The Rise of the White Huns

[Practical Lobster]

The Eastern Mediterranean

After the death of Basileus Heshana II in 683, he was succeeded by his son, Timotheos Heshana. Like his father, Timotheos had grown up in the luxurious palace of Hvarabad, tutored by both Coptic monks and the descendents of the Arab and Eftal warriors who had conquered Egypt. Unlike his father, however, all of his instruction was in a mixture of Greek and Coptic. According to the biographer Anathasios of Cyrene, he struggled with Eftal and would only learn Aramaic as a young man. At sixteen, he was betrothed and married to a woman of the Banu Shayban, one of the Christianized Arab tribes on the frontier and an important buffer against the growing power of the Ghatafan to the southeast and Akhsaman the Younger to the north.

Transplanted Arabs made up a not insignificant portion of the Egyptian military, especially after the conquest of Palestine. Having resided among the Roman population of Palestine for some time, they were largely Christian and largely Aramaic speaking. They retained their tribal affiliations and provided a useful auxiliary force with personal, tribal loyalties to the monarchy. A legacy of Syavush, the Heshanid line never quite forgot their historic paranoia. Hvarabad was still very much their city, stately, decadent, and very much separate from the bustle of Alexandria and Tamiathis. Their reliance on foreigners and their own small elite for military strength showed a waning but still present distrust of the Copts. Even as they assimilated in dress, speech, culture, and faith, they never stopped feeling themselves distinct from the people they ruled.

This does not seem to have been reciprocated by the Copts. Timotheos Heshana's mother was a Copt, and when he took the throne most of his chancellery would be populated by Copts. Whatever paranoia the royals felt, it was perhaps excessive. They had little to fear. Indeed, Egypt was entering into a sort of golden age. The treasures of the south and east flowed abundantly through their ports. As the era of the Mauri came to a close, Coptic traders took a greater and greater share of these goods north to the Anatolian cities, Italy, and Francia. Egypt and the Rhom Shahs had the only two major fleets in the eastern Mediterranean, and in 694, they would collaborate to put an end the pirate fleets holding Crete and Rhodes. The former was given a Coptic governor, a cousin-in-law of Heshana's, and the latter became a tributary of the Eftal, and an Eftal garrison was established on the island near the small town of Afantou.

The construction of a proper Eftal fleet marked a change in the power of the Rhom Shah. The islands of the Aegean, briefly independent of any power in the wake of the collapse of the Roman Empire, were brought to heel. Shah Disiapata's power was still loose and very feudal, but it was nevertheless growing quickly. A strategic marriage between his sister and the Alan Khan Chodainos solidified his northern borders, and after the death of Kormisosh in 677, he engineered it so the childless mercenary left his "Shahdom" to Disiapata.

As soon as this was discovered, the Nicomedians rebelled. Under a local patrician named Dioscoros, they intended to restore Roman rule in Constantinople and the Empire as a whole. Dioscoros played his hand cleverly, assuring his supporters that the Isidorians would assist them and that the other Roman cities would rise up behind them. But Disiapata struck quickly, riding north with his Eftal and Bulgarian forces before the Nicomedians could more than a few local towns to their cause - the only Roman city to join was Sardis. After a three week siege, Dioscoros and his compatriots were shown no mercy, and Sardis had its independence revoked. Disiapata assigned one of his companions the city and its hinterlands as a personal fief after short but vicious sack - a reminder that the Roman cities, though wealthy and economically powerful were alone far too weak to resist the Eftal.

After the defeat of the Nicomedians, Disiapata moved his capital once more - this time to Constantinople. Depopulated and thoroughly plundered, the costs of repairing the city would be high, but as a symbolic gesture it was effective. Practically speaking Ikonion would remain the heart of the kingdom, populated as it was by the majority of the Eftal in the Shahdom, and the seat of Avyaman, his heir apparent and by 690, co-Shah. However, by holding court in the Imperial Palace once more, even if the population of the city amounted to an Eftal garrison, a Sahu trading post, and perhaps thirty thousand Roman citizens, Disiapata was asserting a sort of continuation of the prestige and power of the Roman Empire. That he did so from a vast ruin undermined that message to a certain degree.

The renovations of Constantinople, undertaken on-and-off for roughly twenty years after 680 represented a major endeavor. Restoration of the walls and the Imperial Palace took precedence, followed by a series of fortifications along the first hill, linking to the sea walls. These constructions were expensive and time consuming, but they gave a certain sense of grandeur back to the Second Rome. A striking Buddhist temple was built, very much in the style of a Roman Basilica - except for the painted iconography of the Buddha across the roof, and the adjacent shrines to various Eftal and Sahu gods, which were in the springtime heavy with flowers. This construction, while meaningful to the large Sahu and Eftal trade community, and eventually to a decent number of the Bulgars and Slavs who migrated to the city, nevertheless earned the ire of the Christians of the former Roman Empire. The unbelievers had truly tarnished their city, where the Equal to the Apostles once ruled.

By 700, the population of the city had risen dramatically. Large portions were still in poor shape, but healthy trade was restored and those who lived there, a cosmopolitan mixture of many peoples, felt relatively safe behind the restored Land Walls. The city might have been a shadow of its former splendor, but it was growing once more.

Across the straits, the three Slavic Princedoms, Thrace, Thessaloniki, and Epirus, entered into an age of revival as well, free from Avar Hegemony. Coreligionists of their Greek population, the latter half of the 7th century and the early decades of the eighth saw increasing homogeny between the Slavic and Greek populations. Increased local trade between the diminished cities and their hinterlands slowly blended regional dialects and also the Slavic and Greek languages. Thessaloniki and Adrianople became bustling local capitals, and apart from sporadic Bulgar raids it was a time of relative peace. The Avars, distracted to their north, did little to threaten the safety of the Princes.

Furthermore, the Balkans became once more involved in trade on a large scale. Merchants from Ephesus and Alexandria sailed to harbors in Thessaloniki and Corinth, Heraclea and Arta. Those tribal leaders who had found themselves with large landholdings were able to trade minerals, timber, and agricultural products for the foreign luxuries which they were quickly developing a taste for. These societies were essentially feudal. Their urban areas were atrophied fortifications with central marketplaces. These landholders were lords capable of raising not insignificant tribal levies - a legacy of the Slavic raids of the previous century. They acknowledged central royal authority out of obligation, loose kinship bonds, and a desire for protection. In some ways this was not so different from the Rhom Shahdom across the water - except in general the Rhom Shahdom drew from a more sophisticated, urban, cultural heritage that the Slavs did not have access to, having destroyed their links to the Roman past more thoroughly and lacking the eastern influences that the Eftal had acquired.

Eastern Promise

Sotkhri Nyentsen ascended to the Imperial Throne of Bod in 675, amid much celebration. His father and grandfather had been brilliant leaders, the first as a unifier and the second as a conqueror. It was a difficult legacy to live up to, and Sotkhri Nyentsen was perhaps not the man for the job. By all accounts he was a beautiful and arrogant young man who shunned the advice of his councilors and the growing Tibetan monastic community. He had the turbulent manner of one born into incredible power - alternately mild and wrathful. Arbitrary, lustful, and dangerously cunning, he ensured the disgrace and exile of his two older brothers. Perhaps obviously, he was not well liked by the nobility, who had to live with him in Rhasu, or his wife, the Sogdian princess Roshana.

The young Emperor's energies had to be diverted. His councilors believed that An-hsi, the frontier was weak, and thus goaded him into organizing a military campaign against the Qi. The Governor-General of An-hsi, Wu Dan, had failed to train his soldiers to an acceptable standard. Many lacked adequate armor and weapons, and as such when the Bod army attacked the initial battles were massacres. Many walled cities fell, and the Bod came within striking distance of Chang'an itself before new armies could be levied to stem the tide. Uighur mercenaries were called upon in great numbers to counteract the superior Tibetan cavalry, well-armored and riding excellent Ferghanian horses.

The Qi dynasty, however, was resilient. Chang'an was too large to easily besiege, and well garrisoned. The campaign stalled and the Emperor, growing frustrated, delegated more and more to his general, Tritsu. Tritsu proved to be exceptionally competent. Though the Chinese armies were too numerous to wear down through attrition, he nevertheless bloodied them badly and forced the Qi Emperor to make an embarrassing peace. Many border cities were ceded, and a small annual tribute was arranged - ostensibly a gift to the western barbarians.

The Bod would go on to have more campaigns. Their energies would go into a conquest of Nanzhao (683-685) and raids into Assam (687-694). However, perhaps the greatest ramification of these wars was not the plunder and glory Sotkhri Nyentsen sought to attain, or the conquered peoples who contributed soldiers and tribute and solidified Tibetan power, but rather several anonymous bureaucrats captured in the first Bod-Qi war. These prisoners would turn out to have knowledge of papermaking techniques, techniques which would be seized upon by the ministers of the Tibetan court, but also further disseminated from there after a group of Sogdian merchants acquired the knowledge with a small bribe. By the early eighth century, paper could be found in Ayodhya and Samarkand, in Kapisa and Takasashila.

With age, Sotkhri would become more moderate. An Eftal historian and Buddhist missionary named Hravadata, who lived in Rhasu much of his adult life attributed this moderation to the influences of Roshana and the birth of several children. In truth however, Sotkhri may have merely became tired. His youth was spent in ceaseless activity, much of it for little gain. Delegating to his nobles suited him, and the structure of the Tibetan state, thanks to the labors of his ancestors, was strong enough to survive his inattention.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Alilat Triumphant

The Prophetess Fadia would die in 654, and, according to Saihist tradition it was not a tragedy but a miracle - an ascension to oneness with the God. With her passing the religion changed fundamentally. Without the one "pure center of revelation", as she was sometimes known, there was no central unity, no organized hierarchy of who should claim the mantle of her holy authority. She was by no means a sole prophet - others, including her husband Abdulilat, claimed to receive messages from Alilat during certain states of ecstatic meditation.

The conquests of Nu'maan ibn Mundhir had politically united the northern Hejaz under Saihism, but he was a legalist, a tribal patriarch in a very different mould from the mercantile clans of al-Ta'if. The fanaticism of his followers and his victories attested to the utility of the religion. Rightly, he claimed to the Commander of the Believers (Amir al-Muminin). In the south, in the city of the goddess, the local priesthood claimed doctrinal authority, and was led by Abdulilat. He and Fadia had been childless, but his relations, the influential and powerful Banu Thaqif were eager to ensure their own position in whatever structure emerged out of the death of the Prophetess. Both of these factions realized that if their community was to survive, surrounded as they were by unbelievers, compromise would be necessary.

Nu'maan ibn Mundhir was, more than just a military leader or a religious figure, a reformer. Part of what made his message appealing is that he brought to the mysticism of the Suwar a set of empowering legal and societal reforms. In the example of the Prophetess Fadia and the female priesthood of Alilat, he sought to elevate the status of women, end female infanticide and rape, and allow women the right to divorce by the simple affirmation "I divorce you." That he enacted these reforms with often strict and brutal commandments was merely a sign of the times. He mandated charity among the believers, taking Fadia's message of the equality of all souls to heart. However, as a tribal leader he did not make a clear break with his culture in many respects - he defined masculine virtue as heroic bravery in warfare, femininity as meditative closeness to the divine, and he saw slaves captured in war as incapable of being part of the community of believers.

It would be Nu'maan who shaped the practical side of the religion most strongly. At the Council of al-Ta'if, better known as the Council of the Partisans, the organization of the new faith was solidified. Nu'maan ibn Mundhir received important concessions. His formulation of the Suwar as a holy book oHHwas declared divinely chosen (and thus official). His position as a sort of first among equals, or Amir, was solidified, and his son Khalid married the daughter of the Thaqif patriarch, Hasan ibn Muttalib. In return, he conceded that he was a purely secular leader - divinely inspired, perhaps, but secular nevertheless. "I am not a Prophet, but a humble servant of the God and the Absolute" he told the assembled. Thereafter, the assembled tribal leaders pledged their loyalty to Nu'maan and the Banu Ghatafan.
Beyond merely resolving this dispute of authority, another important decision was made. It was declared incumbent upon the faithful to share their revelation. Missionaries would have to be sent forth. Every Saihist had an obligation to share the revelations of Fadia.

These revelations, now codified, began to become a coherent set of six steps, each building upon each other in pursuit of the Absolute. To fail in these steps was to find oneself far from the gods in the next life. Unlike the Dharmic religions one was not incarnated again into this world but rather into another one, the specifics of which were uncertain. Those who came close to oneness with the would be reborn close to gods and thus live in sensual bliss, while those who failed would exist far from the bliss of the gods, or alternately fall into oblivion depending on the magnitude of their sins. The steps were:

Abstaining from falsehood, dishonor, theft, and violence. (except when necessary in defense of the faith)
Giving charity and comfort to all.
Prayer and veneration to the gods and foremost among them Alilat.
Understanding of the Suwar.
Meditation to understand the Absolute.
Attain oneness with the Absolute. (Paradise)

Even those who accomplished even a few of these steps would not be so far from the abode of the Gods. Those who accomplished all were held as figures of great holiness, and elevated by the community to the status of "saints" - a concept adopted relatively later, certainly after the life of Fadia. Figures such as Nu'maan would eventually receive this honor.

Even as the Saihists consolidated, the Hadhramut Kingdom to the south continued to unravel. The Malik, Qahtan ibn Amar (651-673) had little authority outside of Shabwa. Certain cities, such as the Christian community of Najran felt the need to express autonomy as Indian ideas and religions such as Buddhism and Jainism drew increasingly larger numbers of devotees. However, as they did so they became easy prey for the Saihists, who struck south with increasing impunity. Khalid ibn Nu'maan would conquer Najran in 668, and finally, in what was a crushing blow to the Hadhrami spice trade, Sana'a in 672. Shortly thereafter, Qahtan would be overthrown, replaced by his son Imru, who attempted to counteract the southwards spread of the now unified community of the believers.

The impetus for the Saihist attacks is unclear, but can possibly be traced to the Hadhrami slowly orienting their trade once more towards maritime activity. As their caravans became less profitable and less frequent, the Saihists were forced to go to war to gain plunder. Once they realized the weakness and decentralization of the Hadhramut they would capitalize on these raids.

The Hadhrami military at this point was significantly atrophied. It had never been exceptionally powerful - the mercantile kings of South Arabia relied on control over water supplies, tariffs, and the spice production to retain their dominance. They were not significantly militaristic, and this explains the appeal of nonviolent creeds such as Buddhism and Jainism among the South Arabians. Where the latter Eftal and Turks always had to reconcile their faith and the endemic warfare in which they participated, it was easier for the urban, "civilized" Hadhrami to do so. Saihism by contrast allowed far more justifications for war and plunder, and the people of Hejaz had always been more warlike, needing to defend themselves against the Bedouin of the interior.

As such, the eventual fall of the Hadhrami was not unsurprising. Khalid finally conquered them in 687, placing a believer, a member of the Thaqif named Mansur ibn Ali on the throne. However, over time this new dominion would be loose. So long as the Malik sent tribute and a portion of the trade north, he was allowed to handle his affairs as he chose. While the Malik did promote the Saihist faith, he did not persecute others for their own beliefs, seeing them as merely on alternative paths to righteousness. As such, the Hadhramut maintained their relative monopoly on trade in southern Arabia.

The Saihists spread north as well. The Christian tribes of the Tayy, under al-Harith ibn Yusuf, fought hard to avoid the same fate as their southern coreligionists of languishing under a "pagan" king. Fortunately, they were numerous and capable of mobilizing a large population and many federate allies to war. The Saihist penetration northwards was thus continually thwarted. While the Tayy were not urban, and indeed were rather poor, lacking any major trade routes, they nevertheless were able to style themselves as defenders of Christendom, and cultivate a rough alliance with the Heshanids, despite being Nestorian.

As such, the particular details of Saihism and the Suwar never reached the Eftal world or the Mediterranean in any great numbers. Sporadic missionaries found themselves rebuffed, but there was no mass transmission of ideas. Saihism remained a primarily Arab phenomenon, and even within the peninsula limited in scope to some degree.

Two Years of Anarchy and Betrayal - the end of the Mahadevist moment - rise of the new empire

After the battle, when the dead were burned or left for the birds of the air, Tengin Shah and his picked retainers crossed the sweeping scrubland plains south of Yazd to meet with the mercenary captains - especially the so-called Shah Sefandiyar. While Tengin might have felt some lingering caution and uncertainty about the results of the battle, he could not help but feel the elation of a clear victory. This was his triumph. These mercenaries would not take that credit from him.

When he arrived at the meeting-place, two mornings after the battle, he could not have been more baffled by the claims of the man who had named himself the leader the mercenaries - Sefandiyar of Komis, the man who would be Shah. Sefandiyar claimed to be the descendant of the first Shah Akhshunwar, the legendary conqueror of Iran himself. Tengin naturally was skeptical. The Persian chronicler Farrokh claims that he derisively replied that "every horse-thief from Edessa to Kabul" claimed ancestry from Akhshunwar. Sefandiyar, quick-witted, replied that Heshana himself began his career as a horse-thief, and ultimately became a great conqueror. He offered to work with Tengin - together they could carve out an empire for themselves before the Mahadevists had a chance to recover.

Tengin, unimpressed, turned and left. Why should he share the spoils of the Mahadevist Empire? Especially with a cabal of men who had proven themselves untrustworthy by their very actions in the previous battle? By the time he reached his own camp, Sefandiyar's army had broken camp and was riding north. Meanwhile, Husrava's column was trailing south, and Tengin had dispatched Shah Vinayaditya, the leader of the Kidarite, or Red Eftal, to pursue and harass the retreating army. An accomplished commander in his own right, and a masterful leader of horse, Vinayaditya would ultimately catch Husrava near Belabad. The abortive battle would see thousands of the "Green Banners" captured and Husrava himself, badly wounded and with a spreading infection, taken into the custody of the Shah.

Rather than allow any among them to become martyrs, Vinayaditya ordered the sickly Shahanshah paraded past a line of the captured Green Banner soldiers. When he reached the end of his parade, he was beaten savagely before being returned to a cage. Subsequently, each one of the captive Mahadevists was blinded except for one in a hundred, who was given the responsibility of leading his comrades. When the self-proclaimed Saosyant passed away of his infection three days later, the news was related to every soldier in the army and they were sent off back towards Susa with a bare minimum of provisions.

These actions broke the will of the Mahadevists. Cities began to surrender en masse, particularly in Pars, where a large proportion of the population were not believers in any case. The Zoroastrians loudly denounced Husrava as false, and the Mahadevists themselves begged for leniency and generally received it. With subsequent years, an anti-messianic faction within the Mahadevists would gain prominence, and they would be relegated to an influential but nevertheless fringe sect within the Middle East.

But for now, Vinayaditya had larger problems than religious factionalism. With the Mahadevists subdued, it was his forces that effectively controlled the core of their short-lived empire. Tengin Shah, racing to catch up, had already been bled badly in battle. Furthermore, he was suffering mass desertions: the Asvha had left to defend their own homelands, leaving him leading mostly his own Turkic troops, which were relatively few in number. When he finally met up with Vinayaditya roughly a week after Belabad, Vinayaditya organized a grand banquet to celebrate their victory. He cheerfully announced to Tengin that together, they had restored the Eftal Shahdom. He proposed a marriage between Tengin and his daughter, that might seal their alliance. Tengin, in good spirits and feeling triumphant in spite of his personal setbacks, agreed. That night, however, as Tengin's soldiers became drunk, a contingent of the Eftal who had remained sober fell on them and began a vicious, one-sided massacre.

Tengin himself fled, but most of his retainers were captured or killed, sacrificing their lives to allow him to escape Vinayaditya's royal tent. He stumbled, wounded, through the avenues of his camp. Because he was not in his distinctive armor but rather casually dressed, he escaped notice for some time. He witnessed the annihilation of his army and Vinayaditya's triumph and abandoning all hope, he took his own life.

Vinayaditya, however, had little time to enjoy the spoils of war. Sefandiyar was carving out a kingdom for himself around the ancient city of Ahmatan in the north. Furthermore, word had finally reached him that Syarzur was in open rebellion, led by Mihiraban Oadhya. If he had acted quickly, he might have nipped both threats in the bud, but after arriving in Susa, the Shah of the Red Eftal fell into a deep depression. He was wracked by guilt over his actions, and he did not ride against either of the pretenders. Mihiraban, having gained the loyalty of Syrazur and an alliance with Toramana of Syria, swept south. He captured Tesifon in the summer of 686, and from there grew only more bold. The subsequent year, Mihiraban would make a secret pact with Sulukichor, granting him and his men large tracts of Mahadevist-owned land in the south in exchange for his allegiance, and critically, his betrayal of Sefandiyar.

The new Syarzuri army, led by Mihiraban struck directly at Ahmatan, and when Sefandiyar met them, the betrayal happened just as planned. Sulukichor, just as at Yazd, fell back rather than engaging, allowing a contingent of Toramana's Syrian cavalry to flank Sefandiyar and put his army to rout. By the year's end, Ahmatan had been brought under the Syarzuri yoke. Perhaps wisely, Mihiraban made no further use of the Turkic mercenaries, preferring to keep them on as a garrison unit only - where Sulukichor could not betray him at a critical moment as he had done to both his former employers.

With this, Vinayaditya was finally spurred into action. He rode west to Kaskar, from where he planned to strike at Tesifon, retaking the ruined city which he could use as a base of operations from which to attack Syarzur and regain the initiative. However, Tormana was waiting for him with some ten thousand men. Vinayaditya lost his nerve and attempted to retreat, but realized that he would need to cross the rain-swollen Tigris, now with an enemy at his back. He ordered his forces to scatter, believing more of them would be preserved that way, but ultimately it merely allowed the Syrians to single out the royal companions and target them in isolation from the main body of his troops.

Vinayaditya's body was never recovered. It is believed he drowned in the Tigris, and while many of his troops escaped, the Red Eftal would flee back to Kerman, their ambitions thwarted. In 688, Mihiraban was crowned Shah in Susa, as sole ruler of a much diminished Eftal Empire.

Mihiraban was left with a problem no different from that faced by the Mahadevists, but unlike the Mahadevists he was able to utilize the literate Christian and Buddhist populations of his empire in governance. Monks were called upon to train the latest generation of Imperial bureaucrats, and for once a sense of order was restored. Relative peace prevailed from Constantinople to Tokharestan.

Rather than the old Satrapal system, Mihiraban divided the provinces into many smaller territories, typically centered around a single urban area or a cluster of towns. These were given as hereditary fiefs to various aristocrats who had served with him, typically from prominent Iranian Eftal clans. Known as Vayan,(Lords), each Vaya was responsible for raising troops in times of war, providing taxes to the central government, and maintaining order in his territories, being allowed in exchange a reasonable degree of autonomy in how they managed their fiefs. Above these local lords in rank was a higher layer of nobility - the Padivayan, whose dominions did not overlap with the Vaya, but were granted more important border territories, where they effectively served as Marquisates with an even greater degree of autonomy.

The next five years were ones of consolidation. The Mahadevist priesthood was lucky to escape at all the purges visited upon them - the faith was in many locations driven underground, with many of its practitioners beginning to give devotion to other Indian or Eftal gods so as to appear less sectarian. Those fringe sects which claimed that Husrava would be reborn were massacred. Others would subsequently claim to be Zoroastrian, a religion which itself would never quite recover from the trauma of the "false Saosyant" - but it would largely escape persecution and as such would simply slowly become a minority faith in the face of the prevalent synthesis of dharmic and Eftal beliefs.

In 694, Shah Khalinga would die. He had reached a great age and would remembered fondly by those who chronicled his reign. However, he left an unclear succession - having never had the heart to do away with his co-Shah, now a thirty-year old man named Freduna. His chosen heir, Khauwashta, had the support of the majority, being middle-aged and quite capable himself, but when Freduna refused to step down as Shah and retire to a spacious estate, tensions flared - Mihiraban chose to intervene. Knowing Freduna had few other options, and might well die if push came to shove against Khauwashta, the Shah offered Freduna his late father's satrapy (a position which would effectively make him the sole Satrap in the new Eftal Empire) and promised to deal with Khauwashta. As his options evaporated and his companions began to abandon him, Freduna took the deal.

The subsequent invasion would be rather hard-fought. Gilan had many strong fortresses and though Khauwashta could not bring a great army against Mihiraban, the war would take four years of on-and-off sieges and counter-sieges before finally Khauwashta himself accepted terms, being reduced to the rank of Padivaya.

While the Oadyan Empire certainly claimed to be inheritors of the Eftal legacy, in truth they should rightly be regarded as something distinct. Their court culture resembled more strongly the provincial culture of Syarzur than the high culture of the old Eftal Royals. The elite, and almost all of the new lords were to some degree Buddhist or pagans deeply influenced by Buddhist teachings - unlike the multitude of religions among their predecessors. All spoke the same Syarzuri dialect and most were at least distantly bound together by blood. A much greater portion of their population, especially within the low echelons of the military class, was Turkic and identified as such. Nomadism and pastoralism, particularly in the east, were much more pervasive.

The Oadyan furthermore moved the capital to Ahmatan [Hamadan, or Ecbatana] the old Sassanid summer residence, it was renovated and new temples and palaces were built to accommodate the royal clan. A smaller city than Susa (which remained to a large degree the administrative center) Ahmatan became a new Piandjikent. Centrally located in comparison, it reflected the fact that threats to the new Empire could come from essentially any direction - the roaming tribes of the East, the more settled Eftal states of the west, or the patchwork of Alan and Turkic warlords who ruled in Armenia.

 

[Practical Lobster]

The Succession of Kings - Troubled States in the Christian West

The Frankish Kingdom would find it hard to reunify after its collapse in 636. The trend within the petty kingdoms that emerged in its aftermath was one of centralization, but this merely established local centers - Paris, Aachen, Bordeaux, Lyon - which became pre-eminent. This was a double edged sword - benefits included it making traditional Frankish succession wars relatively brief and more easily settled, and making vassals more easily controlled, but on the other hand it also ensured each local ruler had a strong base of power and thus prevented any easy reunification of the Kingdom.

Strong kings in Nuestria and Austrasia, such as the Nuestrian King Chlothar II (654-663) and his Austrasian contemporary Reginald of Tournai (643-661) would find their ambitions to reconquer the broader Merovingian empire thwarted time and again. Weaker kings, such as those of Aquitaine and Burgundy, would accordingly find their dominions chipped away. Province and Narbo were lost, to the Isidorians and Visigoths respectively. In Aquitaine in particular the Gallo-Roman nobility, still predominant in many places, was disloyal at best or outright conspiring with the Isidorian Rector of Provence at worst.

