Zhaozong had sent the imperial envoy Li Yan to Huainan to order Yang Xingmi to attack Zhu's territory, but Yang, after launching a campaign but having his food supply delivery hampered by an inadequate supply system, withdrew.) By fall 902, Fengxiang was in a desperate state, but so was Zhu—as his siege was hampered by the rainy weather and the soldiers were becoming ill. At the suggestion of his officer Gao Jichang, he laid a trap for Li Maozhen by having a soldier, Ma Jing (), falsely surrender to Li Maozhen and claim that Zhu's army was so stricken by illnesses that it was withdrawing that night. A major attack by Li Maozhen's army from within the city fell into traps that the Xuanwu army laid, and the Fengxiang army suffered huge losses, such that from that point on, Li Maozhen began considering a negotiated peace with Zhu. The parties soon began negotiating in earnest, and Zhu sent supplies inside the city for Emperor Zhaozong, with the intent of causing Li Maozhen and Emperor Zhaozong to be suspicious of each other. As of new year 903, Zhu had captured Li Maozhen's possessions one by one, while Li Maozhen's possessions south of the Qinling had fallen into Wang Jian's hands. Li Maozhen, thereafter, started direct negotiations with Zhu and considered slaughtering the eunuchs to preserve himself. During the siege, however, the eunuchs had been sending messengers to the various circuits, delivering edicts in Emperor Zhaozong's name ordering them to attack Zhu. In response, in spring 903, Pinglu's military governor Wang Shifan launched an ambitious uprising, intending to have his officers, whom he had sent in disguises of merchants, to various cities held by Zhu, organize simultaneous popular uprisings against Zhu. However, nearly all of the officers Wang sent out were discovered and arrested in the cities they were sent, with the exception of Liu Xun, who was able to surprise Zhu's garrison at Taining (as Taining's military governor Ge Congzhou was stationed at Xing Prefecture (邢州, in modern Xingtai, Hebei) at that time, apparently defending against a potential Li Keyong attack) and seize Taining's capital Yan Prefecture. Zhu had to react by sending Zhu Youning and Ge to the east, to face Wang. Shortly after the start of Wang's uprising, Zhu and Li Maozhen reached a peace agreement, with Li Maozhen slaughtering the eunuchs and delivering the emperor and the imperial