Relight the Flames - a Zoroastrian Persian AAR

[TWR97]

And subbed, rather excited to see how you're ever gonna bounce back from this defeat and eventually shake off the Mongol yoke.

 

[Tommy4ever]

The Bandit King 1243-1249

The Mongol conquest coincided with major movements of people. This was most significant in Transoxiania, where the historic populations of Persians and Sogdians were so badly devastated. Here, Mongols and allied Turkic peoples began to replace the former inhabitants wholesale. In the West, in a territory stretching from the southern shores of the Aral Sea to Khiva, Mongols would establish themselves as the majority in a territory that would come to be known as Moghulistan. To the east, migration was slower, with Turkic Karluks beginning to seep into the lands east of Samarqand. Other parts of Western Asia experienced less spectacular changes. Throughout the old Persian and Byzantine empires, Mongol nobles seized large tracts of lands for themselves without completely displacing the indigenous elite. Meanwhile, there were extensive settlements of Mongol people, many of them veterans of the conquest, in central Anatolia – the centre of power of the Rum Khanate - and to the south of the Caspian.

The horrors of the last decades had deeply shaken the structures and self-confidence of Orthodox Zoroastrianism. Indeed, from the middle of the thirteenth century the monolithic religious unity of the century after the Mazdaki Wars would be replaces by a flourishing of diversity, divergence and questioning of traditional doctrines and structures. The rise of Khurmatza represented a first step in this new evolution. The syncretic faith developed in the ever-idiosyncratic territories on the southern shore of the Caspian. Having seen a larger influx of Mongols that any other part of Persia outside of Transoxiania – this allowed for a greater intermingling and exchange of ideas than anywhere else. While the Mongols brought many terrors with them in their ride through Western Asia, they also carried the religious and philosophical wisdom of the East – principally in their main religions of Buddhism and pagan Tengrism

The eastern faiths influenced a class of Magi led by the great philosopher Babak Firuz – the chief Mobad for the city of Amol, not far from the Caspian coast. Firuz was fascinated by these faiths, from the Buddhists incorporating beliefs in reincarnation, the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment and the central importance of meditation. Tengri, on the other hand, encouraged a return towards ideas rooted in the pre-Zoroastrian Iranian religion, and to a lesser extent its closely related Aryan ancestor in Hinduism. With these in mind, Firuz encouraged renewed interest in a pantheon of traditional Aryan gods – with characteristics borrowed from the Steppe, Indian and Iranian tradition – that would sit below the great Ahura Mazda in Khurmatza theology.

Khurmatza proved extremely popular within the Caspian region, and to a lesser extent in neighbouring Khorosan – winning over converts among Persians and Mongols alike. This shared religious experience would contribute towards a tighter binding of the Persian natives to the new Mongol elite than anywhere else in the Ilkhanate, marking a cultural shift that would see old names of the area largely fall away in favour of a regional identity of Mazandaran.

Following the conquest of Iraq and fall of Baghdad in 1240, the Mongols had chosen not to kill the defeated Shahanshah and his high priest – but force them to swear allegiance to the Great Khan, a satisfying act of of subservience after the initial haughty Persian insults that had triggered Genghis’ invasions twenty years before. The teenage emperor Vandad would become a prisoner within his tightly guarded palace complex in New Ctesiphon. Stripped of his power and titles, the Mongols hoped to use him as a source of legitimisation, and to guard against the rise of other potential claimants to the Persian throne that could not be so easily controlled. However, the image of the young Shah imprisoned in his own palaces by the conquerors would emerge as a captivating popular image across the Persian world – serving as an apt metaphor for the Persian nation itself. For millions, a belief developed that the Shah trapped in New Ctesiphon was destined to one day break free and lead his people towards liberation.