It would be the efforts of one man which would provide the best hope for the reunification of the Frankish Empire. The capable and crafty Mayor Bernard of Herstal was born in 671 to the previous Mayor of the Palace, Arnulf. By 694, he would ascend to his father's position after Pepin's untimely death in a hunting accident, advising the Austrasian King Theoderic III (668-705) and later his successor, Childeric III. Beginning with Theoderic, he was able to take advantage of the Nuestrian succession crisis after the death of Reginald of Tournai's feeble and sickly son. Proposing a unification of the two realms, he persuaded several prominent nobles to support Theoderic's claim on Nuestria - uniting the twin crowns in 700.

However, this would not be sufficient to ensure the longevity of the newly forged united realm. Theoderic had two sons, Childeric and Clothair, and despite Bernard's arguments and pleading, he refused to give a lesser portion of the inheritance to Clothair, the younger, insisting that Frankish tradition and Salic law be upheld and nearly dismissing Bernard from his post for his impertinence. As such at Theoderic's death, Neustria passed to Clothair, and thus effectively into the hands of a coalition of Frankish nobles who sought to preserve their power through the disunity of the realm. Clothair was bound to powerful aristocrats such as the Doux of Soissons, whose family he married into.

Childeric's reign was preoccupied with the Saxons, who, pressed by the Slavs to their east, in turn often sought to cross into the fertile Rhineland. The Franks of Austrasia were nevertheless able to mobilize well-equipped, disciplined retainers and push back these tentative attempts. While Childeric was able to repulse the Saxons with relative ease, it ensured that Bernard's scheming would be for naught - he would not be able to arrange any additional diplomatic coups as significant as momentarily uniting the two greatest of the Frankish Kingdoms. Bernard was forced to resort to military force - attempting to overthrow Clothair in 709 without success, his campaign forced to turn back to deal with a Saxon raid on the city of Koln.

The latter half of the 7th century and the early years of the 8th thus passed with few lasting developments. The powerful landholding nobility was able to ensure that titles and rank remained roughly hereditary, and in return they provided the Franks their services in war. While this era is often seen as one of the consolidation of the various kingdoms, regional identities were still shaky at best - each group of local landholders simply preferred a local king. Against this inertia no unifying force prevailed. The Franks faced no existential threat which might have compelled unification, and as such they continued their internecine squabbles.

The closest to an existential threat was the Slavs, and to call them such is a gross overestimation of their capabilities. Yes, Hill-fort settlements and shrine-towns were blossoming across much of what earlier generations might have called Germania, it was true. But this growth was what ensured that they would make little forwards progress. Conquest was less important to the typical West Slavic chieftain of the era than raiding, and while they proved a potent threat to the Bavarians, Thuringians, and others, they were incapable of overrunning the early castles and forts of these regions and establishing permanent dominion.

The one exception to this rule was the Pyritzan Tribe, who fled into the region the Romans called Noricum to escape raids by the the growing confederacy of the Polans. They overrun the Barvarian and Avar settlements there and made the mountainous, easily defensible terrain there their home. The Pyritzans would be unique for their direct contact with the Isidorian Empire. The chief of the Pyritzans, recorded as the Dravan-Knias Drahomir had received emissaries and missionaries from Florentia and Rome by 710. While the missionaries were rebuffed, an avenue for trade between the Roman and West Slavic worlds was established.

The Emperor and the Magister

Imperator Sergius Constantinus would pass away in 687 at the age of 68. On his deathbed, he could look back on a long career, most of it spent at war, dramatically improving the fortunes and power of the Isidorians. He had every reason to be confident these successes would continue, except for the fact that Valerian Constantine, his son, was however, only twelve years of age. The Isidorians, unlike their some of the Roman predecessors, viewed dynasty as more important than the state. There could be no doubt that Valerian deserved the throne, and indeed since the age of eleven he had been co-Emperor. However, the Isidorians, much as they prized family, had a small one. Sergius was an only child, and Valerian was one as well, not to mention small for his age and sickly. He had wide, innocent eyes and lacked the defined, regal features of his parents.

But there were no other imperial candidates worth the consideration. Sergius' extended family were a host of distant cousins, many of them patricians who had fallen victim to his purges or military officers of middling rank. Valerian would have to do. But Sergius was not so confident as to trust that his generals would ensure his legacy. His Magister Militum, Sebastianus, was demoted from his position and later found strangled in his bath-tub, ostensibly by his mistress. Sebastianus' second-in-command, Anatolius, was given the new title of Regent, and allowed to choose the new Magister Militum himself. Sergius thus died imagining that he had done all he could to secure the new state for his dynasty.

In a sense, he had. Anatolius had little desire to take the throne directly - he judged that such a situation would lead to popular anarchy. It was better for him, much better, to enjoy near-absolute power for at least the next four years or so - and quite possibly beyond that. Anatolius was something of a paranoid man - he kept his generals busy with drills and plans of invading Sicily or the Balkans that never fully reached fruition. In 690, he oversaw the clearing of several pirate havens along the Adriatic coast, earning the wrath of local Avar chieftains who had a mutually beneficial relationship with the havens.

This low-scale warfare, if nothing else, helped to train and justify Anatolius' expansion of the Isidorian Fleet. As the Mauri waned, having a strong naval presence allowed the Romans to increase their own position at the bargaining table. However, in 692, Anatolius would step down as Regent, and the Emperor would take command. He had not grown into an impressive adult - indecisive and charmless among his advisors, Anatolius was capable of continuing to dominate the reigns of state as "Praeses of Rome" a position with broad authority, effectively outside of the traditional hierarchy of command. Anatolius would cultivate a close relationship with the Papacy as well, giving him both secular and religious power over the Isidorian state.

In this new position, Anatolius would raise a loyal cadre of officers around him. Those commanders who might have posed a threat found themselves surrounded by moles and disloyal catspaws. The only organization which he could not penetrate was the Xasari Guardsmen, the foreign-born bodyguard of horsemen which under Sergius had been a potent military force, and under Valerian played a largely ceremonial role. As outsiders from the political establishment, Anatolius lacked a firm understanding of how to control them. They had a certain xenophobic camaraderie which he could not penetrate with bribes or promises, and, naturally fearing what he could not control, he rarely visited Florentia - limiting his own power out of a worry that the Xasari might kill him in his sleep. However, the Magister Militum was in his pocket, and with that he could issue orders in the young Emperor's name. This would prove critical to the future success of the Romans.

In 702, King Constans of the Mauri appealed to the Papacy for aid. It was a decision not lightly taken. The Miknasa and Hawwara tribes were pushing north along the coastline, cutting the Mauri off from their Tripolitanian protectorates, and pressing hard into Byzacena, one of the few remaining breadbaskets of the Mauri Empire. After the battle of Thysdrus, (701) the Mauri lords were unwilling to take to the field. The raids contributed to a brutal famine, one of the worst in decades. The Mauri of Carthage were forced to import food from Egypt while mere miles away their Berber foes feasted.

Constans, unwilling to lose everything, hoped to preserve him own position, even if it was as some vassal-king of the Roman Emperor. His ambassador in Rome appealed to a common Roman and Christian heritage, and begged for assistance against the Berbers. "Lest we become a new Constantinople, and Carthage's Churches turned to black temples to heathen idols." Constans knew full well that such a move was effectively conceding his crown to the Emperor in Florentia, but he felt there was little other option. The Mauri King's ambassador met with Anatolius as well, and seems to have made an impression. Even before the Papacy made any pronouncement, Roman soldiers were already on the move. However, Anatolius' terms were harsh. The fabulously wealthy Berber Doux of Sicily, lost his position to one of Anatolius' nephews. Two years later, the former Doux would see much of his vast fortune confiscated on trumped-up charges and would be forced to flee into exile.

Some twenty thousand Roman soldiers landed in Carthage in 704, under the command of a general named Julius Paulus, a lackey of Anatolius. However, even in the initial skirmishes the Romans found themselves outmatched. The Berbers fought in lightly-equipped, fluid formations. They refused to be pinned down or subjected to a charge of the heavily armored Roman cavalry. While the Romans had fought such foes before, most notably the Avars, the rough terrain into which the Berbers retreated favored them to a degree that the Romans were unprepared for. Eventually, the Romans were forced to spread their army across Byzacena, a strategy which saw measured success but limited their ability to go on the offensive.

Furthermore, Constans was continually chafing under new requirements coming from Florentia. A magistrate was permanently posted in Carthage to oversee his "client kingdom" and Roman garrisons had been shipped to Sardinia, Corsica and the Baleares. He was acutely conscious that he lacked the manpower even to eject the Romans from North Africa. When famine loomed for the second year in the row, his budget shortfalls (exacerbated by the tribute demanded by the Emperor) became acute. He was forced to borrow heavily from his own merchants. One of his few remaining generals of any caliber, Amesianus [Amezyan], having realized that Constans had effectively betrayed the Mauri Kingdom, began to plot against the client king. Amesianus was one of the old Mauri aristocracy. A Christian, he did not regard himself, as many of the urban population did, as Roman. To him, and many of the remaining Mauri warriors, the Romans were invaders just as much as the Berbers. As such, this faction ignored the pragmatic considerations and launched a coup in 706 while most of the Roman army was away on campaign in the south.

Constans was murdered in the coup and the Roman soldiers within Hippo Regius were taken into custody. Acting before word of his rebellion could spread, Amesianus marched on Carthage and the city opened its gates to him. His soldiers rushed to the harbor and fell on the Romans there, slaughtering the unprepared sailors. Most of the fleet stationed in Carthage was seized, but the Roman garrison and magistrate held out in the city's fortified barracks, distracting the Mauri efforts and giving a few ships time to escape and spread word of the rebellion.

When the news reached Julius Paulus, he pulled back out of Byzacena and fell back to Hadrumentum. He would from there ship back to Rome, along with his army. While the Mauri had few forces to resist him, Anatolius had become nervous at the prospect of facing both the Berbers and the African Mauri. The Roman expedition would return home in many respects a costly failure. Securing Sicily and the other islands might well have been accomplished without the vast expenditure of manpower to try to rescue a failing state.

As the Berber vultures circled the corpse of the Mauri state, the tenuous trade connections between the European and West African worlds would become ever more attenuated. It had been the Mauri who had incentivized the limited trans-Saharan networks. Without them, the already difficult trade became less profitable. The new Berbers lacked access to the necessary markets and lacked the centralization to keep the networks safe. Economically they were far closer to mere subsistence, and were as likely to raid caravans as to sponsor them.

The Growth of West Africa

[note: I often use words like "Sahel" and whatnot to provide context. Obviously in this timeline nobody would use an Arabic word to describe the savannah between the Sahara and the "forest zone" but it helps I think, to ground the timeline. Otherwise I'd be trying to create an authentic Mandé word for everything, confusing you and diverting me from the purpose of what I'm writing.]

When the Savahilan explorer and missionary Bhadraksha of Vayubata came to the hill-forts and thatched houses of the early Rutara-Ganda civilization, his memoirs record his irritation with the peoples he encountered very clearly. "These people lack nothing that we possess save the knowledge and skill to build great things... furthermore, [the clans] are in a land of teeming abundance, with many cattle and good tools, and yet they are few in number indeed. I cannot reconcile these truths." he mused, frustrated. His travelogues are informed by an abiding sense of disappointment - he spent his life searching for the great kingdoms of the west, spoken of in rumors distorted and changed over the course of their transmission across a continent.

Were he to find the places he sought, where the earliest native states were growing and evolving, he would have had to travel far indeed, far further than he might have imagined. The Rutara-Ganda of his time were newcomers, settlers whose mastery of iron and their land was still rudimentary at best. Furthermore, their agricultural package had not yet been enhanced by the introduction of Eurasian crops. Luxury agricultural crops, such as African Tea, had not yet taken root either, leaving them isolated from the broader network of trade that had begun to benefit the Cushite tribes of the coast. It should accordingly be little shock that an explorer like Bhadraksha would see advanced civilization as an eastern phenomenon working its way west slowly and haltingly. The west to him was an increasingly wild, unhealthy, disease-ridden affair.

However, in the west, across the great savannah and dense forests that stretched from the Atlantic to the Chad basin, states were developing in relative isolation from the rest of the world, giving birth to their own, distinctly African civilization. In 600, the peoples of West Africa had founded many urban settlements and were interlinked by trade and commerce. Settled civilization had existed for millennia, based around the domestication of sorghum and millet. Ironworking as well had been known for perhaps a thousand years.

When we speak of the rise of West African civilization then, we must keep in mind this legacy. The Mandé speaking peoples of the Sahel were numerous and spread across a large region. While some historiography attributes to the Berber (specifically Tuareg) peoples a decisive role in the foundation of the first true "states" in the Sahel, it is also entirely possible to see these states as a natural outcome of growing population sizes and increasing urbanization - as urban growth reached a critical mass, it was perhaps inevitable that certain cities should surpass others and grow in power. While certainly Taureg raids (exacerbated as desertification increased) played some role in the trend towards unification, they should not be considered the sole cause for unification.

The role of the army was critical, in allowing early states such as Ghana and Kanem to establish themselves. With military force, the cities of the savannah could subdue one another. Accordingly some of the most privileged positions in these societies were those who supported the military apparatus - horse-breeders and blacksmiths. Beyond brute force, the kings of cities such as Ghana and Kaw-Kaw (Gao) cloaked themselves in elaborate ceremonial dress and expected the ritual veneration of their subjects. With this divine legitimacy they set themselves apart from the lesser kings and potentates they had conquered. The third pillar of these early states was the economy - in Ghana, the mining of gold and salt was controlled entirely by the state. In the east, the Zaghawa dynasty of Kanem, taxed their trade with the Makurians, collecting tolls from all the customary posts for merchants on the border of their territory.

Ghana was the pre-eminient state of West Africa. Founded as a city-state by the Soninike people, it expanded to control the broader country of the Mandé, between the Senegal and Niger rivers. With a stranglehold on river-traffic and an advanced, semi-military apparatus based around a semi-professional caste of soldiers, its hegemony was far from loose. However, as trade from the north sputtered in the face of the decline of the Mauri state, it retained something of an inward focus. Much like a sort of African equivalent of China, the Ghanan Kings found the north impenetrable and dominated by nomads, and the south densely forested and equally impenetrable. (Although in the case of the Ghana, it was that their famous cavalry were stymied by the forests and biting insects of the south.)



However, trade could easily penetrate such barriers. As West Africa became more interlinked, one of the great trade partners of the Ghanans were the many peoples who developed a mound-building civilization around the Niger region, which, owing to geography was incapable of unifying beyond the level of city-states. These walled cities functioned according to a primitive form of democracy, where the men ceremonially elected a ruler, or Ozo, who in turn was invested with power and by the wandering priestly class. These civilizations tended to face few external threats and enjoyed some level of homogeneity. Nevertheless they based their identities not on large groups and kingdoms, as the Mandé did to a certain degree, but on locality and tribal affiliation.

It was a densely populated and fertile region, the "second center" of West African civilization. Unlike many of the other coastal peoples, such as those of the Gold Coast, large population densities allowed manufacturing to take off and a vibrant material culture to provide many opportunities for trade. While there were scattered regional capitals and commercial centers across the forest zone, it was around the Niger that a truly interwoven network of regional cities developed and competed for pre-eminence.

To the west were a similar but distinct people - the Yoruba, organized in a single kingdom based around the town of Ife. While they borrowed much of their patterns of social organization and heavy stratification from the Niger cities, owing to geography they maintained a common language and cultural identity. Ife was a ceremonial center for divine kingship and the worship of a common pantheon of gods - as such it exercised a rough political hegemony over its surroundings. The Yoruba built sophisticated walled cities and created beautiful art. Their legacy would create a template for later kingdoms within the forest zone.

These civilizations developed in relative isolation from the Eurasian trade network. As Europe, Asia, and the East of their continent maintained relatively constant contact and a steady stream of goods, people, and ideas, they were left out. Accordingly they would develop a uniquely African culture, one rather dimly aware of the world beyond the Sahara. While the educated elite Kanem and Ghana might have had some notion of what lay beyond, a notion expanded intermittently by Taureg merchants and the network of oases and waystations which connected Kanem to Nubia, generally they saw little to gain in contact with the world across the ocean and the desert.

[Despite this historical isolation, I intend that West Africa will nevertheless have a major role to play in world history going forwards. I invite speculation on that topic.

And any other topic. Questions, comments? This post took a lot of detailed research, but I might have still gotten some things wrong - especially with the Franks, who I don't know much at all about.]

 

[Practical Lobster]

Subcontinental Revolutions

If one element defined the collapse of the Maukhani, it was the persistence of state officials. The bureaucracy, standing to some degree outside of caste or perhaps as a caste all its own, did not simply dissolve with the fall of the Empire - in many ways there was simply nowhere for it to go. Even the newly-arisen rivals of the Maukhani, the Andhra and the Pallava, employed similar bureaucracies and professional guild armies. The bureaucratic class would play a critical role in helping to preserve a sense of regional unity that went beyond the local community. The vishyapatis and their legions of local magistrates and administrators would simply choose new masters - the sangha guilds. The village of the sangha/ayat was not a self-sufficient entity but part of a regional network. Regional specialization, coupled local guilds seeking to maximize production (and thus profit) saw economic growth in the villages which translated to the capacity to support ever larger urban populations.

Like the bureaucracy, numerous local dynasties survived the collapse as well - but as the Maukhani had spent most of their history undermining the trend of emergent monarchism, these dynasties were essentially powerless. Early in the eighth century, these otherwise feeble dynasties often attempted to utilize the professional soldiers left over in the wake of the dissolution of Maukhani authority to reassert their antique rights. In some localized cases, this worked, but generally the soldiers were not swayed by the promise of enormous, hypothetical land grants. The professional and guild soldiers were as much part of the Imperial system as the bureaucrats. They were accustomed to ample payment and a generally comfortable lifestyle in peacetime, and overthrowing the system which provided that appealed to them less than its continuance.

As such, many of these dynasties simply ceased to exist. The new Indian polities had no need for the old feudal dynasts whose sole claim to legitimacy was based in the defunct imperial system. What replaced them was a complex system. The Sangha, or guilds, of local cities formed associations and councils, often called the Ayat. These Ayat were essentially legislative bodies responsible for the governance of a city-state. It was from among their number that the new Rajas were chosen. The Rajas were typically the head of the bureaucracy, or a powerful military guild leader, and were responsible for day-to-day governance. Generally they ruled for life, although it was possible that they might be overthrown by a coalition of various guilds, especially if the military faction turned against them.

Military guilds retained their position of social predominance. Their necessity to the function of the state, especially in the early era of the collapse, ensured that they would have significant power in the "constitutions" of most of these early states. This power ranged from significant representation in the Ayat to outright rule through a Raja chosen from among their ranks. It was the existence of military guilds which allowed the rough leagues of cities to become early states, by consolidating and expanding their territory.

Tribal groups which had long enjoyed their unmolested privileges to exist on the fringes of Indian civilization became the first target of these nascent states. Under the Maukhani these groups had traditionally provided young men as soldiers and otherwise been left alone to practice rural subsistence agriculture. The new order, however, lacking the vast resources of a universal empire, was forced to appropriate their lands. While these tribes were often numerous outside of the most developed areas, they were unable to respond to the full power of the guilds being turned against them. Eventually, these tribal groups would find few options remained to them in the rural hinterlands. Many of the displaced would slowly find their way to the cities, further swelling their populations.

The story of the eighth century in India is perhaps most aptly defined as one of agrarian and social revolution. Subsistence agriculture was on the decline as farming became an increasingly guild driven affair based on internal export and surplus from profit. As farming became more organized, efficiency skyrocketed. Guilds sought to maximize agricultural produce both for profit and to jockey for position and favors within their state. Within the context of these agricultural guilds, what profits and benefits they gained were distributed in a shockingly egalitarian manner - profits were reinvested or distributed by popular consensus. However, it should be noted that these rural communities typically had little say in the broader affairs of the state and furthermore that hierarchies were still deeply prevalent, even in Buddhist areas.

The Sangha system would reach far beyond the old Maukhani. In south India, similar structures became increasingly popular. Tamil monarchs sought to emulate the centralization and organization that empowered their northern neighbors, while retaining their traditional privileges. They were often successful to a certain degree, owing to the prevalence of mercantile cities where Sangha-style governance was already prevalent. Curiously, the system seems to have evolved spontaneously and independently in Southeast Asia. Trade based city-states such as Srivijaya in Sumatra and Indranokura along the banks of the Mekong seem to have worked along similar principles, forming hegemonic semi-republican empires.

However, in India, the period of local city-states as the highest level of organization ended rapidly. By 730, political unification began en masse. Strong cities were able to exert their influence over weaker ones. "Kingdoms" would begin to form around powerful central cities, and conquests became more common. These new dominions typically bore the name of their founding city or region, and in a shocking break from the past are typically identified by such rather than by their dynastic name. In time, dynastic names would come into more prominent use in some regions, particularly those where some continuity of dynasty existed.

[Here is a map of the various cities and larger confederations around the period of 720-730. I'm not good at mapmaking so apologies if anything is blatantly wrong. Apologies also for the lack of concrete borders - that was a combination of me not being sure if defined borders made sense and also not knowing really where to put them. I hope this shows the degree to which things have fractured along regional lines.

I'm also curious what people think about the post. India is continuing to spiral off rather dramatically from OTL. The next post will focus on the Sahu and the Eftal, bringing them up to roughly 720 as well on the timeline. Is there anything people want me to focus on going forwards?]

 

[Practical Lobster]

The Khirichan

By the eighth century, the Sahu Shahdom had lost many of the traits which had allowed them to dominate the western steppes in the first place. The very social changes which would ensure the long term survival of their ethnic group had damned their state. The transition towards sedentary urbanism and export trade distinguished them from so many of their fellow nomadic peoples - and yet it also left them fundamentally vulnerable. Apart from the slavers and bandits in the west, who remained warlike out of necessity and practicality, the martial edge of the Sahu people was on the decline. Their retainers were more accustomed to managerial roles than warfare, and only the more traditionalist of the nobility decried this situation, blaming it on the pacifism of Buddhism or the decadence that wealth brought. Attempts by the monarchy to rectify this situation through the hiring of Turkish mercenaries proved costly and too little too late.

In the summer of 695, Shah Vashtawar II of the Xasar-Sahu was defeated in a major battle by Khagan Ozmis of the Khirichan Turks. For the first time, the Turks would cross in numbers over the Rav [Volga] rivers. They would lay siege to Apaxauda and obtain its submission. Vashtawar would become a tributary. The Sahu, many tribes of whom were entirely sedentary by this point, folded with remarkable swiftness. Those were had retained a larger portion of their nomadic origins fled westward, but most would eventually be incorporated into the Khirichan confederacy.

Ozmis Khagan was remarkably lenient in victory. The Sahu possessed great wealth, both from their irrigated farmland in the fertile soils around Danube, and from the trade that flowed through their cities. As a child Ozmis had been raised as a hostage with the Sahu, and possessed an appreciation for trade and the comfortable life to be found in the wealthy, high-walled cities his new subjects had raised out of the trackless steppe. Rather than pillaging and destroying what he encountered, he took a long view his successors would share - the Khirichan had much to gain from leaving the Sahu intact. In the west, the Khagan retained Sahu tribal leaders as "Satraps", tributary to the Khagan. In the east, rule was more direct, but the greater cities were left with a great deal of autonomy, paying extravagant tribute but managing their own affairs.

The Khirichan would breathe fresh life into the Sahu. Eager to expand their influence amongst the Slavic tribes, they expanded northward, building an immense limestone fortress-city called Adeshi upriver from Apaxauda, and similar fortresses along the Danube and Don. They built regular waystations to provide safety for travelers and link the various arterial rivers which provided the primary form of transportation for Sahu commerce. Within a generation the Khirichan would find themselves assimilated to a large degree, adopting Sahu religion and manner of dress. While they retained their language, the assimilation reached a point where Roman merchants from Anatolia often had trouble distinguishing the two ethnic groups, and would simply call both "Scythians".

The Khirichan maintained close relations with both the Oadhyan and Rhom Empires to their south. In 703, Ozmis' heir, Ishbara married an Oadhyan princess, and both empires would engage in significant trade. Several similar marriages between the Oadhyan and the Rhomi cemented a sort of three-way alliance organized around preserving a rough status-quo. The rulers of all three powers would remain in semi-regular correspondence, and by 710 the Shah of Syria would join their ranks. Relative peace had returned to the Eftal world.

The Crossroads of Civilization - 680-720

It is perhaps not an exaggeration to call Shah Toramana of Syria the true founder of the Oadhyan Empire. Mihiraban was the author of the rebellion, but it was Syrian warriors that provided the manpower necessary to carve out the Empire. Accordingly, Tormana gained certain spoils in victory from the grateful Oadhya monarch. The well-fortified city of Nasibin was ceded to him, and Mihiraban respectfully addressed him as "elder brother" in their correspondence, sending him elaborate "gifts" during festival seasons which amounted to repayment of the financing Tormana had provided. His successor would continue this tradition until 696.

Syria was a sort of second Eftal heartland, away from the Iranian plateau. The original Syriac population were almost a minority now, outnumbered by the various nomadic tribes who had settled there over the course of Eftal history. Alans, Turks, Gaoche, Asvha, and many others had come to their land and in time all had come to consider themselves first and foremost Eftal. They had made the backbone of Heshana's and the vanguard of the Eftal wars with the Roman Empire. Though relatively poor compared to many of the kingdoms around them, they had a strong martial legacy.

The Syrian Eftal, much like those of Rhom, could be called Buddhists, but theirs was a Buddhism heavily influenced by their traditional Iranian deities, and the worship of several Hindu gods, typically in more central asian forms. Shiva and Kubera were some of the most popular. The intercession of war gods such as Vraham and Mihir was also prominent, as was the Sun god Hvar, who had several festival days throughout the year. Tir and Nahid both functioned as fertility deities. These gods and the ceremonies associated with them played a critical role in upholding the synthesized culture traditions of the Syrian Eftal and defining them as separate from the Christianized Syrian subjects over which they ruled, while the Buddhist theology provided deeper meaning and a philosophical element which otherwise would have been lacking.

