We can't go back to Constantinople
Society, Culture, and Law in Central Asia
(and the broader Eftal world)
The 4th to the 8th centuries were at time of major changes in the material culture of Central Asia and Persia. These changes are perhaps best viewed as a series of waves - contraction and crisis followed by short-term expansion which inevitably contracted due to environmental and political factors.
During the 4th and 5th centuries, the predecessors of the Hephthalites, the Chionites, did immense damage to the urban culture of the one thriving region, and brought about economic crisis and decentralization.
Archeological evidence shows that agriculture did not recover until the period of Shah Akhshunwar, when large fields of cereal crops and cotton can be again found. Irrigation systems were reintroduced and the Hephthalite tribes which would coalesce into the broader social group known as "Eftal" began to build lavish palaces - of which the royal palace-city of Piandjikent is perhaps the best example. Striking artistic works, jewelry, and oranmented weapons have been found in these sites, in styles heavily influenced by Persian and Indian culture.
Into the sixth century, many of these palaces began to develop into proper cities. The conquest of Persia allowed a chaotic amalgam of tribal arrangements and ancestral ties to coalesce into a proper state. Tribal rulers became Satraps, and bureaucrats were sent forth to collect taxes on these growing urban areas. Careful city planning becomes more commonplace, and archeological digs have revealed goods from global sources. During the invasion of Persia, irrigation fell into neglect and population dropped significantly. Cities shrank and many sites show signs of abandonment. While the Hephthalites were more than willing to patronize urban regions and accommodate them, many traditional urban sites would not recover fully until the seventh century. By contrast, there was a proliferation of small urban sites, walled and centered around local sources of water. These formed a hallmark of Hephthalite and later Eftal settlement, especially in peripheral such as Syria and Osrhoene and Sogdiana and Tokharestan. These "castles" contributed to the defense of these regions and enabled them to survive endemic raiding and sporadic times of upheaval and civil war.
In times of upheaval, these "Satraps" and local nobles would quickly revert to the complex tribal alliances that underpinned their legitimacy. As much as they integrated in dress, language, and culture into the broader Iranian world, the Eftal political system remained distinct from that of their more autocratic subjects. By the sixth and seventh centuries, we have written legal codes from the Eftal, confirming the earlier accounts of foreign travelers. Law tended to be strict, with the only mercy being that minor crimes were often overlooked or settled by inter-tribal arrangements. Those under Eftal rule who could not take advantage of such connections were at a severe disadvantage - a disadvantage which explains why the Persian mercantile, artisanal, and noble classes all frequently attempted to marry into this tribal network - ultimately ensuring that tribal loyalty would penetrate all levels of Eftal society save the lowest.
Hephthalite succession law was complex. Written codes indicate that from the earliest times, only "the best" could rule. There was no allowance for heredity in these early codes. Rulers regardless of rank were expected to choose a worthy successor and receive the acceptance of their companions and tribal affiliates. In practice, primogeniture was occasionally used, and the ruling family frequently sought to consolidate power - but these early codes provided legal legitimacy to pretenders and usurpers because of their vagueness and factions developing amongst the companions. Court title and ritual in the early period was primarily derived from Kushan and Chionite precedent, but this would slowly evolve, taking on Persian and Roman elements. As it did so, among the Eastern Eftal in particular the role of the companions would become smaller and smaller, until ultimately they were reduced to an elite bodyguard unit and a pool from which talented commanders could be drawn. Because of their lack of blood ties to important dynasties, the companions could be trusted more than many of the powerful clans within Eftal society.
In the seventh century as Turkic raiding would become more pronounced, we see the trend shifting towards economic and social crisis. While few cities actively shrunk, growth and new urban foundations became rare. The fortification of monasteries and religious sites became prominent. Escape into these sites became a common method for the common people to avoid raids, as the Turks respected the sanctity of Buddhist sites in particular, despite their frequent wealth and relative vulnerability.
The flight of the Asvha due to these raids marks the end of a growing agrarian culture in Asvhastan and a return to the traditional nomadism of that region. Unlike the Hephthalites, the broader Eftal world, and the Sahu, the Asvha were newer converts to the sedentary life, and their abandonment of it also marked the end of their distinct culture and rapid assimilation into the Eftal. It would seem the majority of the Asvha settled on the central Iranian plateau, accepting a place in the Eftal social hierarchy and the loss of their independence in exchange for safety. Their migration is but a single example of the broader collapse of semi-settled culture around the Aral sea region, even as it endured and weathered the storm in many parts of Central Asia.
