liu xiu would soon have a major problem on his hand, however, in winter 23, as he faced a pretender for the han throne. a fortune teller in handan named wang lang claimed to be actually named liu ziyu (劉子輿) and a son of emperor cheng. he claimed that his mother was a singer in emperor cheng's service, and that empress zhao feiyan had tried to kill him after his birth, but that a substitute child was killed indeed. after he spread these rumors among the people, the people of handan began to believe that he was a genuine son of emperor cheng, and the commanderies north of the yellow river quickly pledged allegiance to him as emperor. in spring 24, liu xiu was forced to withdraw to the northern city of jicheng (modern beijing). not long after, he faced rebellions in his immediate vicinity, and was nearly killed by rebels who pledged allegiance to wang. he reached two commanderies in modern central hebei that were still loyal to gengshi emperor—xindu (信都, roughly modern hengshui, hebei), whose governor was ren guang (任光), and herong, (和戎, roughly part of modern shijiazhuang, hebei), whose governor was pi tong (邳彤). ren's deputy li chong (李忠), wan xiu (萬脩) and liu zhi (劉植), who was powerful clan in the region, also joined him. additionally, he began to make liu zhi persuade liu yang (劉楊) the prince of zhending, who held 100,000 troops, to join him. he entered into a political marriage with guo shengtong, the niece of liu yang, and combined his forces. he mobilized their forces and won some major battles against wang's generals.