It was this thread from 2 years ago. We unfortunately didn't seem to get too terribly far into discussing what could have been a cool subject.
The Flame Reawoken: The Restoration of Zoroastrian Persia
- Thread starter Mental_Wizard
- Start date
it is reawoken
the flame reawoken
vii
It was a grim prospect. Bam stood, looming over them, the greatest of all the fortresses of Eranshahr. It had fallen to the Arab armies a few years before: now it was the greatest bastion of their terrible rule in the east of the land. There was no choice but to test its walls. To flee before it would condemn the remains of the shattered army to the inevitable battle with the coming Arab hosts. Except, it would be on the enemy's terms. Seizing Bam, however, would bring the whole of the region under its rightful Persian rule and would provide a call to arms for Persians across the land to rise up against their oppressors. Battered, broken, and desperate, the last defenders of the flame of Persian civilization would march on the greatest fortress in the world, armed to the teeth with their enemies, for the freedom of their homeland.
The young soldier couldn't help but to weep about this. Their lives, their sacrifices... it had all been for nothing. Their Shahanshah had revealed himself amidst them to restore their homeland, only for them to inevitably come to grief at Bam. He grasped his spear, sobbing. Many of his comrades were injured or similarly disheartened: there was not a smile to be found in the whole camp. The mood was universally one of gloom, and all hope had been lost.
"It was at this time that the darkest hour of the rebellion against the Arab yoke had come. The army had lost nearly a third of its men in escaping Rayen. The Arab garrison was well-supplied, and the armies of the Caliph were marching east towards the rebel band. Weaker men may have folded under such pressures, as often happened in the ignonimous endings to many uprisings throughout history. These however were no weak men. These were the greatest of the Persians, the equal them each of a Cyrus or a Shapur. They were far from beaten, and held out, even against these odds."
-The Persian Chronicle (1)
A low march was heard on the horizon.
The Arabs had come. The war was over.
Ardashir rose from the inside of his tent, peering his head out. The strain in his muscles pained him, but there was no time to think of that. There indeed was a host on the horizon, but it seemed not like an Arab one. It had not their dress, and seemed to be comprised of common people. So this was it, he thought. These peasants would either mob and kill his force as they laid here beaten, or they would come to aid them. Ardashir could not tell the intentions of these men: it was time to state his own. He raced to the front of the camp, facing the mob. He drew his sword as the sun gleamed down on him, illuminating the figure of a proud warrior.
"How come you, intruders? I am Ardashir III, Shahanshah of Eranshahr. If you should aid the Arab oppressors, for I see now you all are Persians, then you are traitors to your homeland. You are scum of the earth and worth less than the scraps I will leave left of you. But if you have come to aid us in our quest to free the lands of all Persians: I have nought but the promise of better days to offer you. Without you to aid my army, we cannot free this region by taking Bam. It is essential that you join us. I ask not for any vanity of mine own to rule from the palaces of my fathers, nor to enrichen myself with the booty of the Arab armies. I ask for the sake of the people that chafe under this terrible yoke. Now as the ruler of Eranshahr, I call upon you to join us." Ardashir was shaking with exhaustion. The race from Rayen had taken its toll on even him. He collapsed in front of the camp, and struggled to get back up. The host of peasants stood staring at him as he knelt down in the dirt, his head hung and his body near collapse.
The peasants began to sob. And so too did the few men of the camp who did not yet shed a tear. The piteous condition of their Shahanshah, driven to such desperation by such lowly brigands as the Arabs, filled them with rage. There was a moment within the peasant host of confusion. Some had come to report on the location of the camp to the Arab authorities at Bam. Others had in fact come to aid the rebels. Yet this saddening display by Ardashir moved the hearts of even the greediest of the peasants in the throng. A few quick glances and it was all ascertained: this peasant host would march with the army against the Arabs at Bam. Ardashir fainted as men from both groups rushed to catch him.
The dream of a free Eranshahr was perhaps slightly less a dream now. The peasants augmented the army with fresh supplies, and gave them the manpower it would take to storm Bam. Now, all eyes were on Ardashir, as the Shahanshah lay near death from a sudden fever, at the dawning of a new hope for the future he had brought Eranshahr.
____________________________________________
"Basileus! We have news in the west. An army has routed the barbarians!" Announced a messenger, kneeling before Constantine.
"Excellent," grinned Constantine. "Weary I have been of war since the disaster at Phoinike. However, this "Ardashir of Persia" has restored my faith in defeating the Arabs. God has brought us a pagan warrior to assist in the destruction of the heretics of our own faith. (3) With the west pacificed, perhaps for even a month at this rate, I would like to attack the Arabs once more. This time, we will attack by land. If this "Shahanshah" is the great warrior I hear tell of, the Arab armies must be distracted with him. Their frontiers will be easier than otherwise to storm through, perhaps even to the Holy City itself," reasoned Constantine.