With a hostile local population, the Mongols struggled to assert complete control over the entirety of their domain. Perhaps the most lawless territory was in the Zagros Mountains. These remote lands were mostly inhabited by Kurdish and Luri tribesmen. While large parts of the population were Orthodox Zoroastrians, it was a religiously diverse land with many Kurds being Mazdakis and Lurs following Islam. By the late 1240s the area was suffering from endemic banditry, fierce feuding among the local population and frequent harassment of the Mongolian administration. In 1247 the Ilkhan deployed an army of 10,000 men to the Zagros to bring the mountain folk to heel. The arrival of the Khan’s men, believed to be invincible on the field of battle and well known for their extreme brutality, terrified many as they began a campaign of hunting down bandits and attacking the communities that sheltered them.

Out of this despair emerged a leader named Sina Manuchihr. Hailing from an impoverished semi-nomadic Zoroastrian Luri background, Manuchihr had taken to banditry with the fall of the old Persian Empire – making a name for himself a skilful and generous leader. With the arrival of the Mongol army he took on the mantle of a resistance leader – harassing their forces in a proto-guerilla war and gathering an ethnically and religiously diverse band of Zagros bandits and tribesman to his banner. With the forces loyal to him growing from hundreds to thousands, he moved to more direct confrontations. In 1249, Manuchihr’s men sprung a daring ambush against the Mongols near Khorramabad that saw almost their entire army in the region wiped out. This was the first time a Persian army had won a major victory over the Mongols, marking Manuchihr out as a heroic figure to all those who opposed Khiva's dominion. With the largest Mongol army in western Persia destroyed, the Kurds and Lurs marched north to the rich city of Hamadan – which threw its gates open to them without a fight. With much of Persia at his mercy, the way to Tehran, Tabriz and Isfahan lay open. Many within his camp called upon Manuchihr to take on the mantle of rulership personally, proclaiming himself to be the bandit king of Iran. The humble Lur rejected these suggestions. His army would turn away from the great cities of Persia, instead they would ride west – to Baghdad, and the rightful Shahanshah in New Ctesiphon.

 

[Tommy4ever]

We bravely enter into the post-fall world with demographic and religious change afoot. Let us seem how events with the mountainfolk unfold from here!

Good show! Mongol humanitarianism at its best.

Gasp. That was a dramatic collapse.

So the dynasty survives. What of the young former Shah, who must be nearing adulthood by now? Does he retain a title? Houdini’s skills will be required to escape from under the Mongol thumb - and stay independent.

A dramatic collapse indeed. As this update notes, Vandad not only survived but was allowed to keep his palaces. In game, the Mongols took his 'empire tier' title with the CB they used, but left him as Shah of Iraq - controlling the sole province of Baghdad with a couple of vassals.

Ore para que los mongoles no adopten el Islam.

Islam is approaching life support at this stage. The biggest religions of the Steppe and Mongolic world are probably: Buddhism in the far east, Manichaeism on the western Steppe (of which we will hear much more about in updates to come), Zoroastrianism in Persia - including the new Khurmatza variety, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the Rum Khanate. Islam would probably come after those big 4 - with large minorities spread around the Tarim Basin, Transoxiania, Afghanistan, Iraq and parts of Persia.

If I had a nickel for every time the Romans and Persians tired each other out before they both were defeated by a rising nomadic empire I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice!

Really liking this, especially how decisively you've lost; it should be exciting to see you reclaim greatness. Are there any plans to make this a megacampaign like your last AAR?

Dammit, beat me to it!

Haha, weirdly enough the parallel with the Arab Conquest didn't come to my mind until you brought it up - but you know what the same about history ...

I'm glad you're enjoying this one! As you'll know, we are never safe from the prospect of disaster in my AARs .

I've continued playing the game through to the end of EU4, so as long as the audience interest is there and the story remains fun to write I am happy to keep this one rolling into the next time period.

And subbed, rather excited to see how you're ever gonna bounce back from this defeat and eventually shake off the Mongol yoke.

Glad that you are on board! Let us see how Manuchihr and his ragtag band do in their quest from here.

 

[TWR97]

This new bandit king is quite an interesting figure, especially now that he's known for breaking the invinsible status of the Mongol Army. I wonder what his plans for the entraped Shahansha are, and what this bodes for the fate of the region.

