An idea that came to me on my way to work today. Anyone want to take it further?
The Ordos Plains, January 546
The herdsman looked out over the snow-dotted plain with mild surprise. Normally, his lead mare would come when called - was something wrong? Unhurriedly, he crested the low rise and headed for the pasture that, in the lee of the hill, had offered the sturdy steppe mounts a modicum of protection through the night. Hoarfrost on grass rustled against his legs as he quickened his steps; the small herd was huddled together at the lowest point of the valley, shivering, their heads drooping, eyes listless. Something was wrong - very wrong indeed.
The mutant strain off equine influenza that emerged in the Ordos basin in 546 remains incompletely understood to this day. Its considerable lethality coupled with its ability to 'go endemic' and re-emerge once immunities had worn off made it a historic disaster on untold proportions. How or why it eventually came to subside is as mysterioous as whether it could recur - as it has, periodically, through recorded history. What we do know is that its impact was earth-shattering.
Yangtze river, near Wuhu, 549
Li Chenyang watched the surge of attacking infantry with horror and dismay. The gates of his guard tower were shut - barred against the cowards who had run rather than face the onslaught of the men pouring from the boats as much as against the enemy - but the soldiers knew they could not hope to defend it, or be rescued. Nor, the fate of their comrades had made abundantly clear, could they hold great hopes for mercy. With the Tuoba troops broken and streaming north in confusion, the few units of loyal Chinese infantry stiffened by an ever shrinking number of remaining horsemen were lost, already given up by their emperor who had fled Luoyang. Surrender held little promise, as the charred bones scattered among the cooling ashes of captured fortresses showed. Flight would bring but a brief respite as defenses crumbled. The Tuoba homeland was a charnel house where starving ghosts fought over the last scraps of whatever food - whatever flesh - they could find. Another winter would see the entire nation gone. By all accounts, all barbarian realms were afflicted by the horrors alike, horses dying, herds run wild, men starving or begging farmers for the grain they had peremptorily taken but a few years earlier. And those farmers were little disposed to feel generous. Now the southern neighbours had grasped the opportunity and added their own brand of horrors to the witches' cauldron the glorious realm of Wei had become. Already their archers were forming behind a wall of spearmen, fathom-long bows shouldered and fearsome curved swords at their belts. Many of them sported the heads of enemies, dripping river water and fresh blood. Torches were passed from hand to hand while engineers - stolid, heavy men as strong and implacable as the machines they operated - manhandled catapults off rafts to batter down the walls of the puny obstacle that stood in their way. Da Liang was coming north, and hell followed in its wake.
Sialkot, 550
The Malwan soldiers were drunk.Well past what the mere word drunk could express, riotously, gloriously, ferociously drunk, after they had broken into the stores of the royal palace. They were still surprised they had made it here - not so much the victory as that they had won it, the humble footsoldiers of the Ganges Valley, by some unfathomable decision of the Gods now the mightiest military force in the world, for all they knew. Down in the courtyard, the mighty kettledrums and banners of the Hephthalite rulers lay scattered and broken, the great halls burning, the city thoroughly looted. One of the men had earlier found a young woman - a princess, they guessed from her dress - a Hephthalite princess ravished by half-naked Malwan infantry. The world had turned upside down indeed. Even their king had no horse to ride any more - an oxcart to travel, a palanquin in the mountains, but even he fought his battles on foot now. And so did the Hephthalites and Turks, the Persians and Rajputs - and they were no good at it. Oh, war was stioll no pleasure, hard slogs through mountains and endless steppes, half starving more often than not or eating what roots the last scrabbling horse nomads had left them, but winning! Quaffing wine in huge gulps from the silver pitchers they had liberated from the palace banqueting hall, cavorting in captured finery, smashing precious vases and furniture, slashing open bolsters with their vicious curved shortswords and singing at the top of their voices, this was their triumph. Tomorrow, they would continue north. Or maybe the day after, if there was still drink to be found somewhere in the vast palace complex. Today, they would sacrifice a kingdom on its funeral pyred to the gods of war.
