The Last Light Burns: A Post-Classical TL

Section Ten - On Egypt, the Levant, and Arabia
Section Ten - On Egypt, the Levant, and Arabia

Ever since the fall of the Thirtieth Dynasty in 343 BCE, Egypt had been under the domination of foreign rulers. First the Persians, then the Greeks, then the Romans, and then the Greeks again. In 687, the cycle ended. Michael of Syene, a Coptic nobleman began a small protest against tax increases made by the new emperor Michael I. The protest snowballed into a full out rebellion, and with the aid of Sassanid Shahanshah Bahram VII, Michael was acclaimed Pharaoh and King of All Egypt in Alexandria in 690. Egypt remained safe during the subsequent chaos that enveloped both Byzantium and Persia, with the only issue coming in the Battle of Yarmouk in 715, when both Pharaoh Michael and Shahanshah Yazdegered IV fell in battle against Theodosios III. Egypt quickly made peace with the Byzantines, securing the Sinai for themselves, while the Greeks continued to slog with the Persians. Theodosios soon fell in battle against Ardashir IV, who also died a few days later from an injury, in 718, leading their successors Khosrau V and Heraklios II to make peace, thus ending the Egyptian War. That war is notable for the high turnover rate of monarchs, with three Byzantine emperors dying between 687-718, compared to one Egyptian pharaoh and six Sassanid Shahanshahs.

The first few decades of independence were immensely profitable for the House of Syene. Egyptian grain began to feed the great cities of Italy, Hispania, and Greece, causing the Hispanic emperors to launch protective measures to save the Carthaginian grain farmers from the competition. The House of Syene lasted until 812, when civil war between the two sons of Benjamin II, Michael III and Benjamin III, allowed for Isaac of Tanis to seize the throne. The House of Tanis reached their apogee during the reign of Michael V, whose fifty year long reign saw the Fall of Constantinople and the Battle of Galilee, in which Michael utterly destroyed a Qaranid army seeking to subdue Egypt. Jerusalem, under Egyptian rule since 770 when Benjamin I took it from the isolated Byzantine governor, was where Michael celebrated his triumph, taking on the new title of “Protector of Jerusalem”. This began a shift in Michael’s politics - as he was secure from all external foes, he started to focus on religious matters, attempting to place more stringent regulations on the Coptic Church so that he could tap into the vast wealth the Church had acquired. The lasting resentment between the House of Tanis and the Coptic Church directly led to the usurpation of the dynasty with the House of Memphis in 998, which had the clear backing of the Church.

Elsewhere, there was Cyrenaica. The region, on the periphery of Egypt, became basically independent when Egypt broke away, though for a while it did pay lip service to the Byzantine Emperors. When the Empire fell into chaos during the fall of the Achaean Dynasty, Cyrenaica, fell in line with Egypt, mainly out of fear of the encroaching Hispanics and their Phazanian allies. However, Egypt’s concerns laid mostly in the Levant, Nubia, and the Red Sea, limiting the aid they could send to Cyrenaica. For almost two centuries, the people of Cyrenaica allowed this, but following the collapse of the Byzantine Empire they decided to look elsewhere. Appio Licinio, the newly crowned Hispanic Emperor, was more than happy to bring Cyrenaica into Hispania’s orbit. Egypt only half heartedly contested it, with Michael V more worried about his eastern borders, and prefered to fortify Marmarica rather than attempt to reclaim Cyrenaica.

Compared to Egypt, the Levant was fractured. The Qaranids, in their bid for dominance, preferred to let local rulers continue rather than subdue the entirety of the area and be forced to deal with the inevitable rebels. Therefore, the states of the Levant were a hodgepodge mixture of Greek duchies and counties, typically on the coasts, Syriac and Arab states, usually in the interior, and various Assyrian states in the north, in addition to the Armenian states in Cilicia and increasing around Antioch. The dichotomy between the Greeks and the Syriacs was strongest in the north, where the Princes of Antioch frequently dueled with the Kings of Beroea-Halab [F1] for control of the upper Orontes. The Qaranid shahs were content to let this state of affairs last, as it prevented a major enemy from rising and kept the Levantine troops constantly strong. Yet times were changing. Christophoros Ypsilantis, a minor noble from western Anatolia, moved to Berytus [F2] around the year 1000, and began uniting Phoenicia slowly under his banner. The Qaranids, dealing with the upstart Jalayirids, could do nothing to stop him. The anti-Latin policies of Christophoros’s descendents, however, brought about their downfall, for it angered the West at a time that it was ill needed. The subsequent Crusades reshaped Europe and the Near East, and from that firestorm arose the High Principality of Jerusalem, certainly one of the strangest states of the post-antiquity era.