 

[NarcomancerPL]

Will you adopt Khurmatza faith? It would be kinda interesting to play as heresy, although I don't think there are any differences btween Khurmatza and Zoroastrian gameplay wise

 

[Bullfilter]

The humble Lur rejected these suggestions. His army would turn away from the great cities of Persia, instead they would ride west – to Baghdad, and the rightful Shahanshah in New Ctesiphon.

Interesting to find out where this goes. Can he free the Shah, or will the Mongols return in force for some brutal revenge?

OOC, is the bandit king a thing thrown up randomly by the game, or somehow under your control?

 

[FondMemberofSociety]

Will you adopt Khurmatza faith? It would be kinda interesting to play as heresy, although I don't think there are any differences btween Khurmatza and Zoroastrian gameplay wise

IIRC Khurmazta has no religious head and related mechanics.

 

[Tommy4ever]

Persia is Not Yet Dead 1249-1261

After their victories at Khorramabad and Hamadan, Manuchihr’s bandit army swung westwards with great pace. Travelling through mountain and desert, they arrived at the gates of Baghdad mere months later and easily overwhelmed a modest Mongol garrison to capture the great, albeit diminished after its plundering by Kulug Khan, city. With an army of of tribesmen and misfits, for whom Baghdad still appeared to be home to unimaginable riches, Manuchihr put great effort into holding his men back from sacking the city themselves – in doing so gaining respect among the local elites. Marching on to nearby New Ctesiphon, which the Mongols abandoned before the Kurds and Lurs had even reached it, Manuchihr met with the twenty six year old former emperor Vandad Bavandid for the first time. There, the powerful warlord swore loyalty to the rightful Shahanshah, and promised him that he would go forth to liberate all the Iranian people from Mongolian rule. Accepting this oath, Vandad named Manuchihr his Immortal and granted him the title Shah of Luristan – recognising his dominion in the Zagros.

With the former child-emperor freed to take up the mantle of national leadership, with a powerful military force behind him many Persian lords rallied to Vandad’s banner. By mid-1250, their revolt had reached as far as Isfahan and Qom, with most of Iraq and the Zagros range itself under their authority. It was remarkably how rapidly the Persian revolt had escalated. It was undoubtedly aided by the Ilkhan’s distractions on a number of different fronts. From the mid to late 1240s, sizeable numbers of Ilkhanate forces had been invested in Anatolia – supporting the Rum Khanate from both internal Greek rebellions and external attack by Christian Europe. Elsewhere, Khiva’s armies were invested in putting down revolts in their Indian territories and squaring off against the powerful Karluk confederation on their northern frontier. Without limited resources, the Mongols struggled to counter the escalating situation in their western territories.

Nonetheless, as the situation grew out of hand, the Mongols deployed a major force to quash the Persian revolt in 1251. After the Mongols had recaptured the city of Qom, Manuchihr’s men descended from the mountains to the west to face them down on the field of battle. Although the rebels would suffer heavy losses, the swept the Ilkhan’s army from the field for a second time. In a flurry of overconfidence, they confidently believed that the entire Mongol empire was on the brink of collapse. These hopes proved premature. Advancing eastward into Khorosan, the Kurds and Lurs at the core of Manuchihr’s army began to grow weary as they travelled further from their home territories while they suffered savage Mongol counterattacks around their flanks and rear. By 1252, the Iranians had turned around back towards their core territories in the west.

From there, something of a stalemate ensued for the next several years. Instead of eastwards towards the heartland of the Khanate, Manuchihr led his army into Assyria, where he faced down troops sent from the neighbouring Rum Khanate, while also attempting to push into the southern province of Fars. While attracting defectors and consolidating Vandad’s burgeoning power in the western half of his former empire, these expeditions took the toll of an immense cost of lives and money with limited returns as neither side was able to land a decisive blow against the other.

The war took a turn in the favour of Persian rebels after a spate of troubles afflicted the Mongols in the east. In India, the Kashmiri rebels seized Delhi – the jewel of Mongolian power in the subcontinent – and won a spate of key victories. Meanwhile, a religious revolt broke out centred around the city of Balkh – combining Persians and Pashtuns behind the aim of defeating the Mongols and restoring Zoroastrian power. These troubles forced the Ilkhan to withdraw most of his armies from the western theatre of the conflict – allowing the Persian rebels to make striking gains south-east into Fars while also striking east through Khorosan itself with a view to aiding the eastern rebellion.

