In 652 the Kangars and Kimeks followed the mountains of Khorasan, crossing the Chinese influenced areas of Central Asia with great haste. They had run into a defensive wall of mountains and needed somewhere to hide from the Great Turks which were coming after them. Pushed westwards by the great natural boundary separating the deserts of Karakum from the rugged hills of Eastern Persia, they came upon a large natural gap between the land of Mazandaran and Golestan. This gap is the Caspian gate, an area a few kilometres wide and separating the steppe from the fertile lands of Hyrcania, that part of Persia located beyond the Elburz.
Noting its defensible position and its remoteness, the Kimeks and Kangars invaded the area, attacking the Sassanid constructed wall of Gorgan. After heavy fighting the shocked guards were overpowered and the two fleeing peoples broke into the land of Hyrcania. With little protection due to its isolation and the actual guards of the area having been pulled back to fight off a possible invasion by the Razumids, Hyrcania fell quite easily with many of the cities in the area simply surrendering to the massive number of Turkish horsemen. Once established in the area the pastoralist Turks found the ground quite fertile and began to allow their animals to graze on it. The tropical climate of the area pleased them quite a bit and in addition the land was quite fertile. Life in the area did not change very much as many people continued trading with their brothers using secretive mountain passes. They awaited Persian help but in fact it would not come due to the fact they were dealing with something much more dangerous.
They had in fact retreated from Hyrcania because of the fact that the great Turkic Khaganate of Ragud had invaded them with great force. Around 100,000 horsemen attacked the weak Persian military garrisons. Though the mountains were scalable the tribes that had fled before did not have the manpower to break through. By contrast, Ragud most certainly did. Capturing vast swaths of the lands of Khorasan while wiping entire garrisons out of existence, he defeated Persian skirmishes. Extremely worried the now aged Yazdegerd sent a 45,000 man army to meet Ragud at Marv and defeat him. Ragud had split his troops into three parts and only had around 30,000 men to spare in the battle of Marv, but nevertheless won the day. The reasons for this are perplexing as there are very few records of the battle but it’s generally believed that the Persian army had decayed since the Arab conquests and its quality was now subpar. In addition, the Persian generals were of noble birth and chosen because of status rather than actual merit, lending to them inexperience and inability to deal with stressful situations. In fact, the general of the battle of Marv, Maniechur, was a nobleman of Fars who had been appointed to the position by lobbying Magi who wanted a good aristocratic commander. Unfortunately, while rich in money he lacked both confidence in himself, his troops, and a weak strategic eye.
Ragud, a comparatively excellent military man, well trained in swordsmanship and having the complete loyalty of his troops, was a much more efficient general as well as a leader. He managed to; ironically, lead the Persians into a sort of Parthian shot in which a Turkic pincer obliterated much of the Persian flanks. Luckily for Maniechur his center managed to break through the pincer and retreat from the battle to live another day. The Persians lost 15,000 men that day, mainly cavalry.
Yazdegerd felt extremely devastated. This was the worst defeat for the Persians since the times of the Arab conquests and it not only damaged Persian prestige but Yazdegerd’s decaying position on the throne. Due to the fact that his reign had been marked by a succession of military failings and his peace with the Arabs still left a hatred for him by the Magi, along with his reckless cutting of military spending and allowing the army to fall into decay while he attempted to arbitrarily bribe the Arabs into keeping the peace, emptying the treasury in the process, many conspiracies surrounded him. In 648 Nagerzed was poisoned, already an aging man. These conspirators attempted no less than ten attempts on the poor Yazdegerd, leaving the man with a paranoia fit for Stalin. Not as commanding as Stalin, and not nearly as intelligent, he failed in his attempts to manipulate the Magi against each other, instead turning them against him.
The saying goes that a Persian King’s subjects are as loyal and honourable as a lion while the king is winning victories, but when he begins failing, so does his life. This saying has been proved multiple times in the poisoning of several Persian kings, and the voluntary suicide of Khosraw II when death seemed certain. The failure at Marv to turn back the tide against a-at least in Persian eyes, inferior people, seemed to cause all eyes to turn to Yazdegerd. Needing a victory fact he recklessly allowed Maniechur to have complete control of the Persian army. This obviously didn’t do much to help him and at the Battle of Herat Maniechur was killed along with his troops. Occurring in late fall of 655, the defeat spelled the end for Yazdegerd. After being given poison by a member of the guard he poisoned himself and died on his throne. Given a king’s burial, Yazdegerd died with a single child, Zahak.