Southwards in Arabia, that land was just as fractured as the Levant was. In the northwest, there was the Banu Ghassan tribe, who switched their allegiance to the Egyptians upon the collapse of Byzantine authority. In the northeast, there was the Banu Lakhm, who maintained their loyalty to the shahs of Persia, be it the Sassanids or the Qaranids. The Banu Tayy headed much farther northwards, settling in the deep interior of the Levant and Anatolia, bringing Arab culture into the mixing pot of the Near East. South of the Lakhmids along the Persian Gulf were Qatar and Mazun, both Nestorian Christian realms who warred over the islands of Awal/Tylos and Jarun/Organa between themselves and the Persian Kingdom of Ormus, a client of the Qaranids. In South Arabia, there was one major state, the Second Himyarite Kingdom, which regained its independence from the Sassanids following the Egyptian War. Himyar grew to control a vast amount of land in South Arabia, taking advantage of the decline of Aksum. Himyar was also Jewish, one of the only Jewish states in the world at this time. Yet all was not well, for Hadhramaut continued to be a hotbed of rebellion, eventually breaking away around the year 950. Hadhramaut repudiated Judaism and instead adopted Rahmanism, a close relative but inclusive of many more Arab polytheistic traits. Rahmanism would remain a Arab concept, rarely leaving the peninsula except for its interactions in East Africa, when Arab traders began to move southwards by the twelfth century. In the sandy interior, only the Kindah thrived, pushed into the interior by expansionst Himyar, yet they were on the decline due to climate change brought on by overgrazing. Arabia showed no sign of uniting in this time, and though Himyar showed the most promise some things are not meant to occur until much later.

[F1]: Aleppo, one of the oldest urban areas in the world still inhabited.
[F2]: Beirut.
 
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Section Eleven - On Mesopotamia and Iran
Section Eleven - On Mesopotamia and Iran

When the Sassanid Empire collapsed in 830, they became one of the longest lasting empires in Persia, surviving almost 600 years. The death of Shah Arazmidokht in 827, the only female to ever rule the Sassanids, brought on a civil war between her sons Bahram IX, Yazdegered V, and Ardashir V, all of whom ruled for a short period of time. In the end, Ardashir was overthrown by Mazyar, a nobleman of the House of Karen based in Hyrcania. He founded the Qaranid Empire, which is believed to have been derived from an English corruption of Karen. The Qaranids quickly established control over all of the former Sassanid Empire, and then launched massive campaigns westwards into the territory of declining Byzantium. While the Qaranids never were able to proclaim themselves Shah of Rhom, they did oversee the Arab settlement of Eastern Anatolia, which wrested that land away from the Greeks and made disunity the order of the day. In addition, their western ambitions were thwarted again in 963 in the Battle of Galilee against the Egyptians, and the rise of Christophoros Ypsilantis showed that Qaranid control over the west was soon to break.

Their hold on the east was falling as well, for the Jalayirids first arrived in 1005, in addition to many revolts of the eastern satraps at that time. Qaranid attempts to invade India before this time failed miserably, and as a result the eastern satraps became far more independent in an effort to forestall Indian attacks on Persia. The Jalayirids, immigrants from Central Asia who were expelled by the expansionist Khitans, arrived in Khorasan and quickly began co opting revolts for their own gain. The Jalayirids would eventually overrun the Qaranids completely in 1096, though they would soon lose their home base of Khorasan to the expanding Khwarezmian Empire. The Jalayirids and Khwarezmians played a long game of skirmishing and conflict over the Iranian Plateau, and for a short while in the late 1200s it seemed as though the Khwarezmians would conquer the Jalayirids, much in the same way as the conquest of the Qaranids. However, none were expecting something very different to occur. Out of the steppes came nightmares and disasters of apocalyptic proportions [F1].