Pannonia, spring assembly, 558
King Audoinus shook his head wearily as his nobles raised a defiant - ragged and unsteady - cheer. The past years had brought little but terror, first the unreasoning fear of rumours flying from the east, then refugees, then plunderers, finally the pale death itself that slew their mounts and devastated the wealth of their great men, but left men and cattle miraculously untouched. For two years, brother had fought brother and father son over the last surviving horses, war had torn his nation and almost split his own family. Audoinus had persevered, had stared down challenges, killed rebels in open fight and by poison or dagger, had stood against the tide of panic, and had won. The Lombards were diminished, but they still were one people under one king - more than could be said for the Gepids or Bulgars. But the battle had taken its toll on the man, and he felt his reserves of strength slipping. Soon, he would die. Yet before that day, he would do one last thing, one great deed that would make men remember his name long after his bones were interred in the rich black earth of his people's new home. Audoinus was too shrewd to entirely trust the honeyed words of the Roman messenger who offered gold and honours, but he understood warfare, and he understood power. The emperor wanted him away, elsewhere, not threatening his borders, and for once, the king was willing to take the deal. Rich conquests awaited not to the south, but to the east. Longer than living memory, the horsemen of the steppes had driven his people before them as they pleased, leaves before the storm. The Huns had done it, and the Bulgars, and now the Avars, last of the conquerors. But Audoinus had fought both with and against them, and he knew as certainly as anything in the world that an Avar without his horse was like a man with his legs cut off. Now, God had cut off the legs of an entire nation and left them at the mercy of his Lombards. A wolfish smile played around his lips as he surveyed the men of his fara. Unhorsed, all but a handful - no matter, they could walk. A Lombard could fight in the shield wall as well as in the saddle. And things being as they were, they might walk all the way to Persia. Oh, how they would relish the chance to be drivers rather than driven, to mete out revenge, to gain booty and glory. They would sing the praises of their king till the end of the world if he could given them this. Audoinus had few illusions about human nature. Nobody would honour him for mastering the years of crisis. If he would be recalled as a conqueror or not at all - so be it.
Near Ctesiphon, 560
Theodoros had had a proper Classical education - unlike many of the men who fought by his side. Not even officers these days were properly cultured men, often Goths, Heruls or Isaurians with heavy beards and wine-addles brains. Thus Theodoros understood what was happening. He had read his Xenophon and knew the power of the phalanx against the Mede. Certainly the Persians of his day were a different enemy - doubtlessly so were the Romans. But the underlying truth was the same. If the men under his command fell behind Xenophon's Attic comrades in the standard of their language, they were their equals in courage. Again and again they had proven over the past year that they did not need the support of theit cataphract horse to smash through the enemy, that they could roll over the finest Persian troops like a wave over the beach. Again and again, the Sassanids' fighting men, dismounted and standing shoulder to shoulder, had seen the implacable advance of the shieldbearing Romans shrug off salvoes of arrows to smash down their screens of light infantry, and had broken, or been surrounded and slaughtered. Today promised to be different, if reports of their scouts were to be believed. Today, Khorsau Anushirvan in person with his last band of horsemen would be fighting the invaders in a last desperate defense of his capital. Not that many expected it to help much. The Romans had God on their side, so obviously favoured by the Almighty in their military success, and they had the weight of history with them. Ctesiphon had burned before. Theodoros knew his books, he knew that Trajan and Severus had come this far and today, so would Justinian - if not in person, then represented by his generals. A young man came running up to the knot of officers gathered around the standard of the Felices Theodosiani, one of the messengers who had become so important to the army now that horses were not to be had for blood or money. Well-bred boys, most of them, bartely old enough to shave and all polyglot, mostly born Romans and fluent in Greek. Theodoros was glad to speak with them, much of the time. This one came to a halt before them, saluted, and turned to the brilliantly bejeweled commander before him. "Sir" he spoke, catching his ragged breath, "your unit has the honour of fighting the right wing. Do you know, Sir, what this place is? My children may one day ask me where I fought."
Rugilla, the Herul captain, barely suppressed a laugh at the word 'fought', but Theodoros relished the rhetorical flourish and approvingly smiled at the youth. "Tell them you fought at Cunaxa, young ephebe. Tell them you fought with Xenophon's men!"
Yathrib, 563
al-Harith had come all this way, at his age and sick to the bone, for one reason and one reason only - to see justice done. The men of the Hijaz had mocked his power once too often. When the horse plague had struck the Ghassanids, they had seized the oportunity to declare themselves rid of his overlordship, killed his loyal supporters and turned to the Lakhmid king and his Sassanid paymaster for protection. For two good years, they had been able to raid as far as Bostra and Baydah. Then their own mounts were taken away by the Lakhmids, and death came to their herds, too. Camels made good mounts for their raiding parties, but al-Harith had camels, too - had bred and bought more, and taken them from the Lakhmids - and he had what the men of Yathrib and Mecca lacked. He had the support of the Roman Red Sea fleet. Now his troops were marching on Yathrib and jhe was resolved to make an example of the place. Its Jewish and heathen tribes would have to go. He might allow them to move to Medcca - enough punishment for the craven faithless Meccans, to his mind - or go to hell, for all he cared, but Yathrib weould become a Christian city amid heathen tribes, a city that would never again dare rise against its rulers. As the camel-mounted forward forces moved along the trail and the long column of infantry followed, the king continued to make his plans for a future that, with some good fortune and much effort, might see all Arabs united under the Ghassanid dynasty. Subject to the Romans, to be sure - but that would be for another day.
