Possibly nothing important. The Sassanid household is in very difficult times and during the Islamic conquest,
My bad. I meant to say Arab conquest, but something slipped.
Sassanid monarch Yazdegerd IV.
Y. III's rise was the ultimate compromise that ended the battle royale of 628-632. The boy was like 8 at the time, so vying for his regency actually brought the wuzurgan back to the center of power to some extent. Instead of more minding their own business and killing each other.
Would most likely never arise. Thanks Sheroe, we had more than twenty odd candidates and in addition to killing them all you died of the plague. Stupid Kavad II.
That is true. Heraclius' strategy was surprisingly destructive for
both Rome and Iran. One would have thought he might not have acted the way he did in OTL given he was the
Roman Emperor of all things, but since he won there is little finger pointing.
also the confidence and interest/alliance of the Great Houses for the Sassanid realm to present any solution to the crisis to its east.
If the Goturk collapse follows the way it did in OTL, it would be less crisis and more opportunity. For some reason the Goturks simply cannot fight properly after the death of Tong Yagbu Khan. Maybe his loss to the East Turks earlier in his reign gutted the Khaganate.
As for the entire issue of the wuzurgan, I believe Sassanid history (at least, its various surviving fragments) suggest less of a "confederation" model like Prof. Pourshariati's paradigm attempts to demonstrate. Nevertheless, taking the realities of antique government, the aftershocks of Sheroe's plague, and the destruction Heraclius wrought into consideration, ensuring the cooperation of the wuzurgan was necessary to prop the Sassanid Empire back up again.
I feel that the Sassanids will focus more intently on recovering the Kushanshah title for their family, recapturing Sakastan, Arachosia and the remainder of Ariana (Afghanistan) and then taking Bactria, reclaiming the critically important Kushanshah title for the Sassanid household.
Haven't the Sassanids granted Nemroz (at least, what we call Zaranj today) to the Suren after the Kushanshah rebellions became chronic? Why would they want it back all of a sudden, or if only external territorial changes are planned, why would any Sassanid King of Kings want some distant cousin on a Shah-level throne in some war-torn land far from Asurestan?
the Sassanids will likely have many Sogdian statelets seeking protection from the Sassanid state,
Maybe a combination of the Afghrid lands (were they around at this point though) south of the Amul and the riverside/oasis trade cities will form the basis of the post-Goturk map of Sugd. Then we could finally address the question of Sassanid-Tang interactions.