Elsewhere in Persia, there was the Boesids. A Daylamite dynasty in Daylam [F2], they initially supported Mazyar’s conquest of the Sassanids, but soon broke away over disagreements about recruitment for the military. Daylamite soldiers were the backbone of many Persian armies, as they were famed heavy infantry. But the Zhayedan, the Immortals, of whom were nearly entirely Daylamite in origin by the time the Sassanids fell, enjoyed vast privileges in the Sassanid court, turning them into the Persian version of the Praetorians. It was their machinations which caused the Final Sassanid Civil War, and in consequence Mazyar did not trust them at all. In a famous episode in 840, Mazyar invited the Zhayedan to a feast at Tesifon, where his own personal guard slaughtered them during the meal. A few Zhayedan who escaped made their way to Daylam, where they supported the Boesids as an attempt to get revenge against Mazyar. Despite the odds, the Boesids would survive until 1243, when the Jalayirids finally subdued them.

In Mesopotamia, the Shahs remained supreme, though in the north the Assyrian peoples gained significant autonomy during the Qaranid period. When the Qaranids fell, the numerous Assyrian kingdoms became essentially independent, and the long confrontation between the Jalayirids and the Khwarezmians and the Boesids prevented the Assyrians from being conquered for long. However, at the start of the fourteenth century, the Jalayirids brutally subjugated the region in retaliation for perceived aid given to the Boesids. When the Jalayirids and Khwarezmians were destroyed in 1355, the subjugation of Assyria was one of the reasons given as justification.

[F1]: No, not the Mongols. They never happened.
[F2]: Daylam is modern Mazandaran, the southern shore along the Caspian Sea. Hyrcania is to the east of Daylam, with Transoxiana/Khwarezm further east, and Khorasan is south of Transoxiana.
 
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I'm really enjoying this so far, and am eagerly anticipating the nightmares soon to be vomited out of the steppes. What's the religious makeup of Greater Iran like, by the way? This is something I'm always interested in, especially in no-Islam TLs. Have Christianity or Buddhism made significant inroads against indigenous Zoroastrianism, has it reformed and expanded itself in response, or has something novel taken root instead?
 
I'm really enjoying this so far, and am eagerly anticipating the nightmares soon to be vomited out of the steppes. What's the religious makeup of Greater Iran like, by the way? This is something I'm always interested in, especially in no-Islam TLs. Have Christianity or Buddhism made significant inroads against indigenous Zoroastrianism, has it reformed and expanded itself in response, or has something novel taken root instead?

Glad you enjoy this. I will have a whole update on religion once the world has been brought up to date, but so far my idea for Iran is Zoroastrianism in the center, having been promoted by the Sassanids and Qaranids, with Assyrian Christianity in Assyria, Manichaeism in southern Mesopotamia (due to independent warlords following the fall of the Sassanids who went there instead of Zoroastrianism) but losing ground rapidly to Christianity, and Buddhism along the coast and in Afghanistan. Nestorian Christianity and Tengriism are in the steppe. Zoroastrianism has reformed itself to become a bit more mystical with a lot higher focus on fire, due to Buddhist and Manichaeist influences.
 
Section Twelve - On Ruthenia
Section Twelve - On Ruthenia

The lands of Ruthenia, originally peopled by various Slavic tribes, was allegedly united under one banner by three brothers - Hrærekr, Signjótr, and Thórvarðr. Each established capitals in various regions - Hrærekr took Holmgard, Signjótr took Belo Ozero, and Thórvarðr took Pleskov [F1]. Thórvarðr’s son, Ragnvald, killed his uncles and called himself High King of Ruthenia, in direct opposition to Sweyn Star-Eyes of Norway. Ragnvald converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity [F2] after visiting Constantinople in 1022, and though it was controlled by the Bulgarians, the Patriarch made a great impression on Ragnvald, and he swore outside the Hagia Sophia that he would bring all of Ruthenia under the light of Christ.

Historians almost universally agree that this story is false. It presents a nice, clean narrative for the Pleskovian kings to claim all of Ruthenia as their right, and it also ignores that the Slavification of the Norse happened almost as soon as they arrived, rather than it being a slow, drawn out process. Had Norse immigration to Ruthenia been sustained, it is possible that Norse would have remained for longer, but with Albion, Iceland, Greenland, Vinland, and other places available, the stream of Norse to Ruthenia was very small to begin with. Ragnvald, had he even existed, is credited typically with a Slavic name, Rogvolod. In addition, the Norse name for Ruthenia, Garðaveldi, was quickly replaced with Ruthenia or, later, Rus. However, there is one grain of truth in the story, in that by the end of the eleventh century Ruthenia was by and large Christian, and affiliated themselves with the Patriarchs of Constantinople. Slavic paganism became extinct within a few decades, and the zeal of the early Christian Ruthenian rulers outcompeted even the most insane of Crusaders.

