Relight the Flames - a Zoroastrian Persian AAR

[Midnite Duke]

The assassins need to be removed as the viper that you think that you control may turn on you. Eastward, complete the Persian homeland then west and make the Caliph a title not a power. Thank you for updating.

 

[Tommy4ever]

War and Pestilence 1089-1104

In stark contrast to his immediate predecessors, Gholam II had a singular ambitious to stake his claim to history as a mighty conqueror, a latter day Cyrus the Great. He would spent almost the entirety of his reign on campaign, fighting Persia’s enemies for land and glory. The reality of these titanic ambitions were years of death, hardship and struggle as untold thousands were killed to fuel the Shah’s war machine.

Gholam’s first military campaign came within weeks of his expulsion of the spiderly Ghobal from power in Isfahan. Indeed, the campaign against the Nizaris of Alamut was in truth closely related to the repudiation of his great uncle’s legacy. Marching north with a vast host, the Persians stormed the fortress and slaughtered the Shia living within it – decisively destroying the Hashashin order and ending their period of influence throughout the realm.

From a quick victory over an internal threat, the young monarch’s eye moved towards foreign conquest. Early the following year, in 1090, the Persians became embroiled in a conflict against the Latefids of Iraq over competing claims in the Zagros mountains. With the Persians assembling a huge army and threatening to cross mountains into Mesopotamia itself, the Islamic world was gripped by fear and soon banded together with Muslim Emirates and Sultanates in the Gulf and Syria sending their forces to stand alongside the Latefids.

The two armies would meet in a single decisive engagement at the Battle of Nahavand in 1091, one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the era. Commanded personally by the Latefid Sultan Jahand, the Arabs skilfully drew the Persians onto the offensive before enveloping a large part of the Ziyarid army. Seeing the pride of their force falling to the enemy, the Persians began a disorderly retreat, only to be run down by the Arab cavalry. The Persian losses were staggering, and put paid any hope Gholam had of victories in the west. Indeed, the Shah was fortunate that Muslim coalition faced internal disagreements after it had achieved its initial goal of safeguarding Iraq from heathen invasion, with few having an interest in extending Latefid power across the Zagros. Instead, Gholam was able to agree a truce involving a hefty tribute to the Arabs but maintaining the territorial integrity of the realm.

Defeat in the west was chastening and costly for Persia and its sovereign alike. Yet Gholam’s belief in his call to greatness wasmerely delayed by this failure. He soon set to work planning his next campaign. This would draw him eastward, where he set out in 1093 to make war against the combined forces of the Persianate Muslim Saminid and Saffarid states. Gholam began to war by striking deep into eastern Khorosan – capturing the rich city of Merv as he struck into the Saminid heartland. This early success proved to be a mirage as the main Saminid army came to meet the Persians at the Battle of Abiward. There, a slightly larger Persian army was heavily defeated and sent into a long retreat to the west. All their earlier gains, most importantly Merv, were lost as the Saminids pursued them all the way back to Gorgan, by the Caspian Sea. There, the Persians were able to defeat the Saminids and prevent an invasion of their own territory.

From here, Gholam chose not to resume his invasion of Central Asia, but instead sweep southwards to face down the Saffarids. After a major victory at Bal Chah, the Shah divided his force with a smaller detachment seeking to subdue the Saffarids in Sistan while the main of the army marched northward with him to once again march into eastern Khorosan.

As the gruelling war in the east gradually turned in Persia’s favour, a new threat emerged on her western frontier. The Byzantine conquest of Armenia in the late eleventh century was a deeply traumatic time for eastern Anatolia. The independent Armenian Church, one of the oldest in Christendom, was identified as a threat by a militant Orthodox leadership in Constantinople. This led to a decision to attempt to force the Armenian Church into communion with Constantinople, accepting the tenets of Orthodoxy. Many Armenians vigorously opposed this – rising in revolt in the early 1090s. As imperial power squashed the Armenians, several thousand fled across the border into Persia’s western provinces. There, they found an unlikely ally in the restive Muslim Kurdish tribes of the region. Aching under the constant demands of Isfahan from men and taxes to feed the Shah’s costly wars, and the interference and domination of Zoroastrian religious elites – the Kurds made common cause with the Armenians and joined together in revolt. This unexpected army proved extremely potent – signally its threat by capturing Irbil in 1097 before sweeping across the Kurdish provinces of western Persian and crushing what few forces the Shah had not committed to his wars in the east. By 1099 the Kurds and Armenians were at the gates of Hamadan – threatening to push on towards the royal capital itself at Isfahan. This would be the high tide of the revolt, as Gholam returned turned back from Central Asia, marching all the way across Persia to destroy the rebel army over the course of 1100-1101 before returning to the east, his men exhausted, to resume the never-ending fight.

