Xie Xuan - After The Battle of Fei River

After The Battle of Fei River

Due to his achievements at the Battle of Fei River, Xie Xuan was created the Duke of Kangle. When the major general Huan Chong died in 384, initially Xie Xuan was to succeed him, but Xie An thought the Huan clan might be unhappy about yielding Huan Chong's command to others, so divided Huan Chong's domain into three and distributed them to members of the Huan clan. Later that year, however, Xie Xuan was put in charge of a force targeting the recovery of central China, along with Huan Shiqian (桓石虔). He quickly recovered most of the territory south of the Yellow River on Jin's behalf, and, in an odd case of enemies quickly turning allies, briefly relieved Fu Jiān's son Fu Pi, who was defending Yecheng against rebels led by Murong Chui, who had just founded Later Yan.

Xie apparently considered further operations to try to seize territory north of the Yellow River, but as Murong Chui quickly entrenched himself north of the Yellow River, it became clear it would be difficult to do so. In 386, after the generals Zhai Liao and Zhang Yuan (張願) rebelled, in light of popular opinion that believed that the troops were being worn out, Xie abandoned the plans entirely, and indeed moved his headquarters from Pengcheng south to Huaiyin (淮陰, in modern Huai'an, Jiangsu), although Jin continued to hold most of the territory south of the Yellow River.

After that point, it appeared that Xie suffered a series of illnesses that made it impossible for him to conduct any further campaigns and which also made him to repeatedly try to resign his command. Eventually, he was made the governor of Kuaiji Commandery (roughly modern Shaoxing, Zhejiang) -- an important, but almost entirely civilian, post. He died in 388 while still serving as the governor of Kuaiji.