Zahak was of age, but just barely. At 16 he could do little but watch from the sidelines as a puppet king while the Magi, ever careful in their control of the king, did the dirty work. However, Persian traditions now served to spell their doom, for the Magi could, worryingly in their opinion, stop the Turks. They had underestimated Ragud due to a severe superiority complex and at the Battle of Kerman where his advance spearheads, perhaps 20,000 troops, wiped out the Persian army of 39,000. Realizing that if they were branded as the leaders of Persia by Ragud they would be most likely destroyed, the magi decided to treacherously surrender the Boy king, Zahak, to Ragud. Covering all of their bases they promised all of the former lands of Persia in addition to the traditional lands of the Turks. Ragud was quite interested by their proposal and pondered it while invading the land of Fars and finally, at the gates of Bishapur, he accepted their surrender and was crowned by them in front of the old Sassanid reliefs in the city. An old dynasty had ended, and now the Ragudians claimed their rightful place as rulers of the great land of Persia.
To the horror of the Magi what happened next was beyond their possible understanding. First, Ragud began to persecute perhaps the entire population of Persia, proclaiming Zoroastrianism to be an evil religion with its anti-steppe nomad mantra. Next, and this is the part which scared the Magi, he illegalized all practice of it. The Magi were naturally infuriated and wanted no part in it. Beginning an insurrectionist rebellion in Northwest Iran they rallied together perhaps 15,000 men under Zahak, who had been retaken in a daring raid on Ragud’s palace.
Infuriated by their betrayal and insolence Ragud took 60,000 of his horsemen to fight the foolish Persians who had become traitors to him. He was surprised to find that Zahak had the assistance of a Magian General by the name of Qobad, a previously unknown man but of peasant birth. He was an extremely charismatic man who commanded his troops well. He managed to place a sense of discipline into his troops not found earlier in the Sassanids and led towards the Turks, supplementing training for fanaticism and plain old defense mechanisms. The Persians wanted the nation back in the hands of the true followers of Ahura Mazda and Ragud’s foolish decisions as a man against all forms of organized religion allowed their rebellion to spread.
The provinces of Fars and Kohistan were led by a man by the name of Rostam, the son of Hormozd, deceased former Satrap of Susiana. Less charismatic than Qobad he had better trained troops to command and ripped through the few troops Ragud had in the area. By 658 Ragud was failing in his attempts to create a great Turkic empire and the Persians were winning. Wanting to still keep some of his conquests he sued the Persians for a peace, and was pleased to find that they did not understand his resources were spent. He won many battles but warfare in the rough mountains of Tabriz and the Zagros, in which the Kurds were called up to fight against the Turks had torn up his mounted troops and his lighter men were made up mainly of men who had lost their horses. Agreeing to leave the Persians all of Persia except Khorasan and allowing them to use 10,000 of his men as mercenaries he withdrew from the area and allowed the Persians to rebuild the country. Here, however, the question became who?
Both Qobad and Rostam were viable for the job, but both wanted power. One a man who had gotten political power through deceit and backstabbing from the position of a poor man, and the other an aristocrat, they could not get along and it was in 558 that the civil war between them kicked off. It did not even last long enough for their armies to meet, however, as Rostam was assassinated by his men and Qobad crowned new Persian Shah. The name of the dynasty at this time was quite unclear and it was agreed Qobad would simply act as Regent until Zahak reached the age of twenty. The Sassanids would not die yet.
Ragud died later in 558, leaving his empire separate into two halves. One went to his Cousin, Garkerk the Brave, a large burly man of poor quality, who gained the lands of the steppe as well as the barren Karakum desert, and the other half went to the general of the Turkish forces in Khorasan, a loyal and honest man by the name of Nazan. Nazan moved the capital of his lands to Marv and ended the oppression of Ragud. Now we stand at the year 559, with Turks living in the hills of Khorasan and the valleys of Mazandaran. With Persian focus turned northwards to ward off these invaders, they had noticed that the holder of the title ‘Caliph’ had just changed hands around 4 times and it was dissolving.