With both sides tiring from a decade of warfare, Gholam once again moved on Merv. To his surprise, he was able to take the city with little effort in 1102. The reasons for this were of far greater consequence than the outcome of the war itself. Merv’s population had been swollen by thousands of refugees from the east who claimed to be fleeing a terrible plague that was carrying away untold legions of dead in Transoxiania. With these additional mouths to feed, the city had little prospect of holding out. This disease would reach the front not long afterwards, decimating both the sides of the conflict and rendering any continued campaigning impossible. As such, Gholam agreed to a truce in 1103 that saw Persia make significant territorial gains – taking Merv itself from the Saminids and destroying the Saffarids state entirely in Makran along the Arabian Sea – albeit not on the scale he had hoped for after such sacrifices.

By the time the Shah and his tattered army returned to the capital, Persia was already in the early stages of the most devastating epidemic the world had every seen. Isfahan itself was hit especially early and with great force by the virus, the return of Gholam’s army from Merv ensuring that the plague spread fast and wide. Within the royal household, within months of the Shah’s return Gholam’s wife, his three sons and four daughters were all fell ill and died. Gholam himself was soon stricken as well – passing away in early 1104. As a cousin with a questionable claim to the throne rose to power, Persia was descending into a hell that would trigger a period of political, social and religious chaos profoundly altering the course of her history.

 

[Tommy4ever]

We're entering into quite an exciting period in our story over the next couple of updates as the hammerblow of the plague carries with it all manner of consequences. Hopefully getting a little more interest than the last update.

Gholam II was ultimately a failure here. He made some moderate-sized territorial gains, but had incredible cost that has left the country bled dry and the treasury empty just as we brace for some of our greatest challenges yet ...

The assassins need to be removed as the viper that you think that you control may turn on you. Eastward, complete the Persian homeland then west and make the Caliph a title not a power. Thank you for updating.

This is one thing that Gholam II got right early and with minimal fuss - taking out the Assassins with a swift storming of Alamut in his first months. The ambition was certainly there for sweeping conquests but things proved a little too difficult.

In game - I invaded the Latefids with a HW CB and they assembled a number of Sunni allies to crush me at that battle. I surrendered, paying the huge tribute, but still had a large enough war chest to go again once my levies had recovered.

The wars in the east were actually several wars. I DOWed both the Saminids and Saffarids at the same time as I thought I'd be able to take them both. I initially recovered from early defeats to take Merv from the Saminids by 1098, ending that in-game war - but was instantly attacked by a variety of Saminid vassals who could field more troops together than their liege had in the first war. So it took another 5 years or so to subdue that front. In the south, I was never able to commit enough men to finally finish them off throughout that decade of war - so although their armies were beaten a number of times, this was actually the very last of the wars to be finished up in 1103. Then of course, there were the rebels in the west. Weirdly they were Miaphysite rebels in game, but mostly took Kurdish Muslim territory. They got to 99% warscore from capturing territory, but couldn't get to 100% without winning a major battle - and they lost when my army came back from the east. Meanwhile, the plague did actually hit right at the end of the war in 1102 and started wiping out everyone at my court (including the Shah's entire family - before finally getting him himself). At the end of all that, we have no money and no manpower left, our vassals and population are unhappy and we have the small matter of a deadly pandemic.

 

[Midnite Duke]

Gholam's ambition far outweighed his performance. Time to regroup, as simply surviving is often CK's greatest victory. Thank you for the update.

 

[Specialist290]

If nothing else, Gholam II's reign shows that his realm is in a state of uneasy equilibrium -- no longer at risk of being easily overwhelmed by its neighbors, but also unable to make any easy gains without great sacrifice as well.

Or at least it was, until the Black Death arrived to wreak merry havoc everywhere it touches. As it does.

 

[Crimson Lionheart]

Just discovered this hidden gem. Will be following with keen interest!

