in 22, with virtually the entire empire rebelling against wang mang's incompetent rule, liu yan prepared his rebellion. he planned, along with his brothers, and li tong (李通) and his cousin li yi (李軼), to kidnap the governor for nanyang commandery (roughly modern nanyang, henan) and call for the people of the commandery to join him. when the young men of their home territory of chongling heard about the rebellion, they were all scared to join—until they saw that liu xiu was part of the rebellion as well, figuring that if even a careful man like liu xiu was part of the rebellion, the rebellion was carefully planned.