Afflicted by so many troubles, the Mongol elite in Khiva had lost faith in their overlord, Yedi Khan, and moved to depose him in 1256 in favour of his younger brother Kebek. The new Khagan brought renewed vigour to the Mongol war effort – crushing the Zoroastrian rebellion in Bactria, before routing the Persian expedition in the east and riding on the Persian heartland where he unleashed yet another campaign of destruction on the already weary land – sacking Tehran, Isfahan and Hamadan. Just as the momentum of the conflict has seemed to have swung decidedly in favour of Khiva, salvation from Ahura Mazda was at hand. With Manuchihr gathering the tattered remains of the Persian army in defence of Shiraz in 1258, he engaged the Mongols in yet another costly battle. While there was not decisive winner on the field, Kebek Khan was cut down. His death would send the Mongols of the Ilkhanate hurtling into an inescapable abyss of internal conflict.

The Kebek’s death brought to the fore tensions that had been simmering among the Mongols since the overthrow of Yedi two years before. With the death of the two brothers a succession crisis ensued pitting the sons of Yedi in Transoxiania against those of Kebek in Khorosan and Bactria, with both claiming seniority over the other. With their enemies slipping into civil war, the Persians struck back to reclaim most of the Iranian heartland. Most strikingly, as Asiatic power appeared to evaporate in western Persia, the Khurmatza Mongol Chieftains of Mazandaran defected to join the Persians, swearing allegiance to Vandad and putting the nail in the coffin of Mongol power in Iran. In doing so, they secured a safe haven for Mongols in the Caspian region, while those who had attempted to settle elsewhere in Persia were mostly expelled. The war was finally brought to an end in 1260 after a Persia army was sent into the east, sacking Khiva and securing the recognition of Baghdad’s authority by both factions in the Mongol civil war.

Persia was free again. Diminished, depopulated, exhausted and impoverished, forty years of war and invasion had brought Iran to her knees but she had survived. The new Bavandid empire that emerge from the long war of independence against the Ilkhanate was significantly smaller than its predecessor. Its eastern territories were divided from the squabbling Khivan and Khorosani Khanates, each claiming to be the rightful inheritor of the Ilkhanate’s legacy, and the Omani Muslihiddin Sultanate that had crossed over the Arabian Sea in the south. Further to the east, the collapse of the Ilkhanate had allowed the kingdom of Sringar to emerge from their former Indian lands and the Muslim Persianate Shahu Shahdom, an inheritor of the traditions of the Saminids, to establish itself in the Tarim Basin. In the west, without its more powerful guarantor, the Rum Khanate appeared more isolated and fragile than ever before.

Twenty years after being overthrown by the rampaging armies of Kulug Khan, Vandad Bavandid reassumed the title of Shahanshah in 1260, being coronated by the Moabadan Moabad in New Ctesiphon. Still just thirty six, he had first become emperor as a three year old, before losing his title at sixteen, embarking on the path of rebellion, arm in arm with a Luri warlord at twenty six before ultimately triumphing a decade later. Vandad’s remarkably restoration was cut cruelly short. By 1260 he was already suffering under the advanced stages of cancer, barely managing to see out the rest of the year before passing away in early 1261. With no children or living siblings of his own, his imperial titles would pass to his cousin Mehrzad, while the elites of the new Persian state jockeyed for position among themselves.

 

[Tommy4ever]

We are free again! The in game explanation of all this is that after the destruction of Bavandid empire in 1240 I tag switched to the Ilkhanate without a clear idea of where things would be going. In 1248 Vandad (who is still Shah of Iraq) launches a war for his claim to the Persian empire tier title along with some allies. I can't resist the romance of the story and switch over to Vandad and the rebels. The war lasts for 12 gruelling years. Multiple times I am left bankrupt and with no armies left, so have to wait for levies to replenish. The in-story description of a back and forth conflict with one side getting the upper hand - marching deep into the other's lands, only for things to turn around and go in the other direction was pretty accurate. We come out of this a medium sized state. There are still Mongols on our eastern and western borders - but none quite so scary as the Ilkhanate or the Mongol Empire itself before it.