 

[Nikolai]

The plague obliterating the ruling house, a distant relative with a poor claim on the throne, plague with its many accompanying problems, and, I wagee, still a lot of Muslims eager to fight back both internally and externally… Splendid.

 

[iain_a_wilson]

Great updates (just catching up) and I love what you're doing with the art work - it's a nice compliment to the usual CK fare. Your realm seems to be at that nice stage where external threats will have to work hard to conquer it. Good work!

 

[Constantine I of Egypt]

With the Islamic World launching two jihads and failing, I'm guessing they're going to be losing the Crusades.

 

[Senior Chamoy]

In the late 1070s the Byzantines had largely destroyed the once powerful Armenian Kingdom, and in 1084 the regent took the opportunity to strike against the Armenian rump state to finally conquer Tabriz and avenge his failure in the 1050s.​

Even if I'm happy to see Persia expand, this saddened me greatly. From a crucial ally, to a broken and conquered kingdom. I pity the Armenians.

Will Gholam II's ambition take him to Mesopotamia? No true Persian empire is complete without its crown jewel within those two rivers.

 

[Tommy4ever]

The Time of Druj 1104-1108

In Zoroastrianism’s dualistic cosmology, the world is divided between druj, evil, deceit and chaos, and asha, goodness, truth and order. The first years of the twelfth century were undoubtedly a time when druj reigned supreme over the Iranians. Epidemic disease was a constant feature of pre-modern societies across the world – regularly causing severe suffering and death. However, the Black Death, that hit the Middle East and Europe during the 1100s, was remarkable in its scale and social impact. In Persia, as much as half of the population would perish, while in many urban areas the death toll was much higher.

The pandemic triggered a breakdown of the Persian social order. As the disease cut through the realm, Persia’s elites abandoned the common folk to seclude themselves as best they could. Nobles fled to their manor houses, the mobads shut themselves away in their fire temples, infrastructure was neglected and fell into disrepair, religious rites went unperformed, laws unenforced, banditry grew explosively to the extent it was impossible to travel more than short distances without an armed retinue – paralysing the silk road trade upon which the merchant class depended.

From a religious and cultural perspective, the impact on Zoroastrianism’s unique funerary rites was particularly shocking to pious society. Zoroastrians neither cremate nor bury their dead – not wishing to spread the corruption of dead onto the sacred fire and earth. Instead they place their deceased on top of isolated Towers of Silence to be consumed by carrion and the elements. During the plague, this became impractical and thousands were buried in mass graves or simple burned – breaking sacred taboos and contributing to the wider questioning of tradition across society. Indeed, these years were punctuated by the spread of mass social unrest, particularly among the lower orders, and new millenarian and revolutionary currents that presaged the end of the world and upturning of the existing order.

Despite the elite’s attempt to shelter themselves from the ravages of the plague, the disease hit the royal household with great force – carrying away Shah Gholam II and his entire family in 1104. With their deaths, the male royal line ran dry. A cousin of his predecessor, the new Shah, Shahab, was a grandson of Gholam I through his second son. This wing of the Ziyarid clan possessed little in the way of power, influence, recognition or legitimacy. Upon his succession, rumours quickly spread around the land that Shahab’s father was a bastard, not truly of royal blood, and that he was therefore illegitimate as a sovereign. These vicious rumours would swirl into the existing social ferment – pushing Persia further into the abyss.

With the crown, gentry, religious elites and merchant classes all delegitimised and anti-systemic ideas rampant among the common folk – the Iranian peasantry were primed for revolution. Their moment came in the Peasants Revolt of 1104, one of the most traumatic moments in Persia’s Medieval history. Triggered by riots opposing the rise of an alleged bastard to the throne, unrest quickly escalated into a mass revolt in the autumn months of 1104. With a focal point in the central region of the Jibal, but spread into Fars and as far east as Khorosan; the rebellion was notable in that, although many Muslim participated, it was primarily a rebellion of the Zoroastrian core of the realm rather than its oppressed minority peripheries. Depleted by Gholam II’s wars and then the effects of the plague, the royal army could only put up passing resistance to the rebels – being forced to retreat north to the Caspian region. This gave the peasants a free hand to unleash a whirlwind of class violence – sacking manor houses, slaying their old landowners and carrying away what food, booty and women they could, attacking cities and fire temples. The whole of central Persia was aflame.