The Ordos Plains, January 546
The herdsman looked out over the snow-dotted plain with mild surprise. Normally, his lead mare would come when called - was something wrong? Unhurriedly, he crested the low rise and headed for the pasture that, in the lee of the hill, had offered the sturdy steppe mounts a modicum of protection through the night. Hoarfrost on grass rustled against his legs as he quickened his steps; the small herd was huddled together at the lowest point of the valley, shivering, their heads drooping, eyes listless. Something was wrong - very wrong indeed.
The mutant strain off equine influenza that emerged in the Ordos basin in 546 remains incompletely understood to this day. Its considerable lethality coupled with its ability to 'go endemic' and re-emerge once immunities had worn off made it a historic disaster on untold proportions. How or why it eventually came to subside is as mysterioous as whether it could recur - as it has, periodically, through recorded history. What we do know is that its impact was earth-shattering.
Yangtze river, near Wuhu, 549
Li Chenyang watched the surge of attacking infantry with horror and dismay. The gates of his guard tower were shut - barred against the cowards who had run rather than face the onslaught of the men pouring from the boats as much as against the enemy - but the soldiers knew they could not hope to defend it, or be rescued. Nor, the fate of their comrades had made abundantly clear, could they hold great hopes for mercy. With the Tuoba troops broken and streaming north in confusion, the few units of loyal Chinese infantry stiffened by an ever shrinking number of remaining horsemen were lost, already given up by their emperor who had fled Luoyang. Surrender held little promise, as the charred bones scattered among the cooling ashes of captured fortresses showed. Flight would bring but a brief respite as defenses crumbled. The Tuoba homeland was a charnel house where starving ghosts fought over the last scraps of whatever food - whatever flesh - they could find. Another winter would see the entire nation gone. By all accounts, all barbarian realms were afflicted by the horrors alike, horses dying, herds run wild, men starving or begging farmers for the grain they had peremptorily taken but a few years earlier. And those farmers were little disposed to feel generous. Now the southern neighbours had grasped the opportunity and added their own brand of horrors to the witches' cauldron the glorious realm of Wei had become. Already their archers were forming behind a wall of spearmen, fathom-long bows shouldered and fearsome curved swords at their belts. Many of them sported the heads of enemies, dripping river water and fresh blood. Torches were passed from hand to hand while engineers - stolid, heavy men as strong and implacable as the machines they operated - manhandled catapults off rafts to batter down the walls of the puny obstacle that stood in their way. Da Liang was coming north, and hell followed in its wake.
Sialkot, 550
The Malwan soldiers were drunk.Well past what the mere word drunk could express, riotously, gloriously, ferociously drunk, after they had broken into the stores of the royal palace. They were still surprised they had made it here - not so much the victory as that they had won it, the humble footsoldiers of the Ganges Valley, by some unfathomable decision of the Gods now the mightiest military force in the world, for all they knew. Down in the courtyard, the mighty kettledrums and banners of the Hephthalite rulers lay scattered and broken, the great halls burning, the city thoroughly looted. One of the men had earlier found a young woman - a princess, they guessed from her dress - a Hephthalite princess ravished by half-naked Malwan infantry. The world had turned upside down indeed. Even their king had no horse to ride any more - an oxcart to travel, a palanquin in the mountains, but even he fought his battles on foot now. And so did the Hephthalites and Turks, the Persians and Rajputs - and they were no good at it. Oh, war was stioll no pleasure, hard slogs through mountains and endless steppes, half starving more often than not or eating what roots the last scrabbling horse nomads had left them, but winning! Quaffing wine in huge gulps from the silver pitchers they had liberated from the palace banqueting hall, cavorting in captured finery, smashing precious vases and furniture, slashing open bolsters with their vicious curved shortswords and singing at the top of their voices, this was their triumph. Tomorrow, they would continue north. Or maybe the day after, if there was still drink to be found somewhere in the vast palace complex. Today, they would sacrifice a kingdom on its funeral pyred to the gods of war.