A Look to the East
Past the sweeping plains and arid deserts of Central Asia, China, long at turmoil, was once again reunited. The Ruru had been driven back, the tottering, deeply decentralized Liang dynasty overthrown after a series of peasant rebellions. An ambitious general named Yang Baxian, promoted to deal with both the Ruru and peasants rioting in the wake of famine accumulated power to himself until in 620 he dethroned the Liang Emperor, establishing the Qi dynasty.
Baxian, more commonly known by his ruling name, Wen, embarked on a massive program to centralize and strengthen his new China, unified for the first time in centuries. Chang'an was restored, and the Nine Ministries created, an immense, regulated bureaucracy which was given expansive powers to reorganize society and address the concerns of the common peasantry. Emperor Wen however distrusted his fellow Generals, perhaps recognizing how he himself came to power. He surrounded himself with a loyal corps of Turkic soldiers, a palace guard of sorts, and he kept his commanders on the frontier, frequently rotating them between postings, something which would overtime degrade the effectiveness of the army.
Like many of his predecessors, Wen portrayed himself as a Chakravatin. "May all the world between the Four Seas be brought to enlightenment and be governed by dharma." He proclaimed in the first of many edicts. In many senses he was not dissimilar from Rajyavardhana, but unlike Rajyavardhana, he had a greater tradition of centralization to work with - the Gupta had never been quite as expansive as the whole of China, and though they certainly possessed a strong bureaucracy it did not rival the Chinese tradition.
Meanwhile, to his north, a power vacuum was developing. With Khagan Kultegin's death, his ancestor's steppe Empire collapsed overnight. Old animosities exploded, and a northern tribe called the Kirkur aligned themselves with a Uighur Khan named Bayanchur and rose in rebellion against the Ashina clan - who struggled to find a well-respected replacement for Kultegin Shad. This led to a snowballing series of wars, beginning the displacement and migration of a new set of Turkic tribes. The displacement of the Gokturks would spell the permanent demise of the Eftal-Turkic treaty system which had provided relative peace and safety for transcontinental travelers. As the power of the Uighurs grew, they found themselves confronted by the Basmyl and the Kimeks, and this warfare left only the southern desert roads safe for travel - and even they became more risky.
Attempts by the Eftal to renegotiate these treaties were met with no successes. The "Four Turkic Nations" or the Turgish, Qarluq, Kangar, and Qangli all were feeling pressure to migrate west, leading to more common outbreaks of violence on the frontier. Those who headed north came into contact with the growing hegemony of the Xasar-Sahu, and those who headed south came to blows with Eftal tribal groups along the borders, notably the Asvha, many of whom fled deeper into the Eftal Empire. The two settled, Iranian states would be forced from 640-650 on to confront increasing pressures which the battle of Spahan had ultimately only exacerbated.
Syavush's Legacy
Queen Hafsa, the four-year old Prince Heshana, and Koshnavaz would, after their escape from Emesa, quickly arrive in Al-Jabiyah, where they would be greeted warmly by Hafsa's kin. Arabs who owed their fortunes to the elder Heshana and Syavush alike, they had sent back only the decapitated head of Shahriyar's embassy. However, no sooner had they done so than some might have regretted their rash decision. Nanivadh, the onetime rival of Syavush's for the throne, had come to a deal with Artavazda. He would rule the Satrapy of Palestine as Syavush's successor.
Though Nanivadh lacked Syavush's charisma and personal touch, he had fought alongside his younger cousin with distinction, and in the eyes of many Eftal, he was a better alternative than a four-year old child. With the northern Eftal mollified to a large degree, the situation was slipping out of the hands of Hafsa's faction. Al-Jabiyah was defensible, and most of the Arabs and a not insignificant number of Jews and Eftal supported the young Heshana (who was helped in no small part by the legacy of his namesake).
