Upon hearing of Yuan and Lu's deaths, Li broke off the peaceful relations with Yang Tong's regime, now under Wang's control. However, he had a low opinion of Wang, so he did not take much precaution against an attack from Wang. Further, other problems were developing for Li—as while he had plenty of food supplies, he had a low amount of money and silk, and therefore had little to reward his generals with. He was also being overly generous with new adherents, and the old followers began to grumble. When Xu Shiji tried to get him to change his ways, he sent Xu away to Liyang under guise of promotion. In addition, his supply of new adherents began to dry up when he, in an ill-advised decision pushed by his secretary Bing Yuanzhen (), who could materially benefit from the transactions, to trade food with Wang for textiles. After the transactions began, the people of Luoyang, no longer low on food, stopped surrendering to Li, and while Li stopped the transactions, the damage had been done. In addition, his troops were tired, and a substantial percentage of his men were injured from fighting the elite Xiaoguo Army under Yuwen's command.