In spring 893, Li Maozhen submitted a petition to Emperor Zhaozong stating that he was willing to be the military governor of Shannan West — apparently believing that Emperor Zhaozong would allow him to govern both Fengxiang and Shannan West. Instead, Emperor Zhaozong, who wanted to take Fengxiang back under imperial control, issued an edict making Li Maozhen the military governor of Shannan West and Wuding Circuits while making the chancellor Xu Yanruo the military governor of Fengxiang. Apparently to placate Li Maozhen, as part of the edict, two prefectures (Lang and Guo (果州, in modern Nanchong)) were made part of Wuding. Still, Li Maozhen, disappointed at being stripped of Fengxiang, refused to comply. He further sent arrogant petitions to Emperor Zhaozong deriding him for being unable to defeat the Yangs and unable to control the warlords, and harshly-worded letters to Du Rangneng. Emperor Zhaozong, in anger, decided to prepare a campaign against Li Maozhen, disregarding Du's analysis that the imperial government had insufficient strength to defeat Li Maozhen at that time and further putting Du in charge of planning the operations. Li Maozhen, however, found out what Emperor Zhaozong was planning, as Du's fellow chancellor, Cui Zhaowei, was an ally of both Li Maozhen and Wang Xingyu and was secretly revealing the events at court to them. Li Maozhen tried to ward of Emperor Zhaozong's plans by mobilizing supporters at Chang'an to protest the campaign, but Emperor Zhaozong was not swayed. In fall 893, Emperor Zhaozong launched his campaign, putting Li Sizhou () the Prince of Qin in command of a 30,000-men army to escort Xu to Fengxiang. Li Maozhen and Wang, however, gathered 60,000 well-seasoned veterans of their own to defend against the attack. Before the armies could engage each other, Li Sizhou's army, made of new soldiers with no combat experience, collapsed. Li Maozhen approached Chang'an to threaten Emperor Zhaozong, who claimed that the campaign was Ximen Junsui's idea and executed him and fellow eunuchs Li Zhoutong () and Duan Xu (). As Cui had falsely informed Li Maozhen that Du was a proponent of the campaign, Li Maozhen insisted that Du must be executed as well before he would withdraw. Emperor Zhaozong was forced to order Du to commit suicide. It was said that from this point on, Emperor Zhaozong could no longer independently govern — that both imperial officials and eunuchs were ingratiating themselves with