Raising an army, Koshnavaz and Hafsa's cousin, Aiham, prepared to face down the inevitable invasion from Emesa, where Mihiradata had finally linked up with Artavazda. Together the two Eftal commanders had an army of perhaps 75,000 men, and the primary army that Syavush had raised had either melted away or been disbanded. There was little hope for anything more than a delaying action, harassing the massive Eftal army as it swept through hollow Syria. Ultimately, they were able to achieve relatively little, and finally, despairing, Koshnavaz sent Aiham and the bulk of his forces south. Queen Hafsa arrived in Egypt and was well received. The Monophysite population rallied around them, seeing the young child as the best hope for a truly Christian King in Egypt. New forces were trained and mercenaries hired, but the army was nevertheless small, and would only truly begin to grow after the arrival of Aiham, who was himself baptized two weeks after his arrival.
Koshnavaz meanwhile, made a final stand at Al-Jabiyah with a group of Syavush's companions and a motley force of warriors. Attempting to gain the sympathy of the populace (and little more - he was a devout pagan according to most Eftal historians, a fact corroborated by his criticism of Syavush's decision to be baptized) he ordered his soldiers to paint crosses onto their shields. This act would build in the retelling into a defense of Christianity against a massively superior heathen army - it would become the subject of poems and tall tales, be embellished with miracles and heroic last words. Regardless of the truth, Koshnavaz and his retainers were ultimately slaughtered. Artavazda, eager to subdue what he now saw as rebellious territory, ordered a series of sacks of coastal cities such as Tyros which refused to surrender on his arrival.
[FONT="]Only after subduing Palestine totally did the Eftal general turn his attention to Egypt.
[/FONT] No we can't go back to Constantinople
The Bulgar Siege of Constantinople was, appropriately, a tremendous affair. Having struck a temporary treaty with the Avars to their north, Khagan Sulabi was free to draw on the tremendous resources of his young state without fear out outside interference. All the other European territories of the Romans had fallen with ease - the shrunken, dilapidated cities and depopulated countrysides were easy pickings for a Bulgar army said by the Roman historians to number over a hundred thousand (hardly a realistic estimate).
The territories around the lower half of the Danube were some of the most populous and least ruined by war in the whole of the Balkans - having been securely under the patrimony of the current Hunno-Bulgarian dynasty for some time, and thus being capable of supporting a large population of Slavic migrants.
Of the extensive siege works built by Constantine in his attempt to regain his city, the engines and palisades had been wrecked, but the ditches and latrines were still viable, and the defensive walls were quickly repaired and expanded. Meanwhile, the Bulgar fleet, under the Khagan's son and heir, Asparukh, while keeping a respectful distance of the city walls, was able to prevent food shipments from reaching the capital. Constantine's own devastated fleet now possessed the Usurper's Fire, but the first attempt to use it resulted in the annihilation of a large stockpile without any effect. The second time it was used to greater effect, but the Bulgar fleet could not be entirely annihilated, and the land siege continued.
The Bulgars concentrated their efforts on the weaker Blachernae walls, where there was but a single line of defenses, and the Second Military Gate. Waves of Slavic soldiers were able to gain significant ground, including several footholds on the first line of walls, but Constantine had concentrated some of his elite guardsmen in the Blachernae and there the Slavs were repulsed with heavy casualties. Unable to cut off the city's food supply, victory for the Bulgars depended absolutely on control of the walls. However, as the months wore on, the Bulgar army began to be bled thin with little to show for it. However, with a new fleet, built using expertise gleaned from a group of Mauri shipwrights and Langobard mercenaries, the Bulgars were able to bring freshly levied soldiers and a fresh naval force to the siege. Despite heavy losses from the Fire, the Bulgar fleet was able to finally destroy the atrophied Roman navy, and the City's defenders drew up the harbor chain.
Assaults on the city's Sea Walls began in the second year of the siege. Towers were mounted atop two galleys lashed together, and with favorable winds the contraptions were able to truly threaten the city, forcing the Romans to spread their forces thin. Starvation began to break out amongst the defenders, who themselves were unable to bring on fresh soldiers from the East due to Bulgar naval superiority. And yet, for all of this, the Bulgars were suffering even more. A new Avar Khagan, Zavargan, had risen to power, and raids deep into Bulgar territory caused much of the Bulgar besieging force to break away.
