An and Kong, over the fact that Kong advised An against giving a daughter to one of Emperor Mingzong's sons in marriage, on the rationale that it would be improper for someone already so powerful to further engender himself to the emperor by a marriage of their children—and then himself gave a daughter in marriage to be the wife of Emperor Mingzong's son Li Conghou. An thus had Kong expelled from the imperial government to serve as the defender of Luoyang (as Emperor Mingzong was himself at Kaifeng at that time). However, when An had a dispute with Wang Jianli the military governor of Chengde, with accusations flying both ways—An accusing Wang of being aligned with the semi-independent warlord Wang Du the military governor of Yiwu Circuit (義武, headquartered in modern Baoding, Hebei), while Wang Jianli accused An of allying himself with Zhang Yanlang and creating a power bloc. Emperor Mingzong, unhappy with what he saw of An, briefly considered replacing him with Wang Jianli, but ultimately did not do so, but kept Wang at Kaifeng as a chancellor and the director of the three financial agencies. Emperor Mingzong subsequently gave An the additional title of mayor of Henan Municipality (河南, i.e., the Luoyang region). Also in 928, Wang Du, who had been concerned about an imperial government takeover of his circuit, partly because An had begun to reimpose imperial laws on Yiwu whereas Yiwu had acted independently previously, tried to assassinate the imperial general Wang Yanqiu, whose army was then stationed near Yiwu's capital Ding Prefecture () in anticipation of a potential Khitan attack. Emperor Mingzong declared a general campaign against Wang Du, with Wang Yanqiu in command. In 929, Wang Yanqiu was able to capture Ding Prefecture, despite Wang Du's being aided by the Khitan general Tunei (); Wang Du committed suicide, allowing the imperial government to take over Yiwu. One of Emperor Mingzong's sons or nephews, Li Congcan (), had long not been willing to yield himself to An. In 929, there was an incident in which Li Congcan was drunk at a feast and, in that drunkenness, sat on the emperor's seat as a joke. An took this opportunity to report this to Emperor Mingzong and recommend Li Congcan's death; as a result, Emperor Mingzong ordered Li Congcan to commit suicide. Meanwhile, An was also in dispute with Later Tang's vassal, Qian Liu the King of