The Eftal of Syria were not an urban people. Pastoralism was common, and those who considered themselves to be urban lived in rural castle-palaces which were little more than fortified towns. They largely eschewed the cities, and since the passing of Akhsaman the Elder increasingly viewed their relations to Tormana in the same feudal context as did the Oadhyans. While this decentralized, feudal system made them difficult to conquer, it also made gathering tax revenues difficult. The Syrian monarchy was relatively poor. Most of its subjects preferred to contribute soldiers rather than money, and they looked with envy on their wealthier neighbors.

It would not be until roughly 710 that overland commerce began to be a significant part of the Syrian economy. With few cities of any note, the monarchy depended on tolls garnered from riverine trade up the Euphrates for income. As the Oadhyans remained at peace along their western frontier, a trickle of the regions historic trade was restored, bringing a limited measure of prosperity to a widely impoverished region.

To the south, the Emesa Shahdom was wealthy but militarily weak. Akhsaman the Younger ruled cities such as Tyros and Damascus that had largely avoided any sacks. The city of Emesa was still an opulent example of Syavush's legacy, golden-domed and shining, but Akhsaman could not call on many Eftal retainers. Forced to manage a large population with only the support of a small ruling elite, like his predecessors he turned to the Arabs for assistance. In 707, Akhsaman, an aging man, would convert to Nestorian Christianity and remarry into the Tayy tribe. The great Sun Temples of Emesa would be turned into Churches, their iconography smashed and replaced with images of Christ and Mary.

Akhsaman's new wife, Fatima, brought with her an implicit promise of support from the Tayy, one which kept both the Heshanids in the south and the Syrians in the north at bay, and as the Tayy found themselves pressured by the growing power of the Saihists, southern Syria formed a safe haven to which many would flee. For a time, there was peace throughout the near east. The Syrians and Emesa remained on good terms, Toramana and Akhsaman having been good friends as children. The Heshanids did not wish to upset the status quo and potentially harm their trade prospects, and furthermore had always maintained good relations with the Tayy.

However, when Akhsaman died in 713, the Heshanids pressed their ancestral claim on Emesa, their one-time capital. King Timotheos Heshana denounced the Akhsamanids as usurpers and traitors to their dynasty, who sided with Artavazda against their rightful Shah, and sent his army north, where they encountered minimal resistance. The Monophysite population of Phoenicia and Syria greeted them as liberators, and many of the Eftal fled north, where they were welcomed by Toramana. After a brief siege, Emesa fell and the Heshanid Empire reached its greatest extent since the time of Syavush.

Toramana, for his part, spent his last years worrying about the power of the Heshanids. Syria was the last province of theirs that they did not control. However, he would pass away in 717, leaving the throne to Avyaman Kithara, a nephew on his wife's side and a prominent landholder who he viewed as a strong warrior and a traditionalist. His choice was clearly made out of fear of the Heshanids, but it was viewed as an insult by his only son, Mahijada, who shortly after the pronouncement would sail north with a group of followers, seeking his fortune among the Avars.

Consolidation and Expansion

In 680, the greater region of Armenia was divided into two Khanates. Both had emerged out of the anarchy of the Eftal collapse, and both were an affront to the Oadhyan Empire, frequently raiding and threatening the security of the northern border. Accordingly, after several years of consolidation, Mihiraban went north and defeated both in turn. Balgatsin Khan, once a great warlord, had become fat with age and ruled a territory wracked with internal rebellions. His counterpart, the so-called "Eastern Alan Khanate" was a patchwork of tribal leaders who were incapable of mounting a determined resistance. By 686, two years after the beginning of Mihiraban's campaign, they were defeated and annexed. Local Armenian landholders were elevated to Vayanates and garrisons were established in the major cities. When Mihiraban returned south to Ahmatan, he had every reason to feel triumphant.

However, this was a high water-mark, though Mihiraban could not have known it. His campaign against the Alans was the last major offensive campaign of the Oadhyan Empire, and the last time he would leave his palace in Ahmatan. He would spend the next seven years of his life wracked with an "illness of the mind" and finally would die in 693. His son, Mihiragula, would take the throne. Young, bright, and energetic, Mihiragula would find his talents squandered by events he had little personal control over. Turkish raids along the Eastern border preoccupied much of his time, and his vassals proved unruly. They had followed Mihiraban unquestioningly, but their loyalty was largely personal, and unlike Satraps, rebellious lords could not merely be recalled to Susa as an Eftal Emperor might have done.

Throughout the Eftal world, trade bloomed once more, but it was limited compared to what had once been. The great cities of Mesopotamia recovered only haltingly, and most of the agricultural potential of Iran was squandered by pastoralists. Without the great urban centers of the past, the production of domestic luxury goods was largely the province of monasteries, one of the few institutions which maintained a continuity between the Eftal and Oadhyan eras. These monasteries, as in Christian Europe, also provided responsibilities for the Persian learning of the Eftal Golden Age, ensuring that history and scientific discoveries would not be entirely lost. Accordingly, Mihiragula was a great patron of Buddhism, in a more pure form than the synthesized teachings of the west. A vegetarian and a relatively pacifistic man, these traits did not earn him the love even of his Buddhist vassals, many of whom paid merely lip-service to these aspects of their religion.

Ruling until 723, Mihiragula's thirty-year reign is perhaps best remembered as a time of peace. While those vassals on the eastern and southern borders were forced to contend with Turkish and Arabic raids, the decentralized system if nothing else made it difficult for these raids to gain traction. Local forces were capable of stopping most incursions, even as the state apparatus remained small. The era was also characterized by the continued construction of great fortifications where the tribal elite could feel safe from pillaging raiders and also any encroachment of the monarchy upon their newly-gained privileges.

 

[Practical Lobster]

[I have to confess I'd intended Mahijada to sort of fall off the radar after that post, but Bmao inspired me. So here's a little history of his younger years, combined with a details about what's going on in Pannonia.]

Avars and Xasars

It is said that in the first years of his exile, the Prince Mahijada came to the city of Constantinople. With him came many companions, perhaps fifty men in all, including his childhood friend Narse and his bodyguard Artakhsatr. They were mostly young and warlike, the retainers of the would be Shah. Mahijada, beloved-of-the-gods, did not match their temperament. He was a holy and refined man, overly severe perhaps, but he had a gift for inspiring devotion in his followers.

Hosts of the Rhom Shah, they dined in sumptuous excellence in the golden halls of the rebuilt Imperial Palace. Disiapata, the Rhom Shah, saw in Mahijada an excellent opportunity. If he could unseat the Syrian Shah, Rhom would have both a fresh source of manpower and a strong buffer against any incursions from the East. However, in 718, but a few months after their arrival, Disiapata would die and with him Mahijada's hopes of reclaiming his throne. Where Disiapata had been bold and decisive, his son Datuvahya, though not untalented, was indecisive and relied on his father's able councilors. A taker of the drug the Hindis called charas and a drunkard to boot, he personally gave Mahijada little hope that Syria would ever be recovered.

So he went north, and perhaps half of his remaining companions followed him. For those who did not there were places in the retainer of Shah Datuvahya. For those who followed him, Avar country beckoned, with its lush verdant valleys and sweeping yellow plains.

Under its latest ruler, Amurtay Khagan, the Avar Empire was crumbling. Xasar warlords fled over the Carpathians to escape the Turks, and Slavs from both the north and the south raided their borders. Langobardia had been lost. The Isidorians could strike with impunity in Dalmatia, and the economy, always dependent on a degree of aggression from the Khaganate, had stagnated. Furthermore, the Avar were poorly positioned to take advantage of the newly developing trade routes. Amurtay was a capable ruler but like most of the Avar Khagans he was a traditionalist and a warrior. His minor victories along his various frontiers were irrelevant because he could not face all of the various threats his realm faced at once, and he had no understanding of how to address the underlying problems.

In 721, Prince Mahijada arrived in Srem, the Avar capital (formerly Sirmium) and Amurtay eagerly hired him on as a sort of advisor and mercenary. The Prince wasted little time in riding east and meeting the many Xasar-Sahu chiefs who had brought their tribes into Avar territory. While he could not speak to them except with the help of a translator, he conveyed to them his own story. Like them, he was an exile. Like them, he longed for home but this was a land of opportunity. They could accomplish far more working with the Khagan than against him.

Turning the nomadic tribes into an army was no easy task, but Mahijada had been groomed to rule from a young age, and he had not forgotten those lessons in exile. Culturally the Xasar-Sahu and Eftal had much in common, and this helped him to be accepted as a leader. Within two years, he had bound the Xasari into a loose confederation - ostensibly mercenaries who would serve the Khagan, and pay token tribute rather than raid. They received large grants of land for pasture, which effectively amounted to a recognition of their new homeland. Then, leaving Narse in Srem as an advisor, the prince led a picked group of the Xasar north against the Slavs.

On this campaign, lasting from 724 to 726, he turned those warriors he brought north into a disciplined army, united by shared experience rather than divided by tribal identity. Riding against the Kniaz of the Vistulan tribe, he dealt them a crushing blow in the field and proceeded to siege hill-fort after hill-fort, carrying off captives and wealth and obtaining the personal submission of the Kniaz. Leaving a garrison in Wislica, their capital, under the command of his bodyguard Artakhsatr, he rode down the length of the Vistula river, conquering the Masovians in turn. There, on the broad plains of Masovia his cavalry were even more effective, but he struggled to take the large and well-fortified towns into which the people retreated.

Although he had little intent to remain in the north, his victories proved his quality to the Avar Khagan, and perhaps most importantly the quality of the Xasar. Having earned the Khagan's trust, he would spend subsequent years at court, and as time went on his ambition to return home was slowly forgotten. He decided he would make his legacy here, in this country. Destiny, dharma, had chosen a different course for him.

Sklavenia

Two generations after the official independence of the Three Slavic Kingdoms, trouble was brewing. Eprius, always the smallest and weakest of the kingdoms, had seen its nobility benefit the least from the Mediterranean revival of trade. Apart from a few coastal cities, it was hilly, thickly forested country which was perfect for bandits and brigands. It was in Epirus that the last pagan holdouts remained, raiding their wealthy Thessalonian and Thracian neighbors, much to the consternation of the Eprioite Kniaz.

Like their northern cousins, who before the coming of the Isidorian Navy had established pirate havens in hidden coves along the Dalmatian coast, these raiders disrupted both commerce and the settled agrarian peoples rather indiscriminately. While theoretically the local nobles should have been responsible for settling this threat, in practice they either failed or found it easier to simply take a cut of the plunder and look the other way as their neighbors were raided. Finally, in 716, the situation reached the breaking point. The Langobards to the north petitioned the Thessalonian Kniaz, Boris, to handle the situation or they would be forced to invade Epirus - a threat which would invariably drag the entire Balkans into war on one side or the other.

Boris gathered his retainers and levies and marched into the Epiroite hills. To counter this incursion, the raiders gathered en masse under the charismatic Gostislav, and in an ambush destroyed or captured much of the army's baggage, before melting into the hills and local communities. Embarrassed and frustrated, Boris ordered the torching of any local village where "signs of unbelief" were apparent. These signs were broad and wide-ranging, and often were merely an excuse for his soldiers to gather fresh provisions and a little loot.

The Epiroite Kniaz, Stylianus, was forced to take action. He gathered his own retainers and linked up with Gostislav's brigands, persuading the bandits that together they could repulse the invaders and that Gostislav and his men could become wealthy landowners in Thessalonica. He was no fanatic, he told them, foaming at the mouth to slaughter heathens. They could keep their old gods if they named Christ among their number. Gostislav, fearing the alternate was a two front war he could not win, and knowing that many of his old bases of operation had been destroyed by Prince Boris, accepted the terms reluctantly. The two armies linked up and moved to defeat Boris. At the Battle of Ohrid (716), Gostislav's irregular bandits were incapable of holding a line against the determined charge of Boris' heavy horse, and the battle was lost. The Epiroite Kniaz was captured along with many of his nobles, and they were made to swear fealty to the Thessalonian crown. All of the bandits taken alive were impaled on stakes as an example to future rebels - one which seems to have horrified and cowed Stylianus, who returned to Arta a broken man.

Boris' campaign had been successful beyond his wildest dreams. Knowing the Avar Khagan was distracted, he followed up on his victory by taking both his own army and the Epiroite forces north, capturing the Langobard capital at Dekateria in 718. The Langobard Doux, Arechis II, was made yet another vassal. When word of this conquest reached Amurtay Khagan, who had been in the north fighting the Sorbs, he sent a emissary south, inciting the Thracian Kniaz Casamir III to join him. Together, they proposed to divide the Thessalonian kingdom between themselves, with the Avars regaining Langobardia and part of Epirus, and the Thracians taking the rest.

However, from the start the alliance was deeply divided. Casamir, deeply devout as his father and grandfather had been, refused to trust the heathen Khagan one iota. He immediately deviated from the agreed-upon plan and instead marched directly on Thessalonia, wagering that Boris and Amurtay would distract each other in the north until he had completed his coup de grace. However, his wager would be wrong. In a lightening campaign Boris advanced on Srem and the outnumbered Khagan retreated, biding his time until Casamir would arrive - but as Boris closed in and his ally was nowhere to be found, he agreed to accept the loss of Langobardia in exchange for a large sum to be paid in golden Roman coins and a select group of hostages, including Boris' third son, Simeon.

Then Boris marched south and, as summer turned into autumn his force reached Thessalonia. Casamir broke his siege and retreated north, but Boris smashed his army in a five day running battle. Casamir fled to Adrianople and after a long siege the city was finally taken and subjected to a brutal sack. The prince's body was never found, and with much of the leading Thracian aristocracy dead in the wake of the siege, Boris took his time reducing their castles and villas one after another, before apportioning them to his loyal soldiers.

When he returned to Thessalonica, he was crowned by the Bishop there as Autocrat Boris I, Grand Prince of All Sklavenia and the Langobards.

Migration and Urbanism in the Avar "Empire"

The latter rulers of the Avar Empire have been rather dimly received by later history. As the distinction between the broader populace of the Avars and the Slavic people they ruled diminished, the monarchy and its associated clique looked more and more to a disappearing Turkic heritage. As their federate vassals began to convert to Christianity, they based their identity more and more around Tengri and their ancestors. This amounted to little more than a reactionary holding action against demographic trends that were simply not in their favor.

The growth of cities such as Mundraga, Belgrad, and Chernagrad speak to an increasingly Slavic civilization growing along the Danube - one which did not necessarily associate itself with the petty kingdoms that would become Sklavenia, but nevertheless was distinct from the diminishing semi-nomadic culture of the Avars. The Danube basin was fertile and could support a not insignificant sedentary population. A curious assimilation would transpire as a result - a people who called themselves Avar or Bulgar, but were largely Nicene Christians of Slavic ancestry whose architecture and art was a blend of both styles with the Roman heritage of the region.

Into this curious cultural breeding ground plunged thousands of Xasar-Sahu migrants fleeing the Turks to the east. While the majority of the Xasar-Sahu would remain in their homelands and accept their new rulers, mass displacements nevertheless occurred. Primarily Buddhist and Iranian in origin, they were numerous enough to overwhelm the still semi-nomadic Avar population of the Trans-Carpathians and much of the Tisza river basin. These less urban regions were more vulnerable to their conquest, and were easily assimilated. This assimilation was followed by a revival of the Xasar urban tradition, reflected in the establishment of cities such as Biharabad (on the Tisza) and Shahidjan (near the ruins of Roman Aquincum). Shahidjan in particular would prosper, owing to its critical position along the Danube.

As the Xasar settled regions which were the traditional powerbase of the monarchy, their loss was crippling. The fact that the Avars would ultimately subdue the Xasar and persuade them to serve as mercenaries did not solve the crisis but in fact only exacerbated it - by legitimizing and utilizing the Xasar the Khagan essentially put the stability of his state into their hands. By allowing them to settle and raise fortified cities in his territory, the Khagan allowed the newcomers to entrench.

The Khagan attempted to remain aloof, embracing neither the new Xasari arrivals or his Slavic population. But the arrival of the exiled Eftal Prince Mahijada, himself a Buddhist, would begin to swing Amurtay Khagan's opinion in favor of the Xasari, alienating the majority of his population...

 

[Practical Lobster]

China: 690-750

[It's important to note that China was almost totally united under the Liang dynasty lasted for some time in this timeline, and accordingly Buddhism became an even more pervasive element of Chinese culture, particularly in the South. As such, the gradual turn of the elite against Buddhism which happens in this timeline is deeply divisive, moreso than any equivalent in OTL.

However, last time I wrote about China I realized the depth of my ignorance on everything Sinic. Here's hoping this post avoids any obvious pitfalls. If not, just understand I'm not really an expert on the subject and explain to me what I've done wrong and I can work on retconning it.]

In Chang'an, the court of the Great Qi was deeply shaken by their defeats against the Bod Empire. That threats might have emerged out of Tibet, a poor land and sparsely peopled, was baffling to them. That those same threats might actually overrun their western borders and come within striking distance of the capital had seemed impossible. And yet it had happened. When he received the news, the Emperor withdrew into solemn contemplation among his beautiful gardens, a labyrinth of gilded courtyards designed to be a reflection of each province of his empire in miniature. Action would have to be taken.

The Qi armies were vast, numbering hundreds of thousands of conscript soldiers around a central core of steppe mercenaries. Maintained by what was perhaps the most efficient and elaborate bureaucracy in the world, it seemed impossible to the scholars and clerics of the Qi court that such a thing could happen. The Prime Minister, Wang Qinming, was forced to resign in disgrace and retire from public service altogether, going into voluntary exile. One of the last of the "Dharma Faction" Qinming and his allies were part of a dwindling minority of devout Chan Buddhists at court. Henceforth the scholar-gentry would take a marked turn towards Confucianism.

The latest Qi Emperor, Yang Sizhi (Gaozong) had presided over an era of artistic and cultural achievement. Poetry, literature, and philosophy reached unparalleled heights - the large educated scholarly class was extremely prolific. A patron of the Confucian philosophy to which the majority of his court scholars ascribed, he became part of a growing movement to resist foreign influence, a movement which only gained strength as the Tibetan and Uighur threats became more pronounced along the frontier. As an alternative to Buddhism, Taoist schools were promoted to the common people. While earlier Emperors had ruled according to Buddhist precepts and as "Universal Rulers" in line with the concept of the Chakravartin was under Yang Sizhi that the scholarly elite made a sharp turn away from Buddhism.

Whatever Yang Sizhi's personal opinion on the military (and in all probability he wished to support it) his predecessors had created too many institutions specifically designed to hamstring the army. The complex bureaucracy favored divisions of military commands, and he could not in many cases overcome the institutional inertia he faced. Commanders were frequently shuffled to new positions, and units were disarmed and disbanded after a mere three short years, meaning that the majority of soldiers up to and including officers of medium rank had no experience with actual combat. Higher officers were often drawn from the scholarly bureaucracy, typically local magistrates who ideally were familiar with the areas in which they were assigned. While this made the military an effective police force and capable of dealing with bandits and insurrections, it crippled it in actual combat.

The warrior-aristocracy of Tibet cut through unprepared, poorly-equipped formations of Qi soldiers with ease, and in the several times that the army was faced with incursions from the northern Turks, it only handled these situations with overwhelming numbers. This need for overwhelming numbers placed an extreme strain on the logistical backbone of the Qi state - a smaller army would have needed far less food and fodder. The peasants who represented the backbone of the economy were placed under immense strain during any time of crisis.

The mood of the Imperial court was one of siege. An attempt to regain lost ground against the Buddhists in 730 had been met with a series of unmitigated disasters. Hundreds of thousands of men had been lost in the mountain passes. Their ghosts would be said to linger for generations to come, lost and far from home. The Tibetans represented by one of the many of the ways in which the outside war was coming to China. The very mercantile economy that brought immense prosperity to some was decried by the scholar-gentry.

The Qi economy was supported by its trade. Exports such as silk, lacquerware, and porcelain all were traded to eager merchants from the west. While many of these goods were produced in other parts of the world as well, the Chinese produced these goods to a standard of remarkable quality, and few other nations could match the sheer volume of production which left their ports. In return came spices, pearls, jewels, horses and many other luxuries from the west. The trade of technology also spread both ways. The first chairs and stools arrived in China around this time, and revolutionary techniques for metalworking and silversmithing were adopted from the Indians. Tamil and Srivijayan merchants would disseminate paper and the woodblock printing press to the world. However, these merchants also were yet another sign of the many foreign influences at war with tradition. As such, the scholar-gentry despised this growing trade and made several efforts to curtail it, establishing strict quota limits and heavy tariffs.

However, chief among the foreign influences loathed by this new class of scholar-gentry was Buddhism, which had enjoyed lavish state support, ever since the Liang dynasty. The monasteries were vast and perhaps most important tax exempt and in the eyes of the state totally unproductive. Many were effectively fortresses in their own right, divorced from the government around them, more opulent than the local estates. The bureaucrats saw them and the "Thousand Temples" as sinks into which revenue was poured in generous donations. Dissolving them would bring both purity and provide the government with much needed revenue. The question was... how? The monasteries were critical sources of charity and aid to the impoverished. Some even kept retainers of warriors. If persecution were to begin, it would have to be carried out in a single stroke.

Plans were made, and distributed in sealed scrolls to the provinces. In the capital, soldiers were gathered. Thousands of copies of the imperial proclamation were press-stamped and riders prepared to distribute them throughout the Empire. "Is this not the creed," the documents asked, "that abolishes the loyalty of sons to fathers, that breaks the bonds between brothers, and those of men to the state?"

With the death of Yang Sizhi, his successor, Yang Xulun (Ruizong) took power, determined to enact his father's will. In certain writings from his time as one Prince among many in the Imperial court, it can be seen that he was virulently anti-buddhist from early in his life. In 743, he dissolved the monasteries and turned the military, a fearsome organization when it came to local enforcement of Imperial proclamations, against the temples and monasteries.

The wealth seized was astronomical. Monasteries were overturned with limited resistance, and the wealth and treasure taken was carted back to Chang'an en masse. For a time, the budgetary woes of the Empire seemed solved. The "great unproductive class" was sent to the fields to become tillers of the soil. To those in power, it seemed perhaps too good to be true. And it was.

The Great Rebellion: 748-764

The impact of Sima Zhixen's "Great Rebellion" has often been greatly exaggerated by contemporary historians, and perhaps not without good reason. For those who survived to tell of the war, it might well have seemed to take on apocalyptic proportions. The state was torn apart and left vulnerable to the raids of the Uighurs and the Tibetans. Frontier provinces such as Annam rose in rebellion and were not retaken. The Mandate of Heaven seemed lost. Most cruelly, millions of peasants lost their lives to war and famine. The disruption of the Qi state allowed a state of near total anarchy to develop across a huge swathe of their Empire for some sixteen years.

The rebellion had its beginnings in the prosecution of Buddhists. While traditionally a nonviolent sect, the religion had a history of uprisings against the state that could not be denied. Agitators and zealots reformers such as the renegade monk Faqing (515) and militant social reformers such as Xiang Huaigu (664) seized upon the potential of the religion to motivate others to violence or resistance. Charismatic preachers claiming to be the Maitreya Buddha were a phenomenon the state was well acquainted with. However, the scale of this rebellion was truly unprecedented, and the degree to which it yoked even those without Buddhist affiliations to its cause startled the scholar-gentry.

Two major factors contributed to the early success of the rebellion: the general dissatisfaction of the peasant class with the frequency of conscription and exorbitant taxes, and the weakness of the Qi army, which allowed the rebellion to spread and prosper.

Beginning in Huainan, the rebellion quickly gained the allegiance of many former monks, a large percentage of whom had become itinerant beggars or otherwise struggled to find a position in society. As the enigmatic figure at the center of the rebellion, Sima Zhixen cultivated a mystical air around him, claiming powers and while he never outright assumed the mantle of the Maitreya Buddha, he never refuted those who claimed he was more than another man. His message was simple and compelling. It was a message of populism and reform mixed with religious grievance. By striking against Buddhism, the monarchy warred against truth itself and thus inherently had lost the Mandate of Heaven. It was time for another to claim that mantle. Sima Zhixen never gave the slightest hint that his personal ambition was to take the Imperial Throne, merely that the time of the Qi was past. The failed wars of the past half century seemed to agree.

Armies were sent east to crush the growing ring of "brigand" control around Huainan. Drawing troops off the northern frontier, the suppression of the rebellion was entrusted toGongsun Yajing, a newly-promoted general who arrived at the outskirts of the city with his troops in near-total disarray. Yajing launched a series of three attacks over the course of 748, each one a costly failure. Ultimately, a large contingent of his soldiers would mutiny, murder him and join the rebellion rather than participate in a fourth attack. The rebellion swelled, moving south like wildfire. In the south Buddhism had always enjoyed the greatest popularity, a legacy of the Liang Emperor.

Ultimately, the greatest victors of the rebellion would be the Uighurs and the Tibetans, both of whom increased their own position at the expense of the Qi. The Tibetans themselves would sack Chang'an in 751. The Annamese rebellion of 749 would prove an enormous bloodbath for the southern Governor-Generals tasked with recovering it, and ultimately the Annamese would gain their independence in 751. The Emperor would flee to Xiangzhou and the city of Chang'an would perhaps never fully recover, although it became the Imperial capital again after peace was signed with Tibet in 756.

The rebellion itself would end ingloriously. Sima Zhixan was assassinated for unknown reasons in 761, and within three years his entire rebellion, perched on the verge of triumph, would crumble inwards into infighting. Many armies switched from ideologically justified revolt to mere pillaging of the countryside, establishing petty warlord kingdoms which rarely lasted longer than a few months before collapsing inwards. The Buddhist factions turned against each other in doctrinal civil war.

The main reason the Qi were able to hold out at all was a series of major military reforms. Gone were the unreliable conscript armies, replaced with Turkic mercenaries funded by the previous pillaging of the monasteries. Over time, these mercenaries were called upon to train a new professional military corps out of peasant volunteers. Unlike the conscripts, which returned home regularly, these professionals, though they might have suffered badly in their initial engagements were able to accumulate experience in combat and ultimately become a strong standing force. The Qi learned from their mistakes, and their new professional armies, backed by a large foreign cavalry contingent, were far superior to the peasant mobs arrayed against them.