Though Pleskov was undoubtedly the capital of Great Ruthenia at the start, it did not remain that way for long. Smolensk, much more centrally located and farther from Poland and Lithuania, quickly became developed into an alternate capital, and when the last Slavic tribes were subdued Smolensk had transitioned to the uncontested capital. Pleskov, though historically important, was sacked several times by various Estonian tribes, reducing its appeal to the Ruthenian nobles and lords. A more southerly city, such as Kiev, had been proposed as the capital of Ruthenia, but attacks by nomadic Pechenegs, Cumans, Magyars and Bulgars made the location unpalatable. Instead Chernigov became the southern bastion of Ruthenia, and eventually capital of the South Kingdom.

Vladimir the Great, High King of Great Ruthenia in the mid-twelfth century, formalized the division of Ruthenia by giving his second son the North Kingdom, centered on Tver, and his third son the South Kingdom, at Chernigov, while his first son got Smolensk and the High Kingship. Those geographic divisions transformed into the common terms of White Ruthenia (North Kingdom) and Black Ruthenia (South Kingdom). Red Ruthenia was the marches set up by Vladimir in the west, with its capital in the city of Halych, while Green Ruthenia was the marches off in the east, located around Ryazan, both of which were not ruled by scions of the Vladimirid family. The South Kingdom prospered for centuries, as the resurgent Xazar used them as a powerful counterweight to Taurican ambition, though the marcher lords of Green Ruthenia counted the South-Xazar alliance of convenience as one of the many grievances against the Southerners. The North Kingdom, however, fractured soon after formation, with Holmgard, Belo Ozero, and Rostov contesting Tver for control of the North.

For a while, Smolensk and the High Kings there ruled all of Ruthenia, abet in name mostly, but the sack of Smolensk in 1235 caused the transfer of the capital to Polotsk. The rapid rise in power of the Lithuanians soon put an end to Polotskian independence, and the High King of Great Ruthenia became a puppet of the Lithuanian kings. This action began the centuries long Lithuanian-Ruthenian Wars between a western coalition of Lithuania, Polonia, Pomerania, and Moravia and an eastern coalition of all the Ruthenian states and, at times, Greek mercenaries from Taurica. The Magyars played both sides off each other for profit, and the Estonians did the same, though simply for being left alone. Frequent raids by the Norse kingdoms of Sweden, Gotland, Dania, and Scandia against both the Ruthenians and the western coalition kept Lithuania from delivering the death blow against the Ruthenians. Eventually, Roman the Great, ruler of Suzdal in Green Ruthenia, was able to unite all of Great Ruthenia in 1514, and crowned himself Czar of all Ruthenia in Smolensk, ushering in the period of Imperial Ruthenia, the titan of the east and terror of Europe.

[F1]: Holmgard = Novgorod, Belo Ozero = Beloozero, Pleskov = Pskov.
[F2]: I'll talk about the divisions in Christianity when I have a whole update on religion and language. Suffice to say, there are many.
 
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Section Thirteen - On the Steppe
Section Thirteen - On the Steppe

Despite the changing fortunes of empires great and small across the globe, the trade routes of Central Eurasia continue unabated. The Silk Roads remained the premier way of getting Chinese goods to Europe and vice versa, even with the growth of the Indian Ocean as a trade network. The steppe nomads, whichever culture they were, greatly respected the merchants plying their wares across the mountains and deserts, and the one time they didn’t, Sui dynasty armies burned a path all the way to the Caspian. As the Xazar rebounded, stable states in the steppe became increasingly common and powerful, though certain determined foes, like the Jalayirids, could topple great nations with relative ease. The Khitan and Kalmyk expansions briefly united the steppe, but such unions and confederations were short lasting. It would be only until the great Toramanid Empire united the steppe with an iron fist was the steppe able to stay fused together, but the devastating civil wars after the Toramanid’s fall and the Ruthenian and Taurican incursions caused the region to revert back to its prior nature.

