Yang Xingmi - As Prefect of Lu Prefecture

As Prefect of Lu Prefecture

Also in 883, two of Gao Pian's officers, Yu Gongchu (俞公楚) and Yao Guiili (姚歸禮), failed in an assassination attempt against Gao's favored sorcerer Lü Yongzhi, who had in effect taken over Huainan's governance due to Gao's trust in him. Lü thus made accusations against them, and Gao sent them out to combat agrarian rebels. Lü then secretly informed Yang (falsely) that Yu and Yao's intent was to attack Lu Prefecture. Yang responded by laying an ambush for Yu and Yao, killing them, and then informing Gao that they had planned a mutiny. Gao, not knowing that Lü put this incident into motion, rewarded Yang for putting down the "mutiny."

In 884, when Gao's nephew Gao Yu (高澞), then the prefect of nearby Shu Prefecture (舒州, in modern Anqing, Anhui), came under the attack of the local agrarian rebel Chen Ru (陳儒), Gao Yu sought aid from Yang. Yang did not have enough soldiers to respond, but sent his officer Li Shenfu, who tricked Chen into believing that a large army was arriving from Lu. As a result, Chen fled. Subsequently, when Qin Zongquan, who was previously the Tang military governor of Fengguo Circuit (奉國, headquartered in modern Zhumadian, Henan) but who had rebelled against Tang by this point, sent a brother to attack Lu, Yang sent Tian Jun to repel Qin's attack. Meanwhile, when other agrarian rebels Wu Jiong (吳迥) and Li Ben (李本) attacked Shu, Gao Yu abandoned it (and was subsequently executed by Gao Pian). Yang then sent his officers Tao Ya (陶雅) and Zhang Xun (張訓) to attack Wu and Li; after Tao and Zhang subsequently captured and executed Wu and Li, Yang commissioned Tao as the prefect of Shu.

In 886 — by which point the prefects of Huainan appeared to be attacking each other at will to enlarge their spheres of influence — Zhang Ao (張翱) the prefect of Shou Prefecture (壽州, in modern Lu'an, Anhui) sent his officer Wei Qian (魏虔) to attack Lu. Yang sent Tian, Li Shenfu, and Zhang Xun to resist, and they repelled Wei's attack. Meanwhile, though, Xu Qing (許勍) the prefect of Chú Prefecture (滁洲, in modern Chuzhou, Anhui) attacked Shu; Tao was unable to resist, and fled back to Lu, allowing Xu to take Shu. Also in 886, under Gao's order, for reasons unclear, Yang changed his name from Xingmin to Xingmi.