By the time the final rebel stronghold of Yangzhou fell to a bloody sack in 764, the Emperor Ruizong had extended tolerance to all faiths at the recommendation of his advisors. While the loss of the monasteries was keenly felt in the intellectual traditions of the south, and many sects would never fully recover, this tolerance maintained the peace, even if simmering undercurrents of resentment remained. Taoism would grow in popularity, especially in the north and east, where it would largely eclipse the role of Buddhism in society. The bureaucracy, shattered by the war, was restructured into the "Six Departments" and given a mandate to work more closely with local community leaders. Slowly but surely, the Qi would recover.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Rise and Fall - the Western Mediterranean at a turning point

In Florentia, the return of Great Legate [a unique Isidorian term for field commanders with broad authority but no assigned "theatre" as a doux might have]Julius Paulus was greeted with celebration. The army's morale, beaten down by betrayal and their "march to the sea" skyrocketed when they returned home greeted as heroes and conquerors. Emperor Valerian bestowed upon him tremendous accolades, and, after the death of his wife Claudia a year later in childbirth (bearing the Emperor a sickly daughter who would not survive her third year), he would marry the successful General's niece, Syagria.

Despite Julius Paulus' vast lack of success, his campaigns had allowed small expeditions to seize power across all of the Mauri overseas territories. The Isidorian fleet had even captured the bulk of the Mauri fleet, which, seeing the way the winds were blowing, defected wholesale. However, Sicily, the real prize, lay in a sense outside of Imperial hands. Anatolius, still predominant as Praeses of Rome and still holding the ear of the Magister Militium, Cosmas, was able to appoint his nephew as Doux of Sicily. In his position of poorly defined and near-absolute power, Anatolius still controlled the reins of power even despite his Emperor's middle-age.

Anatolius, nearing seventy, could look back on a long and successful career - a massive expansion of the Empire which had profited himself and his family immensely, and near total dominion over a weak Emperor who had never had the strength to confront his stranglehold on the avenues of power. However, in his old age he began to slip. He did not properly identify Julius Paulus as the threat he was - and would not until too late. Nor did he recognize Cosmas' betrayal until too late. One day he merely awoke to find soldiers beating down his door. His body, and the bodies of his immediate family would never be found. The Doux of Sicily fled to Constantinople, where he would live out a comfortable exile among the Rhom Shahs as a mercenary commander. Julius would ascend to the rank of Doux and Cosmas would become the new power behind the throne.

Still relatively young, able, and energetic, Cosmas turned his attention to consolidation. Expanding the military-bureaucracy into the newly conquered territories was the first step. The assimilation of the Mauri was aided by the fact that they considered themselves to be in large part Roman, and many were descended from Roman settlers, speaking a intelligible dialect of Latin. However, they nonetheless posed a threat to public order. As more and more Mauri with means fled to Sicily, they couched their abandonment of the state in elaborate tales of atrocity. Churches were defiled by pagan rites, and Christians were nailed to posts by their entrails or used as target practice by Berber cavalrymen. Could anyone fault them for fleeing such horrors? That the Berbers were in practice tolerant of Christianity and indeed not entirely unfamiliar with the religion was irrelevant.

These Mauri would appeal to the latest Pope, Adeodatus III. A man with some Desidarian leanings, the Papacy bought whole cloth into these tales. The Pope traveled to Florentia and pleaded with Valerian to liberate the world from sin and restore a holy empire of the Romans. However, Valerian himself offered only vague promises, and Cosmas, an eminently practical man who seems to have little true religious conviction, politely but sternly informed the Pope that his goals were impossible. The Isidorians had but a fraction of the power they would necessarily need for such an undertaking.

The tenor of Christianity in this era began to shift once more. The apocalyptic terror of the Desidarian and Procopians was on the wane. No great antichrist had emerged. News of the collapse of the Eftal had began to spread. However, what replaced it, particularly among the military classes of Francia and Rome, was a growing feeling of a religion besieged, challenged by heresy and unbelief at every turn. Over the century, this feeling would only be exacerbated.

The true fall of the Mauri Empire can be dated to 721, when Carthage itself was sacked. Two years previously, answering appeals by the Mauri King, the Visigoths had invaded Mauritania and the country of the Masamida, hoping to march east and enact a grand conquest which would give them, if nothing else, some of the spoils of the waning Empire and prevent total Isidorian domination of the Mediterranean.

King Ermanaricus of Hispania crossed the straits unopposed with some twenty thousand men, perhaps a quarter of them mounted. That was perhaps the sole success of his campaign. The Masamida were led by a wily commander named Iufitrana who retreated into the hills and mountains. While the Romano-Gothic army seized the coastline and began to march west, cheerful at the lack of any more than token opposition, a massive Berber army, uniting almost all the local clans, developed.

"The pagans, whose numbers cannot be described in any language, descended howling upon us." wrote one of the survivors of the battle. "They attacked from all directions and were too swift to allow us to close for more than brief heartbeats." The Berber forces launched hit-and-run attacks, provoking isolated Hispanian units to charge - allowing them to become separated from the man body of the army and cut down in detail. Few survived to limp back to the coast and the safety of their ships. King Ermanaricus was not among them, and his death would see the crown contested by his three brothers.

The three brothers, Rodrigus (23), Euricus (19), and Suinthila (15) were each given extensive territories in their father's will, and each proved to be more warlike than the next. From the first there was no hope of cooperation. Suinthila, the youngest, was nevertheless perhaps the most aggressive, personally leading armies against Euricus, who retreated into Suebia in the north. However, this left Suinthila vulnerable to Rodrigus, who led lightening raids from his base of Cordoba, allowing Euricus to recover lost ground. No brother could win the decisive battle necessary to assert his dominance without weakening himself too much and effectively handing victory to the third. As such, the war ground on from 719 to 723, when mutual exhaustion finally brought an end to it.

Iufitrana of the Masamida, however, had not been idle. He launched his own attacks, seaborne raids with the help of profit-seeking Mauri adventurers. Hispania burned. While these Masamida raids would not establish any sort of permanent foothold, they did prove the weakness of the Goths - who were unable to stop these raiders from ranging deep inland, destroying monasteries and villas. In 724, Rodrigus was killed in battle against a Masamida raiding party, and within six months Suinthila was universal King of Hispania, but the damage had been done. The young king ruled a fractured and devastated kingdom whose weakness had been shown clearly to the world.

Against the Eftal - a Teaser for the "Great Votive War"

Everywhere are good Christians assailed. The Romans, who once were the holy bulwark of the Christian against the blasphemer and the infidel, have fallen. The heathens hold Constantinople cupped in the palm of their hand, and assail the righteous in Germania and Pannonia, in Moesia and Thracia. In Africa the Berbers who have no creed and no belief defile monasteries and force good Christians into slavery.

The Hephthalians have completely destroyed some of God's churches, and they have committed others to the use of their savage cult. They ruin the altars with filth and defilement. They slay Christians and pour their blood into the baptismal fonts. Uncountable is the number of souls languishing under their cruel dominion. They are the enemies of Christ and all that is holy.

Have we forgotten too the false prophets of Egypt? The Hephthalians, whose allegiance with the devil is clear, hide their apostasy in many guises, but no sin is more vile than the sin that disguises itself in righteousness. They claim to be Believers, but they deny the very nature of Christ, equivocating and burying the Word beneath blasphemy and heresy! Are they not just as damned as the Boddean or the pagan?

And yet we do not begrudge them Jerusalem, the site of the Passion of our Lord, or Bethlehem, where he was born to the Blessed Virgin. We give harbor to their ships and gold to their merchants. We allow them to seduce us with the gifts of the Orient and we let them walk amongst us as wolves in the raiment of sheep!

As Christ Himself said, 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.' The Cross, brothers, the very sign by which Saint Constantine himself conquered - under it you too shall conquer! The armies of the Romans shall be turned once again to holy purposes. Is war not just if it seeks to bring godliness to the world once more? Did not the venerable Saint Augustine say that those who put to death wicked men have not violated the commandment which says 'Thou shalt not kill'? Is it not even a great blessing to the service of god to kill those who threaten his Church through their words and their acts?

You, soldiers of Rome, servants of the Emperor who is Equal-to-the-Apostles, servants of God and His Eternal Glory, you are blessed with the opportunity to take up both cross and sword in defense of Empire and Church. Make oaths to God, as you make oaths to the Emperor. Swear that you shall never rest until the Hephthalians are driven to the corners of the world! Swear you shall never rest until the Patriarchates are restored as they were in the days of Saint Constantine the Great! Until Africa is liberated. The obligation of the faithful is reconquest and a restoration of the holy order.

Together, as a great wave we shall, blessed by God in our efforts and assured of our victory both now and in the eternal life to come, ensure that the Heresiarch is driven from Alexandria, the Boddean from Constantinople, and the pagan from Carthage. Let us march unto the very ends of the world and know that its liberation is near at hand! God wills this! Let us be his instrument! God wills this!

 

[Practical Lobster]

Spare us the trade of the Northmen

The Western Slavs faced no small amount of pressure from external forces. With the arrival of the Xasar in the Pannonian basin, they found themselves in a vice of sorts - pressed by the steppe peoples and the Franks. This threat would however provide the impetus for the formation of larger, stable states and strong regional identities. However, unlike in prior decades it was not the tribes most under threat which formed the backbone of these polities but rather the Polans and Obodrites. Neither faced many direct threats, and both had been spared the brunt of sporadic Frankish and Xasar aggression. However, the pressure upon their neighbors and the relative safety of their heartlands allowed them to exert their power over their neighbors, reinforced by the cultural predominance of the Obdorites, whose market-towns and temples provided an economic and religious heart to West Slavic society.

Of these new kingdoms, the Polonian Kingdom was the far greater in size, sprawling across the Vistula and Oder basins. However, it was also the looser organized - the Knize of Polonia was hereditary but expected to answer to his nobles to a degree that the Dravan-Kniaz of the Obodrites was not. Only formally established in 732, several years after the vicious raids of Prince Mahijada, the Polonian kingdom took advantage of the widespread fear of the Xasar-Sahu migration to bind its nobility closer, but the kingdom for many years would be almost more of a mutual defensive alliance than a nation.

Both of these kingdoms did some small-scale trade with the broader world. Along the coast, market-towns flourished, trading with the Geats and Balts. Entrepreneurial merchants, Norsemen, Balt, and Slav alike built small but seaworthy ships to transport wares, making a small but meaningful profit. These voyages, which were commonplace and routine by the middle of the seventh century, brought to the Norse tribes a broader understanding of the world beyond their shores, and an understanding of the wealth that lay beyond. Their Danish cousins had raided the Obodorites in the past, but the spoils of these raids did little more than adorn a few mead halls.

Now, the broader world became a part of the Norse consciousness, and the timing could not be more auspicious for the Norse. The population of Scandinavia had been growing rapidly, and this rapid growth could not be sustained. Accordingly, within many communities a strong impetus would develop to explore and expand across Europe - a divided, warring continent filled with opportunities for plunder and conquest. The earliest recorded "Viking" raids date to 770, on a monastery in Northumbria. Between 780 and 790, the Obodorites along the coast would suffer frequent attacks - their trade towns would be looted, their holy sites destroyed. These raids did little permanent damage - oftentimes these towns would be restored within a matter of months, often by Norse traders.

Not all contact was so violent. In 789, the Viking explorer Jorulfr the Black would sail up the Dnieper and encounter the "Kirikan" Turks. He would return home in a ship heavy with strange treasures - notable among them a small golden statue of the Buddha, decorative ivory horses, and a quantity of finely made Persian swords. Another expedition would reach Asta Regia on the Hispanian coast in 803. In 775, the city of Heithabir [Hedeby] would be founded and quickly grow into a major trading center on the Jutland pennisula.

These great expeditions would foreshadow an era in the north which is aptly named the "Viking Era", but for the time being, their impact was limited. Few sources from the period give any mention to these early Norse expeditions, and Europe as a continent saw itself fundamentally centered around the Mediterranean.

A Clash of Civilizations?

Just to the south of the Polans, the north scarcely factored in to the politics and culture of the broader region of Pannonia, where society was at a crossroads. Some [fictional] historians of later eras would speak of Pannonia as a place where a true clash of civilization would occur. They describe the Xasar-Avar civilization, defined by eastern influences, pluralistic and dominated by Indian religious thought and Sino-Turkic material culture, coming into conflict with the Romanized Slavs, universalist and monotheist Christian. They define this as the first of many such conflicts between Eastern and Western culture.

This theory is not wholly accurate. The Slavs and Avars by 740 were not two distinct peoples. The Avars of Pannonia and the Morava river basin owed much of their culture to the Slavs. Many had become largely sedentary and abandoned the nomadism these traditional scholars attribute to them. Frequently, the difference between Slav and Avar was simply one of political and religious allegiance - to a Christian Prince or a Pagan (or Buddhist) Khagan. The Avar culture in many respects by this era was more homogenized than that of the Slavs, who retained a more tribal identity. Where the name Avar had come to incorporate many peoples, the Slavs referred to themselves by a more local identity. The Avars in particular are difficult to define. They had Christians among their ranks, and the veneration of Christ and the Christian God, albeit in a deeply heretical, often polytheist framework, was not unknown.

In 738, Prince Vladimir of the Pyritzans did what his father and grandfather had refused to do - he acknowledged the growing Christian congregation within his lands and he himself converted to Christianity, traveling on a grand pilgrimage to Rome which doubled as a chance to visit Florentia. Awed by the luxurious splendor of the Roman capital, he bound the fate of his people to the Romans, becoming a federate tribe. His southern cousins, the Smolyani and the Croats, nominally under the Avar yoke, did the same in 742 and 743 respectively. For them this was merely a recognition of a truth established far earlier by the Roman expeditions into Dalmatia, and solidified by the threat of Xasar raids into their territory. Penetrating too deeply into the interior and risking direct confrontation with either the Avars or the dominant Grand Principality of Sklavenia was a risk the Romans were unwilling to take over Illyria, and as such they governed it purely indirectly.

Even as the decade of the 730's had seen the position of the Christian Slavs vastly improved, the Avar civilization given new life by the arrival of the Xasar. This is not to say that Amurtay Khagan's weakness was remedied - the new strength of the Avars, which cowed the Slavs to their north and restored Avar control along the Danube largely benefitted the Eftal Prince Mahijada and certain Xasar chieftans, notably the "Satrap" Tonyuwar. Indeed, when Amurtay Khagan passed away in 741, he named Tonyuwar his successor and thus the Khagan - while some Avar clans might have been displeased, they were now outnumbered significantly by Xasar, and most saw in Tonyuwar a strong Khagan who would benefit them as much as he would his own people.

But before Amurtay Khagan's body had even cooled, the Slavic tribes along the Danube rose in rebellion, appealing to the Sklavenian Autocrat, Boris, for aid. They shared a similar culture, language, and religion with the Sklaveni to the south, and it seems that the Sklaveni had long considered the tribes and cities of the Danube already their northern frontier in fact if not in law. The death of Amurtay merely provided a convenient excuse and a distraction. While the Xasar contested this, there was little they could actually do. Tonyuwar was more concerned with maintaining his core territories - conceding the lower stretch of the Danube, a region he never could have hoped to occupy, was an acceptable loss in his mind. He contented himself with the knowledge that Xasari clans could now raid the territory with relative impunity.

However, within four years he would be driven to war with the Sklaveni nonetheless. The council of Mahijada and a large faction of his vassal clans spoke in favor of such a war, arguing that it was necessary to safeguard the Khaganate. Furthermore, they believed the Sklaveni were disunited. The Grand Prince was an old man, and notoriously cruel - more hated than beloved. His son, Simeon, the likely successor, was distrusted by many of the nobility after having spent five years as a hostage in Srem. War was thus declared, and the aging Boris took the field.

The battle was a disaster for the combined Xasar-Avar army. At a place called Stipon Gate, the Xasar fell into an ambush. The bulk of both armies never saw combat - the terrain favored a series of small engagements - but Mahijada was killed in the fighting and Tonyuwar was lucky to escape with his life. Boris marched northwest along the Danube until he reached Srem, which he besieged for several weeks before conquering and leveling the city entirely, carrying off the treasures accumulated by the Avar Khagan in their years of raiding and plunder.

As Tonyuwar rallied his forces, he knew that this could well be the end of his reign. Mahijada had been invaluable as an advisor and a diplomat. With Srem destroyed and his army humiliated, he had few options left. His people had fled the Khirichan, but now he turned to them, sending an ambassador, twelve of his finest horses, and a letter begging for aid in which addressed the young Shiqar Khagan as "Lion of the Steppe and Universal Ruler", hinting at a willingness to submit himself and his people to the Turks in exchange for revenge upon the Sklaveni.

Shiqar Khagan took the hint, perhaps more literally than Tonyuwar had intended. According to the Slavic chronicles, he rode west with some twenty thousand mounted warriors. The ruin of Srem was retaken, and Boris would die of natural causes two weeks, never awakening after a night of heavy drinking. His army would carry on without him, now under Simeon, acclaimed Autocrat by the nobility after a hasty funeral. However, Simeon was not able to gain the confidence and trust of his vassals. Frustrated by this lack of respect, he determined to seek a pitched battle with the Khirichanid horde. Shiqar was more than happy to offer battle, and after a feigned retreat caused the Slavic cavalry to become separated from their main host in violation of Simeon's strict orders, the Slavs were defeated badly.

The Turks swept into the Balkans proper, devastating the countryside and carrying off much plunder. However, they were unable to translate this into any conquest. The many hill-forts and walled cities of the region, and the numerous peasants capable and willing to take up arms against them meant that any campaign was fundamentally one of hit-and-run. The Slavic state would endure. Their nobles, having learned a brutal lesson about not fully supporting their Prince, would not rebel but instead would harass the Turkic raiding parties in turn.

Tonyuwar's decision had cost him his independence. While relatively autonomous, he was forced to offer subordination to the Khirichan. The Xasar-Avar state would survive but as a tributary to the Turkic Khaganate. It would not recover lost territory, either along the Danube or in Illyria.

And yet Pannonia was well positioned. If the Xasar and Turks had learned anything from their campaign it was that there were great riches to be found in Europe. The countrysides were dotted with monasteries and towns which were not all as defended as those in the Balkans. The Christ-worshipping heathens who surrounded them were ripe targets for future raids.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Eastern Mediterranean

The trends in the Eastern Mediterranean during the middle of the eighth century can be described as a process of recovery and synthesis of traditions. Unlike in Pannonia, where the nomadic Iranian culture met Hellenized Christianity with violence, in Rhom, because of the undisputed dominance of the Eftal in the military sphere, the large Christian subject class was forced to compromise. The Procopian movement gradually died out as Eftal rule became more and more the norm. The Rhomian Shah Datuvahya spoke Greek fluently, although with a thick Eftal accent.

Under Datuvahya's weak and hedonistic rule, the Shahdom nevertheless managed to flourish. The mercantile cities, and major ports profited immensely from the fall of the Mauri. It was their merchants who would dominate the seas, bringing goods from Crimea to Italy to Egypt to Africa. The Eftal (both the Bulgar and Slavic elite were legally considered such as well) tribal landholders along the vast inland terrain saw a population boom. Anatolia was a fertile region, and in the absence of any major military threat, the generation spanning from 720-740 saw enormous population expansion. This demographic shift would transform inland Anatolia and cement the power of the Shahdom. However, it would also cause tensions with the Alans.

Starting around 735, the Alan Khagan, Samosisa began to regard Datuvahya's Shahdom as a distinct threat to his power. Where previously the two regimes had enjoyed comfortable relations, one of the major grievances between the two states had always been low intensity communal violence brought on by the semi-nomadic subjects of both states. With the Eftal population rising dramatically, this would become an even larger issue. Datuvahya's attempts to restore relations were viewed as a final straw for a weak monarch. He was murdered by his sister Stayidh in 738 and replaced by brother-in-law, Varshirakh Taladhna.

Varshirakh opted to resolve the border conflict with violence. A year after Datuvahya's death, in response to an incursion by Alan raiders he declared war. At first, the war seemed over before it had begun. The Alan capital of Ankyra was far, far too close to the border to be defended, and a rapid attack by Varshirakh saw it fall within weeks. Khagan Samosisa fled along with whatever family and valuables could be moved. With Ankyra taken, the Eftal took their time sacking the city and the surrounding countryside, selling many into slavery and looting the famous Church of Wisdom. This delay allowed time for the Alans to gather in force.

Inconclusive engagements would define the period of 739-742. It was not until Varshirakh appealed to the mercantile cities that he was able to tip the balance in his favor, drawing up another ten thousand citizen-soldiers. These Roman soldiers turned the tide of the battle. Varshirakh was forced to acknowledge the utility of the vassal cities and grant them additional privileges, but it had been worth it. The Alan Khaganate was broken in battle as Samosisa attempted to retake Ankyra. Large portions of their territory were stripped away and given to Eftal landholders, and the Alans were made to pay tribute to the Eftal.

To the south, Egypt saw a similar phenomenon of cultural synthesis. Distinctions between the Hellenic and Coptic population had been gradually dissolving for some time, but into the mix was thrust Arab and some Persian influences. Alexandria retained its status as a shocking and cosmopolitan city, playing host to merchants from across Europe. A visitor to the enormous port city could see Sahu traders bartering with Saihist Arabs or Savahilan travelers visiting the famous Library (a pale shadow of its antique self but impressive nonetheless).

The Eftal elite continued to assimilate. Hvarabad [alt Fustat] was renamed Hesanopolis, and continued to remain the Royal residence. Timotheos passed away in 731 and was succeeded by his son Dioscoros Hesanos. His legacy would be as a builder and a reformer - making changes in the tax policy during the famine of 727 to alleviate the burden on farmers and redistribute the tax burden onto the mercantile class. The most enduring of his construction projects were a series of monuments commemorating the deeds of his ancestors in a style typically reserved for the deeds of saints and holy men. While some in the Church would see these as blasphemous, they formed propagandistic fabricated analogies between the trials of some of the earliest Heshanids and the trials of ancient Biblical figures which often inspired the common people, who already saw him as a hero.

The Heshanid trade apparatus would shift somewhat in this time period - riverine trade up and down the Nile became increasingly important as the Makurian aristocracy developed a desire for crafted finished goods, Egyptian papyrus, and horses. This in turn would link the Mediterranean to the Western African peoples, who for the first time were coming out of their relative isolation and beginning to take part in global change.

Arabia and Africa

Arabia, and the Saihist community in general would spend much of the seventh century consolidating and further defining themselves. It was a period of existential soul-searching and charismatic movements which were born, died, and rediscovered over the course of mere generations. An isolated and esoteric cult, their religious beliefs and vibrant displays earned them few friends either among the iconoclastic schools of the Awha Albudhia (Arabian Buddhism) in the south or the large Jewish population in Yemen - both of which they ruled and would come to have a profound effect on. The Jews of Yemen in particular were willing, under religious reformers such as Ibrahim ibn Azizur, to consider Alilat as a sort of angelic consort of their God. This would in turn isolate a portion of the Yemeni Jews from their brethren across the world, but it enabled the Jewish population to join the community of believers. Access to the title of "Believer" was an enormous blessing - it elevated their role in society above that which it had been under the Hadhramut. For the Saihists, accepting the Yemeni Jews reinforced social cohesion and weakened any chance of them becoming a potential third column.

Another thing that would reinforce the Saihist dominion even in this period of internal definition and redefinition was the fact that the Hadhramut hegemony was coming to an end. A combination of climate changes and poor water use would destroy many of the great plantation cities of the interior. The collapse of several great dams allowed crucial reservoirs to deplete and not recover. The Hadhramut community would endure of course, but it would do so largely as a diaspora, integrating with the Savahila. The spice trade would survive, albeit reduced. Much of this new demand would be picked up by the Hawiya in [Somalia] within the years to come, but in the short term the middle of the eighth century saw the price of Arabic spices rise dramatically. The great mercantile guilds across the Indian Ocean reached new and extravagant heights of wealth and prestige.

The new South Arabia was one of desert nomads, isolated entrepot cities, and Buddhist monasteries. Those parts of the country which retained their fertility were limited, and this broke the back of the landholding aristocracy. Land surveys from the time period suggest that small farmers regained pre-eminence, growing small plots of spices and incense in addition to growing edible crops and raising livestock.

The Hawiya to the south were on the rise, and this was only accelerated by the decline of Arabia. The Hawiya monarchs ruled a cosmopolitan crossroads of civilizations and trade - and this trade made the Hawiya fantastically rich. No longer would they need to raid or use brute force or hydraulic monopolies to assert dominance - with time their tools became more refined and subtle. Primitive but functional bureaucracies were developed, to handle tariffs, land, and water rights. As all of these things were essential to the Hawiya society, the bureaucracy had essentially absolute power. The tribal society that existed before crumbled in the face of their regulation. Under Shah Varsaame II (735-758) the Hawiya enjoyed a golden age of uninterrupted prosperity. A patron of the Awha Albudhia, Varsaame nevertheless maintained tolerance to the large pagan, Jewish, and Saihist communities within his kingdom.

If the Hawiya were cosmopolitan, were still shockingly inward-looking in some crucial regards. The world came to them for their goods and their prime location. Varsaame and his successors did not need to travel beyond their splendid rural palace. They were patrons of art and science and beautiful buildings but it was fundamentally the art, science, and monuments of other cultures and peoples. Knowledge of the broader world and its multitude of philosophies inspired the creation of universities, perhaps the greatest among them being the House of Wisdom in Amoud. Staffed by Saihist priestesses, it was a temple to knowledge above all other things. However, the Cushitic culture of the Hawiya was overwhelmed by this multitude of foreign influences. Like many peoples of Africa in this period, the elite in particular chose to embrace foreign thought and aesthetics over their own.

To the north of the Hawiya, the other great power of northeast Africa ruled along relatively similar lines. Makuria was under the sway of an absolutist monarchy maintaining a firm grasp on the Nile with the help of an intricate priesthood-bureaucracy, ostensibly Christian but with a somewhat unorthodox pantheon of local "Saints". Very much inspired by Heshanid Egypt, they had the same preoccupation with monumental building and opulent displays of wealth. Theirs was a fertile and prosperous kingdom, capable of asserting hegemony over what remained of Axum and the other petty kingdoms to their south. However, their contact with the Hawiya was limited - evidenced by only rare exchanges of goods and few reported travelers. Both states remained at each other's peripheries and had little interest in changing that.

The Makurian Kingdom was only adventurous when it came to the west. The first Coptic missionaries reached Kanem in 734, where they were received politely but cautiously by the Kings there. Trade with this broader world was facilitated through intermediaries - chief among them the Daju tribe of [Darfur]. As the trickle of foreign trade mostly consisted of rare caravans tracking along river courses on great roundabouts, peoples such as the Daju provided welcome respite for weary travelers and a chance to acquire fresh provisions.