This new bandit king is quite an interesting figure, especially now that he's known for breaking the invinsible status of the Mongol Army. I wonder what his plans for the entraped Shahansha are, and what this bodes for the fate of the region.

The bandit king has spearheaded to fight to throw off the Mongol yoke. Vandad himself briefly got to celebrate this triumph before passing away. Now it's time to see how Manuchihr and the rest of the Persian elite approach this new postwar period.

Will you adopt Khurmatza faith? It would be kinda interesting to play as heresy, although I don't think there are any differences btween Khurmatza and Zoroastrian gameplay wise

IIRC Khurmazta has no religious head and related mechanics.

Khurmatza are quite different to standard Zoroastrians (certainly more different than the Mazdakis who we played previously). They get Hindu-style patron deities, but no High Priesthood.

The religion has taken a strong hold in the mountainous Mazandaran region south of the Caspian, its future will in large part depend on how the area's holdover Mongol elite negotiates their future in a state in which they are no longer the masters. Will they face repression and wither, solidify in their region, or spread their unique religion to the rest of Iran?

Interesting to find out where this goes. Can he free the Shah, or will the Mongols return in force for some brutal revenge?

OOC, is the bandit king a thing thrown up randomly by the game, or somehow under your control?

One could hardly of predicted the scale of his success! Freeing the Shah and casting the Mongols back into the east.

The bandit king was something of a story-based invention - based partly on major revolts the Ilkhanate faced from the indigenous population in the Zagros and partly as some flavour to enhance the story.

 

[blitzthedragon]

The Light of Zoroaster, so cruelly snuffed out mere centuries after its rekindling, lights once more! Hopefully the Bavandids have the breathing room they need to rebuild what once was before.

Though they best do it quick if they want a crack at the Rum Khanate before the Greeks come knocking for that land back.

 

[Specialist290]

No matter how low a flame may ebb, all it takes is a spark landing on the right tinder to bring it roaring back to life. Ilkhanate hegemony proved to be mercifully short-lived. Now it's just a matter of making that long, hard climb back to the top...

 

[TWR97]

Huzzah! The Mongol yoke has been thrown off! Shame about Vandad dying so soon after being independent, but alas it cannot be helped. Here's to hoping the Persians can retake all their lost lands eventually, maybe even conquer new ones eh?

 

[HistoryDude]

The Mongols bring down both the Byzantines and the Persians alike, as both are fighting against each other. Such folly...

And yet, neither is fully lost. Persia is free once more!

 

[Ixarys]

Just discovered this AAR and read it all through. You manage to narrate in a clear, concise and compelling way I can only observe in awe. Keep it up !

 

[Tommy4ever]

Persia Reborn 1261-1288

At the death of the recently restored Shahanshah Vandad, the ruling Bavandid dynasty was in a sorry state. Generations of inbreeding, in large part inspired by the incestuous practice of divine marriage, had seen fertility among the clan that had dropped noticeably. Indeed, the new soveriegn, Mehrzad, represented the last surviving male member of the dynasty – and by extension the last living inheritor of the blood of the Sasanians, and indeed of the tenth century Ziyarid liberators. Mehrzad’s connection to Vandad was fairly distant. They shared an ancestor in the mighty Gholam the Lionheart, with Vandad his illustrious predecessor’s grandson through his second son Gholam the Younger, and Mehrzad his great grandson through his treacherous eldest Naveed. Personally, Mehrzad followed a pattern that had become all to common among Iranian rulers – showing limited interest in directly controlling the affairs of state as he focussed on his true passions, spirituality and the state of the Zoroastrian faith.

