city of Yecheng, they were eventually defeated that same year, resulting in Ji Sang's death and Shi Le joining Han Zhao. A Sogdian merchant in China wrote a letter to another Sogdian referring to the Huns (Xiongnu) who had revolted as people who had previously been "property" of the Chinese Western Jin Emperor until their uprising against him and destruction of the capital at Luoyang. The Xiongnu rebel Liu Xuan, a relative of Xiongnu rebel chief Liu Yuan said his own Xiongnu people were treated as slaves by their Han Chinese rulers and now was the time to revolt against their Han Chinese rulers after the Jin exhausted themselves in the War of the Eight Princes, saying "The Jin dynasty people use us like slaves. Now they are killing each other's flesh and blood. It is God's abandonment of them and let us recover the Han". Rise of Cheng Han The upheaval in southwest China arguably predates its northern counterpart. Qi Wannian's rebellion from 296 to 299 caused a mass influx of refugees moving into present-day southern Gansu and Sichuan. One Di leader, Yang Maosou, led his followers and refugees to Lüeyang, where he found the Chouchi state in 296. Li Te and his family, who were of Ba-Di ethnicity (called as such as their ancestors were from Ba before moving north and mingling with the Di people), decided to move back to their ancestral home in Yizhou to escape the rebellion. In 300, Li Te and his brothers joined the Inspector of Yizhou, Zhao Xin, in his rebellion against Jin, but later betrayed him after he killed one of their brothers, Li Xiang. Li Te took the provincial capital, Chengdu and ousted Zhao Xin, but later submitted back to Jin due to the arrival of the new Inspector, Luo Shang. Still, Li Te retained a significant influence over the refugees in Yizhou. In 301, after months of Li Te and the refugees refusing to comply with an imperial edict ordering them to return north, Luo Shang declared war on them. Li Te was killed in battle in 303, but in 304, his son, Li Xiong drove Luo Shang out of Chengdu and established the state of Cheng (renamed Han in 338). Li Xiong originally declared himself "King of Chengdu" before changing his title to "Emperor of Dacheng" in 306. Luo Shang fled to Ba Commandery (巴郡; present-day Chongqing), where