For these first explorers, the world beyond their knowledge must have seemed vast. In the marketplaces of Kanem they could hear fascinating stories of wondrous golden kingdoms far to the west and great cities in the utter south. But travel was dangerous to those who did not know the land intimately. Feuds between local potentates were commonplace in the nearby area, and this lack of central control meant that bandits with access to horses could ride down caravans with contemptuous ease and take their precious cargo. Only large expeditions had a guarantee of safety, and those with spare money to pay bribes. The Kings of Kanem claimed divine supremacy over a vast area but in practice their supremacy was limited and their protection was not extended to these bright-eyed missionaries from the north. Though they would make some converts, most expeditions would turn back at Lake Chad, their camels nevertheless heavy-laden with Ghanan gold.

The first explorers from Savahila would arrive shortly thereafter, in 758. Theirs was a longer, even more perilous journey, up the great lakes and many of the same rivers along which the Makurian missions traveled. Decimated by disease and raids along their route, these Savahilan traders still brought back tales of the advanced and wealthy civilizations that lay in the west. Their words would inspire maritime voyages, seeking the same western kingdoms by what might be an easier route. These voyages would be numerous and well-sponsored, but few would reach their destination, though several would find useful harbors along the southern coast of Africa - harbors that would in due time eventually become resupply ports. The first successful navigation would occur in 788. Inspired by a desire to find the "Gold Cities", the Malik of Mzishima outfitted a fleet of five "great ships" under the command of legendary navigator Shiraya Raosata. Only two of these ships would return, but they would locate the city of Tekrur, the capital of a people who called themselves Fula.

The spread of the Savahila inward reached roughly its maximum extent in 750. As a civilization they were simply too dependent on coasts and rivers to stretch deep into the interior. Their isolated inland forts came under the rule of the growing Sahs of the Kwadza, the predominant people in the southwest. The Kwadza had simply been the first and most successful at utilizing their trade connections and turning them into practical advantage over their rivals and neighbors, seizing the most fertile territory and the best grazing grounds with iron weapons and armor. Their "conquests" would however mark a hard limit on the Savahila expansion - at times Mzishima attempted to recover their inland forts but this was ultimately a futile endeavor.

To the north, by 800 the Rutara-Ganda civilization had begun to develop sophisticated urban settlements with thousands of inhabitants. They dominated the "Four Coasts" of Lake Nyanza [Victoria] and significant trade and missionary contact is evidenced by finds of Arabian incense and Savahilan pottery in the homes of local elites.

To the southeast, on the "Island of the Moon" the Izaoraika society in the eighth century entered into what historians call the "Mandala Era". The feudal, tribal patchwork that had dominated the island since the arrival of the first austronesian settlers gave way to a centralized state. The last holdouts of the tribal system, the Antaisaka and the Sihanaka were conquered by 720. Hindicization continued apace - a limited selection of Hindu gods were merged with traditional deities, and the framework of Tantric philosophy continued to be in vogue among the elite, although there are some questions about how deeply it penetrated the lower classes, who remained largely polytheist and traditionalist.

The Izaoraika monarchy, the Sakalavaraja, would turn outwards for their first time in its history. During the long reign of King Rajasoanalamira 724-767, the Izaoraika turned to large-scale shipbuilding themselves, copying Savahilan and Indian designs, finding particular favor with the twin-hulled Tamil craft which perhaps reminded them of their own vessels. As the population grew, unchecked by the twin evils of raiding and crops unsuited to their environment which had historically held it back, the Izaoraika would seek their fortunes elsewhere. Bands of young Izaoraika would set sail for Arabia and the Persian Gulf as mercenaries, traders, and settlers. The more adventurous would establish coastal communities along the coast of East Africa, attempting to repeat the Savahilan successes.

[I know I'm covering a lot in these posts and not always in a lot of detail. If anyone has any questions or wants me to expand upon a topic, I'm always happy to do so.

Also, any commentary on the plausibility of this all? It seems to be ancient Arab ships were sufficiently impressive for the task, but it is perhaps a bit of a stretch. I may choose to retcon this if people think I've gone to far. Keep in mind that these contacts are famous because they're the first but that doesn't inherently imply an age of discovery or anything radical like that. I expect that contact over the sea will be sporadic and rare.]

 

[Practical Lobster]

Oadhya - the fading star of the latter Eftal

By 720, few in the Oadhyan Empire could remember any other system. Those who could recalled only the apocalyptic anarchy of the "false Saosyant" and the years of division and endemic warfare beforehand. The Oadhyan Empire was safe and prosperous by comparison. However, it had many crippling flaws which only grew worse after Mihiragula's death in 723.

Firstly, urban growth was limited by the unique Eftal feudal system, which saw much arable land simply used as pasture. That land which was not used as such was often used for cash crops (wine and cotton among other commodities) by the local grandees - agricultural surplus remained at the low levels merely necessary to support slave plantations staffed by imported Slavic and East African labor. In the Gulf, most cities remained small trading ports built around previous harbors, designed to funnel goods east and west.

Secondly, the feudal system, while resilient against outside threats, was ineffective at building the power of the crown to such a degree as to support large-scale projects. The great vayan landholders and the monasteries of the north did not collect taxes for the crown - they paid tribute, and this tribute could often be merely token. Oversight was limited, as it was the vayans and their extended families who provided the military arm of the government, and the monasteries who provided the bureaucracy. No King could escape their grasp.

Thirdly, incoherent policy on the frontiers. While the vayans often were tractable, the greater padivayans often considered themselves kings in their own right. The padivayans of Nasibin and Mosil for example in 732 responded to a border incursion from Syrian Eftal raiders with violence despite promises from the crown that it would not be met with reprisal, weakening the integrity of their crown. The padivayans were then able to negotiate their punishment down to a mere slap on the wrist.

Mihiragula's death saw his cousin Vankavadh take power in what less charitable sources refer to as a palace coup engineered by local aristocrats. He proceeded to squander the limited resources of state on grand festivals and decadent parties. More charitable sources would see Vankavadh as someone attempting to right the course of the Oadhyan Empire before it was too late. His ostentatious displays of wealth were necessary to keep his vassals in line - carefully arranged generosity combined with veiled threats. His coup was to prevent a weaker candidate for the throne from gaining it at the behest of the greater lords. He would maintain the "International System" of the Late Eftal Era, keeping in regular diplomatic contact with his peers to the west and marrying a Khirichan princess.

However, he would meet a grisly death in 734 in battle against the Banu Tayy. Christian Arabs, fleeing the ever bolder raids of the Saihists, had overrun several of his southern lords. Calling his retainers together, and levying those lords who were nearby, he rode south. Attempting to relieve the siege of Zabai, he attacked the Tayy siege lines and was repulsed. Panicking, he ordered a retreat which turned into a rout. In the chaos he fell from his horse and was kicked in the head, never to rise. Leaving no heir and a wide selection of possible candidates, the Oadhyan lords raced towards the capital to have their say in the succession. Unlike in the Eftal Empire, where only the close retainers would be assumed to have a say (in such a situation where no clear candidate existed) for the Oadhyan lords, all of them were retainers of equal standing to the King's personal companions. Succession disputes meant riding to the capital in force.

The Council of Ahmatan, as their meeting became known, would last for two weeks. An early frontrunner, Mihiradata, was found to have a crippling stutter he had hid by virtue of infrequent appearances, all of which were heavily rehearsed. He lost the support of his followers and turned up dead in his bedroom the next day. Accusations flew but no culprit was determined. Sataspa the Vayan of Xhunan, growing weary of the lack of progress finally took action to end the madness. He arranged with a small cabal of his fellow lords to seize the palace and lock the lords in until a suitable candidate had been chosen. After a failed attempt by the Eftal lords to break out, they caved and chose Rasam Oadhya as their leader by a narrow plurality. Sataspa allowed the lords to leave, but the Vayan of Pelapata, angered by Sataspa's actions and smug satisfaction at having broken the deadlock gathered several of his brothers to his side and beat Sataspa with a cudgel. Rasam's command to stop the fighting was finally heeded, but the damage had been done - already the young Shah appeared weak and Sataspa would henceforth be known as "the Golden Toothed."

The rest of Rasam's reign would be no more impressive. Large sections of the Euphrates were lost to certain Tayy lords, who paid tribute and theoretically merely rented the land from the Shah, but in truth were its sole masters now. In the East, an ambitious Turko-Sogdian warlord named Aghatsagh was carving out a Khanate for himself, and many of the eastern vassals paid tribute to him just as they did to Ahmatan and the Oadhyan crown.

Central Asia - Rise of the "Turkic Sikander"

Little is known of Aghatsagh Shah or his origins. One of the many Persianized Turks who lived on the periphery of the Eftal world, he distinguished himself in the mold of similar successful warlords before him, by raiding his neighbors and simply being better at it than they were. Eventually, his victories turned to outright conquest, and he proved adept at that as well. In 721, at the age of twenty, he captured Harev [Herat] from the Kapisa Shahs, who had long regarded such cities as the absolute border of their dominions. Unlike so many conquerors before him, he was quick to turn from raiding to taxes. Charismatic and brave, he energized the polyglot warriors beneath him into a capable fighting force. Tribal affiliations mattered little so long as one could fight. With each success, his defeated enemies were incorporated into his ranks.

In 724, he defeated the Gorkhanid Eftal, once a tributary of the Oadhyans. Their Shah was made to ritually submit himself. Other scattered Eftal satraps in Sakastan were defeated by 726, again earning the wrath of the Kapisa Shahs, who finally saw the threat for what it was. However, the Kapisa had entered decline themselves, being but a shadow of the Johiyava. Unlike the great estates and large armies the Johiyava could call upon from within India, the Kapisa found themselves hamstrung by their dependence on the Ganarajyas (guild republics) of the Punjab for additional manpower. Furthermore, they had not endeared themselves to all the Kamboja, many of whom had preferred the patronage of their fellow tribesmen to the Eftal Siyaposha tribe. As such, the two great military reserves of the Kapisa Shahdom deserted them in their time of need. The guilds, for their part, rebelled after a council speech by the influential orator Dahrasena Soneta, whose writings became the foundational treatises upon which the Gandharan Republic would be based.

Faced with so many threats, Aghatsagh's triumph was almost to be expected. After two years of campaigning, many of the great mountain fortresses had fallen. Kapisa itself was sacked, and the seat of power in its region began to shift north towards Balkh once more, although the city of Kabul also became influential.

Unlike the Kapisa, Aghatsagh did not for the time being choose to press into India. Tales of the powerful Gandharans and their armies convinced him to bide his time. Furthermore, he had a large and roughly-held together Empire to manage. As a Shah over many different peoples, he found himself constantly having to shift roles to adapt. He could no longer be a mere tribal warlord - he had to be a Shah. He could no longer be a conqueror, he had to find capable administrators. He could no longer be a pagan, he had to pay at least lip service to the multitude of gods and creeds worshipped by his peoples. It helped that he was multilingual - speaking Eastern Eftal, Sogdian, Turkish, and Gandharan with equal fluency. Later in life he would become an avid reader as well.

Aghatsagh was deeply concerned with his legacy. He drew from the inspiration of conquerors he read about such as Heshana and Alexander the Great. The key, he decided, was to bind the conquered peoples together with blood. In this project he was only partially successful. He himself would marry the daughter of the former Kapisa Shah, Anakhitvandha. More successful was his policy of otherwise letting the disparate peoples of his empire more or less govern themselves. As long as taxes were paid there was little to fear. Like the Kapisa before him, the core of his military was primarily Turkic, but unlike the Kapisa this core was few enough in number that Aghatsagh could employ and assimilate plenty of other peoples into his army.

In 731, the Sogdian Shah, fearing the growing Empire to their south, declared war as well. Their defeat was swift, and the Shah found himself reduced to a mere tributary by 732. This tributary status would generally be the fate of the northern peoples he encountered - here Aghatsagh respected the general autonomy of the steppes. He did not try to govern them as directly - preferring a light hand and tribute in kind.

By the ascension of Rasam Oadhya to the Eftal throne, Aghatsagh ruled an empire greater than any of the petty Turkic warlords who had come before him. He commanded a truly impressive force, the crown jewel of which was fifty war elephants - a gift from the Gandharan republics. In time, perhaps he would turn those elephants back on the prince-assemblies of Gandhara. Or maybe he would march west and reunite the Eftal Empire. He had many options.

 

[Practical Lobster]

The Lion of Herat

Fresh from previous victories, Aghatsagh envisioned a grand conquest of India. Huge armies were rallied, and the provinces stripped to bare minimal garrisons. Every soldier would be necessary. However, this was also when the Oadhyans decided to attack. Rasam Oadhya, eager to secure his grip on the throne by vanquishing the Eastern threat, led his foremost retainers and some twenty thousand men towards Herat. Aghatsagh, cursing fate, led his army west instead.

Rasam was defeated swiftly. The Eftal Shah panicked at the unexpected size of the forces arrayed against them and the army as a whole attempted to fall back, but Aghatsagh shadowed him relentlessly. In a bold move, Aghatsagh left behind the bulk of his army and all of his foot, taking only the swift Turkic cavalry which had won his earliest victories. He harassed the Eftal columns, making them think that his forces were far greater, slowing them to a crawl. Finally, on an anonymous hilltop lost to history, Rasam made a final stand - his horses exhausted and his men thirsty, his troops circled their wagons and attempted to fortify the high ground. The Turks circled them, and the next day the main body of the Aghatsaghid army arrived, bringing fresh supplies and arrows. The Eftal were unable to use their own cavalry to its fullest extent, and their attempts to sally forth were met with disaster.

Finally, after two more days, the Turkic army attacked the defenses, and the exhausted Eftal army surrendered. The nobility was ransomed for enormous sums, and the common soldiers were sold into slavery. The Shah himself was treated with respect and dignity, as an honored guest not a prisoner, but when he attempted to escape along with a group of his companions he was beaten and lashed to a pole for three days without food or water until he begged for mercy. Aghatsagh's army, having many noble captives, found only limited strong defenses. Unlike the fortresses of Europe, many of which were becoming impressive indeed, the typical Eftal palace-fort was designed to defend against mere raiders. Few posed serious obstacles to Aghatsagh, and by mid-autumn he arrived at Ahmatan, which opened its gates to him.

The Shah, weakened by the various ordeals he had been subjected to, was made to sign a humiliating peace. He was effectively a vassal of Aghatsagh, and several of his own greatest vassals were directly made tributaries to his conqueror - a man who many called "the Lion of Herat" after his latest victories. The Shah would remain in Persia for another two years (until 735), touring the countryside. The "Turkic Indenture" as Rasam's humiliation became known, would become infamous throughout the Eftal world.

However, Aghatsagh was nowhere near done. Now, his victory finally ensured, he turned to the nascent Gandharan republic. The army which descended from his mountain fortresses on Purusapura won every battle with almost contemptuous ease - hardened by years of fighting and commanded by a tactical genius and a master of deception, the guild-soldiers found themselves simply outmatched. However, they were also numerous and the Gandharans, motivated by Dahrasena Soneta, refused to even consider surrender unless Aghatsagh recognized their councils and guilds. Impressed by the stubbornness of the Gandharans, and often merciful in victory, Aghatsagh agreed. He even spared the great universities and cities of the region even a token sack.

However, this even-handedness aggravated his soldiers, who had been promised plunder. Magnanimous victory was all well and good for the Shah's interests, they argued, but for the common warrior travelling many miles from home, material reward was necessary. As such, they pressured Aghatsagh into sailing down the Indus into the country of the Rai dynasty. Ruled by King Rai Sahasi, the Rai had successfully resisted the Siyaposha with the help of the Gurjars, but recently this alliance had been strained. Isolated, they put up a valiant fight but were destroyed in battle at Sanahpur. The Rai dynasty was wiped out to a man and their cities pillaged. Aghatsagh carved grants of land out of the river valley, and divided the cities into small provinces, which he granted to those who had performed well in the campaign.

In 737, Aghatsagh struck south against the "land of the five rivers" but here he was met with mounting frustration. The Ganarajya of Sakala resisted far longer than he expected, and brought allies - the small guild-republics of Madra and Trigarta sent reinforcements. While he ultimately won, and brought much of the Punjab under his control, it was at great cost. He deemed striking any further inland impossible, and finally turned back. The far-famed Lion of Herat remained undefeated, and it was perhaps only Aghatsagh who truly knew how close he came to defeat.

Another reason for choosing to turn back after 737 was that the Syrians were proving an increasingly dangerous threat in the west. After seeing the Oadhyan's defeat, Shah Avyaman Kithara began launching attacks further and further into Mesopotamia, turning several border lords openly against Rasam and thus by extension Aghatsagh. Leading his forces west to counter this new threat, signs of age and stress began to show. The Lion of Herat was still only middle-aged, but the stress of campaign and his wounds had taken their toll on him. He still inspired great devotion in his polyglot soldiers, but it was in the evolving corps of officers who he placed most of his trust in this campaign.

The Aghatsaghid army fought the Syrians to a draw, and finally Avyaman agreed to an exchange of hostages and peace. The critical fortress cities of Nasibin and Dariy were handed over to the Syrians, and peace was concluded in the west. The Shah of Syria married his son, Hvarmei to one of Aghatsagh's many daughters, Culpan, and the two men entered into an uneasy but practical alliance. Not long after, Aghatsagh returned to Herat. He named his son, Korshad Lasgara, co-Shah in the Eftal tradition, and settled down to rule.

However, within two years he became restless. Tales had reached him of the weakness of the Qi dynasty, and he began to plan a massive overland invasion of China, involving some hundred thousand men, perhaps a third of them mounted, and over a thousand war elephants. Ignoring the logistical difficulties of such an endeavor, especially for a military establishment which had lost much of the lightness and mobility which had made its earliest victories possible, the plan was short on details as to how such an army would propose to take Chang'an or press into the vast heartland of a vaster empire. Perhaps fortunately for his legacy, Aghatsagh would die before he could undertake such a venture, in 740.

The Terror of Europe (in brief)

The twenty years before the Great Raids seemed to bode well for the future of Christian Europe. Cities were growing and wealth was on the rise, especially in Italy. The Berbers to the south were relatively quiet. Trade, although nowhere near what it had once been, now flowed once more into North Africa. The first tentative tales of golden kingdoms across great seas of sand were seeping north. For once, the trend seemed to be in favor of unification as well, rather than fragmentation.

In Florentia, Emperor Valerian would pass away in 736, succeeded by his son Isidorius Petrus Constantius. Isidorius was by all accounts a humble and devout man, raised at the periphery of the Imperial court out of his mother's fear of the influence of the military men who controlled Isidorian affairs to so great a degree. Upon his ascension, Isidorius found that his lack of military expertise ensured he would simply not be respected by the professional military bureaucracy whose control over the state was absolute.

Rather, one man was perhaps the undisputed master of ever-shrinking Christian Europe. The Magister Militium, Cosmas, had successfully expanded Roman power across the Mediterranean and into the Balkans. Unlike his predecessors, who had been conservative, or the Pope who still looked East, Cosmas believed he could restore a Western Empire. The Frankish kingdoms were deadlocked - apart from brief and bloody feuds they were inward looking. The Hispanians were still reeling from their humiliation at the hands of the Berbers. Furthermore, the Hispanian monarch, Suinthila had proved incapable of siring a male child. His nobles were restless, and Cosmas saw nothing but opportunity.

The Roman attempt to conquer Hispania was born out of a comedy of errors. Cosmas' attempt to subtly suggest a union between the two crowns was taken entirely the wrong way. His attempts to interfere in the growing succession crisis were seen as belligerent, and Suinthila, tiring of Roman interference declared war, and marched from Narbo into Provence. Having spent his youth fighting for his crown, Suinthila was no stranger to pitched battles. While Cosmas struck a hasty alliance with the Aquitainian King, nearly doubling the forces available to him, Suinthila easily outmaneuvered Cosmas and defeated him in 737, leading to the Magister's death. The Emperor was quick to make peace, but the Empire was humiliated. Their opportunities squandered, they could only look with terror as Suinthila turned his attentions north, defeating the Frankish King of Aquitaine and restoring his dynasty's control of southern Gaul.

Meanwhile, the Franks, frightened by this new display of power from Hispania, began to rally around the King of Austrasia, Clovis, who as a young man had quickly defeated his brothers and expanded his dominion into the territory of the Saxons. They could not see that the Visigothic dominion was a paper tiger, strong only because of the various weaknesses of their enemies, and doomed to crumble once more the moment Suithila died. Unfortunately for the Franks however, Suithila would not be quick to die. He would finally die in 745, with rumors of poisoning abounding, and in the broader context of history he could not have picked a worse time to die. His sons-in-law divided the sprawling territory between themselves, and one by one they would be conquered by the Franks to their north.

745, was the year that the Khirichan realized the wealth of Europe. Compared to the Slavic tribes to their north, Europe was ripe for looting. It would not be long after that Kuluj Ishbara Shiqarogul, third son of the Khirichanid Khagan, would launch the first raid on Europe. Striking hard into the Balkans with a small force, he would carry back vast quantities of treasure from raids on rural estates. This in turn would only encourage more raiders and greater targets. Travelling light, his raiders were able to avoid concentrated field armies and local fortifications and wreak untold havoc. When his foes did manage to bring him to battle, they invariably lost. Isidorius was defeated in 749, and Northern Italy was opened to the Khirichan. From there, Spain and Southern France became targets as well.

Later raids between 753-759 would target primarily northern Europe, circling through Barvaria into Gaul, but in 763 a major raid, organized independently by a group of Xasar-Sahu warlords, managed to sack Meilanum (Milan) itself after a small party gained access to a sally port during the night. Each successful raid spawned imitators, and the few major defeats were counteracted by an abundance of victories. These raids would in turn allow the Khirichan and Xasar to truly establish themselves in the Carpathian basin. Utilizing their homeland as a base for raids, all of Europe was open to attack. Reprisals from Rome were limited - Isidorius concentrated on fortifying key entrances into Italy - which had some success, but did little to impress the military, which demanded answers. Finally, in traditional Roman fashion, Isidorius would be overthrown by his Magister Militium, Severus, in 768. His small family would be executed or forced into exile as well. The Isidorian dynasty came to an end, but the Roman Empire would not.

That same year, the Romans lost their Balkan territories and clients once and for all. Kuluj Ishbara turned from raiding to outright conquest, taking Illyria by storm and then proceeding south into Sklavenia. His raiders, hardened by their many victories, defeated Grand Prince Samuel and wrested Moesia and much of Epirus away from the Sklavenians.

The Great Raids had left Europe in a state of panic. For a generation their defenses had been shown to be vastly inadequate. Pagan brigands had ravaged deep into the heartland of western Christendom unopposed. Now, Kuluj Ishbara had carved out yet another heathen kingdom in Christian lands. It was unacceptable. Rumors that Kuluj, the Xasars under Shah Nanaivanta, and the Rhom Shah had formed a triumvirate alliance to conquer Rome itself spread like wildfire. The Sklaveni begged the Pope for aid. The Franks unified with remarkable speed, given their early factitiousness. Clovis accomplished what his predecessors had barely dreamed of - a unified Francian "Empire." In the wake of so many raids and upheavals, he promised to be a Defender of the Faith. One apocryphal story relates him traveling to Rome and swearing a sacred vow to restore the Holy Places and the Church entirely.

The stage was set for the Great Votive War.

[Stay tuned. Next post will cover in detail the rise of Clovis the Great (same time frame as this post) and his alliance with Emperor Severus. From there I plan to take a lot of time to focus on the buildup to the Votive War, the war itself, and aftermath.

Europe in this time period is not my strong suit. I welcome questions and comments. Kuluj Ishbara's raids are based on the Hungarian raids of OTL.]

 

[Practical Lobster]

The Rise of Clovis the Great

Clovis Magnus was as much lucky as he was skilled. He had the great fortune to be born a King in a Europe that for the first time feared not merely for Christendom abroad but its own existence. In his youth tales of the "Carican Turk" (a term which here included Eftal, Xasar-Sahu, and Turk alike) reached the court at Aachen. When their raids began in 745, Clovis had just ascended the throne, defeating his brother Carl and uniting Austrasia. The next two decades would see unprecedented reversals for European armies as they were outmatched time and again by the Turkic cavalry. The aristocrats of the countryside lived in fear of lightening raids, as did the common people. All old certainties had been extinguished as if overnight.

The Turks provoked fear, but it was the unification of the Hispanian and Aquitainian Kingdoms was the prospect that allowed Clovis to gain control of Neustria in 748 and subjugate the King of Burgundy in 554. From there, the other Frankish Kings quickly fell in line. As the Turks proved capable of raiding Bavaria, Thuringia, and Swabia, these duchies all folded back into a Kingdom of the Franks. By 560, all except Aquitaine was reunited - and that would come. Throughout the 60's, Clovis defeated the Hispanian warlords one by one, pressing as far south as Barcelona and ultimately making his border at the Ebro. King Unulius of Hispania, was killed in battle at Bayonne in 764, and his four surviving sons would be made dukes of the Hispanian "provinces" - Baetica, Lusitania, Suebia, and Carthaginensis, each subordinate to the King of the Franks.

What enabled these lightening conquests was the remarkable centralization of the new Frankish state. The nobles now were for the first time willing to cede power to the central administration, and frequently colluded with the same administration. This change saw the birth of the Palantine Magnates, an order of aristocrats bound to the palace who acted as viceroys over broad territories rather than kings. Required to spend a portion of their time in the capital and serve as bodyguards in times of war, these Magnates were accordingly prevented from establishing kingly privileges over their new dominions.

The Frankish army was drawn from two major sources. The reliable standing army consisted of the noble "retainers" - well-equipped, well-disciplined aristocratic soldiers. However, for major campaigns a large levy could be called up. While traditionally this levy applied only to certain regions and cities where the King had a legal right to do so, the levy was reformed under Clovis Magnus, becoming a universal right of the monarchy and certain of the Palantine Magnates. The Franks did not make widespread use of cavalry - compared to the Romans their horse were few in number, although the horsemen of their army were heavily armored and armed. Their traditional style of warfare involved bristling shield walls of infantry.

