Meng Fangli (Chinese: 孟方立; died July 2, 889) was a warlord in the late Chinese Tang dynasty who, from 881 to 889, controlled all or part of Zhaoyi Circuit (昭義)—the headquarters of which he moved from Lu Prefecture (潞州, in modern Changzhi, Shanxi) to his home Xing Prefecture (邢州, in modern Xingtai, Hebei)—as its military governor (jiedushi).
That year, while the Gao Xun (高潯) the military governor of Zhaoyi Circuit was leading his army as part of the Tang campaign to recapture the imperial capital Chang'an—which had fallen months earlier to the major agrarian rebel Huang Chao, forcing then-reigning Emperor Xizong to flee to Chengdu—Gao was assassinated by the officer Cheng Lin (成麟), who took over the army and returned to Lu Prefecture.
Meanwhile, in 882, the overall commander against Huang, the former chancellor Wang Duo, issued an edict in Emperor Xizong's name making Meng the prefect of Xing.
Meng refused to accept the commission, and further put Wu under arrest, claiming that a eunuch could not be an acting military governor.
Subsequently, Emperor Xizong commissioned Wang Hui to be the new military governor, but Wang Hui, not wanting to travel far to his post and knowing that Meng had control of the three Zhaoyi prefectures east of the Taihang Mountains (Xing, Ming (洺州, in modern Handan, Hebei), and Ci (磁州, also in modern Handan)) anyway, declined to report to Zhaoyi, and instead recommended Zheng.
Knowing that the people of Lu were distressed about these acts, the eunuch monitor Qi Shenhui (祁審誨) had the officer An Jushou (安居受) secretly write Li Keyong the military governor of Hedong Circuit, who had a powerful army, to ask for his intervention.
[4] In fall 886, Li Kexiu launched a major attack against Meng, capturing a number of cities east of the Taihang and commissioning his officer An Jinjun (安金俊) as the prefect of Xing.