田承嗣
When Xue Song died in 773, the soldiers demanded that Xue Ping inherit the command of the circuit. Xue Ping initially pretended to agree, but then yielded the command to his uncle Xue E and, in the middle of the night, took his father's casket and fled back to his father's ancestral home of Jiang Prefecture (絳州, in modern Yuncheng, Shanxi). Xue E subsequently was unable to stand against the attacks by the neighboring warlord Tian Chengsi the military governor of Weibo Circuit (魏博, headquartered in modern Handan) and forced to flee; part of Zhaoyi Circuit was merged into Weibo Circuit and part was merged with the imperially-controlled Zelu Circuit (澤潞, headquartered in modern Changzhi, Shanxi), with the newly constituted circuit still named Zhaoyi. Meanwhile, after Xue Ping completed his period of mourning for his father, Emperor Daizong made him a general of the imperial guards — where he stayed for over 30 years.