Religion played no small role in the organization of the new state. Ecclesiastical lands represented a not insignificant portion of the Frankish estate system, and as Clovis' power grew, his status as the most prominent Christian monarch grew accordingly. A pious and reverent image helped him to show his rule over almost all of Western Europe as not mere ambition but rather a divinely mandate. He began referring to himself as "Defender of the Faith" and "Equal to the Apostles" in his proclamations, and reportedly travelled to Rome on several occasions to meet with the Pope, Adrian I. What was crucial, however, was that Clovis never went so far as to claim any pretension to Imperial prestige. He was a monarch, and perhaps the greatest monarch, but he was not Roman Emperor - even when Severus took power out of the hands of the Isidorians, Clovis acknowledged the Emperor as legitimate after Severus' confirmation by the Senate and Roman Army.

Despite all this, Clovis knew well that his state would not long last without an external enemy, and for both personal and political reasons he felt it unwise to choose the Roman Empire as that foe. His state had been forged in many ways because of the Carican Turk, and thus it seemed only appropriate to continue his war against them. That the Roman Empire, Pope, and Sklavonian Empire all thought the same was only a benefit. In 771, the first call went forth for the armed populace of Europe to paint the Red Cross upon their shields and go forth to Holy War.

The Great Votive War

Historians are rightly fascinated by the Great Votive War, as it marks a major turning-point in the history of Europe and the world. Wars had of course been fought over religion before. The latter Eastern Roman Emperors couched their wars in the rhetoric of Saint Augustine's "Just War" and in an ideology that can be perhaps seen as proto-Desidarian. However, the concept of "Devotional" or "Votive War" represented a transition in ideology, an expansion of the Just War theology. Active warfare against the heathens was now, in rhetoric of Pope Adrian I, incumbent upon Christendom. The defense of Christianity and Christian holy places was an obligation for all who were capable of doing so. The armed strength of Europe should not, as it had for centuries, turn against each other but rather against their common enemies now howling at the gate. Everywhere pagans ruled Christian land. In Africa, in Asia, in Europe the armies of Christ were being driven back.

Votive War, or war fought as part of a solemn vow to God, was a blessed affair, a way of obtaining divine favor and absolving sins. Just as the warrior-kings of the Old Testament or Constantine the Great undertook wars sanctioned by God, so too could contemporary Kings and Emperors. The Papacy called on all Christians to turn against the Heathen, and the response was tremendous. With the sanction of Emperor Severus and King Clovis, the armed might of Europe began to assemble as a single, unified force.

...At least in theory. At its core, the Great Votive War is perhaps best understood as a state-sponsored war and religious alliance. The leaders of the Votive War were Clovis and Severus - there can be no doubt of that. A common goal existed for both leaders - to conquer the heathens and alleviate the stresses on their empires brought about by raiding. Both leaders also sought to distract their populace from internal issues of legitimacy and focus their nobility and armies on an external foe. The Votive War would quickly be perverted into a tool of secular conquest. All illusions of holy objectives were shattered early on by Severus' Generals, who proved to have their own radically different ambitions.

If the Votive Armies assembled to cries of "God Wills It!" they still obeyed the clear organizational lines of their respective military hierarchies. Volunteers and poor soldiers flocked to the levied armies and often created disordered and heavily armed mobs, but the average Roman soldier was a paid professional and the average Frankish soldier was fulfilling an oath of legal obligation to serve. Religion served as a motivating and inspirational factor, but it did not inherently explain why the bulk of the Votive soldiers were there. The disorderly mobs and warbands that descended from Carantania into Pannonia and were subsequently slaughtered en masse by the Xasar, later dubbed the "Army of the Vulgar Votives" were merely a symptom of the religious fanaticism that gripped Europe in this era.

The expense and logistics of this army were truly impressive. Tens of thousands of Franks travelled through Italy (with some level of escort) to Aquileia where they were barracked at great expense to the Roman State. Granaries were emptied. The Roman soldiers who marshaled grew restless as they waited for yet more Frankish troops to arrive, and, as food stores began to run intermittently low, riots and small skirmishes broke out between Frankish lords and the Roman troops. Priests and Roman officers struggled to remind the armies why they were gathered, and that the true enemy lay beyond.

Finally, in mid-Spring of 774, Clovis arrived with his own retainer, and the armies began their march. The Roman force was commanded by Nicolus Ioannis, Severus' Magister Militium. The Roman Emperor choosing to remain in Florentia caused some tension between the two camps. The Franks were uncertain why the Emperor would not personally attend, fearing some sort of scheme. Distrust had mounted over the course of the several-month long buildup to war and as the armies descended into Pannonia it reached a fever pitch. Nicolus wanted to turn south into the Balkans and defeat Kuluj personally, while the Franks envisioned a march along the Danube towards Constantinople, defeating the Xasars along the way.

Ultimately, the two armies would split over this debate. The Franks would march on Srem, and the Romans would move south, liberating the Slavs and enjoying a relatively easy campaign while they restored their Balkan territories.

Unbeknownst to Nicolus until it was too late, Kuluj Ishbara had fled north to the Xasar court with his army. The Avar and Xasar Shah, Nanaivanta, put aside his differences with Kuluj, and had persuaded the Turkic Prince to call on his father for aid and abandon his own conquests in favor of a mutual defense. If the Franks were defeated here, Nanaivanta argued, they would never again contemplate such an invasion and the rewards could be astronomical. However, unlike Christian Europe, while the Xasar and Turks might have had an alliance, common religion provided little motivation. The rulers of the steppe peoples saw themselves as secular lords, and the only commonality in their beliefs was a Buddhist philosophy which did not provide the level of shared identity that the Christian rulers were able to utilize. Perhaps because of this, the Rhom Shah, Varshirakh did not even recognize that he was every bit as threatened as the Xasar and Turks. He refused to send anything but token aid until it was far too late, for fear of angering the Sklaveni.

While the Romans swept East without resistance, meeting the Sklavenian Autocrat at Thessaloniki and striking an alliance, the Franks became bogged down quickly. The Carican armies were too light and too mobile for them to face. However, as the combined Xasar-Turkic alliance gathered more and more forces, Kuluj became arrogant and decided to directly attack the Franks. At the Battle of Sisak, the Turks learned a brutal lesson. The Frankish shield walls simply did not break. Forming a large square formation, with archers in the center, the Franks smashed the charging Turks time and again, refusing to yield and using their long spears to counter the Turkic charges. Despite becoming totally surrounded, Clovis held his ground, and, as the Turks became exhausted he ordered a single cavalry charge with his heavy horse. Shah Nanaivanta countered the charge but at the cost of most of the Xasar companions and he himself was grievously wounded. While the Shah would recover, the Xasar retreated to Srem, which would fall several months later.

The Franks however, in keeping with the rough plan decided ahead of time, could not commit to turning north to finish off the Xasar but rather continued along the Danube, through friendly Christian territory. Clovis sent a portion of his forces north under one of his Count-Palatines, Berthaire. Berthaire was a veteran of many campaigns but his forces lacked a strong cavalry element. At the battle of Morisena he suffered a brutal defeat against the wily Kuluj Ishbara and retreated to Srem, which would become besieged.

For the main body of the Frankish army, supplies began to run low. As they marched down the Danube, they turned against the Slavs there and began to pillage openly, justifying their atrocities by saying that the Slavs were hardly true Christians, and observed strange rites that could only be pagan devil-worship. As word of these atrocities spread southwards, the Romans and Sklaveni became increasingly at odds. Tense messages were exchanged between Clovis, who could not rein in his men, and Nicolus, who feared losing the Sklaveni as allies and thus provisions to his own men. The two Votive armies prepared to meet at Adrianopolis, but Autocrat Samuel I, disgusted with the Frankish atrocities declared he would carry on no further. Rumor spread that he was considering an alliance with Varshirakh, who was a known quantity and enjoyed good relations with the Sklaveni. Angered by Samuel's refusal and worried by the rumors, Nicolus acted swiftly. He invited the Sklaveni Autocrat to a banquet with many retainers, and promised to make a full apology. However, once the Sklaveni arrived, they were taken hostage. The Sklaveni army was quickly disarmed and made to march south under guard. Weakened by their many defeats against the Turks, the Sklaveni were too few to refuse, and the Roman Legate Cyracius Ricio marched south with a token force and occupied Thessaloniki. While Samuel retained his throne, his position was now deeply uncertain - a prisoner in his own palace, he lived now at the mercy of a distant Emperor.

Severus himself was shocked by these developments, but he wasted little time. He dispatched another five thousand soldiers, stripping bare the garrisons of southern Italy to round out the force. Roughly half soldiers marched to reinforce Berthaire in Srem, and they succeeded in breaking the siege. Berthaire was now free to consolidate and push back, although 775 would see mostly inconclusive skirmishes. The Franks rarely advanced beyond the Danube in force. The other half of this force sailed to Thessaloniki, and bolstered Cyracius' position there.

As the new year dawned, the Franco-Roman army arrived at Constantinople. Its walls repaired and well-defended, several sporadic assaults in the early spring saw massive casualties for the attackers. Varshirakh had prepared well. The aging Shah had a large fleet and a well-supplied city. Knowing well the atrocities that had been perpetrated already by the Votive Army, he did not dare to consider negotiation. The Votive Army grew frustrated beneath the walls. Their fortunes would change when the Roman navy, massively expanded under the later Isidorian Emperors, secured a massive victory in the Bosphorus. Much of the Rhom fleet was crewed by Christians from the city-states of Asia Minor, and these elements mutinied when they learned of the Votive War's purpose. Those ships that remained loyal were bottled up in the Golden Horn and Constantinople was surrounded. However even still Varshirakh refused to surrender. The army outside his walls was too vast - he knew this. It had devastated the countryside to feed itself and now it was starving faster than the Eftal inside the walls.

Nicolus, knowing this cold arithmetic well, decided to leave only a small force besieging Constantinople and cross the Hellesponte. Coastal Anatolia was rich and fertile - it could feed the army. Clovis cautiously agreed with the plan, although he himself would remain. Having seen the city, the King had become fascinated with it. He seemed eager to deny the Romans the prize, and he falsely believed that Varshirakh was on the verge of surrender.

The cities of Asia Minor rose up en masse. The Eftal hinterlands, rich with agricultural estates, were pillaged and the Eftal landlords and grandees driven out. Lesser Frankish lords would often find regions and carve them out as personal fiefs, and when local Roman authorities tried to evict them the response was violent. Even the Rhom Eftal were at a loss in the face of this mass incursion. Ikonya fell rapidly and the Eftal fled into Syria en masse. Battles at Amorion and Sozopolis saw Frankish and Severian Roman victories respectively against the Rhom Eftal lords, whose tactics were effectively countered by a now experienced Votive Army.

As impressive as these sprawling conquests were, they left uncertainty and chaos in their wake. The Frankish Empire was distant, and the Frankish nobles were inspired by loot and religious fanaticism. By contrast the Romans were more immediate and often more practical (though no less fanatical). But both wanted some portion of the spoils of war, even before the war ended. A Hispanian warlord was busy carving out a territory for himself around the town of Myra, and with the tacit approval of Emperor Severus, Berthaire founded the Frankish duchy of Srem. The Sklaveni kingdom needed to be handled, and the new conquests in Anatolia distributed. Furthermore, even as both sides made the first shaky steps towards consolidation, Constantinople remained untaken and belligerently defiant. An Eftal commander named Kurshanam, commonly called "the Bandit Shah" was operating from a base near Amaseia and waging effective guerilla war against any Roman forces nearby, having gained the allegiance of many Alans.

Then, there was a still greater concern. The rank and file soldier had no conception of the distances involved, but a desire to reach Jerusalem had grown prevalent. If the Franks and Romans together had retaken so much of the Roman Empire, why stop here? Jerusalem lay within their reach, must it not? Would God not enable them to continue their triumphs?

Even some of the greater nobility were caught up in the fervor. A group of Roman commanders, lead by a charismatic Legate named Majorian swore an oath not to rest until they had restored the entire Empire under God. They broke off from the main body of Nicolus' force and marched south towards the Cilician gates. They were followed by the mighty Duke of Burgundia, Tescelin, and the Palatine Theodard of Aachen. Nicolus himself was waylaid by a fever and would not leave Iconium for any reason, even as his army disintegrated into warring factions and began to clash openly with the Frankish troops.

As word of all this began to reach Clovis, the Frankish King began to despair. His holy quest had seemed to glorious when it had all began, but it was increasingly sullied by the schemes of men and material gain. A war to drive back the heathens had become a war to restore the Roman Empire had become a war to carve out petty fiefdoms out of the ruins. In his despair he personally lead one final assault on the walls of Constantinople. Finally his soldiers made it over the walls in several places, in conjunction from assistance by Severian warships mounted with high castles. Bitter street-to-street fighting ensued, and portions of the city were devastated once more. King Clovis was on the cusp of victory when a lone Eftal archer on a rooftop shot him in the eye, killing him instantly.

The Franks, badly bloodied, fought to pull their King's body from the carnage and lost many men in the attempt. Constantinople remained in Eftal hands. The Votive War would enter its second phase - one where the great rulers who had been its authors would lose control of their creation entirely.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Aghatsaghid

Like the Oadhyans, the Aghatsaghid can also be considered in many ways the successor to the Eftal state. Like the Eftal their regime originated in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, and it borrowed its culture and legal codes more from the Eftal imperial sensibilities than from the feudal precedents of the Oadhya dynasty. Aghatsagh's religion is unclear, and indeed he seems to have had few convictions in that regard. His son Korshad Lasgara, however, seems to have converted to his wife's monist, nondualistic sect of Hinduism. Having married the daughter of an important Sibipuran potentate so as to endear himself to the his guild subjects, Korshad Lasgara spent most of his early life warring and governing in the Punjab, learning vital lessons about governance.

At his father's death, the Co-Shah faced few internal threats close at hand. Riding to Herat to accept his father's seat, he had the implicit loyalty of his retainers. The threats came from the West. No sooner had Aghatsagh's body cooled than the Oadhya rose up in rebellion with the backing of a not insignificant number of greater lords. The Aghatsaghid response, when it came, was brutal. By attacking the seats of the vayan, the Oadhya were forced to divide their forces and rush to counter the Aghatsaghid attacks. Pars fell in early 741, followed by Huzestan later the same year. As the next campaigning season came on, Korshad rode north, defeating the Oadhya first at Xwast and then again at Nihawand. He captured Ahmatan and executed the whole of the Oadhya family, sending a stark message about the perils of rebellion.

With this victory, the short-lived Oadhyan Empire was truly undone. Their primary legacy would be the patchwork feudal system overlaid across Iran, and ending the period of bloody feuding which had preceded them. However, the Eftal era was rapidly coming to a close, and in many senses it was a victim of its own successes. The umbrella of Eftal had become too broad to develop a coherent identity around. Tribal lines accordingly had developed, and it was these that would significantly weaken the Eftal capacity to resist. The period of unified Eftal Empire was a distant memory now, and manifestly failed as a rallying cry against the various invaders of the east. As Ahmatan became the seat of a Turkish viceroy, the Eftal increasingly found themselves accepting the foreign dominion as little different than being ruled by a different tribe. And in their own way, the Aghatsaghids had embraced a distinctly Indo-Eftal heritage.

The next step in Korshad's plan to pacify the west would be driving the Banu Tayy from such cities as Ambar and Anat. In the old tradition of conquerors across the East, he employed a mixture of strategies. Resistance was met with brutality, but those tribal patriarchs who surrendered quickly were retained as vayans within the feudal system he had inherited from the Oadhya.

In the twenty years of his reign, Korshad had little opportunity to spend any of them in his Indian provinces. Consistently frustrated by affairs in the West, with tribal conflicts and attempts to rebuild the vast devastated tracts of Mesopotamia, the Shah left the guild republics of the East to their own devices. This benign neglect translated into a relatively peaceful and untroubled region. While the west stubbornly resisted attempts at reform and regime change, India remained largely untouched. The only issues were in southern Sindh, where the annihilation of the Rai dynasty had left the transplanted Turko-Eftal landlords ruling large tracts of land, and without local expertise, these grandees often administered their new estates poorly.

Towards the end of his reign, he clashed with the Syrian Eftal over the status of Nasibin. The major fortress-city was a lynchpin of any successful defense of Mesopotamia, and though Aghatsagh had given it away in exchange for peace, Korshad refused to acknowledge the sale. In 757, the Aghatsaghid army mounted a full scale invasion of Syria under the command of the Kamboja general Kharshida. The war was costly. Despite initial victories in the field such as at Karrai and Zeugma, the warlike Syrian Eftal refused to surrender. The war dragged on for four indecisive years, transitioning slowly to a guerilla campaign. Kharshida attempted to starve the Eftal out by annihilating their herds and driving them into poor pastureland, but the Rhom Shahdom provided shelter for these displaced tribes, allowing them to mount hit and run attacks on the Aghatsaghid supply lines.

Unwilling to risk war with the Rhom Eftal, peace was finally signed. The Syrian Eftal were made into a series of small vassal states, but they retained a level of autonomy and were allowed to resettle their territory.

After Korshad's death in 761, his daughter's husband Tarkhsigh Arslan took power. Unlike Korshad, Tarkhsigh saw the future of the Empire as being located in India. He had accompanied Korshad on most of his campaigns, and saw India as the true heartland and great prize. Early in his reign, he would develop a reputation as a patron of the arts and sciences, encouraging learned men from the monasteries of Syarzur and Gandhara to travel to Herat and debate. He established the first printing presses throughout his kingdom, so as to be able to distribute royal decrees quickly. A system of riders would take the initial printings to regional hubs, where they would be copied or amended and then sent on to the next lowest level of government and so on.

He also cultivated a close friendship with the aging orator Dahrasena of Taksashila, and seems to have been intrigued but suspicious of the republicanism of Gandhara. It is Tarkhsigh Arslan who was primarily responsible for the preservation of Dahrasena's works on government and philosophy, which a less enlightened ruler might have destroyed as subversive of his regime.

Unlike Korshad, Tarkhsigh was loathe to travel west. He remained largely ignorant of developments in Syria and beyond, focusing on the rising power of the Surasena Ganarajya along the Yamuna river. Having conquered Indraprastha, the Surasena ambitions had expanded to involve cultivating buffer states along the eastern Punjab. In 765, Tarkhsigh moved to crush these buffer states, but was defeated in a series of campaigns over the next seven years. Humiliated, he was unable to take the cities of Jalandhara or Sagala, which remained a thorn in his side.

Thereafter, Tarkhsigh would attempt to be peaceful. Much as the councils of Surasena might dream, Mathura, though wealthy and populous, was not strong enough to exert direct force into the Punjab. An invasion by the Kimek Turks in 774 was dealt with by local governors without even calling on the central government. All in all, there were no immediate threats to the Aghatsaghids... until the Votive War came.

The Votive War - Anarchy and Aftermath

The descent of the Votive War into anarchy was perhaps not unexpected by those with foresight. Clovis had relied on personal force of will to keep his lords and retainers in check. The Romans acted with more coordination, but they too fell victim to the fanaticism and opportunism that reigned supreme after Clovis' death and the brief incapacitation of Nicolus Ioannis by fever. As the Magister's health recovered, he found that large portions of his army were in open mutiny, spurred on by fanatical motivations.

The Legate Majorian had departed with a full five thousand Roman soldiers, and much of the Frankish force had departed with him. Those who had not were busy cutting the Rhom Shahdom into personal fiefs, ignoring promises Nicolus had personally made to Roman cities to protect them from pillage and brigandage. These cities were often walled and thus difficult for the roving Frankish warbands to capture, but some did fall. When rumors of Clovis' death reached the main army, Nicolus sent riders under his trusted subordinate Emanulis to inform a nearby Frankish force in Mokissos under the command of Count Aigulf of Augsburg. Some sort of misunderstanding developed and the Count murdered Emanulis with an axe. Two Roman cavalrymen fled the scene and reported the news, at which point Nicolus attempted to take the remaining Frankish forces in Iconium into custody.

However, the Franks were wary. They had seen Nicolus betray the Sklaveni and a rumor that the Romans had caused Clovis' death was sweeping the army. Pitched battles began in Iconium, with the Romans controlling the citadel, barracks, and a large part of the walls, and the Franks holding the marketplace and most of the city proper. They dragged carts into the streets to form impromptu barricades and responded to Roman attacks with contemptuous ease before pulling out of the city and marching west, perhaps meaning to return home.

While the Romans and Franks tore their alliance apart with astonishing quickness, the Votive War, in more than a few senses, carried on. Majorian, along with perhaps ten thousand mixed Roman and Frankish soldiers, marched through the Cilician gates into the Aghatsaghid Shahdom. While Majorian knew the politics of the region and attempted to reach out to the local Vayan and gain an escort on their "pilgrimage" many of his own soldiers and all of the Franks saw this as consorting with the heathen and began pillaging Cilicia with reckless abandon. Several engagements occurred, which saw the Eftal repulsed and what remained of the Votive Army continue their march. En route, they continued their pillaging, taking losses to Eftal raids and attrition, but remaining undefeated. As the summer came to a close, they bypassed Antioch and came to to Heshanid ruled Apameia.

The local military governor, Thomas of Byblos, was a Monophysite, but he was willing to parlay. After determining that this motley and exhausted force were ostensibly little more than an armed pilgrimage, he cautiously determined that they could be allowed to progress south under escort. If they truly desired nothing more than to see the place of Christ's death and resurrection, who was he to deny that to them? However, it was not long before the fact of the "Coptic Heresy" was realized by the rank and file. A council was held were several lower-ranking officers approach their commanders and lords. One of them, a young man by the name of Cheldric, claimed to have a vision wherein God called upon Duke Tescelin to restore his Holy Kingdom over Jerusalem. The Monophysites were no different from the Eftal. They smeared filth and lies over the name of God and deserved death all the same. Majorian agreed, and the Votives turned on their escorts and massacred them, before turning south towards Emesa, whose walls had fallen into disrepair, and putting it to sack.

It took the Heshanids too long to react, and when they did it was uncoordinated. While the Votive soldiers might have considered it a miracle, the truth is simply that the Heshanid military had atrophied over the past several generations of relative peace. Several disastrous defeats and failed ambushes later, they realized they had no hope of containing this mob, or the several armed bands of stragglers which followed it in the following months. Thomas of Byblos was himself killed in battle with one of these bands. When the Votives reached Jerusalem, the city, fearing the worst, opened its gates to them. This did not stop a general massacre of "unbelievers" and a vicious sack.

After the end of the bloody pilgrimage, many Franks began to realize that returning home was no simple prospect. The Heshanids controlled the sea and all the coastal ports. If they went their separate ways, none would ever see Europe again. A council was convened once more, and Majorian promised that every man among them could be a landholder if only they trusted and followed him. God did not call them to return home, he called them to fight for a holy purpose, to purge the heretics and unbelievers. Merely coming to Jerusalem was not enough - they must become its defenders.

The subsequent conquest of the Levant was unprecedented in its brutality, even by the standards of Eftal raids in past centuries. However, in the end, Tescelin crowned himself King of Jerusalem, Majorian became his "Mayor of the Palace" and Theodard of Aachen became Duke of Syria.

In the north, Cilicia had been almost entirely "liberated" by Count Aigulf. Because of its minimal remaining Christian population, nearly all of which were Nestorian, this liberation was little more than outright genocide. However, Aigulf was not alone in his aims. Many of the Frankish forces in Anatolia realized a simple reality - the Romans were the only power with the capacity to bring them home, and the Romans under Magister Nicolus had betrayed the sacred oaths of the Votive War. In the meantime, it was every man for himself. Each soldier should do as he felt God required of him. For many, that involved carving out a petty kingdom. Many, especially the Counts Palantine, realized there was nothing waiting for them at home. There was no guarantee even that Clovis' Empire would not crumble once word reached it of his death. Best to cut their losses and keep fighting the heathens.

Some, such as DukeBerthaire, had remarkable success with this policy. He ruled most of the Danube, and many of the Roman soldiers lent to him by Emperor Severus followed him in exchange for land grants - far more than they could expect from the Emperor. Another great victor was Sigebert of Nantes, a bodyguard and Palatine of Clovis' who led a follow-up attack on Constantinople after Clovis' death. The beleaguered city finally fell, and Sigebert was merciless in his revenge. After taking the city he left it in the hands of a small garrison and marched on Adrianopolis, conquering it as well.

Perhaps the most successful however, was the Count Palatine Helinand, whose conquests would go on to form the "Holy Kingdom of Asia" - he was uniquely able to convince cities such as Nicomedia to align themselves with him rather than the Romans through charm and deft political maneuvering. However, he also earned the animosity of Nicolus through his actions. The Roman commander had been fighting Eftal holdouts around Sardis when he discovered that Helinand was calling himself "King of Asia" - immediately he turned to dispatch the newest threat but was defeated by Helinand's Frankish cavalry, and forced to limp back to the coast.

Severus was left reacting far too slowly to the news. He ordered Nicolus to fall back and defend the Balkans, but the orders were never received, and even if they were, Nicolus' army was heavily atrophied and suffering from very low morale, having been turned away from its ostensible holy purpose. Legate Cyracius Ricio in Thessaloniki was effectively in sole command of pacifying the entire Balkans with a pittance of a military force. He was forced to negotiate with local Slavic lords, most of whom were currently his hostages. His demands were simple. Assistance would see them retain their rank and position in the new Roman government. Refusal would leave them imprisoned in Thessaloniki or killed. It was a stopgap measure, but it was mostly successful. Despite only having token forces, the Romans were able to maintain loose control over a vast territory - those parts of it which were not carved out into Frankish kingdoms.

The Eftal themselves suffered badly - the loss of Constantinople and much of Asia Minor put an end to their short lived preeminence in the eastern Mediterranean. Even the "Bandit" Shahdom, although ruled by Kurshanam, a Buddhist, was in large part populated by Alan Christians who resisted Frankish dominion of their homelands. If there was any victor among the conquered peoples of the Great Votive War, it was the Roman cities of coastal Asia Minor. Most of these cities were spared any major pillage, and almost all enjoyed almost total autonomy under Christian rule once again.

As the marital strength of Europe was expended conquering Asia, Clovis' death left a power vacuum which would be filled by his only (legitimate) son, Theuderic. However, news of the great eastern conquests reached distant Aachen only sporadically and often with a great many inaccuracies. Somehow, the notion that Clovis had been killed by the Romans became the predominant narrative - a narrative exacerbated by reports of Roman-Frankish clashes across Asia and the Balkans. Theuderic's councilors urged him to go to war with Severus, and Theuderic did so, marching south with his remaining retainers and what levies could be drawn up at short notice.