The new Persia that emerged from the collapse of Mongol power was far more decentralised than the empire they had destroyed decades prior. The chaos of invasion, war and liberation had empowered local magnates and warlords to become the true force in the land with the Shahinshah serving as little more than a unifying figurehead. Among these squabbling notables two figures rose above the others. On one hand, the bandit king Sina Manuchihr, loomed over the realm from his sprawling dominion fixed along the Zagros mountains. Refusing the comforts of either a courtly life in New Ctesiphon or a regional palace of is own, he lived an itinerant lifestyle in a moving armed camp in the mountains. His warrior bands of Lurs and Kurds had not returned to their home after their victory over the Mongols, but instead enforced exacting tolls of those seeking transit through the mountains – frustrating the recovery of the international trade upon which the Persian economy had depended for centuries – while also occasionally raiding into the sedentary lands around. Despite his heroic status across much of the land, and his tremendous prestige and power over New Ctesiphon, he was despised by the traditional nobility. Their standard bearer was Kamran Koohdashtid, the Satrap of Fars. Having played both sides during the long war between the Persian rebels and the Ilkhanate during the previous decade, a typical stance of many Persian elites, Koohdashtid was the largest of the landholders in the Persian heartland east of the Zagros.

While internal rivalry simmer, Koohdashtid had little hope of challenging the power of the Zagros in the short term. Instead, he trained his eye eastward and would spearhead a dramatic expansion of his personal power in the decade after Vandad’s death. He began this spurt of military action with a campaign against the Omanis in Kerman in 1262, directly to the east of Fars itself. Omani rule in the region was still somewhat fragile, and quickly buckled as the Persian Zoroastrian local population rose up in support of Koohdashtid’s incursions. Between 1264 and 1269 he fought a longer, much bloodier and more testing, conflict against the Khorosan Khanate. The Mongols were a much diminished forced than they had been in the past, but nevertheless remained expert and brutal warriors. Koohdashtid was only able to successfully overcome them with the assistance of a number of allied lords in eastern Persia – allowing his to seize control of the western portions of the Khanate. Finally, in 1271 he completely his spate of conquests by taking control of the rich independent city of Herat. He was now, by some distance, the greatest landowner in the realm.

Not to be outdone, Manuchihr had plans for expansion of his own. The fall of the Ilkhanate had been a bitter blow to its sister state in Rum, which would enter a time of instability and decline from the middle of the century. One symptom of these troubles was the decision of the Mongol chiefs of Tabriz and Azerbaijan to break free and establish their independence from Ankara in 1269. Barely a year later, Manuchihr was leading a Persian army in the reconquest of the territories – which were far to weak to resist effectively.

While the initial conquest had been short and straightforward, the decision of what to do with the new territories would drive the recently liberated Persian empire into civil war. Manuchihr had promised to allow the Mazandaran Mongols, many of whom were kin with the recently supplanted chieftains, take seize lands for themselves under his overall suzerainty. However, after his Kurdish retainers started to establish themselves around Tabriz he turned his back on his Mongol allies. Enraged, the Mazandaranis went to war, briefly occupying Tabriz before being forced back by Manuchihr’s superior numbers. At this point, the Mongols turned towards Koohdashtid and the Persian nobility for aid, and the mighty Satrap was only to keen to oblige this call to arms. From 1270 through to 1272 factions grouped around to two great power brokers in the realm clashed in bitterly contested engagements across the northern provinces of the empire. Although neither side was able to gain a strategic advantage, in 1272 Manuchihr himself was captured on the field of battle by the Mongol Chief of Gilan. The bandit king was then sawn in two from his head downward, an execution that served as a striking example of the brutalisation Iranian society had undergone since Genghis Khan’s invasion. Without their leader, the armies of the Zagros lacked the cohesion to keep up the fight – with Manuchihr’s old territories being set upon and divided by ethnically Persian elites. It would be something of an irony that the victorious Koohdashtid failed to grant the Mazandaran Mongols the lands they had initially gone to war over – dolling them out to the families of Persian Satraps who had ruled prior to the Mongol invasion – with the Caspian Chiefs bought off with loot and gold.

