[2] The earliest historical records of his activities indicated that during the reign of Emperor Xianzong, when the general Li Su served as the military governor (Jiedushi) of Wuning Circuit (武寧, headquartered in modern Xuzhou, Jiangsu), Wang served as the eunuch monitor of the Wuning army.
However, Wang and other powerful eunuchs, including Yang Chenghe (楊承和), Wei Congjian (魏從簡), and Liang Shouqian, soon mobilized their troops and attacked Liu's party.
It was Wang who consulted with the imperial scholar Wei Chuhou to deal with the ceremony of Emperor Wenzong's enthronement after the coup.
[4] After Emperor Wenzong's enthronement, Wang Shoucheng was given the honorific title of Piaoqi Dajiangjun (驃騎大將軍) and made the commander of the Right Shence Army (右神策軍).
Zheng reacted by ordering the Shence Army officer Doulu Zhu (豆盧著) to falsely accuse Song of plotting treason to put Emperor Wenzong's younger brother Li Cou the Prince of Zhang on the throne.
Wang Shoucheng initially wanted to take this opportunity to massacre Song's household, but was stopped by another powerful eunuch, Ma Cunliang (馬存亮).
The advisorial officials Cui Xuanliang (崔玄亮), Li Guyan, Wang Zhi (王質), Lu Jun (盧均), Shu Yuanbao (舒元褒), Jiang Xi (蔣係), Pei Xiu (裴休), and Wei Wen (韋溫) urged caution, however, believed there were substantial questions in the matter and urged a reinvestigation by imperial government officials.
Zheng, fearing that a reinvestigation would lead to discovery of the truth, suggested to Wang Shoucheng that he recommend to Emperor Wenzong that neither Song nor Li Cou be executed.
Later that year, Wang Shoucheng was given the high title of the supreme monitor of the Left and Right Shence Armies and supreme commander of the 12 imperial guard corps — in order for Emperor Wenzong to strip him of the command of the Right Shence Army.
Zheng and Li Xun thereafter planned to use Wang's funeral as the occasion to trap the eunuchs and massacre them, but Li Xun, wanting all the credit by himself, preempted the plan, but failed, in what later became known as the Ganlu Incident, leading to the eunuchs' massacre of four chancellors (in addition to Li Xun, who was chancellor by this point, Wang Ya, Jia Su, and Shu Yuanyu) and governmental officials.