Severus met him near the city of Arles with a force of some ten thousand disciplined Roman troops and his famed Xasari guard. The Franks were more numerous but generally of far inferior quality, and it showed. While the Frankish riders and elite house troops survived almost entirely, the levied forces broke and fled. Severus swept north into Burgundy, and, after meeting with the Gallo-Roman aristocracy of Aquitaine, managed to incite a rebellion there. Theuderic was forced to rush across his territory, putting down rebellions, including one by his bastard brother which temporarily seized Paris.

Another map is coming soon.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Aghatsaghid Society and Culture - an Overview

The seventh century saw by its end the complete destruction of the last surviving Eftal state, the Rhom Shahdom.[1] The end of the Eftal era is typically marked by this event, the fall of Constantinople. In a few brief decades the Eftal, both as a social class and an ethnic group had gone from pre-eminent to marginalized. A Turkic dynasty held sway across most of the traditional Middle-East, and Frankish and Roman kings and generals ruled all the rest.

As a military caste, the Eftal would continue to serve their purpose across the Iranian plateau and the river valleys of Syria, two regions that they had profoundly transformed by their presence. Even the Turkish settlement which became more prominent in this era was insufficient to displace them. Of course, these Eftal often regarded themselves by local tribal identities - the continuation of a trend that had begun ever since the collapse of the Eftal Empire. In time, the word Eftal, or "Ifthal", became increasing identified with the concept of "an Iranian horseman" rather than the original strict ethnic definition. In much of the Aghatsaghid Shahdom, these Ifthal horsemen provided a valuable auxiliary force and an integral part of the local aristocracy, regardless of their background.

The Aghatsaghid Shahs and their bureaucrats saw enormous potential in many of the old territories of the Eftal Empire. Mesopotamia in particular, long devastated, had undergone radical demographic shifts since its time under Sasanian rule. The Assyrian Christian population which had been predominant in Arbayestan was markedly diminished, forming only a minority in their traditional homeland. Much of the length of the Euphrates was so consistently raided by Arab tribes such as the Banu Tayy as to be depopulated. The great cities of Asorestan had been neglected by the Eftal and massacred by the armies of the Soasyant Husrava - and all the efforts of the Oadhyans to restore them had essentially involved partitioning their lands among their kin to rule as landlords. They had brought in Slavic and African slave laborers to work plantations growing cash crops and the like but this had not greatly arrested the decline of the region.

However, credit should not wholly go to the Aghatsaghid dynasts for the restoration of Mesopotamia under their reign. Various mountain tribes, living a semi-nomadic lifestyle on the periphery of Mesopotamia would at this point come into prominence. Called the Khardi[2], they had long existed in Southern Armenia and the region around Lake Urmia, and had a unique Iranian culture and language, and their own pagan religion which took in elements of Zoroastrianism and Christianity. Like the later Eftal, with whom they had many similarities and were often mistaken by contemporaries, they identified more by their own local tribal groups than by any broader category. It was these people who would resettle Arbayestan and northern Asorestan, with the patronage of the Aghatsaghid Turks. The Aghatsaghids recognized that by elevating the Khardi, they could gain an ally in their attempts to retain control over the Mesopotamian region. The Tigris, between Tesiphon in the south and Kephas in the north was by 800 firmly a Khardish river.

Southern Mesopotamia, or Mesan, was a different story. This was the old heartland of the Mahadevists, and they retained some measure of their old strength here in spite of repeated persecutions and an official repudiation of the Saosyant. However, unlike their predecessors the Aghatsaghids saw little reason to continue these persecutions and accordingly were tolerant of the Mahadevist congregation.

In general though, the Aghatsaghid empire was a Buddhist one. The Eftal patronage of Hindu philosophies had led to a situation where the traditional Iranic religions had been largely supplanted, meaning that from Sugd to Syarzur the population was majority Buddhist. While this was largely Mahayana Buddhism, it is important to mark it as distinct from the Buddhism of East Asia - the Buddhism of Iran was known, even to people of the Aghatsaghid era, as "Sogdian Buddhism" to distinguish it from the practices of other regions. This name itself is something of a misnomer. It is unclear if Sogdian Buddhism truly developed in Sogdiana. Regardless, it was a Buddhism developed for a distinctly Iranian audience. It retained deities and traditions familiar to the Eftal warlords and Sogdian merchants who patronized it. The veneration of a large pantheon of deities facilitated its rapid spread through the Iranian world. Even among the Turks it found a foothold, as it gave special veneration to Tangra.[3]

This was the still-developing religion encountered by the Franks and Romans who overran the Rhom Shahdom, and their massacres and persecutions would drive the Eftal of Rhom east, back to their traditional homeland of Syria. Accordingly it should be little surprise that the two faiths would ultimately set themselves at odds with one another. Unlike traditional Buddhism, Sogdian-style Buddhism was far more martial in character - it retained warlike deities whose addition to a Buddhist framework cast them as inferior to the enlightened ones, but still necessary and powerful figures who could grant victory in battle. While no equivalent to the doctrine of Votive War developed, the Eftal Buddhists nevertheless were able to use aspects of their faith as a rallying cry against the invading Christians.

Particularly under Tarkhsigh Arslan, a scientific revival of sorts would also occur across the new empire. Ideas preserved by monasteries from the Eftal Golden Age were brought back into the light along with the latest Hindu and Chinese discoveries. Once more, the Middle East would become a new crossroads of civilization, combining ideas and innovations in radical new forms. However chaos and warfare in Asia Minor and the Balkans prevented these ideas from penetrating the Latin West, at least for the time being.[4] One school of thought, being largely Hellenophilic, argues that the Frankish incursions were yet another deathblow to the intellectual and cultural tradition of the Greek East, just as the Eftal incursions had been. Another would be that the Roman and Frankish reconquests would simply contribute to the cultural mixing of the middle east, bringing a new, distinctly Germanic influence to Asia much as the Sahu trade routes brought a Slavic one. In reality, the truth is likely a mixture of these two options.

[1] The Heshanids, though Eftal in origin, should be considered thoroughly native by this point, and ethnically were as much an Arab dynasty as an Eftal one.

[2] Kurds, done in a way to (sloppily) reflect the linguistic shifts the Eftal have brought about.

[3] Eftal/Sahu version of Tengri, which they worshipped only sporadically but the Turkish gave a key place to in the pantheon.

[4] I can envision perhaps a largely discredited alternate-future sociologist who might argue that the Latin West has "Bloody Borders" as part of a grand narrative of the "clash of civilizations". No other culture, after all, was "bloodthirsty and fanatical" enough to come up with a concept of holy warfare.

[Something else I almost posted with the rest of the above post but I decided to do it this way for the sake of length. I admit much of it is a rehashing of stuff discussed in prior posts but posts like these are good at least for me to help ground what's going on. Also a mild Kurdwank occurs as northwestern Iranian nomads move into Mesopotamia, displacing the remaining indigenous inhabitants. This may have been done for the delicious irony of having a Turkish dynasty be the great patrons of the Kurds. ]

 

[Practical Lobster]

The Viking Era

The start of the Viking Era in Western Europe is traditionally dated to the raid on the young monastery of Mount Saint Michael in France in 789. However, in truth it had been ongoing for some time. The Vikings were if nothing else opportunists - the relative weakness of Eastern Europe invited many early raids. Trading ports were taken, sacked, and sometimes retained by the northmen. The Pomeranians and Obodorites suffered perhaps the worst, but also gained the earliest reprieve - by the dawn of the ninth century, the Vikings were primarily going further afield.

The first Viking raid on Anglo-Saxon England was the sack of Streanœhealh (Whitby) in 785. The divided kingdoms of the Pentarchy made easy prey for their longships. Seizing islands off the coast such as the Hebrides (822) and the Orkneys (810), they gained an excellent base from which to launch intensified and larger-scale raids on Scotland and Ireland as well. In Ireland the Viking impact was particularly strong, with them establishing or conquering cities such as Vedrafjordr and Dyflin.[1] These cities would become both colonies and trade hubs - an outlet for people who had little awaiting them back home and no reason not to migrate to a more temperate country where opportunity abounded.

In the east, other colonies were established. Most prominent among these was the "kingdom" of Gardveldi, carved out of the dominions of the northern Slavs. The early kingdom was little more than riverine trade posts and small hill forts - a level of development not distinct from the Slavic peoples they conquered - but Gardveldi would grow at a much more rapid rate than other Norse colonies in the west. Trade with the Khirichanid Turks to their south brought previously unknown luxuries north along the network of rivers. While the Great Votive War had constricted trade to some degree, the flow of goods quickly bounced back to its pre-war levels - the Frankish and Roman conquerors would have been foolish not to allow their people and the Sahu to continue their immensely profitable trade.

As in so many other periods of history this new burst of trade, whether it was spurred on perhaps by the swift-river vessels designed by the Norse, or perhaps just the emergence of a new market, also caused ideas and culture to spread. The Norse of Gardveldi quickly adopted Slavic customs and culture where it suited them, but more enduringly, the first Buddhist missionaries from the Xasar-Sahu would visit Gardveldi in this time. It is from them we have the most accurate accounts of the region, but though these earliest missionaries were greeted with curiosity and respect, they seem to have made little headway in converting any but the lowest-status members of society.

If the Norse were more receptive to these foreign ideas than the indigenous Slavic inhabitants, we should not be too surprised. Though Slavic tribes often collaborated with the Khirichan and the Sahu, this never developed into a very positive relationship. The Slavs saw the Khirichan as raiders and slavers from the south, an experience that the Norse never shared. To them the entire world was filled with opportunity. When Sahu missionaries brought them tales of golden cities far to the south, these tales would spread like wildfire and merely entice further expeditions of both exploration and plunder.

As certain [fake] theorists have claimed,[2] perhaps the best way to understand the Norse civilization is by contrasting it to the other great civilization of Europe - Latin Christendom, a term that can also encompass the Irish and Germans and all others it ultimately assimilated. In the past century, the Latin world had become increasingly insular and militant. The siege mentality it suffered would only grow as the Norsemen began to raid its shores. The Roman Empire it had known was destroyed not once but twice, and it had perhaps never truly recovered from the cultural shock of its loss. The traditional way which it had spread its borders and faith was peaceful - relying on the strength of its culture and traditions, it had assimilated those who meant to conquer it and even beyond. However, the Eftal conquests had perhaps unconsciously made Latin civilization doubt that strategy - the Eftal had not easily been assimilated. If they had been Romanized it was only minimally. The retreat into militarism and holy war can be seen as a broader sign of a civilization losing faith in its own identity.

By contrast the Norse civilization was adventurous and mercantile. It had little past to look back on beyond the mythic. They were forward-thinking, innovative, and curiously democratic. If they lacked centralization or complex state apparatuses, these traits seemed to favor their wandering mentality. Their religious and cultural tradition was equally ancient, if not as universalist. What was more, the centralized states of the south, Francia and Rome, were no more prepared to deal with the Norse raids and conquests than the more decentralized and tribal civilizations of the north. The infrastructure and armed strength that might have allowed Latin civilization to mount a defense against the Norsemen was massively atrophied and what remained was squandered in massive backwards-looking expeditions against the Eftal. When the Latin civilization encountered the Norse it did not do so with the same spirit that allowed it to subsume the barbarians of past centuries but rather with a militant rage all the more visible for its total impotency.

There are certainly some good points to this theory - the Latin world was weakened fundamentally, and it does certainly seem to have been unsure of itself in the wake of the Eftal. But this theory discounts demographic shifts and climate patterns which played an equally significant role. The expanding Norse population ensured that both civilization would come into conflict. Technological advantages in shipbuilding and navigation ensured that the Norse would outmatch the Latin civilizations in many critical respects, and the damage done to their civilization by Turkic raids and their own infighting would likely play a larger role than any lack of spirit.

India - the revolution spreads outwards

The social revolution begun in the early half of the eighth century would spread and further entrench in its latter half. The massive urban centers of India dominated society. Armed clashes between these centers and the rural peoples as well as armed clashes between polities both declined significantly as borders became stable. The equal-kingdoms, as they were known, began to establish a system of embassies and regular correspondence. Treaties regulating trade and defining borders were important to ending the anarchy that had followed the collapse of the Maukhani.

While the guild system had ensured population growth, it could not always ensure employment. Accordingly, people were often forced to seek opportunities elsewhere. Some of the few continually growing professions were mercantile or colonial ventures. Overseas merchant communities, which had existed for centuries saw the increased demand among the growing Indian population for foreign (especially Chinese) goods and accordingly needed to massive expand their enterprises. As more and more people demanded Arabian spices, African ivory,[3] or Chinese porcelain, these trading communities became essential, and grew rapidly.

For the first time, cities that could properly be described as colonies began to develop along the Persian Gulf and Southeast Asia. These colonies had generally speaking only limited political ties to their motherland, typically being founded as the project of guilds working in concert. They attracted primarily those of more heterodox beliefs, those unconcerned with caste or those whose caste was low, due to lingering superstitions about crossing the "black water." The exception was those migrants from South India, who disregarded the superstitions entirely, and Buddhists, who represented a large percentage of the population to begin with.

Ports along the coast of [Burma] developed to faciliate trade with the Indianized Pyu polities of the Irawaddi valley - a key overland route to China during those times that the Uighur-raided silk road became untenable. Cities such as Sudhammapura and Pulapali would grow into major port towns and useful entrepots for connecting India to the massive Srivajiyan Empire to the south. In turn, the establishment of these colonies would help unify the southern Pyu. The powerful city-state of Kusimanagara was able to spread its loose hegemony northwards, stabilizing the region and helping to facilitate trade.

At the invitation of the albudhist tribe known as Al-Azd, a group of Gujarati guild-merchants settled the small but prosperous port town of Musqata [literally "Anchorage"], known for its important natural harbor. The subsequent influx of Gujarati settlers would allow the Al-Azd to defeat Mezun, the traditional Eftal-dominated port of the region. However, by the time of the ninth century, the two most populous destinations for those seeking a better life and prosperity were the Hawiya Kingdom and the cities of Savahila. This expanding diaspora of colonists and traders would rewrite the demographics of the western Indian Ocean forever.

Like the Norse in northern Europe, maritime technology and unchecked population expansion combined to ensure regional dominance. However, unlike the Norse, the Indian expansion was rarely violent. Outside of small-scale border clashes and the semi-regular tribal warfare the Savahila found themselves entangled in, it was a relatively peaceful expansion. Furthermore, unlike the Norse, there was no one even roughly-unified Indian culture. The Gujarati colonists differed substantially from the Tamil who migrated to Sumatra, or the Tamralipti guilds who were the primary inhabitants of the Burmese colonies. Despite the hegemonizing effects of three successive universal Indian Empires, the languages and cultures of these peoples were drifting rapidly apart. Sanskrit as a lingua franca was a declining language of the intellectual elites. If anything, the guilds exacerbated this sentiment, emphasizing local and ethnic ties over any sort of universal imperial tendency.

[1] Feel free to think of the situation on the British isles as not too fundamentally different to OTL.
[2] What follows is me trying to do a more "old fashioned" sounding analysis of the two cultures. Let's not necessarily take it as gospel.
[3] It's a curious and apparently actually true fact that there does seem to have been a market for African ivory in India.

[It's a short update cause I'm strapped for time. But I hope it sheds some light on the alt-Viking era and what's going on India, which I've been neglecting horribly recently in my recent narrow focus on the Votive War.]

 

[Practical Lobster]

Kurdish civilization

The sudden emergence of the Khardi or Kurds into the Mesopotamian river valleys upended the traditional balance of power. Under the Eftal, they had been nomadic people used as auxiliaries, notable mostly for refusing to assimilate into the broader category of Eftal, where so many other indigenous nomadic peoples did. This strong identity, based along tribal lines and a long heritage that perhaps traced back to the ancient Medes, allowed those Kurds which migrated out of their traditional upland homes to retain their culture and indeed assimilate or drive out those whose lands they seized.

The Kurdish people worshiped an ethnic religion that has been called by various names through history but here will be called Yazdatism. A mixture of Buddhist and traditional pagan beliefs, there were many superficial resemblances to the Eftal faith, such as a worship of Mithra. However, Mithra in Yazdatism was a solar deity, and accompanied by a wide pantheon of Yazdata, or divinities, and angels known as Bodisav who came to earth in human form to provide divine instruction. Among historical Bodisavs could be counted teachers such as Christ, Mani, and Buddha. For the Yazdati, there was no afterlife, merely endless reincarnation until the end of the world, at which point it was unclear what might happen.

Unlike the Buddhists, the Yazdatis rejected monasticism and asceticism in favor of vibrant, jubilant celebration. They had a semblance of an organized priesthood, and as they became more urban this would grow, but in many respects the religion was merely passed down by community leaders. Comparisons to Saihism have been drawn by some historians - this was a faith of a distinct ethnic group which took in the accumulated influences of the cultures around them and mixed it with their own distinctive traditions.

The Kurdish "invasions" are a confusing subject from a historical perspective. Much doubt has been shed over the level of communal violence which took place in the early years. While certain Christian and a few surviving Mahadevist writers have characterized it as an active invasion, sponsored by the Aghatsaghids after a dispute between the Christian vayan of Mosil and the Aghatsaghid viceroyNenifara, other documents seem to claim it was a relatively peaceful migration, with outbreaks of violence mostly being sporadic attempts to drive local lords off fertile land. Either way, by the ninth century the majority of Mesopotamia was in Kurdish hands.

Within another decade, Mesun would fall in an indisputably violent series of attacks which were lightly but not too strongly condemned by the Aghatsaghid administration. Shortly thereafter, battles with the Tayy clan would see almost all of the Euphrates fall as well. The Tayy themselves would cease to exist as an independent power not long thereafter, ensuring that the Nestorian resistance to Saihism would falter in the north over time.

It seems obvious that the Aghatsaghids of Herat had little clue what they had unleashed in Mesopotamia, but they also seem to have been largely apathetic to the developments as a whole. Certainly the Aghatsaghids were military powerful, commanding large forces of Turkic and Ifthal cavalry which could have been deployed quite rapidly to quash the early Kurds. However, Mesopotamia was considered peripheral by the India-focused rulership of Tarkhsigh Arslan, who would rule until 796 before being succeeded by his young son Suryagha, whose affairs were managed by a regency council of his father's close companions. These companions largely had estates in Sindh and greater Iran, and as such were unconcerned with a few Eftal and Assyrian potentates in a devastated river valley being pushed out, or the subsequent wars against the Arabs.

Two main coalitions of the new Kurds had developed by roughly 805, one northern, one southern. The northern one was organized by Serxwevan Mughriyani, officially made Padivayan of Mosil in the same year. The southern coalition, based around Tesiphon, was less official. Its leader, Merxhas Rojdarza, based his own power structure around the traditional tribal ties of his people, allowing various friends and relations to take the lordships and legal titles of the region. It was Rojdarza who continually attacked the Tayy and the Mahadevists, ensuring his legacy through land grants to loyal followers - land grants which had to be authorized by the Aghatsaghids but invariably were in exchange for token gifts.

By 807, Suragha had reached adulthood and the mood in Herat had turned in favor of some level of intervention. Aghatsaghid garrisons were established, particularly in northern Mesopotamia and Syria, the notion being to keep a watch on the Kurds. But this was too little too late. The Kurds had already gained most of what they wanted, and if anything the Aghatsaghid garrisons merely served to prevent any reprisals by their neighbors. Henceforth the Kurds would choose to work with their nominal overlords, seeing the Aghatsaghid system as bringing welcome stability to the region.

Bandit Shahs and the Votivists Besieged

The Rhom Eftal had been on the cusp of truly considering themselves different from the Eftal of Syria or Iran when the Votive War broke out. Christianity was, by some measures, on the rise, especially after the conquest of the Alan Khaganate. Their version of Buddhism was itself willing to consider Christ some sort of western Bodhisattva, but much of that changed when the Romans and Franks launched an all out war to recover the lost east.

Kurshanam, the "Bandit Shah" was the sole inheritor of the Rhom Eftal legacy, and through force of will and personal connections he was able to rally the surviving Rhomians and loyalists. Unlike those previous Shahs, his territory was essentially confined to Amaseia and the Pontic coast, a rump state of Alan tribesmen and refugee Eftal warriors. Much of this small state's revenue came from state-sanctioned raids against the newly established Votive kingdoms, with which Kurshanam maintained a constant state of war. The Roman population of Asia was treated with the same brutality as the invaders, due to the Eftal viewing them as traitors.

However, for all his thoughtless viciousness, Kurshanam lacked the numbers to effectively turn the tide against the Votive kings. Kurshanam's raids alienated the Roman population even further, something the Franks were quick to exploit. Most of Anatolia seemed permanently lost. In 788, Kurshanam would die peacefully in his bed, despairing that the legacy of his people was gone. His successor, Maimarkh, was not any kin to him but rather another successful raider, and one with a broader view of politics. Knowing that his predecessors actions had served more to alienate that to help, Maimarkh appealed to the Aghatsaghids for aid. In 791, the local Viceroy of Syria would be dispatched with some twenty thousand soldiers, largely Eftal.

The Aghatsaghids had not been afraid to exploit the successes of the Votive war over the past decade. They had chipped away at the Kingdom of Jerusalem while it was distracted fighting the Heshanids in the south, seizing cities such as Emesa and Tripolis for their own empire while the young Emperor Alexandros Heshana tightened the noose around the remaining warlords. However, actively invading Asia Minor was another thing entirely - it represented a direct assault on the Votivists, and something that might well encourage another holy war.

If Maimarkh assumed that the Viceroy of Syria, Majar, would act to restore the Rhom Shahdom, he was terribly mistaken. Majar spent the opening years of his war destroying Aigulf's County of Cilicia, before targeting the "Duchy of Mysa" and overrunning it with similar swiftness. The King of Asia, taken off-guard, gathered his forces and marched south, fighting an inconclusive battle at Ikonion which led to a siege of the city by the Aghatsaghid army and the Franks pulling back, harassing the Aghatsaghids were capable. Maimarkh himself marched south to link up with the Aghatsaghids at Ikonion, but upon arrival he found his advice and soldiers were almost unwelcome. Majar had his own ambitions, it seemed - ambitions that Maimarkh was able to construe as neither in the favor of Shah Tarkhsigh or himself in letters sent to Herat.

Hoping for a more pliable replacement, Maimarkh launched an elaborate intrigue against his ostensible ally, ensuring Majar would be recalled Herat and subsequently executed. However, his replacement was Tarkhsigh Arslan's capable nephew, Korkuta. Maimarkh attempted a similar scheme, only to be discovered and sent home after a tense standoff in the allied camp. Ultimately, he had succeeded only in alienating his only possible ally, and Korkuta was more than willing to make peace with Asia on favorable terms so long as they agreed to respect Aghatsaghid territory.

The Kingdom of Asia would endure, in no small part because of Roman reinforcements from the Asian cities. Repeated Aghatsaghid campaigns under Korkuta brought them no territory beyond the Cilician gates, and if anything served to unify the Kingdom. King Helinand was able to retain the allegiance of his warriors, in no small part because even the lowest among them was now far wealthier than they might have dreamed of being serving Frankish kings back home. Asiana, as it became known, was one of the few of the Votive Kingdoms to endure.

Jerusalem met its rather inevitable end in 793. After the death of two of its major leaders in battle, only Majorian remained, taking the title of "Defender of the Holy Sepulcher" and leading the hopeless siege against his fellow Christians led by Alexandros Heshanid. The poor reputation of the Kingdom as traitors to the initial cause, and its rapid collapse into anarchy and eventual conquest would leave a bitter taste in the mouth of Christendom. It should be little surprise that enthusiasm for a renewed Votive war dropped rapidly.

In general, the greatest weakness of the Votive war was its unsustainability. Without a constant supply of reinforcements from the West, most of the lesser duchies simply could not hold out. A case in point is Srem, which collapsed after the death of Berthaire in 798 and was quickly reabsorbed into the Xasar-Avar Khaganate. These historical footnotes would leave little impact on their associated regions beyond devastation and a period of relative anarchy. And yet not all of these kingdoms would fall, and those that survived would change history.

The Duchy of Thrace survived the Xasar reprisals in no small part because controlling even the depopulated ruin of Constantinople was a valuable prize - a key fortification whose harbor and walls represented critical strategic assets. Sigebert of Nantes, the self-proclaimed Duke of Thrace, restored much of the damage to the city, although he was unable to help its population recover at anything but a halting pace. However, Constantinople remained the seat of the Patriarchate (albeit now subordinate to Rome) and this granted Sigebert an important source of legitimacy. Alone of the surviving Frankish leaders, he held the potent symbolism of having regained Constantinople, the city that was once perhaps the true heart of Christendom.

However, Sigebert would not be able to hold out forever. Both the Romans and Turks would make various attacks on the city in his lifetime, and though he was wily and more than capable of repulsing his attacks, his manpower was worn thin by constant raids from the Xasars and a lack of reinforcements from Francia. By 800, he was dying and still childless, and his foes circled like vultures. The latest Khirichan Khagan eyed Constantinople with increasing avarice, and the Romans would not be above making a move to seize the city of the world's desire from him. In a shocking move, Sigebert bequeathed what remained of his territory to his old rival, King Helinand, so as to keep Constantinople in Frankish hands.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Tibet and Qi

The past fifty years of the Bod Empire are best understood as a time of entrenchment, stabilization, and consolidation. The whirlwind conquests of earlier generations had given way to a system that intended to endure. Tribute flowed from peripheral kingdoms such as Nanzhao to the Emperor of Bod in Rhasa. The silk road cities brought treasure and magnificent horses up to the high mountain palaces. The Great Qi, for all their legendary strength sent them tribute as well, either willingly or at spear-point.

While stern-faced monks with crimson robes might have reminded their lord and king that all things were transitory, and death, like life, was just another part of the wheel of samsara, the sublime Emperor Sotkhri Tsenpo sought the advice of shamans and mystics, dreaming of ways to live forever, to become the divinity he knew in his heart he was. These scholars and alchemists came to Rhasa with vile-smelling powders. One in particular should be noted: made from saltpeter, honey, and sulfur, it was a recipe learned in China. These alchemists taught their Emperor many ways of preserving his vital force, and yet in the end Sotkhri Tsenpo was no more immortal than his predecessors. His son, Chatri Tsenpo Tridarma learned from the pride of his father and did not concern himself with such frivolous things. The foreign holy men were an affront to his court. He banished them.

