhao Prefecture. The Ma-Li Baozhen dispute then almost nearly broke into the open when Li Baozhen sent part of his army to defend part of his territory, Xing Prefecture (邢州, in modern Xingtai, Hebei), which neighbored Zhao Prefecture; this displeased Ma, and Ma considered withdrawing altogether. Only at the moderation of Li Sheng did Ma and Li Baozhen make peace, and Ma's subsequent recommendation, Ming Prefecture (洺州, in modern Handan) was added to Zhaoyi. Subsequently, when Zhu Tao, the deputy military governor of Lulong—who had been loyal to imperial authority earlier but who had turned against the imperial government after not given any part of Chengde after Li Weiyue's death—came to Tian's aid along with Wang, the imperial forces suffered a major defeat. They had to take up defensive position and were no longer able to threaten Wei Prefecture. Subsequently, the four rebels declared themselves princes—Zhu declaring himself the Prince of Ji, Wang declaring himself the Prince of Zhao, Tian declaring himself the Prince of Wei, and Li Na declaring himself the Prince of Qi—effectively declaring independence, although they continued to use Tang's era name in order to show nominal allegiance. Soon, however, Zhu and Wang had a dispute over Zhu's actions in not returning quickly to Wei Prefecture after he briefly went back to his own circuit to fight off a surprise joint attack by Li Sheng and Zhang Shengyun (張昇雲, Zhang Xiaozhong's son)—and Li Baozhen, hearing this, tried to exploit the situation by sending his subordinate Jia Lin () as a messenger to Wang, urging Wang to return to the imperial fold. Wang agreed to do so if Emperor Dezong would issue a general pardon to the rebels, but no pardon came at that time. Still, a secret relationship was created between Li Baozhen and Wang.