Through most of Persia, the revolt burned brightly but briefly. After having sacked the holdings of their local elites and divided their property among themselves, the majority of the rebels returned to their home – finding the high walls of fortresses and cities too great a challenge to overcome. The exception was around the capital as Isfahan. There, the rebels found a degree of leadership and coherence they lacked elsewhere under the renegade military commander Artin Faraasman. The settled into a long siege of the capital – trapping the Shah himself and his family inside. Having failed to properly organise their food stores through the chaos of the preceding period, within months starvation had set in. Shahab himself, seeking to share the burden of hardship with his people, refused special treatment and lived on the same paltry rations as his soldiers defending the walls. Nonetheless, this situation could not be sustained and in October 1105 the Shah, now with the skeletal appearance of a famine victim, negotiated the surrender of Isfahan to Faraasman in exchange for safe passage to Qom – which would be established as a new capital. Upon victory, Faraasman established a petty realm for himself at Isfahan – redistributing land and property to the peasantry who had elevated him and ransacking the great city for all its worth.

This anarchic period at the beginning of the century provided the context for new religious developments within Zoroastrianism that looked back to the much older Mazdakite tradition. The original Mazdaki movement had taken place during another period of social discontent in the sixth century Sassanian Empire. There, a reforming mobad, Mazdak the Younger, had professed a new vision of Zoroastrianism. His teachings had denigrated the role the clergy and religious traditions – stressing individual spirituality and ethics – supported pacifism and vegetarianism, a degree of sexual promiscuity including the sharing of women, and most central of all an extreme egalitarianism that extended to social programmes and redistribution. Mazdak had gained a powerful following, and even the support of Shah Kavadh I who sought to implement his teachings. Ultimately, Mazdak’s revolution was overturned – and the prophet and his followers brutally killed, Mazdak himself being pierced by many arrows. Yet, Mazdakite currents in Zoroastrian thinking were never entirely extinguished.

Through much of the post-Sassanian period of Zoroastrian history Mazdakism would be posed as one of two poles in Zoroastrian thinking, in opposition to Orthodox currents. These terms would describe varieties of movements at either end of the spectrum that might only hold a few shared characteristics. Broadly, movements stressing egalitarianism, decentralisation, anti-clericalism and a questioning of tradition were described as Mazdakite, while those that emphasised, stability, hierarchy, central religious authority, the importance of the clergy and the faith’s ancient roots and traditions occupied the Orthodox end of the Zoroastrian spectrum.

The Neo-Mazdakite movement of the twelfth century had its origins among another prophetic mobad named Naveed Tuli. Zoroastrianism had lacked a central religious authority since the Arab Conquest, with the faith held together by the words of its sacred religious texts in the Avesta, ancient customs and the authority of the senior clergy. As such, while its lack of structure allowed some room for differences, an inflexible reliance on tradition tended to make it resistant to change. For most of his career, Naveed Tuli had lived a very ordinary life as a cleric in his home city of Hamadan. There, his interactions with the poor had made him an advocate for the disenfranchised, but it was the horrors of the 1100s that radicalised his philosophy. Having seen his home city besieged during the Peasants Revolt, and much of the Persian elite abandon the common folk during the plague and war, Tuli began to preach a new, radical creed.

Tuli believed that the social, political and, in the context of the still ongoing plague, epidemiological crises afflicting Persia were all linked to a shared spiritual crisis that could only be resolved by a drastic reordering of the existing order. Reviving many of the ideas of the Mazdak, he called for the pursuit of an egalitarian society through a redistribution of land and wealth that would do away with the inequities of Persia and a root and branch reform of the Zoroastrian religious structure that would strip the clergy of their land, wealth and power and bring them closer to the common people. The Neo-Mazdaki or Tulist movement quickly spread – finding great support in Hamadan itself and parts of Tabaristan but finding its greatest mass following along the Zagros Mountains on the Shahdom’s western fringe. Notably, the Mazdakis made great strides in converting the Kurds to Zoroastrianism from the Sunni faith that they had held to so strongly for generations under Ziyarid rule.

Crucially to the fate of the movement, the Mazdakites were able to appeal not just to the lower social orders but to elements of the elite as well. Indeed, given the horrors of the time, many were only to ready to accept the need for urgent and radical change. In 1107, Tuli travelled to the royal capital in Qom, where he appealed directly to the Shah. Although Shahab, sympathetic to the wise cleric but fearful of alienating his allies, initially turned him away, Tuli became close to Queen Soraya who eagerly embraced his teachings. It was through Soraya’s impassioned urgings the Shah himself began to change his thinkings. Early in 1108 publicly proclaimed his support for Tuli and invited the holy man into his council, promising to bring about a new world.