These travelers took their strange powders and herbs elsewhere, to Sogd and Uighuristan, to India and China. Sometimes they were lucky, and their experiments were patronized. Mostly they would fall into obscurity unless they could find some particularly gullible local potentate. Their story however, is one that would have ramifications that would eventually echo across the world.

There were hard limits to how far the Bod Empire could stretch, especially as the Qi Empire began to revive itself after 764. The Bod Empire's population was limited, their governance dependant on the prestige and supposed invincibility of the Empire's armies. When faced against an enemy such as the Qi, this invincibility seemed more truth than legend. The era of easily beaten conscript armies had come to an end, however. The new armies were disciplined and professional. If they lacked an abundance of quality horses they made up for it with fine archery and men drilled in long pike formations.

Tibetan raids against the Qi dynasty became infrequent after these reforms. While Qi armies still feared to fight the Tibetans on their own turf, they had grown more bold in asserting their own borders. They might have become bolder still, and crushed the upjumped Tibetans and carried the Emperor and his treasures away from Rhasa, but there was a greater, even more warlike threat on their borders.

The Uighur Khaganate dominated the eastern steppe. The first truly powerful threat from the steppes since the apogee of the Gokturks, the Uighur society was literate and complex. They built cities and Vajrayana Buddhist communities, uniting their subject peoples with a shared religious and cultural identity. Rituals in which all their vassals were mandated to attend reinforced the preeminence of the Khagan. The Khagan, Qutlugh Kol, ruled by 762 a vast dominion, stretching from Sogdia to the land of the Jurchens, from the cold deep forests of Siberia to the coast of Bohai Sea.
Standard Qi policy was to buy the Uighurs off. Some raids were inevitable - there would always be tribes who needed to risk raiding and generally the Qi could not afford the sort of massive campaign it would take to break the Uighurs. Cooperation was cheaper and saved countless peasant lives - an important thing indeed the wake of Sima Zhixen's rebellion.

The Qi still lived in the shadow of Sima Zhixen. Emperor Jingzong (788-803) who had grown up during the bloody excesses of the rebellion knew full well that luck had saved the Qi dynasty as much as any reform of strength of arms. It only took another young, disillusioned and charismatic visionary to throw the entire system into bloody anarchy. Another "Maitreya Buddha" could ruin all that his ancestors had built once more. The Mandate of Heaven seemed imperiled after the great rebellion, and he would find himself struggling to restore a sense of legitimacy to the Qi as the trends which had led to the first rebellion began to reassert themselves.

The new professional armies of the Qi dynasty had been based on the training of foreigners - mercenaries, largely from Sogdia and the Uighurs, but from as far afield as the Rhom Shahdom. With the training complete, the anti-mercenary sentiment of the Qi dynasty pushed back against these reforms and left the professional armies without these mercenary auxiliaries. Most of the mercenaries would enter into the service of the Uighur Khagan, who offered generous payment. Accordingly, rather than foreign born commanders, command returned by 790 to the hands of a new generation of scholar bureaucrats with little practical experience. The officers beneath them had plenty of experience and training, but it was these officers that the state feared.

The Qi dynasty, in most other contexts, would have been quickly a footnote in the annals of history. But China was vast, economically prosperous, and densely populated. Accordingly, they could survive while still utilizing policies which would have damned most other polities. However, in the aftermath of the rebellion, the economic prosperity and dense population were limited. Attempts at reform failed to address the underlying structural issues. The Liang had succeeded because they were cosmopolitan and willing to change, unlike the rigid Qi, who consistently refused to learn from the past and rolled back their reforms out of the abiding paranoia their dynasty never seemed capable of shaking off.

It should accordingly be no wonder that by the dawn of the ninth century the Qi would seem vulnerable and weak to their neighbors. The very mercenaries who had served with the Qi were quick to counsel their new masters to war. And while the Uighurs were one concern, and a critical one, another major threat was emerging to the south in the form of the Tai people of [FONT=&quot]Guangxi. A curious melting pot culture shaped by both Sinic and Indian influences, the Tai represented one of the many vassal peoples of southern China whose connection to the Empire had always been loose. With the decline of the Qi, they and others would see an unprecedented opportunity to break free. [/FONT]

The Western Steppes: Turkestan and the Oghuz

Roughly speaking, Western Turkestan was united under the Oghuz Khaganate. Based around the Aral Sea and Syr Darya, they were one of many powerful tribes which had fled west in the wake of Uighur ascension. Other powerful tribes such as the Basmyl, Karluks, and Kimeks gave them token submission, owing primarily to their geographic position and numbers. This limited unification of the Turkestani steppes was more arranged on cultural and religious lines than any centralization. The important cult of the Amitabha Buddha, Tengri-worship, and a common linguistic family gave a sense of common identity and perhaps most importantly allowed outsiders to view the peoples of the steppe as a monolithic whole.

Indeed to speak of the Oghuz as a single polity is perhaps a misunderstanding. Local tribal rulers, called Yabghu, had remarkable autonomy in how they conducted their relations with other clans and polities. Raiders and small clans would often travel south to seek employment or plunder from the Aghatsaghid Shahs. This slow migration allowed the Iranian civilization time to slowly assimilate these newcomers, although the cultural shift was by no means a one-way street. Turkic loanwords and customs began to infuse themselves into the Eftal-Iranian culture. The Oghuz themselves would by the beginning of the ninth century be very Iranian in dress and customs. The presence of many Xvarazmi and Sogdians within their territory only enforced this transition and assimilation.

Attempts by the Aghatsaghids to establish fortified outposts into Turkestan were largely failures. The Oghuz and most other tribes were willing to give the Aghatsaghids a wide berth, generally speaking, and from time to time token tribute. However they did not tolerate Aghatsaghid incursions and generally speaking were more than capable of ensuring that such outposts fell. Despite the continual trickle of young men south, the Oghuz were more than capable of defending themselves, even from new threats such as the Bajinak.

The origins of the Bajinak Khanate are, like the origins of most steppe peoples, relatively shrouded in mystery. What is known is that after fleeing the expansion of the Uighurs they came into contact first with the Quban and next with the Oghuz, both of whom were capable of chasing the Bajinak off but not subduing them. From there, the Bajinak would travel north. Unlike many of the other tribes of the region they had limited contact with Iranic peoples and limited opportunities to assimilate. As such their culture was a more "pure" Turkic when the Bajinak arrived in the Volga basin. However it would not remain that way for long. Like the Avars and many others before them, their interactions with the Slavic peoples they encountered would form a sort of melting pot and lead to the creation of a distinct identity, neither wholly Slavic nor Turkic.

By the dawn of the ninth century, however, the majority of the steppe and Iranian plateau could broadly be described as a heterogeneous civilization nevertheless linked by a common part Eftal-Iranian and part Turkic culture. Large scale military campaigns between the various polities of the steppe and the Aghatsaghids were rare, owing to the lack of centralization of the steppe peoples and the lack of interest on the part of the sprawling Aghatsaghid Shahdom.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn

King Theuderic had the misfortune to inherit a sprawling state built upon loose foundations, and this issue would preoccupy his early reign. Stretching from Hispania to Saxony, this "Greater Francia" that was his father's making was perhaps more accurately described as a rough union of the various Romanized Germanic peoples who had brought down the western half of the first Roman Empire. However, what legitimacy he had had been won by his father at sword-point, and brute military force would be necessary to maintain his state. Though the core of his army was centralized and professional, the legacy of Clovis' reforms and the great estates of central Francia, Theuderic also depended on the various ranking nobles, the Dukes who were effectively lesser Kings and the Counts who, though not hereditary, nevertheless possessed extraordinary power. Beneath these mighty figures were the lesser nobility, divided into the Frankish fief-holding landlords (or "riders") who lacked hereditary title to their lands, and the hereditary estates of Roman origin, largely preserved throughout Aquitaine and Hispania. While the Frankish "rider" was assured that his sons would almost certainly follow in his footsteps, he was never tied to the land in the same way that his Gallo-Roman counterpart was. He was tied to the crown and to his lord or King, and this goes a long way to explain the number of Frankish aristocrats that travelled East - they sought more permanent wealth and had little to lose back home.

However, the Gallo-Romans, a class which also includes many Franks and Goths who found themselves with similarly hereditary and ancient estates, lacked this sense of loyalty, and as the Franks streamed East, many of these Romans saw opportunities. Rebellions wracked the south, and Theuderic spent little of his reign at peace. These rebellions however were uncoordinated, and saw the large-scale decline of the traditional aristocracy in favor of these new "riders" who were granted mass holdings carved out of the newly conquered estates.

By the time that the situation began to settle down around the turn of the century, the Pope in Rome was making new appeals to the unity of the Universal Church against the heathens. The loss of Jerusalem in 793 saw renewed calls for Votive Soldiers to take up arms, but Theuderic was himself a cynical man, and refused the call, which he saw as yet another attempt by the Papacy to enrich Rome at the cost of his own Empire. Despite condemnation by local bishops and holy men, few Franks went east, and those who did largely went as mercenaries in the Roman armies. Those with little to lose and everything to gain had already gone East in the first waves and stayed there. Those who returned from the Votive War had gained little and were unlikely to desire another protracted conflict in the East. Furthermore, Frankish manpower was low. Theuderic made extensive use of small, elite, mounted forces. The tactics his advisors taught him had been learned in battle against the Avar-Xasars and similar steppe foes, and the Franks shifted further and further away from their infantry-based shield walls in favor of heavy or medium horse as the decisive factor in warfare.

Meanwhile, to their south, the Roman Empire found itself massively overstretched. Roman Asia in particular was practically autonomous, with the local cities there unwilling to negotiate away the privileges they had gained under the Eftal for any price. The resurgent Xasar, after defeating the Duchy of Srem had begun to raid into the Balkans once more. The Roman armies were atrophied by constant campaigning, and despite, or perhaps due to, their professional nature, fresh reinforcements were difficult to come by. The military-bureaucratic system cultivated by the Isidorians had been ideal for defending Italia and some peripheral territories, but it fell apart when it came to securing the newly doubled territory. This massive expansion strained the Imperial treasury to the breaking point. Needing money and manpower, Severus sought to extract both from Asia, sending large garrisons to the local cities and appointing strict magistrates who ensured levies and taxes flowed back to the capital.

Emperor Severus was in many ways a victim of his own successes. Just as he found it difficult to govern his new conquests he found it difficult to shake the image of himself as a usurper. He was convinced that a decent number of his high ranking officers secretly despised him, and he knew that the Slavic lords of the Balkans definitely did. When the Emperor died in 803, despite his advanced age, it was not hard to suspect foul play, and those closest to the Emperor definitely did so, turning on each other rapidly. Severus had but a single son and several sons-in-law, but "coincidentally" by the time his body was cooling the young son was dead and the eldest of the sons-in-law, the Legate Valerian, was the prime suspect. The Magister Militium, Asterius, moved to have Valerian arrested, but the wily Legate escaped. Fleeing with a cabal of loyal officers and as much of the royal treasury as he could load onto a boat, Valerian escaped to the Balkans where he sought to raise an army with the help of a group of influential local magistrates. The Roman cities of Asia, meanwhile, realized that Severus' death was an excellent opportunity to renegotiate their position. In the Kingdom of Asia, King Helinand had recently passed away, succeeded by his son Mansuetus. Mansuetus was seen as a temperate, reasonable man, and the Roman cities sent delegates to Nicomedia, where during a three week council the cities managed to extract many concessions in exchange for swearing fealty to the Frankish King of Asia. Shortly thereafter, these same delegates, as part of the pre-arranged agreement, proclaimed Mansuetus Emperor to the cheering of his retainers and soldiers. Crossing the straits, they met with the Patriarch of Constantinople at the Chapel of St. Maria and Mansuetus was officially crowned as "Emperor of the Romans". Meanwhile, back in Florentia, Magister Asterius set aside his wife with Papal blessing and married Severus' youngest daughter, Theodora, thirteen years old, seeking to enhance his own dynastic legitimacy in a bid to be proclaimed Emperor. Asterius, however, was not popular with the rank and file. He had not fought in the Votive War and his promotion to the position was largely seen as a consequence of his political ability but as his ties to Severus. It was only with the spreading stories of a Frankish "Emperor" in the East that Asterius finally took action, being enthroned in a majestic ceremony. The Pope condemned the new Frankish Emperor as illegitimate and in return the Patriarch of Constantinople condemned the Pope as a puppet. Emperor Mansuetus was the bulwark of Europe against the heathens! The usurpers of the West were the true illegitimate ones, the Severian dynasty being no more than upjumped farmers from Illyria and Asterius himself was committing an act of adultery by marrying into it.

Valerian, proclaimed Emperor by his troops, found himself in the worst position of any of the Imperial claimants. He was dependent on the Slavic aristocracy, who had little love for him, and had mostly understrength units under his command. Furthermore, the resurgent Xasars looked greedily on his territories, which included several exposed stretches of the Danube. However, despite his weakness, no-one acted against him. Mansuetus was preoccupied with the Aghatsaghids and the remaining Eftal, and Asterius faced a rebellion in Sicily among the remaining Mauri merchant-princes which lasted four years between 811-815. As such, he had the better part of two decades to secure his position. Hiring Turkish and Bulgar mercenaries to his cause, by 820 he felt safe enough to invade Italy in force. Asterius fell back in the face of this new threat, raising fresh forces and knowing that Italy would be a tough nut to crack in the interim. Without a fleet of his own, Valerian had no way of taking Ravenna, and he squandered several years reducing the cities of the Po valley. By the time he was ready to march on Florentia, Asterius was ready. He let Valerian encircle the well-fortified and well-provisioned city and then enveloped Valerian in turn. Valerian, with the help of his mercenaries managed to fight his way out of the encirclement, but it was a close-run thing indeed. He suffered a minor wound and later that year in 821, he would pass away, his army largely disintegrating and turning to banditry until Asterius finally restored order to the Balkans in 824.

The Frankish Kingdom itself chose to sit out this massive succession crisis. Theuderic for the first time found his Empire relatively calm. The Slavic marches were quiet, and for the first time no nobles hinted at rebellion. Theuderic could rest in Paris for the first time in decades. And indeed, the Franks had their own crisis brewing. Theuderic was growing older, and he had four sons - inevitably, it seemed, his kingdom would be divided upon his death. Unwilling to see this happen, in 807 he adopted a more Roman style system of succession - naming his eldest son, Clovis, Co-King, and granting the others Palatine titles - ensuring that they would be kept close to crown. Going forwards, this would prevent the anarchic succession practices that historically had ensured the collapse of any large Frankish Kingdom.

North Africa - the Free People

It was not until 800 that the trade routes between the Mediterranean world and North Africa truly began to recover from the collapse of the Mauri. It was not that the Berber people did not understand the value of trade, but climate shifts and urban decline made the sort of bulk trade that would be genuinely profitable difficult. Merchants operating on East-West trade lanes could move bulk products to a degree which the Berbers simply could not - dependent as they were upon attenuate trade lanes manned by Taureg caravans.

The gold, spices, and ivory of Ghana would however ultimately begin to trickle northwards, catching the attention of the Latin world. Rumors of golden kingdoms and shimmering palaces of solid gold spread like wildfire. Africa beyond the great desert became a land of mystery and magic in the collective imagination of the Christian world. However, it was also unreachable. Few travelers crossed the great desert due to the extraordinary number of middlemen facilitating the trade - countless local Amazigh and Tuareg tribes stood between the iron kingdoms of the continent and the ambitious Mediterranean merchants.

These tribes did not develop the same central cohesion that had characterized their Mauri predecessors. Where the Mauri embraced the legacy of the Roman Empire, the Berber successor states tended to repudiate this legacy in favor of their own mythic heritage. Accordingly they did not form major polities, creating at best loose alliances when it was expedient to do so. In the far west, the Masamida were perhaps the most united of the tribes, and then only because such unity was required to effectively raid Iberia.

The religious makeup of the region favored paganism. The Nicene Church in Africa had always been somewhat schismatic and perhaps less organized than many of its counterparts - heretical tendencies here were part of a broad historic trend. As such with the collapse of centralized Mauri authority the Church fell into relative anarchy as well. The heretical gnostic ideas of organizations such as the "Tinanians" divided the Church and encouraged various sects to flee into the wilderness and isolate themselves rather than actively proselytize. The indigenous Jewish populations (including many Jews who had fled from Spain) had more success, gaining converts among some local clans, but this too was a limited phenomenon. Local cults retained their strength. Prominent gods such as Idir, the living god, and Gurzil, a warrior deity, might have enjoyed some universal appeal, but generally speaking day-to-day veneration was confined to local spirits and minor deities associated with landmarks. The one commonality between tribes was the worship of celestial bodies, especially the Sun.

The Berbers however kept few written records. What we do know of them comes mostly from the Christian communities huddled along the coast, and these communities had a conflicted relationship with their neighbors. On one hand the Berbers maintained the great trade routes across the continent - on the other hand they had destroyed the Mauri civilization and with it much of the region's historic prosperity. The Berbers also left little in terms of a visible legacy. Architecturally they either maintained Mauri buildings or left uninspiring but functional fortified towns. They lacked the capacity or interest in the construction of massive projects. They however did leave many elaborate finished goods - ornate polished beads, gold and iron jewelry, intricately carved furniture, proof of an advanced and technically skilled culture.

It is a matter of some historical curiosity why the Berber invaders never assimilated as so many other peoples did. Most of their immediate neighbors lived in the shadow of the Roman Empire - Roman was almost a byword for prestige and power. The Mauri, the Italians, even some Eftal... many disparate peoples considered themselves Roman or the inheritors of Roman glory. It is easy to cast the Berber disdain for that tradition as provincialism or barbarism. However, those peoples who brought down the Mauri had never been even at the periphery of the Roman world. Its heritage was irrelevant to them, and their main association with it was the Mauri. The divided, squabbling Christian religion of Africa was not as impressive or influential as the unified Latin Church whose emissaries the Western Slavs would encounter.

Accordingly, the growth of Christianity among the Amazigh people would be a slow process, prone to syncretic tendencies. Churches where Christ is represented as haloed by the radiant sun were not uncommon. Libyan deities became angels, and the polytheism of the Berbers endured despite regular missionary and mercantile adventures into the North African interior.

 

[Practical Lobster]

The Periphery of the Latin World

"Alone among the nations of Germania stand the Saxons. They acknowledge neither Christ nor the Frankish King, and all their borders are bloody." So wrote the Frankish monk Tescelin of Aires in 812. With its borders reduced to the natural lines of the Elbe, Weser, and Eider rivers, the Saxon people primarily defined themselves by their isolation. A pagan Germanic people surrounded on all fronts, their bonds of kinship and ethnic identity were strengthened by a sort of siege mentality. The Saxons and Franks engaged in raiding which never truly abated, even when they were incorporated into the Frankish Kingdom.

Despite the occasional lip service paid to Christianity by the Saxon rulers, and a not insignificant number of converts among the common people, the Saxon polity remained a tribal confederation based around the role of King as a pagan priest. The holy Sanctuary of Irminsul formed a sort of spiritual heart of the nascent nation, more than any particular royal hall or urban center. Irminsul, to look at it was little more than a pillar of oak - but it stood for the world tree upon which Wuotan the wyrm-slayer, the father of language, hung for nine days and nine nights, and it was here that sacrifices were done in emulation of the gallows-god's suffering.

Ritual sacrifice and regular festival days promoted unity and common identity among the aristocracy and freemen. Despite the lack of many of the systems which characterized "advanced" states, these strong bonds of identity ensured that the Saxons would endure repeated Frankish and Slavic attacks.

Even still, it was not as if the Franks could not have destroyed the Saxons with their tremendous resources. Rather, the Frankish Kings lacked the will to engage in what would undoubtedly be a protracted campaign in the thick forests and marshes of Saxony for little gain. In the short term it was more expedient just to fortify the marches. Rulers such as Clovis and Theuderic had too many distractions and ambitions to turn north and stomp out the Saxon threat. Even at the local level, the lords who might have dreamed of bringing Christ to the Saxons with fire and sword dreamed instead of Constantinople and Jerusalem. This only began to change by about 810-820, when the next generation of Frankish aristocrats, raised on stories of the Votive War more glorious than its reality, began seeking their own Votive War.

They found it in Saxony. In 814, Palatine Audoneus led several thousand soldiers on an expedition to "end the idolatry of the Saxons and bring them into the light of our Lord." Opposing him was the veteran war-leaderErcanfrid, who rallied his kinsmen in defense of Saxony. Such punitive invasions had occurred historically, but never with such single-minded dedication. Traditionally, the Franks would strike deep into Saxony, do damage, and then retreat once more. Instead, Audoneus remained, acting as a conqueror, assigning grants of land and hastily erecting fortifications. This drew Ercanfrid into outright battle against him, and here Audoneus was defeated - fleeing with the bulk of his forces back across the Elbe.

But this was the beginning of the end. Ercanfrid was unable to retake the forts Audoneus had ordered built, and when the royal army arrived three years later with King Clovis at its head, they were able to continue their plan. The next five years were spent establishing castles with Frankish lords over the Saxons. Irminsul was burnt to the ground and Ercanfrid and his kinsmen fled into exile, leading to the rapid submission of the remaining Saxon nobles families - who knew that surrender and conversion would see them able to retain their lands as hereditary lords. Ercanfrid, for his part, would flee north, first to ring-walled Heithabir and then later to the lands of the Geats.

Tales of the fall of the Saxons spread east quickly. The Western Slavs and Saxons had been old enemies, but if the Franks were turning eastward and were again animated by Votivist zeal, then the Slavs desperately needed to unite. Hasty alliances were struck, marriages agreed to. Priests burnt offerings and sifted through the ashes for omens. In the end, a leader named Slavomir was appointed Dravan (sometimes referred to as King or Emperor) of a confederation of all the Polabian tribes - an unprecedented alliance but one which fit the mood of the Slavic elite. Chosen from the relatively small tribe of the Circipani, Slavomir could not personally call on large retainers or many allies. He was a choice which did not threaten any of the existing powers such as the Veleti or the Obodrites.

At first, the confederation would be weak, and patchwork - a network of voluntarily tribal alliances which was neither contiguous or powerful. Many of the initial founders had seen the Dravan more as a spiritual or cultural figure than a military leader, but they soon would change their opinions. In 823, when Gamalher, the Duke of Thuringia raided the burgeoning hill-town of Brenna. The alliance quickly gained members and soon Slavomir's ceremonial kingship became truly powerful. The Sorbs joined shortly thereafter, forming what the Franks described as a "High Kingdom of the Wends" and the Slavs would ultimately call Veletia.

As the border wars between Slavs and Franks began to rise in intensity once more, the more southern of the Western Slavs could not help but be drawn in. As raids on the Czechs and Slovenians began to increase, the Moravians under Kniaz Rastislav became local hegemons, uniting the southernmost of the West Slavic tribes under their thumb.

By 830, the Western Slavic polities in general were becoming more centralized and more complex. Certain well defended fortress-cities, or gords had risen to prominence, and these in turn ruled over lesser fortress-cities scattered across the countryside. Linked to each other by kinship bonds and oaths of loyalty, these localities placed themselves into rough hierarchies. Early legal codes were being formatted, based off of a combination of tradition and Roman law. The Slavic proto-states lacked their own domestic coinage, being primarily agrarian barter-based economies which made some use of foreign currency. Foreign coins were particularly commonplace in the gords, where specialized manufacturing was becoming increasingly commonplace. This rudimentary village industry would transform Slavic society. As these states became more complex in their organizational patterns, religious and cultural legitimacy began to diminish in favor of a proto-feudal system of "alliance."

Much of the foreign influence on these early states came from the looming shadow of the Romans or Franks. Slavic protofeudalism emulated both the Roman "federate" system which had returned in force after the conquest of the South Slavs, and also the Frankish magistrate-lords with their complex bonds of loyalty. Religious sites and sacred groves became increasingly less important to the social cohesion of the state - but they maintained their importance to religious rituals even as Christianization became widespread. The holy sites of the Slavs, groves to Perun and Svarog and countless others were frequently recontextualized into folklore and preserved. The image of the old red-bearded wanderer with a shining axe was a potent one in the mythology of the Western Slavs, and would endure long after Perun himself lost his primacy.

Strong Iranian and Avar influences can be also seen in the material culture of the Morava and Polanes, and Norse culture and loanwords penetrated Wendish civilization to a great degree. As Pannonia embraced its Irano-Turkish heritage the Slavic peoples there were largely subsumed. Elsewhere however, the Iranian culture had less impact. They, like the Slavs were relative newcomers, strangers whose language, gods, and culture were all still trying to adapt to a foreign land. A cabal of wandering Sarvastivada monks from Syarzur established "the Great Refuge" in the Carpathian mountains sometime around 805. It was from this point of origin that Avar-Xasari Buddhism, like the "Sogdian School" would begin to become its own formalized and distinct religious tradition.

Latin Christian and Xasari Buddhist missionaries vied for influence in the courts of the Slavic princes. Unlike the great theological debates of the Eftal, these were less lofty and more pragmatic. Both the Christians and Buddhists had strong material incentives in gaining converts - creating coreligionists meant the possibility of trade and alliances. However, the Christians had critical advantages in this "contest" - they were more numerous and more zealous in their preaching. Their faith seemed at its root to appeal better to the Slavic peoples, and quite possibly worked better as a unifying force. By contrast, the main advantage of Buddhism, its adaptability, was less true of the Xasari-influenced Buddhism, with its elaborate pantheon of Iranian and Turkish deities.

Among the Vistulans and the Masovians, where the Avar and Xasar presence had always been the strongest, Buddhist missionaries enjoyed widespread successes. Elsewhere, however, Christianity seemed far more popular. King Rastislav's son Moymir of Moravia would convert to Christianity in 842. Of the Western Slavs, the only people to convert wholesale to Buddhism were the Polanes. In general, however, we must hold all accounts of these conversions to be somewhat suspect. Archeological evidence shows that the important holy sites of the Slavic faith were in no way abandoned, and especially in Moravia constant edicts against idolatry seem to have gone rather unenforced.

Despite the multitude of foreign influences, the traditions, mythology, and culture of the Slavs remained strong and almost totally isolated from the hearts of both Iranian and Latin civilization. Paying lip-service to Christ and the Buddha became commonplace among the elites, but the actual religious situation was complex and if anything syncretic.

http://i.imgur.com/wvjeYkj.jpg

Political Map

http://i.imgur.com/eCPvaaa.jpg

Religious Map

[The religious map is extremely rough. It may also contradict me in some places, although I hope not! I made it mostly for my own reference, but I thought maybe I could post it.]