However, it was said at the time that the matters of civil service were being controlled by Su, Yuwen Shu, Pei Yun (裴蘊), and Pei Ju, and that they were largely corrupt. Yang Gongren was considered honest and was not tolerated by Pei Yun, and therefore was instead commissioned to lead the army against agrarian rebels in the modern Hunan region. He was, however, defeated by the rebel general Zhu Can at Qiao Commandery (譙郡, roughly modern Bozhou, Anhui), and forced to flee to Emperor Yang's then-location at Jiangdu (江都, in modern Yangzhou, Jiangsu).