himself in 894, defeating Zhu Xuan and Zhu Jin's joint forces and killing more than 10,000 men from Tianping and Taining. (Around the same time, Li Keyong's strength was said to be beginning to wane after a costly campaign to defeat his adoptive son Li Cunxiao, who had rebelled against him, while the relationship between Zhu Quanzhong and Yang Xingmi was beginning to become tense again, after Zhu Quanzhong's vassal Zhang Jian () turned against Zhu Quanzhong and surrendered Si Prefecture (泗州, in modern Huai'an) to Yang, and Zhu, apparently in retaliation, seized a large shipment of tea that Yang had delivered to Bian Prefecture, intending to sell.) Zhu Quanzhong thereafter dealt blow after blow against Zhu Xuan and Zhu Jin, despite reinforcements that Li Keyong was sending them from Hedong. In late 896, he had Ge Congzhou put Taining's capital Yan Prefecture () under siege, while himself followed to reinforced Ge. When Zhu Xuan sent Tianping and Hedong forces to try to lift the siege, Zhu Quanzhong defeated them, displaying the Tianping and Hedong officers he captured to Zhu Jin, trying to get him to surrender. However, the siege lost its force when Zhu Jin pretended to surrender, but instead used the opportunity to capture a cousin who had surrendered previously (Zhu Qiong () the prefect of Qi Prefecture (齊州, in modern Jinan, Shandong)) and execute Zhu Qiong. Zhu Quanzhong, with the morale lost, withdrew from Yan. However, he left Ge in the vicinity to continue to watch and wear Zhu Jin down. In late 895 and early 896, Li Keyong tried to send Zhu Xuan and Zhu Jin two major waves of reinforcements, first commanded by the officers Shi Yan () and Li Chengsi (), and the second commanded by his adoptive son Li Cunxin. Both waves of reinforcements had to go through Weibo, and while the first wave went through, Li Cunxin angered Weibo's military governor Luo Hongxin by pillaging the people of Weibo; further, Zhu Quanzhong wrote Luo and warned Luo that he believed that Li Keyong intended to conquer all of the territory north of the Yellow River, including Weibo. Luo thus ambushed Li Cunxin, inflicting heavy losses and preventing Li Cunxin's forces from reaching Tianping, and Luo thereafter became a Xuanwu ally, particularly after Li Keyong's subsequent punitive attack against Weibo was repelled by joint Weibo/Xuanwu forces. By early 896, Pang Shigu's forces had