 

[Tommy4ever]

As Lenin once said: Sometimes there are decades where nothing happens, and then there are weeks where decades happen. :d

Gholam's ambition far outweighed his performance. Time to regroup, as simply surviving is often CK's greatest victory. Thank you for the update.

Things have gone from tricky to a disaster here. We lost our capital in a peasants revolt, plague has left the land heavily depopulated, and now a revolutionary religious movement has found its way to power. Surviving will only be trickier from here!

If nothing else, Gholam II's reign shows that his realm is in a state of uneasy equilibrium -- no longer at risk of being easily overwhelmed by its neighbors, but also unable to make any easy gains without great sacrifice as well.

Or at least it was, until the Black Death arrived to wreak merry havoc everywhere it touches. As it does.

We've certainly been helped in reaching that middle weight rank by the weakening of our Muslim rivals and the apparent disinterest of the Christians in our lands - the Byzantines being content not to go further east than Armenia for now at least.

And this has to be one of the most spectacular impacts the plague has had in any of my run throughs. Having been exhausted by those wars under Gholam, we were completely out matched by the peasants revolt , while at the same time a large heresy has appeared and captured the heart of our leader.

Just discovered this hidden gem. Will be following with keen interest!

Thanks, glad to have you on board!

The plague obliterating the ruling house, a distant relative with a poor claim on the throne, plague with its many accompanying problems, and, I wagee, still a lot of Muslims eager to fight back both internally and externally… Splendid.

And the troubles were only just beginning at the stage he came to power! Who'd have thought we'd have a starving skeletal Shah surrendering his capital to some peasants within years of Gholam confidently marching east to conquer his name into history.

Great updates (just catching up) and I love what you're doing with the art work - it's a nice compliment to the usual CK fare. Your realm seems to be at that nice stage where external threats will have to work hard to conquer it. Good work!

Thanks, I like to mix in the game and flavour images as we go through to help bring those game events to life a little more. At this point, internal threats look like they might be more dangerous - at least in the short term - than any of our immediate neighbours.

With the Islamic World launching two jihads and failing, I'm guessing they're going to be losing the Crusades.

Not to spoil the future, but in this playthrough the Orthodox Christians make a bigger play for the Holy Land than the Catholics do.

Even if I'm happy to see Persia expand, this saddened me greatly. From a crucial ally, to a broken and conquered kingdom. I pity the Armenians.

Will Gholam II's ambition take him to Mesopotamia? No true Persian empire is complete without its crown jewel within those two rivers.

The Armenians were a big player in the early part of this AAR. As a people so close to Persia (and in Tabriz - which culture flipped to Armenian during their rule - now a part of it), they will certainly have a role to play going forward too.

And if we are ever to restore the imperial title of the Shahanshah we will have to march on Baghdad one day.

 

[Specialist290]

Persia emerges from the maelstrom a greatly changed nation. "Out with the old, in with the new" seems to be the order of the day.

 

[Midnite Duke]

Plague, peasants looting the capital, the shah joining a heresy, why do bad things happen to Persia? It is the curse of Suenik for invading Armenia! Thanks for updating

 

[iain_a_wilson]

However, the Black Death, that hit the Middle East and Europe during the 1100s, was remarkable in its scale and social impact.

I've literally had the same event just occur in my game and the impact was devastating. I love how you've covered it here - exploring the social impact of the plague is a great way of showing just how world shaking it was.

 

[Tommy4ever]

Welcome to the New World 1108-1118​

By 1108, the worst of the plage in Persia was over. The land have been massively depopulated, leaving many fields abandoned, labour in short supply and infrastructure in disrepair. Coupled with the impact of the plague, the Peasants Revolt had left behind a significant legacy in its epicentres of Jibal and Fars in central and southern Persia. In these regions, peasants had seized de facto ownership of the lands on which they worked – forcing landowners into flight and establishing a smallholding yeoman class. The peasants’ claims were not enforced by the laws of the land – leaving them vulnerable to future attempts at a noble restoration. More immediately, the lack of a legal basis for land ownership in these regions, and the violent means by which the peasants had seized properties during the revolt, left behind a violent society in which neighbours constantly feuded with one another in a Hobbesian war of all against all.