____________________________________________
The Arab host had been driven back down the mountain passes. Balkh had been held, once again. (4) The men of the village were weary but joyful. The menace would once again leave them for a while, as it licked the wounds of defeat yet another time.
A messenger came bursting into the center of the town from the south.
"Everyone! Everyone! There is a rebellion in the south and west. The Shahanshah Ardashir III lives! He lives and is among us! Even now he has defeated the Arabs in scores of battles, (5) and he is marching for here at the nearest possible time to free us! Our deliverance is upon us! Our bloodshed has been for nothing, and our glorious country shall rise again."
The effect was electric. All through Balkh, the people were rejoicing. None of them knew the plans of Ardashir and his army specifically, but soon a thousand rumors were about. Ardashir was at the head of a thirty-thousand man army that had liberated half of Eranshahr and destroyed a hundred Arab armies: he had faced the Caliph himself in battle and laid him low. The town was agape and antsy for his arrival to their aid. Word was soon sent to the old Persian army regiments hiding in the eastern mountains. The people had to do every last thing they could to aid their Shahanshah, even from as remote a place as theirs.
______________________________________________
(1)- Shocker here, it's a biased history.
(2)- Retconning previous update where the Byzantine Emperor was named "Constans." Research has led me to find that that is not his actual name: he actually ruled under the name Constantine and was baptized as Herakleios. It was actually a diminutive form of his name that he most certainly would not have signed a letter like that with. So I'll fix that. He is and will be referred to as Constantine IV consequently, and his son (OTL's Constantine IV) will be V and so forth as it would apply.
(3)- The Byzantine view of Islam was of essentially an odd Christian heresy. They refused to recognize it as anything more than that for a very long time.
(4)- IOTL, the Arab armies had to reoccupy Balkh several times to bring it to heel, culminating in 663 with its final defeat. ITTL, the armies sent after Ardashir have been diverted in some cases towards Balkh as well, trying to conquer it in an attempt not attested to IOTL.
(5)- Just the classic hyperbole of victory.
I had wanted this to be longer, but this is what sufficed. Sorry about the delay lol. Life got busy. viii is coming very very soon. I promise it'll be more exciting. (and probably just a better update in general)
the flame reawoken
vii
It was a grim prospect. Bam stood, looming over them, the greatest of all the fortresses of Eranshahr. It had fallen to the Arab armies a few years before: now it was the greatest bastion of their terrible rule in the east of the land. There was no choice but to test its walls. To flee before it would condemn the remains of the shattered army to the inevitable battle with the coming Arab hosts. Except, it would be on the enemy's terms. Seizing Bam, however, would bring the whole of the region under its rightful Persian rule and would provide a call to arms for Persians across the land to rise up against their oppressors. Battered, broken, and desperate, the last defenders of the flame of Persian civilization would march on the greatest fortress in the world, armed to the teeth with their enemies, for the freedom of their homeland.
The young soldier couldn't help but to weep about this. Their lives, their sacrifices... it had all been for nothing. Their Shahanshah had revealed himself amidst them to restore their homeland, only for them to inevitably come to grief at Bam. He grasped his spear, sobbing. Many of his comrades were injured or similarly disheartened: there was not a smile to be found in the whole camp. The mood was universally one of gloom, and all hope had been lost.
"It was at this time that the darkest hour of the rebellion against the Arab yoke had come. The army had lost nearly a third of its men in escaping Rayen. The Arab garrison was well-supplied, and the armies of the Caliph were marching east towards the rebel band. Weaker men may have folded under such pressures, as often happened in the ignonimous endings to many uprisings throughout history. These however were no weak men. These were the greatest of the Persians, the equal them each of a Cyrus or a Shapur. They were far from beaten, and held out, even against these odds."
-The Persian Chronicle (1)
A low march was heard on the horizon.
The Arabs had come. The war was over.
Ardashir rose from the inside of his tent, peering his head out. The strain in his muscles pained him, but there was no time to think of that. There indeed was a host on the horizon, but it seemed not like an Arab one. It had not their dress, and seemed to be comprised of common people. So this was it, he thought. These peasants would either mob and kill his force as they laid here beaten, or they would come to aid them. Ardashir could not tell the intentions of these men: it was time to state his own. He raced to the front of the camp, facing the mob. He drew his sword as the sun gleamed down on him, illuminating the figure of a proud warrior.