Bactria has long been an important place in Asian history. It was one of the furthest places conquered by Alexander, and it gave him a wife, Roxana. During the time of the Parthians and early Sassanids, it was home to the Kushans, whom the Sassanids conquered and subsumed into their empire. The Kushano-Sassanids remained for many centuries, defeating the Eftal with the aid of Shahanshah Khosrau II (471-530), henceforth known as the Bane of the Eftal. Sassanid control of the region continued until the Qaranids usurped them in the aftermath of the Egyptian War and the Sui Central Asian Campaigns. The Tokharian Turfan Kingdom, founded at the acquiescence of the Sui, controlled the Tarim Basin, while in the Ferghana Valley the Celestial Turks rolled back the Qaranids. The Jalayirid arrival in 1005 came just as the Turks were collapsing, though they did bounce back with the formation of the Turkic Khwarezmian Empire. The Jalayirids had been pushed from their homeland by the expansionist Khitans, who in turn were destroyed by an alliance of the Kalmyks and Jurchens. The Jurchens took over the Khitan’s Chinese territory, while the Kalmyks gained the steppe, though that cooperation did not last for long. Kalmyk raids across Central Asia allowed for a local general, Toraman, to seize control of Samarqand in 1238, thus inaugurating the Toramanid Empire.

The Toramanids fundamentally changed Eurasia in a drastic process that lasted over two hundred years. At their maximum, they ruled a land stretching from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Japan, from the Aral to the Indian Ocean. However, as much damage as they caused, it could have been much worse. Aside from a few raids, the Toramanids never invaded Ruthenia, reached the Aegean, or even took the Nile Valley. Much of India remained out of their grasp, and their refusal to build a navy anywhere saved Japan, the Malay Archipelago, and Mediterranean Europe from attack. On land, the Toramanids reigned supreme. They actively utilized gunpowder on a massive scale, pioneering cannons and handguns, as well as rockets, mines, and flamethrowers. Their cavalry was unparalleled, and though their infantry was decent it didn’t matter much. Yet the many strengths of the Toramanids could not save them from their inevitable downfall. The overextension in forming one of the largest empires in history resulted in a devastating civil war between the four sons of Temür II, a civil war that ruined Central Asia as the main economic engine of the world and allowed for the Western European powers to divert the Eurasian trade routes southwards into the ocean.

Toraman, who proclaimed himself King of Samarqand in 1238, spent much of his reign fighting both the Kalmyks and other military leaders who wanted to emulate Toraman’s success and become kings in their own right. Toraman was a Nestorian Christian, but a near death experience in 1250 after a military disaster caused him to develop an entirely new religion. Historians call it Trinitarianism [F1], after the Holy Trinity that forms the centerpoint of the faith - the Lord, an all powerful but generally indifferent being, the Sun, His Light and main mode of interacting with mortals, and the Sky, His Domain and Kingdom, and the creatures of the sky are His direct servants. In a sense, it was a rough combination of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Tengriism, with some Buddhist elements in the concept of the immortal chosen ruler, one that would constantly be reborn as the ruler of the kingdom and, being chosen, would bring the kingdom prosperity and victory at every turn. Trinitarianism is believed to have been crafted in such a way as to provide the maximum legitimacy for Toraman and his family and refocus the entire state towards subjugating all of Eurasia, which is claimed to be the divine right of Toraman and his heirs. It was for that reason that Cihangir Evren, son of Erdemir Sargon, claimed the title “Lord of Asia”, a title that has been considered synonymous with the Toramanids.

Toraman’s successor, his son Ertekin Aydin, codified Torman’s visions in the Books of the Sky and the Light, the two holy books for Trinitarianism. He also established the Trinitarian concept of holy war, in that total war was justified as those who did not accept the Lord were not worthy of basking in His Light or living under His Domain and Kingdom, the sky. However, Ertekin Aydin did realize that it was impossible to slaughter everyone who did not accept the Lord, so he took it upon himself to enlighten all of the world. Once everyone believed in the Lord, it was prosphsized, then the Lord would leave His Domain and Kingdom to bring humanity into a golden age where everyone would become immortal.

To that end, Taner Kartal, the son of Ertekin Aydin, launched massive raids across the entirety of Central Asia in an effort to spread the word of Trinitarianism and to destroy all those who opposed him. His raids crippled the Khwarezmian Empire, which gave the Jalayirids much needed breathing room, in addition to breaking the power of the ascendent Jurchen Yan, who slowly began to lose land to the southerly Ming. By the time Taner Kartal died in 1310, he ruled a vast empire from the Caspian to Baikal, a realm that had been gained by iron and blood. His firstborn son, Cihangir, had predeceased him by four years, so Taner Kartal decreed that Cihangir’s son Gökhan would be the next King of Samarqand. Instead, Taner Kartal’s other children contested his will, and a twenty year long civil war broke out. The chaos on the steppe was exacerbated by the spread of gunpowder, which made sieges and battles much more bloody and costly. The opposing sides, with limited territory of their own, could not afford to maintain large populations of prisoners of war, so prisoners were usually killed at the end of a battle. This made surrendering much less desirable, increasing the tendency for long drawn out battles which ended in the complete annihilation of one side. Gökhan did eventually win the civil war, though he spent the time until his death in 1348 advocating for peace, as he was disgusted by the atrocities committed during the civil war, ostensibly in the name of Trinitarianism and the memory of Toraman. Gökhan greatly promoted Buddhism as an alternative to Trinitarianism, but his son Boran Arslan reversed Gökhan’s decisions and made a loser form of Trinitarianism as the primary religion of the Toramanid realm.

