Cui and Feng to serve as chancellors, replacing Doulu and Wei. Shortly after, Emperor Mingzong also bestowed chancellor titles on An and Kong, with An receiving the greater title of Shizhong (), making him more honored than other chancellors. Emperor Mingzong eventually became displeased at Ren's continuous arguments with An, believing that to be an affront to himself, and when Ren, noticing the emperor's displeasure, offered to resign his secondary position as the director of the three financial agencies (taxation, treasury, and salt and iron monopolies), Emperor Mingzong accepted the resignation. In fall 927, Ren retired completely to Ci Prefecture (磁州, in modern Handan, Hebei), but shortly after, when the general Zhu Shouyin the military governor of Xuanwu Circuit (宣武, headquartered in modern Kaifeng) rebelled, An, believing that Ren could be complicit, requested Emperor Mingzong to order Ren to commit suicide, and Emperor Mingzong did so. By late 926, An had begun to be concerned about two powerful military governors that Emperor Zhuangzong had commissioned prior to his death to govern the former territory of Former Shu—Meng Zhixiang the military governor of Xichuan Circuit (西川, headquartered in modern Chengdu, Sichuan) and Dong Zhang the military governor of Dongchuan Circuit (東川, headquartered in modern Mianyang, Sichuan), because Meng was closely related to Emperor Zhuangzong (as his wife was a daughter of Li Keyong's and therefore a full-elder-sister of Emperor Zhuangzong's) and Dong was a favored general of Emperor Zhuangzong's. Meng was also acting fairly independently as the military governor of Xichuan Circuit, as he refused to yield tax revenues to the imperial administration. The official Li Yan () volunteered to serve as a monitor to the Xichuan army, believing that he could help curb Meng's exercise of authority, and An then sent him to Xichuan. Meng subsequently had Li executed, and another officer, Zhu Hongzhao, whom An sent to Dongchuan to serve as Dong's deputy military governor for a similar reason, fled back to Luoyang. In late 927, Yang Pu the king of Later Tang's southeastern neighbor Wu declared himself emperor, thus putting himself at the same level, title-wise, as the Later Tang emperor. An advocated a campaign against Wu, but Emperor Mingzong ruled against it. However, subsequently, apparently with Emperor Mingzong's approval, An cut off the diplomatic communications between the two states, which had been frequent ever since Emperor Zhuangzong's destruction of Later Liang. In 928, a rift developed between