in 76, at the suggestion of his advisor yang zhong (楊終) and prime minister diwu lun (第五倫), emperor zhang ordered that his father's xiyu (modern xinjiang and former soviet central asia) campaigns be abandoned. however, one of the han generals in xiyu, ban chao, seeing the importance of maintaining han presence in xiyu, refused to withdraw, and emperor zhang eventually relented and put ban in charge of han's operations in xiyu.