In a period of religious change across the Persian world, Zoroastrianism was undergoing its own transition in the post-Mongol period. A renewed focus on the importance of tradition, culture and Iranian history took the form with a near obsession with the history and legacy of the Sassanian and Achaemenid empires – Iran’s heroic past. Aside from an explosion of literary interest in these subjects, perhaps the most visible imprint of this turn was the development of a strong culture of pilgrimage. Sites of ancient Persian history were restored, often at great expense, and drew pilgrims in their tens of thousands. One of the most impressive of the new pilgrimage sites was the fifth century Sassanian Kakhesasan palace in the province of Fars, with the Shahanshah himself travelled to on several occasions.

Accompanying this was a certain culturally chauvinist turn that featured great hostility to non-Iranian religions. Within Persia, this saw communities of Buddhist Mongols living outside of the Caspian region effectively destroyed in the face of popular violence and state repression – with most either fleeing to the east or to the safe haven of Mazandaran. Muslims meanwhile, face a new wave of legal restrictions on their activity – with permission to build new mosques and conduct certain professions revoked while new taxes were forced upon them.

While this militancy led to aggression against minorities within Persia itself, beyond the empire’s borders it encouraged popular revolt. In Alamut, a Buddhist Mongol ruler had held out against the rest of the region’s embrace of the Khurmatza faith and Persian rule. However in 1263 his realm was gripped by unrest as the local population rebelled against their liege. Incredibly, many thousands of pious peasants from the neighbouring provinces coursed over the border to join in the siege of the great fortress, despite neither lords nor the crown lifting a finger to aid them – successfully storming Alamut and slaughtering the Buddhist clique within its walls. A decade later, the Mobads of Sistan provoked a broad based revolt against the Indian conquerors of their homeland – expelling the Indians and swearing allegiance to Baghdad.

While Zoroastrianism had grown more attached to its historical and cultural roots, it was also a less monolithic theological force than it had been before the invasions. The power of the High Priesthood and the structures of the Zoroastrian church to enforce a strict orthodoxy had been critically undermined – as had been exemplified by the rise of Khurmatza in Mazandaran. This provided an opening for a revived interest in the ideas of Mazdakism. While Tullid Mazdakism, the like of which had inspired the Mazdaki Wars of the early twelfth century, had been driven near extinction in their aftermath – it survived among the Kurds, many of whom clung to its ideas of egalitarianism and decentralisation. With Kurds such a key component of Manuchihr’s armies that had defeated the Mongols in the war of liberation and assumed great influence for at least a decade thereafter, they had reintroduced many Persians to long forgotten ideas of Mazdak and Tuli, while painting them in an attractively patriotic light. For many, the anti-Mazdaki taboo was broken, From the middle of the century, a reformist faction of Mobads within the Zoroastrian church began to emerge with clear Mazdaki sympathies that the High Priesthood could not control.

From the 1260s the Rum Khanate began to fall apart. From the west it was beset by attacks from Christian Europe, in central and western Anatolia it struggled to counter a series of large Greek rebellions by both Orthodox Christians and Iconoclastic revolutionaries, in the south the Syrian Christian Seplid kingdom harried it and in the east it was pitted against the Kozar empire. By 1288, there was little left of the Khanate. The Kozars were themselves a strange and fascinating polity. Its origins lay in an eleventh century civil war in the Kingdom of Georgia that followed the extinction of the venerable line of the Bagrationi dynasty. Peace was brought to Georgia when the nobility offered the crown to the Khazar Khan, who accepted the offer – abandoning his Jewish religion in favour of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and taking on grandiose title of emperor, claiming to unify the Caucasian and Turkic peoples. The Kozars would go on to conquer most of the north Caucuses in the ensuing decades. In an intriguing further ingredient to their cultural mix, the Kozars also invited large numbers of Armenians fleeing Byzantine conquest and religious oppression to settle in their lands – with especially large communities emerging in Derbent and around the Sea of Azov.