With this news, the Romans sallied forth and dealt a crushing blow to the remaining forces - and with the siege on land broken and rumors of a new fleet being constructed in Asia, the Bulgar fleet retreated, allowing fresh food and soldiers into the city. Emperor Constantine took part in massive public celebrations thanking the Virgin Mary for the victory over the "massed armies of the Huns." When the siege began anew in 636, the Roman navy was able to deal yet another crippling defeat to its Bulgar counterpart, and within twenty days sally forth.
Constantine's cavalry were brutally mauled by hidden metal spikes laid by the defenders and subsequent volleys of arrows by the Bulgar army, but the disciplined, veteran Roman infantry, accustomed to standing their ground against reversals and retreating only when truly overwhelmed, held their own and routed the undisciplined Slavic levies arrayed against them. Only the personal intervention of Sulabi was able to stem the rout and push back the unsupported Roman infantrymen, who took great pleasure in burning sections of the Bulgar camp as they retreated.
Sulabi, vexed at every turn, did not lack for patience. Constantinople's capture became a fixation. The city's advanced walls resisted his engines with almost contemptuous ease. Attempts to mine the walls had been defeated by effective Roman counter-mining, and been almost as costly as his failed naval attacks. For seven days he prayed and offered sacrifices to the gods, and missives to the Eftal offering them all of Roman Asia in exchange for their assistance. From a preoccupied and overstretched Shahriyar he received no encouragement. Upon reading the Shah's reply, his son Asparukh encouraged his father to make peace with the Romans, but the Khagan refused until his troops erupted into open mutiny - incensed at their losses, they refused to mount another assault on the city.
Finally, concealing the fact that his own soldiers had nearly deposed him, Sulabi finally met Constantine beneath the walls, and the two Emperors signed a truce honoring the current status quo.
[Sorry that the last section is essentially a huge post wherein nothing happens. But it will have immense ramifications for the future of both the Bulgarian and Roman Empires down the line, both of whom are pretty exhausted by this slugfest for all of nothing. Constantinople in this timeline is much reduced from the version of it that exists at the same time OTL (no Hagia Sofia, for example, smaller population) but it's still the toughest fortress-city that I can think of, and the Roman bureaucracy is pretty good at coping with shortages, given that shortages have been the story of their life since Anatolia was depopulated/settled by Alans and Egypt was lost.]
(and the broader Eftal world)
The 4th to the 8th centuries were at time of major changes in the material culture of Central Asia and Persia. These changes are perhaps best viewed as a series of waves - contraction and crisis followed by short-term expansion which inevitably contracted due to environmental and political factors.
During the 4th and 5th centuries, the predecessors of the Hephthalites, the Chionites, did immense damage to the urban culture of the one thriving region, and brought about economic crisis and decentralization.
Archeological evidence shows that agriculture did not recover until the period of Shah Akhshunwar, when large fields of cereal crops and cotton can be again found. Irrigation systems were reintroduced and the Hephthalite tribes which would coalesce into the broader social group known as "Eftal" began to build lavish palaces - of which the royal palace-city of Piandjikent is perhaps the best example. Striking artistic works, jewelry, and oranmented weapons have been found in these sites, in styles heavily influenced by Persian and Indian culture.
Into the sixth century, many of these palaces began to develop into proper cities. The conquest of Persia allowed a chaotic amalgam of tribal arrangements and ancestral ties to coalesce into a proper state. Tribal rulers became Satraps, and bureaucrats were sent forth to collect taxes on these growing urban areas. Careful city planning becomes more commonplace, and archeological digs have revealed goods from global sources. During the invasion of Persia, irrigation fell into neglect and population dropped significantly. Cities shrank and many sites show signs of abandonment. While the Hephthalites were more than willing to patronize urban regions and accommodate them, many traditional urban sites would not recover fully until the seventh century. By contrast, there was a proliferation of small urban sites, walled and centered around local sources of water. These formed a hallmark of Hephthalite and later Eftal settlement, especially in peripheral such as Syria and Osrhoene and Sogdiana and Tokharestan. These "castles" contributed to the defense of these regions and enabled them to survive endemic raiding and sporadic times of upheaval and civil war.