Upon the Shah’s conversion to Naveed Tuli’s new religious movement, the sovereign and holy man together developed a reform programme that was nothing short of a revolution in Persian society. The land acquisitions of the Peasants Revolt would be granted a legal basis – with surveyors to establish the exact boundaries between properties. Even more significantly, the new form of land ownership established in Jibal and Fars was to be extended through the rest of the realm – with the state acting as an interlocutor in the redistribution of property from the elite to the common man. Further to this, a set of new taxes were to be put in place to fund social programmes that would protect the poor from the worst deprivations of poverty and inequality.

Spirituality was just as central as material change to the Tulid Mazdaki movement, and extensive changes were proposed to Zoroastrian church structures. Firstly, the temples would be pushed to divest themselves of their land and wealth – contributing towards the ongoing reform process and distancing themselves from overly wordly concerns. Mobads would be encouraged to move away from a focus on ceremony, ancient texts and tradition towards taking on the role of teaching the commonfolk to engage with Zoroastrian spirituality and morality themselves.

The changes being pursued by the royal court were incredible in their scale and ambition, promising something akin to medieval socialism. From the first, they won the Shah widespread popular support and prestige among the poor – establishing Shahab as their champion. The programme did achieve some early successes. The promised social programmes were established, and although only in effect in cities they ended the worst urban poverty with the provision of free bread and housing. On the tricky issue of land ownership progress was slower, with many in the elite unsurprisingly deeply resistant. However, in the Mazdaki heartland around the Zagros Mountains and the Kurdish lands the militancy of local zealots successfully forced through changes. In the wave of euphoria that surrounded the crown in these heady Shahab even reclaimed the lost capital of Isfahan without shedding a drop of his army’s blood after the local overthrew their rulers and swore allegiance to their Shah.

For all the dreams of change held by Shahab, Naveed Tulid and the Mazdakites, their revolution aroused deep and widespread pools of opposition. The inevitable confrontation began in 1110 as the flag of revolt was raised in Tabriz. Spearheading the rebellion was Azadeh Ziyarid – the daughter of the infamous Ghobad who had dominated Persia for much of the preceding century as a regent – who ruled as Satrap over Gilan, Tabriz and Azerbaijan and now claimed the royal crown for herself. As Azadeh’s army marched south from her northwesterly domain, they attracted new supporters and defectors with each passing day. By the time the rebels first met Shahab’s army at the battle of Tabus, they already outnumbered them by a significant margin, and dealt a heavy blow to the royalists. Following this victory, the rebels advanced eastwards in Khorosan – a heartland of Orthodox Zoroastrianism – where they sought to solidify their control over the northern parts of the realm and further cultivate support for Azadeh’s claim to the throne.

With Persia barely holding on, in 1112 a number of Arab Sheiks and Emirs from Iraq seized their moment to invade the Shahdom’s western provinces. The royal army was by this stage too depleted to even hope to successfully repel the invaders. Yet this proved to be an unexpected blessing for Shahab. These western provinces were the heartland of Mazdakism, and groups had already previously formed to cajole local elites into accepting land reforms. Now, these same militant Mazdaks took up the sword in defence of faith and nation – becoming known as the Sorkh Jamagan. These Mazdak zealots fought fight a brutal battle against the Arab Muslim invaders over the next few years, eventually expelling them from Persian lands in 1115.

The Sorkh Jamagan had given new energy to the royalist side in the civil war, and, indeed, an increasingly large portion of Shahab’s wider military would be drawn from the Kurdish tribesmen and Persian militants of the Mazdaki territories and the war carried on. The decision of the Orthodox rebels to turn east to Khorosan rather than south towards Qom and Isfahan proved a grave error. Trading territory for time, the royalists were able to commit the majority of the rebel army to a long and costly campaign in the east while their forces regrouped elsewhere. As the Sorkh Jamagan made their presence felt, the rebels were sent into a fighting retreat back towards Azadeh’s home Satrapies.