Taking advantage of the power vacuum in the region, this strange Turko-Georgian-Armenian state in which the elites largely spoke Greek would establish itself as the dominant force in eastern Anatolia as the Rum Khanate contracted into an ever shrinking rump state. The Kozars also came into conflict with the Persians on a large scale for the first time during the Derbent war of 1281-1283, with local lords in the northern provinces capturing the strategic city of Derbent – that guarded the coastal route around the Caucuses – and repulsing Kozarian efforts to reclaim it.

 

[Tommy4ever]

A jam packed update today as we enter the post-Mongol period of Persian history. The hero of the liberation is killed in brutal circumstances, religious changes are about, but perhaps most importantly of all our borders are expanding again.

The Light of Zoroaster, so cruelly snuffed out mere centuries after its rekindling, lights once more! Hopefully the Bavandids have the breathing room they need to rebuild what once was before.

Though they best do it quick if they want a crack at the Rum Khanate before the Greeks come knocking for that land back.

What is remarkable here is how inactive the central government has been in promoting the resurgent expansionism of Persia in the this last period. Mehrzad has largely focussed on the religious sphere and his personal piety, but not even his underlings have exerted real influence. That has been left to the powerful warlords of the realm.

You rightly predicted that the Rum Khanate would not be long for this world - a Buddhist island surrounded by hostile powers. Anatolia is now something of a battle royal. There are Iconoclasts, Bulgarians, native Greeks, the Syrians and Kozarians all fighting over the pie the Mongols have left behind. We shall see if Persia can involve herself in this struggle.

A fun legacy of the Rum Khanate is that even after the Khanate's fall there are still a couple Mongol provinces in central Anatolia and several Buddhist ones (including Greek Buddhists).

No matter how low a flame may ebb, all it takes is a spark landing on the right tinder to bring it roaring back to life. Ilkhanate hegemony proved to be mercifully short-lived. Now it's just a matter of making that long, hard climb back to the top...

It will take a long slog to return to that pinnacle of power we reached just before Genghis arrived on the scene, we shall see if the coming Persian generations are up to the task. It really was surprising just how fast Mongol power fell away. We are only a few decades on from Ghengis' death, but all that is left of his western conquests are a couple of mid-sized Khanates in Khorosan and Transoxiania.

Huzzah! The Mongol yoke has been thrown off! Shame about Vandad dying so soon after being independent, but alas it cannot be helped. Here's to hoping the Persians can retake all their lost lands eventually, maybe even conquer new ones eh?

The Persians have certainly gotten out of the traps strongly in that quest towards reconquest - gaining plenty land in the east and the north without the Shahanshah having to lift a finger. It will be a long road ahead if we are to return to that former glory though.

The Mongols bring down both the Byzantines and the Persians alike, as both are fighting against each other. Such folly...

And yet, neither is fully lost. Persia is free once more!

The Persians have managed to bounce back strongly from the disasters of the invasion. Time will tell if someone can carry out a similar 'gathering of the lands' in Byzantium. There are two possible routes to this. Either one of the Greek successor states could achieve the dominance needed to create/usurp the Byzantine empire tier title - or an existing claimant could seize it from the Rum Khanate (the Rum title being a renamed Byzantine empire tier title).

Just discovered this AAR and read it all through. You manage to narrate in a clear, concise and compelling way I can only observe in awe. Keep it up !

Thanks for the kind words! I hope you stick along for the ride and keep enjoying the story .

 

[HistoryDude]

A new power rises in Anatolia...

And problems emerge within the Zoroastrian faith.

Also, the Persian state is becoming very Holy Roman. Let's hope that some semblance of authority can be renewed.

 

[Specialist290]

Being sawn in half from the head down... Yikes! Though I imagine it is very slightly edged out in brutality by being sawn in half from the bottom up...

The turmoil of the Mongol conquest and collapse has caused quite the churn among the regional powers. The Kozars will definitely be worth keeping an eye on -- they appear fit to step into the place the Byzantines once took as Persia's great western rival if they keep expanding at the same pace.

 

[Lord Saurus]

Wow, Kozar is really a unique state, I hope we can see them in EU4, if of course, Persia does not run over them in the rest of CK2.

 

[Tommy4ever]

Bump to put the update on the next page.