"How come you, intruders? I am Ardashir III, Shahanshah of Eranshahr. If you should aid the Arab oppressors, for I see now you all are Persians, then you are traitors to your homeland. You are scum of the earth and worth less than the scraps I will leave left of you. But if you have come to aid us in our quest to free the lands of all Persians: I have nought but the promise of better days to offer you. Without you to aid my army, we cannot free this region by taking Bam. It is essential that you join us. I ask not for any vanity of mine own to rule from the palaces of my fathers, nor to enrichen myself with the booty of the Arab armies. I ask for the sake of the people that chafe under this terrible yoke. Now as the ruler of Eranshahr, I call upon you to join us." Ardashir was shaking with exhaustion. The race from Rayen had taken its toll on even him. He collapsed in front of the camp, and struggled to get back up. The host of peasants stood staring at him as he knelt down in the dirt, his head hung and his body near collapse.
The peasants began to sob. And so too did the few men of the camp who did not yet shed a tear. The piteous condition of their Shahanshah, driven to such desperation by such lowly brigands as the Arabs, filled them with rage. There was a moment within the peasant host of confusion. Some had come to report on the location of the camp to the Arab authorities at Bam. Others had in fact come to aid the rebels. Yet this saddening display by Ardashir moved the hearts of even the greediest of the peasants in the throng. A few quick glances and it was all ascertained: this peasant host would march with the army against the Arabs at Bam. Ardashir fainted as men from both groups rushed to catch him.
The dream of a free Eranshahr was perhaps slightly less a dream now. The peasants augmented the army with fresh supplies, and gave them the manpower it would take to storm Bam. Now, all eyes were on Ardashir, as the Shahanshah lay near death from a sudden fever, at the dawning of a new hope for the future he had brought Eranshahr.
____________________________________________
"Basileus! We have news in the west. An army has routed the barbarians!" Announced a messenger, kneeling before Constantine.
"Excellent," grinned Constantine. "Weary I have been of war since the disaster at Phoinike. However, this "Ardashir of Persia" has restored my faith in defeating the Arabs. God has brought us a pagan warrior to assist in the destruction of the heretics of our own faith. (3) With the west pacificed, perhaps for even a month at this rate, I would like to attack the Arabs once more. This time, we will attack by land. If this "Shahanshah" is the great warrior I hear tell of, the Arab armies must be distracted with him. Their frontiers will be easier than otherwise to storm through, perhaps even to the Holy City itself," reasoned Constantine.
____________________________________________
The Arab host had been driven back down the mountain passes. Balkh had been held, once again. (4) The men of the village were weary but joyful. The menace would once again leave them for a while, as it licked the wounds of defeat yet another time.
A messenger came bursting into the center of the town from the south.
"Everyone! Everyone! There is a rebellion in the south and west. The Shahanshah Ardashir III lives! He lives and is among us! Even now he has defeated the Arabs in scores of battles, (5) and he is marching for here at the nearest possible time to free us! Our deliverance is upon us! Our bloodshed has been for nothing, and our glorious country shall rise again."
The effect was electric. All through Balkh, the people were rejoicing. None of them knew the plans of Ardashir and his army specifically, but soon a thousand rumors were about. Ardashir was at the head of a thirty-thousand man army that had liberated half of Eranshahr and destroyed a hundred Arab armies: he had faced the Caliph himself in battle and laid him low. The town was agape and antsy for his arrival to their aid. Word was soon sent to the old Persian army regiments hiding in the eastern mountains. The people had to do every last thing they could to aid their Shahanshah, even from as remote a place as theirs.
______________________________________________
(1)- Shocker here, it's a biased history.
(2)- Retconning previous update where the Byzantine Emperor was named "Constans." Research has led me to find that that is not his actual name: he actually ruled under the name Constantine and was baptized as Herakleios. It was actually a diminutive form of his name that he most certainly would not have signed a letter like that with. So I'll fix that. He is and will be referred to as Constantine IV consequently, and his son (OTL's Constantine IV) will be V and so forth as it would apply.
(3)- The Byzantine view of Islam was of essentially an odd Christian heresy. They refused to recognize it as anything more than that for a very long time.
(4)- IOTL, the Arab armies had to reoccupy Balkh several times to bring it to heel, culminating in 663 with its final defeat. ITTL, the armies sent after Ardashir have been diverted in some cases towards Balkh as well, trying to conquer it in an attempt not attested to IOTL.
(5)- Just the classic hyperbole of victory.
I had wanted this to be longer, but this is what sufficed. Sorry about the delay lol. Life got busy. viii is coming very very soon. I promise it'll be more exciting. (and probably just a better update in general)
@Mental_Wizard love it.
So did they take Bam after all, or defeat the newest Arab army? Will you tell us more of this Byzantine victory? Since you said that it is in “the west”, is it against the Arabs, or other barbarians?
So did they take Bam after all, or defeat the newest Arab army? Will you tell us more of this Byzantine victory? Since you said that it is in “the west”, is it against the Arabs, or other barbarians?