Boran Arslan began the vast conquest that would come to define the Middle Toramanids. Unlike the Early Toramanids, who focused on internecine warfare, mainly simple raiding, and strict religious unity, the Middle Toramanids forged a vast empire across Eurasia that was remarkably tolerant of the religion of its subject. The Late Toramanids, however, fell back into the patterns of the Early Era, a tore apart Eurasia in their death throes. Boran Arslan launched the first major conquest, the takeover of Persia from the Jalayirids and various breakaway states that were beginning to form from the collapsing Jalayirids. One of these, the Samanids, looked like they would be the ones to reunite the Iranian plateau, only for Boran Arslan to flatten their armies in a lightning campaign. Boran Arslan died in battle in 1366 at the outskirts of Tesifon, just as it looked like the last Jalayirid army would break. Instead, much of the veteran Toramanid troops were slaughtered with their backs pinned against the Euphrates. It would take Boran Arslan’s son and successor Erdemir Sargon many years to build up another army to the level of his father’s.

Erdemir Sargon [F2] was, undoubtedly, the greatest of the Toramanid kings. Though his conquests were not the most extensive - that distinction lies with his grandson Altan Nazar - and he was not the richest of all the kings, he made his mark by bringing the Toramanids directly into contact with Europe and setting the foundation for Altan Nazar’s campaigns into China. He took the throne as a young man in 1366 once word of his father’s death at Tesifon reached Samarqand. He was thus forced to rebuild the Toramanid armies from scratch, and he did so remarkably fast, relying heavily on discipline and plenty of gunpowder. In 1370, he used his new troops to crush the Jalayirids, who were still reeling from Boran Arslan’s invasion. He then went further west, subjugating Armenia and the Arab states in Anatolia, and thrashed the Empire of Nicaea, who were just on the mend. He swung southwards and sacked one by one the remaining Crusader settlements in the Levant before fighting inconclusive skirmishes in the Sinai against Egypt. As he marched back to Samarqand, he stopped in the ruins of Nineveh, where he adopted the additional name of Sargon and proclaimed the Fourth Assyrian Empire, as well as promising to rebuild Nineveh to its previous glory. From then on, the Toramanids styled themselves as “Kings of Samarqand and Nineveh”.

Erdemir Sargon died in 1402, a few months after the birth of his grandson Altan in Nazareth, where Erdemir’s favorite son Cihangir Evren had set up his base of operations in the Levant. Over the course of Cihangir Evren’s eighteen year reign, he refrained from war, consolidating his father’s conquests and making small scale raids against Egypt and Nicaea. He did attempt to storm into India, and failed immensely to break past the Indus. He began preparations for an invasion of China, an invasion that Altan Nazar would see through, founding the Xing Dynasty which reunified China after the fall of the Sui in 932.

[F1]: It isn’t all that a creative of a name, I apologize, so perhaps it is simply the English transliteration that became popular.
[F2]: I believe I originally devised the name Erdemir to mean “brave iron” in Turkish - I made it up quite a while ago, and I forget exactly why, though I do like the way it sounds. I later discovered it is the name of a mining company in Turkey. Interesting coincidence.

Kings of Samarqand and Nineveh/Lords of Asia/Xing Emperors-
[House of Toraman] (1238-1601)
Toraman: 1238-1255
Ertekin Aydin: 1255-1277
Taner Kartal: 1277-1310
Gökhan: 1310-1348
Boran Arslan: 1348-1366
Erdemir Sargon: 1366-1402
Cihangir Evren: 1402-1420
Altan Nazar: 1420-1458
Temür I: 1458-1483
Serkan: 1483-1500
Orhan: 1500-1535
Temür II: 1535-1561
Hakan: 1561-1567
Ender: 1567-1588
Mazhar: 1588-1601
 
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