In times of upheaval, these "Satraps" and local nobles would quickly revert to the complex tribal alliances that underpinned their legitimacy. As much as they integrated in dress, language, and culture into the broader Iranian world, the Eftal political system remained distinct from that of their more autocratic subjects. By the sixth and seventh centuries, we have written legal codes from the Eftal, confirming the earlier accounts of foreign travelers. Law tended to be strict, with the only mercy being that minor crimes were often overlooked or settled by inter-tribal arrangements. Those under Eftal rule who could not take advantage of such connections were at a severe disadvantage - a disadvantage which explains why the Persian mercantile, artisanal, and noble classes all frequently attempted to marry into this tribal network - ultimately ensuring that tribal loyalty would penetrate all levels of Eftal society save the lowest.
Hephthalite succession law was complex. Written codes indicate that from the earliest times, only "the best" could rule. There was no allowance for heredity in these early codes. Rulers regardless of rank were expected to choose a worthy successor and receive the acceptance of their companions and tribal affiliates. In practice, primogeniture was occasionally used, and the ruling family frequently sought to consolidate power - but these early codes provided legal legitimacy to pretenders and usurpers because of their vagueness and factions developing amongst the companions. Court title and ritual in the early period was primarily derived from Kushan and Chionite precedent, but this would slowly evolve, taking on Persian and Roman elements. As it did so, among the Eastern Eftal in particular the role of the companions would become smaller and smaller, until ultimately they were reduced to an elite bodyguard unit and a pool from which talented commanders could be drawn. Because of their lack of blood ties to important dynasties, the companions could be trusted more than many of the powerful clans within Eftal society.
In the seventh century as Turkic raiding would become more pronounced, we see the trend shifting towards economic and social crisis. While few cities actively shrunk, growth and new urban foundations became rare. The fortification of monasteries and religious sites became prominent. Escape into these sites became a common method for the common people to avoid raids, as the Turks respected the sanctity of Buddhist sites in particular, despite their frequent wealth and relative vulnerability.
The flight of the Asvha due to these raids marks the end of a growing agrarian culture in Asvhastan and a return to the traditional nomadism of that region. Unlike the Hephthalites, the broader Eftal world, and the Sahu, the Asvha were newer converts to the sedentary life, and their abandonment of it also marked the end of their distinct culture and rapid assimilation into the Eftal. It would seem the majority of the Asvha settled on the central Iranian plateau, accepting a place in the Eftal social hierarchy and the loss of their independence in exchange for safety. Their migration is but a single example of the broader collapse of semi-settled culture around the Aral sea region, even as it endured and weathered the storm in many parts of Central Asia.
A Look to the East
Past the sweeping plains and arid deserts of Central Asia, China, long at turmoil, was once again reunited. The Ruru had been driven back, the tottering, deeply decentralized Liang dynasty overthrown after a series of peasant rebellions. An ambitious general named Yang Baxian, promoted to deal with both the Ruru and peasants rioting in the wake of famine accumulated power to himself until in 620 he dethroned the Liang Emperor, establishing the Qi dynasty.
Baxian, more commonly known by his ruling name, Wen, embarked on a massive program to centralize and strengthen his new China, unified for the first time in centuries. Chang'an was restored, and the Nine Ministries created, an immense, regulated bureaucracy which was given expansive powers to reorganize society and address the concerns of the common peasantry. Emperor Wen however distrusted his fellow Generals, perhaps recognizing how he himself came to power. He surrounded himself with a loyal corps of Turkic soldiers, a palace guard of sorts, and he kept his commanders on the frontier, frequently rotating them between postings, something which would overtime degrade the effectiveness of the army.
Like many of his predecessors, Wen portrayed himself as a Chakravatin. "May all the world between the Four Seas be brought to enlightenment and be governed by dharma." He proclaimed in the first of many edicts. In many senses he was not dissimilar from Rajyavardhana, but unlike Rajyavardhana, he had a greater tradition of centralization to work with - the Gupta had never been quite as expansive as the whole of China, and though they certainly possessed a strong bureaucracy it did not rival the Chinese tradition.
Meanwhile, to his north, a power vacuum was developing. With Khagan Kultegin's death, his ancestor's steppe Empire collapsed overnight. Old animosities exploded, and a northern tribe called the Kirkur aligned themselves with a Uighur Khan named Bayanchur and rose in rebellion against the Ashina clan - who struggled to find a well-respected replacement for Kultegin Shad. This led to a snowballing series of wars, beginning the displacement and migration of a new set of Turkic tribes. The displacement of the Gokturks would spell the permanent demise of the Eftal-Turkic treaty system which had provided relative peace and safety for transcontinental travelers. As the power of the Uighurs grew, they found themselves confronted by the Basmyl and the Kimeks, and this warfare left only the southern desert roads safe for travel - and even they became more risky.