Bam remains unconquered. The combined peasant-army host is camped near it, planning to assault it soon. We'll see how that goes pretty soon.
The Byzantine victory was in the Balkans. Headcanon says a Slavic raid on Greece was defeated by an army stationed there. This has given Constantine a sense of security, rightly or wrongly. He now feels confident enough to invade the Caliphate.
That's all that anyone really needs to know. It's really a minor anecdote in all this- I will note however that it took several more years to pacify the region OTL.
The Arab army retreating from Balkh was one of the ones sent by the Caliph after the Persians earlier in the TL. It was one of the ones already in northern Persia, and it as the Arabs did OTL, was attacking Balkh (OTL it failed too).
The ERE controls about the same amount of land, but they have driven off a Slavic attack on Greece. This attack is slightly different than the OTL raids due to butterflies, and was of greater size than most, posing a greater threat to the empire. The change is that the ERE's western border would now appear to be safe. No actual gains have been made.
This "same amount of land" is the bulk of Anatolia, southern Balkans, tiny parts of the far reaches of North Africa, and about half of Italy.
the flame reawoken
viii
The moat was bigger than they had expected. One advantage to doing this at night, however, is that the garrison is asleep, Ardashir thought. Fully recovered from his illness several days before, his men had carried him on towards Bam while he was ill so that he could lead them still. These men had the most utter and complete faith in him of any on Earth. Now, that faith would be tested against the mightiest walls many of the soldiers had seen in their entire lives.
"Start digging trenches into the moat!" Ardashir roared. They would dig into the moat, causing water to flow outwards. As the water level got deeper and deeper, they would then march under the walls of Bam and storm the citadel while the garrison still slept. The men at once got to their task, and soon the water began to flow outwards from the fortress. Slowly, the water level fell and fell more. After what must have been a solid 45 minutes of digging, the base of the wall was finally exposed. There was a small gap, about half the height of the men. Ardashir himself was the first under, lifting his head up from underneath the tunnel after what seemed like an eternity. He found himself looking at an Arab guard propped against the interior of the wall, sleeping. Seeing no other guards around, Ardashir motioned back into the tunnel for more of his men to come. With several of them now there, he led them in accosting the sleeping guard. They shoved him back into the tunnel and muffled his shrieks.
“Show us the way to the citadel,” Ardashir whispered. (1)
The guard’s eyes betrayed fury. Ardashir’s men tightened their grip on him. His eyes turned fearful, and he pointed towards a tower in the distance across Bam with a free finger.
“Wonderful,” Said Ardashir. “Keep him here.”
As three men stayed behind to hold him, more of the army began to move through the now-widened tunnel. The walls of Bam began to creak above the tunnel: the Persians would have to be very fast. They raced across the fortress, being careful not to disturb any of the sleeping guards. An attack on Bam was clearly not expected.
The hundred that had gone into Bam with Ardashir raced up the tower. It was at this point that the Arab commander rose. He knew something was wrong. He ran to the window of the tower, shouting to his troops. Unfortunately for him, there was something bigger happening outside.
As the sun rose over the fortress, the wall collapsed.
________________
“We march to the Shahanshah!” Shouted the soldier at the head of the several thousand-strong army. This army had been fighting Arab patrols in the eastern mountains several days earlier when messengers from Balkh came to tell them of the tidings of Ardashir’s campaign. The soldiers erupted with joy- it had seemed like an eternity since Yazdegerd had died and Prince Peroz fled east. (2) Here was a Shahanshah of the House of Sasan that they could follow. They would join him at Bam, or die trying. The dawn had just broken, and they would make great progress today. The whole contingent marched as if they were filled with the fire of creation itself.
________________
1- If you look at the Wikipedia picture of Bam, it may be unclear what exactly I’m referring to when I mention places inside it. The fortress existed until 2003. It changed a lot since then, and to my knowledge there are no records of the layout around this time ITTL. I am taking some creative liberties while generally following the idea of its shape.
2- Prince Peroz, son of Yazdegerd, fled east to Tang China. He would formally ask for their support in 661 OTL. Incidentally, he was probably Christian. I might have him make an appearance at some point.
So… it has been a little while. My life got really crazy for a while, I was busy, sick, busy, sick… all of it. Sometimes I just wasn’t feeling like I could write anything good. I’m afraid this update breaks the trend of increasing size, but the next one WILL come soon. I just felt it right to leave on a cliffhanger like this. I think a map might be in the cards also soon. Ardashir now controls more than just a speck of land. I don’t know how long I can continue updates, but we shall see. I have greatly missed this and I am happy to be back.
Well, Zarathustra is just the prophet, so it should be AHURA MAZDA VULT!