Pannonia, spring assembly, 558
King Audoinus shook his head wearily as his nobles raised a defiant - ragged and unsteady - cheer. The past years had brought little but terror, first the unreasoning fear of rumours flying from the east, then refugees, then plunderers, finally the pale death itself that slew their mounts and devastated the wealth of their great men, but left men and cattle miraculously untouched. For two years, brother had fought brother and father son over the last surviving horses, war had torn his nation and almost split his own family. Audoinus had persevered, had stared down challenges, killed rebels in open fight and by poison or dagger, had stood against the tide of panic, and had won. The Lombards were diminished, but they still were one people under one king - more than could be said for the Gepids or Bulgars. But the battle had taken its toll on the man, and he felt his reserves of strength slipping. Soon, he would die. Yet before that day, he would do one last thing, one great deed that would make men remember his name long after his bones were interred in the rich black earth of his people's new home. Audoinus was too shrewd to entirely trust the honeyed words of the Roman messenger who offered gold and honours, but he understood warfare, and he understood power. The emperor wanted him away, elsewhere, not threatening his borders, and for once, the king was willing to take the deal. Rich conquests awaited not to the south, but to the east. Longer than living memory, the horsemen of the steppes had driven his people before them as they pleased, leaves before the storm. The Huns had done it, and the Bulgars, and now the Avars, last of the conquerors. But Audoinus had fought both with and against them, and he knew as certainly as anything in the world that an Avar without his horse was like a man with his legs cut off. Now, God had cut off the legs of an entire nation and left them at the mercy of his Lombards. A wolfish smile played around his lips as he surveyed the men of his fara. Unhorsed, all but a handful - no matter, they could walk. A Lombard could fight in the shield wall as well as in the saddle. And things being as they were, they might walk all the way to Persia. Oh, how they would relish the chance to be drivers rather than driven, to mete out revenge, to gain booty and glory. They would sing the praises of their king till the end of the world if he could given them this. Audoinus had few illusions about human nature. Nobody would honour him for mastering the years of crisis. If he would be recalled as a conqueror or not at all - so be it.
Near Ctesiphon, 560
Theodoros had had a proper Classical education - unlike many of the men who fought by his side. Not even officers these days were properly cultured men, often Goths, Heruls or Isaurians with heavy beards and wine-addles brains. Thus Theodoros understood what was happening. He had read his Xenophon and knew the power of the phalanx against the Mede. Certainly the Persians of his day were a different enemy - doubtlessly so were the Romans. But the underlying truth was the same. If the men under his command fell behind Xenophon's Attic comrades in the standard of their language, they were their equals in courage. Again and again they had proven over the past year that they did not need the support of theit cataphract horse to smash through the enemy, that they could roll over the finest Persian troops like a wave over the beach. Again and again, the Sassanids' fighting men, dismounted and standing shoulder to shoulder, had seen the implacable advance of the shieldbearing Romans shrug off salvoes of arrows to smash down their screens of light infantry, and had broken, or been surrounded and slaughtered. Today promised to be different, if reports of their scouts were to be believed. Today, Khorsau Anushirvan in person with his last band of horsemen would be fighting the invaders in a last desperate defense of his capital. Not that many expected it to help much. The Romans had God on their side, so obviously favoured by the Almighty in their military success, and they had the weight of history with them. Ctesiphon had burned before. Theodoros knew his books, he knew that Trajan and Severus had come this far and today, so would Justinian - if not in person, then represented by his generals. A young man came running up to the knot of officers gathered around the standard of the Felices Theodosiani, one of the messengers who had become so important to the army now that horses were not to be had for blood or money. Well-bred boys, most of them, bartely old enough to shave and all polyglot, mostly born Romans and fluent in Greek. Theodoros was glad to speak with them, much of the time. This one came to a halt before them, saluted, and turned to the brilliantly bejeweled commander before him. "Sir" he spoke, catching his ragged breath, "your unit has the honour of fighting the right wing. Do you know, Sir, what this place is? My children may one day ask me where I fought."
Rugilla, the Herul captain, barely suppressed a laugh at the word 'fought', but Theodoros relished the rhetorical flourish and approvingly smiled at the youth. "Tell them you fought at Cunaxa, young ephebe. Tell them you fought with Xenophon's men!"
Yathrib, 563
al-Harith had come all this way, at his age and sick to the bone, for one reason and one reason only - to see justice done. The men of the Hijaz had mocked his power once too often. When the horse plague had struck the Ghassanids, they had seized the oportunity to declare themselves rid of his overlordship, killed his loyal supporters and turned to the Lakhmid king and his Sassanid paymaster for protection. For two good years, they had been able to raid as far as Bostra and Baydah. Then their own mounts were taken away by the Lakhmids, and death came to their herds, too. Camels made good mounts for their raiding parties, but al-Harith had camels, too - had bred and bought more, and taken them from the Lakhmids - and he had what the men of Yathrib and Mecca lacked. He had the support of the Roman Red Sea fleet. Now his troops were marching on Yathrib and jhe was resolved to make an example of the place. Its Jewish and heathen tribes would have to go. He might allow them to move to Medcca - enough punishment for the craven faithless Meccans, to his mind - or go to hell, for all he cared, but Yathrib weould become a Christian city amid heathen tribes, a city that would never again dare rise against its rulers. As the camel-mounted forward forces moved along the trail and the long column of infantry followed, the king continued to make his plans for a future that, with some good fortune and much effort, might see all Arabs united under the Ghassanid dynasty. Subject to the Romans, to be sure - but that would be for another day.