Attempts by the Eftal to renegotiate these treaties were met with no successes. The "Four Turkic Nations" or the Turgish, Qarluq, Kangar, and Qangli all were feeling pressure to migrate west, leading to more common outbreaks of violence on the frontier. Those who headed north came into contact with the growing hegemony of the Xasar-Sahu, and those who headed south came to blows with Eftal tribal groups along the borders, notably the Asvha, many of whom fled deeper into the Eftal Empire. The two settled, Iranian states would be forced from 640-650 on to confront increasing pressures which the battle of Spahan had ultimately only exacerbated.
Syavush's Legacy
Queen Hafsa, the four-year old Prince Heshana, and Koshnavaz would, after their escape from Emesa, quickly arrive in Al-Jabiyah, where they would be greeted warmly by Hafsa's kin. Arabs who owed their fortunes to the elder Heshana and Syavush alike, they had sent back only the decapitated head of Shahriyar's embassy. However, no sooner had they done so than some might have regretted their rash decision. Nanivadh, the onetime rival of Syavush's for the throne, had come to a deal with Artavazda. He would rule the Satrapy of Palestine as Syavush's successor.
Though Nanivadh lacked Syavush's charisma and personal touch, he had fought alongside his younger cousin with distinction, and in the eyes of many Eftal, he was a better alternative than a four-year old child. With the northern Eftal mollified to a large degree, the situation was slipping out of the hands of Hafsa's faction. Al-Jabiyah was defensible, and most of the Arabs and a not insignificant number of Jews and Eftal supported the young Heshana (who was helped in no small part by the legacy of his namesake).
Raising an army, Koshnavaz and Hafsa's cousin, Aiham, prepared to face down the inevitable invasion from Emesa, where Mihiradata had finally linked up with Artavazda. Together the two Eftal commanders had an army of perhaps 75,000 men, and the primary army that Syavush had raised had either melted away or been disbanded. There was little hope for anything more than a delaying action, harassing the massive Eftal army as it swept through hollow Syria. Ultimately, they were able to achieve relatively little, and finally, despairing, Koshnavaz sent Aiham and the bulk of his forces south. Queen Hafsa arrived in Egypt and was well received. The Monophysite population rallied around them, seeing the young child as the best hope for a truly Christian King in Egypt. New forces were trained and mercenaries hired, but the army was nevertheless small, and would only truly begin to grow after the arrival of Aiham, who was himself baptized two weeks after his arrival.
Koshnavaz meanwhile, made a final stand at Al-Jabiyah with a group of Syavush's companions and a motley force of warriors. Attempting to gain the sympathy of the populace (and little more - he was a devout pagan according to most Eftal historians, a fact corroborated by his criticism of Syavush's decision to be baptized) he ordered his soldiers to paint crosses onto their shields. This act would build in the retelling into a defense of Christianity against a massively superior heathen army - it would become the subject of poems and tall tales, be embellished with miracles and heroic last words. Regardless of the truth, Koshnavaz and his retainers were ultimately slaughtered. Artavazda, eager to subdue what he now saw as rebellious territory, ordered a series of sacks of coastal cities such as Tyros which refused to surrender on his arrival.
[FONT="]Only after subduing Palestine totally did the Eftal general turn his attention to Egypt.
[/FONT] No we can't go back to Constantinople
The Bulgar Siege of Constantinople was, appropriately, a tremendous affair. Having struck a temporary treaty with the Avars to their north, Khagan Sulabi was free to draw on the tremendous resources of his young state without fear out outside interference. All the other European territories of the Romans had fallen with ease - the shrunken, dilapidated cities and depopulated countrysides were easy pickings for a Bulgar army said by the Roman historians to number over a hundred thousand (hardly a realistic estimate).
The territories around the lower half of the Danube were some of the most populous and least ruined by war in the whole of the Balkans - having been securely under the patrimony of the current Hunno-Bulgarian dynasty for some time, and thus being capable of supporting a large population of Slavic migrants.