Just as the tide appeared to be beginning to turn in Shahab’s favour, the southern provinces of the realm were wracked by a serious of large and devastating Islamic rebellions. The epicentres of these revolts were in Makran, only recently conquered, and Fars, still home to a large Muslim minority. In Fars in particular, the rebellions were extreme bloody as they took on an inter communal character – the Muslims taking out their vengeance against the Zoroastrian community that had lorded over them for generations. Supplied by their Arab co-religionists from across the Persian Gulf, and able to field huge armies the Muslim rebels were easily able to fend off Persian efforts at restoring order to their southern provinces. Indeed, their only significantly failure came in the inability of the Farsi and Makranite wings of the rebellion to cooperate effective in the capture of Hormuz – with both parties withdrawing to their home region.

The Muslim revolts in the south forced Shahab to come to a compromised agreement with his rebellious kinswoman in Azadeh. In exchange for peace, the north western territories were given independence from Persia, and Azadeh recognised as Shahbanu, a queen in her own right. Just as peace was made with Azadeh, Persia painfully allowed two new Muslim Emirates to form in Fars and Makran. By 1118 the realm was at peace once more. It had been battered, and nearly broken, after nearly a decade of warfare – but Shahab and his Mazdaki ambitions remained intact.

 

[Tommy4ever]

So, we've lost no fewer that 5 ducal provinces in the course of these wars, and some really painful ones - probably most of all Fars. In game, Azadeh's rebellion was actually an independence war (which she won, as you can see) - although she does in fact have a claim to the Shahdom of Persia and this certainty isn't the last we've heard of her (even if she is in her 60s by the end of this most recent war). In game she quickly forms the Shahdom of Daylam after the end of this war - but I expedited that to the peace agreement (thus the discrepancy in the map at the end of the update that just says Gilan). The Muslim revolts in the south were a real kick in the teeth after so many years of already gruelling warfare - but their numbers were so great there was 0 chance of me ever defeating them.

Persia emerges from the maelstrom a greatly changed nation. "Out with the old, in with the new" seems to be the order of the day.

And we're certainly not out of that maelstrom yet - huge changes like those being pursued by the Mazdakites are only won with a great deal of blood and effort.

Plague, peasants looting the capital, the shah joining a heresy, why do bad things happen to Persia? It is the curse of Suenik for invading Armenia! Thanks for updating

And the bad things have certainly not slowed down in this update! Maybe we truly are victims of an Armenian curse !

I've literally had the same event just occur in my game and the impact was devastating. I love how you've covered it here - exploring the social impact of the plague is a great way of showing just how world shaking it was.

Yes, I'd you don't quite appreciate just how earth shattering an impact it had until you read about the Black Death. It's hard to imagine half of the world dying in just a few years and what sort of earth shattering impact that would have on the societies left behind. In this story, the appearance of the Mazdaki as a major heresy lined up perfectly with the plague to make a unified story that feeds off one another.

 

[Midnite Duke]

Sometimes the game writes the story if we are willing to find the clues. COVID rearranged our lives with less than 1% mortality rate, how much more unsettling would a 20% rate be with even less knowledge as to how the disease worked. Thank you for updating.

Is normalcy enroute so that Persia can restore and expand?

 

[blitzthedragon]

Haven't followed an AAR on this site in a LONG time. Count me in!

 

[Tommy4ever]

The Red Ones 1118-1134​

After the exactions of eight years of warfare and the significant loss of territory, the power of the Persian crown across what remained of the Shahdom had palpably weakened. Even Naveed Tuli, the originator of the Neo-Mazdaki movement, had been largely sidelined by the marshal minded men who had come to the fore during the war. Indeed, the monarchy was now increasingly dependent on the power of the zealots of the Sorkh Jamagan who had little interest in easing the internal tensions within Persia but wished to forge on with the uncompleted Mazdaki revolution. In the following years the Sorkh Jamagan became active throughout the realm, far beyond their home territories in the west, seeking to cajole elites and commoners into adopting their religious doctrines and enforcing efforts at redistributing wealth. This period was punctuated by incessant border warfare with Persia’s neighbours, a factor that to some extent held the Sorkh Jamagan from having complete free reign over the country. These wars led to the successful recovery of Luristan from the Arabs in the west, and the repulsion of Saminid efforts to reclaim Merv in the east.

Persia’s brief interlude of internal peace was brought to an end in 1124 by the outbreak of the Second Mazdaki War. This second civil war was spearheaded by the lords of eastern Persia who Azadeh had attempted to rally to her banner in the previous decade, and many of whom still supported the Daylamite Queen’s claim to the throne. Their large coalition left loyalist forces isolated, particularly beyond the Mazdaki corelands in the west. Despite this, the royalists won a crucial early victory at Firuzkah near the Caspian coast that put them at a clear early advantage.

This proved to be something of a false dawn as the rebels were able to replenish their losses with the introduction of Pashtun mercenaries from the east into their ranks – leading the war towards a stalemate with neither side able to establish and maintain the upper hand. The most important moment of the war was not a decisive battle but the death of a King as at the Battle of Rayy in 1127, not far from the royal court at Qom, Shahab was cut down on the field while engaging the enemy. The death of the great driving force behind the Mazdaki revolution would have tremendous consequences.

While he had achieved much in his life, Shahab died without issue – leading Persia once again through a convoluted line of succession. Shahab himself had only been a cousin of his predecessor Gholam II, sharing a grandfather with him, yet Keykhosrau’s claim was even further removed. While Shahab traced his line back to Gholam I through his second son, Keykhosrau was the grandson of the infamous Ghobad through the former regent’s fourth daughter. This made him a nephew of Azadeh of Daylam – the protaginist of the First Mazdaki War – and offered new hopes of healing the divides within the dynasty and wider society.

Indeed, while Keykhosrau was a proud Mazdakite, he was much more moderate than his predecessor. Following his succession he moved to negotiate a truce in the ongoing civil war on the basis of a promise of mutual toleration for all Zoroastrian creeds and an end to further reform programmes. As Shah, he set out on a path of compromise – looking to take the fervour out of the Mazdaki revolution while maintaining the changes it had brought about. The power of the Sorkh Jamagan was finally challenged, with many of their commanders removed from positions of influence and their armed bands disbanded. This was accompanied, to the horror of Mazdaki zealots, with the reintroduction of Orthodox Zoroastrians into the royal council. Although tensions continued to abound, particularly with the Sorkh Jamagan who pushed against the newfound limits to their influence, Keykhosrau appeared to be on a path towards a resolution of Persia’s twelfth century crisis.

For all the new Shah’s gestures of peace and reconciliation, his project was faced threatened by a fast approaching and inevitable mortal threat in the form of one Parviz Bavandid. The grandson of the union of Azadeh Ziyarid and Vali Bavandid – he combined the lineages of the two most prestigious families on Persia, claiming descent from the bloodlines of Mardavij and Vushmgir on the maternal side and the last Sassanid Shahs on the paternal side. To many, his claim to the Persian throne appeared somewhat stronger than that of Keykhosrau himself while, as an unequivocal Orthodox Zoroastrian, he had a ready-made faction of supporters. Crucially, Parvis was no paper tiger as he was heir to an extraordinary domain. After inheriting the Satrapy of Tabaristan while still in his late teens in 1122 and acting as one of the key instigators of the Second Mazdaki War, Parviz was a constant thorn in the side of his sovereign even after the conclusion of the war. Closely aligned with his grandmother across the border in Daylam, he joined her in making war in the Caucuses to capture Derbent in 1129 and received her protection to give himself an effective free hand within Persia to make intrigue against his liege.

The greatest threat was the question of what would happen after Azadeh died and Parviz inherited Daylam alongside his existing lands in Tabaristan. Keykhosrau spent years seeking all manner of compromises – offering to share power with Parviz, even granting him further lands and wealth. Yet every offer was curtly rebuffed. When the old queen finally did pass away in 1133 it took mere weeks for fighting to break out. This Third Mazdaki War was over almost before it had even started. Rallying a large invasion forced from his Caspian fiefdoms, supported by Armenian and Alanian mercenary companies, Parviz crossed the Alborz Mountains – where he met Keykhosrau’s force at Qazwin. There, the Daylamites were resoundingly victorious – inflicting devastating losses. Having dismissed the fervent zealots of the Sorkh Jamagan, Keykhosrau relied on the support of his dispassionate vassals to keep his army in the field. Unfortunately for the Shah, these allies quickly abandoned him. As Parviz raced towards Qom, the Orthodox nobility of Persia quickly rallied behind him. The resulting siege of the capital proved mercifully short after anti-Mazdak elements in the city open the gates to Parviz who proceeded to storm the city. Taking Keykhosrau captive, Parviz then marched southward to Isfahan, the old capital, where Keykhosrau ceremonially abdicated the throne in favour of his cousin – now Shah of all Persia.