Of the extensive siege works built by Constantine in his attempt to regain his city, the engines and palisades had been wrecked, but the ditches and latrines were still viable, and the defensive walls were quickly repaired and expanded. Meanwhile, the Bulgar fleet, under the Khagan's son and heir, Asparukh, while keeping a respectful distance of the city walls, was able to prevent food shipments from reaching the capital. Constantine's own devastated fleet now possessed the Usurper's Fire, but the first attempt to use it resulted in the annihilation of a large stockpile without any effect. The second time it was used to greater effect, but the Bulgar fleet could not be entirely annihilated, and the land siege continued.
The Bulgars concentrated their efforts on the weaker Blachernae walls, where there was but a single line of defenses, and the Second Military Gate. Waves of Slavic soldiers were able to gain significant ground, including several footholds on the first line of walls, but Constantine had concentrated some of his elite guardsmen in the Blachernae and there the Slavs were repulsed with heavy casualties. Unable to cut off the city's food supply, victory for the Bulgars depended absolutely on control of the walls. However, as the months wore on, the Bulgar army began to be bled thin with little to show for it. However, with a new fleet, built using expertise gleaned from a group of Mauri shipwrights and Langobard mercenaries, the Bulgars were able to bring freshly levied soldiers and a fresh naval force to the siege. Despite heavy losses from the Fire, the Bulgar fleet was able to finally destroy the atrophied Roman navy, and the City's defenders drew up the harbor chain.
Assaults on the city's Sea Walls began in the second year of the siege. Towers were mounted atop two galleys lashed together, and with favorable winds the contraptions were able to truly threaten the city, forcing the Romans to spread their forces thin. Starvation began to break out amongst the defenders, who themselves were unable to bring on fresh soldiers from the East due to Bulgar naval superiority. And yet, for all of this, the Bulgars were suffering even more. A new Avar Khagan, Zavargan, had risen to power, and raids deep into Bulgar territory caused much of the Bulgar besieging force to break away.
With this news, the Romans sallied forth and dealt a crushing blow to the remaining forces - and with the siege on land broken and rumors of a new fleet being constructed in Asia, the Bulgar fleet retreated, allowing fresh food and soldiers into the city. Emperor Constantine took part in massive public celebrations thanking the Virgin Mary for the victory over the "massed armies of the Huns." When the siege began anew in 636, the Roman navy was able to deal yet another crippling defeat to its Bulgar counterpart, and within twenty days sally forth.
Constantine's cavalry were brutally mauled by hidden metal spikes laid by the defenders and subsequent volleys of arrows by the Bulgar army, but the disciplined, veteran Roman infantry, accustomed to standing their ground against reversals and retreating only when truly overwhelmed, held their own and routed the undisciplined Slavic levies arrayed against them. Only the personal intervention of Sulabi was able to stem the rout and push back the unsupported Roman infantrymen, who took great pleasure in burning sections of the Bulgar camp as they retreated.
Sulabi, vexed at every turn, did not lack for patience. Constantinople's capture became a fixation. The city's advanced walls resisted his engines with almost contemptuous ease. Attempts to mine the walls had been defeated by effective Roman counter-mining, and been almost as costly as his failed naval attacks. For seven days he prayed and offered sacrifices to the gods, and missives to the Eftal offering them all of Roman Asia in exchange for their assistance. From a preoccupied and overstretched Shahriyar he received no encouragement. Upon reading the Shah's reply, his son Asparukh encouraged his father to make peace with the Romans, but the Khagan refused until his troops erupted into open mutiny - incensed at their losses, they refused to mount another assault on the city.
Finally, concealing the fact that his own soldiers had nearly deposed him, Sulabi finally met Constantine beneath the walls, and the two Emperors signed a truce honoring the current status quo.
[Sorry that the last section is essentially a huge post wherein nothing happens. But it will have immense ramifications for the future of both the Bulgarian and Roman Empires down the line, both of whom are pretty exhausted by this slugfest for all of nothing. Constantinople in this timeline is much reduced from the version of it that exists at the same time OTL (no Hagia Sofia, for example, smaller population) but it's still the toughest fortress-city that I can think of, and the Roman bureaucracy is pretty good at coping with shortages, given that shortages have been the story of their life since Anatolia was depopulated/settled by Alans and Egypt was lost.]
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