[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Chapter 6: The Last Years of the Khazar Solomon
1001: The Mordvins absorb several more of the Finno-Ugric tribes, and unite even a few Slavic villages under their banner.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The same year, Vladmir Sviatoslavich dies, leaving his domain to his three sons, Borislav, Sviatopolk, and [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Fyodor (named after the father of one of Vladmir's Christian wives). The ever-weak Rus state is shattered, divided into four pieces: Novogorod to Borislav, Pskov to Sviatopolk, Rostov to Fyodor, and the conquered Finnish region of Kareliya being granted by Borislav's consent to Thomas Lekapenos, adoptive son of the exiled eunuch Basil Lekapenos.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1002: [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif], eldest son of Khagan Melech, is made Tundun (governor) of Alania. He brutally crushes a rising anti-Khazar faction among the Alans, having the main perpetrators thrown into the Caspian Sea with weighted stones, and rewarding his troops with the possessions of the rebels.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The sons of Vladimir fight against one another, and Sviatopolk is defeated and sent into exile amid the court of Sweyn Forkbeard, king of the Danes.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The hostile powers of the Byzantines and the Armenians conclude a partial trade agreement, allowing for renewed revenue and prosperity to return to the opposing powers.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Meanwhile, the Polish duke Boleslaw I expands Poland's lands and influence in many ways, including the capture of long-dead Sviatoslav's western lands in Ruthenia, dangerously close to Khazar territory. Boleslaw also arranges for the martyred bishop Adalbert, first Slavic Christian clergy member, to be canonized, and under the eyes of his friend Otto III of the Holy Roman Empire, he sends a delegate to Rome to ask for a crown. Unlike in OTL, Otto does not die this year.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1003: The Normans arrive in southern Italy.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Additionally, the sons and followers of the tarkhan Seljuk[1], a Turkic captain in the Khazar armies, settle around Cherson, in the Khazar Crimea, murdering the Khazar tundun of Crimea and appointing one of their own as governor. They take Crimean Gothic wives, and raid Byzantine possessions on the other side of the Black Sea. Despite the murder of the tundun, Khagan Melech does not send an expedition to remove the Seljuks, mostly because they sent twice as many taxes to Atil as the previous ruler did.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1004: The Devil's War: The Byzantine Emperor, Angelos[2] I Phokas (the son of Bardas I), a man of an entirely different mindset from his father, breaks the peace with the Khazars AND the Arabs. He invades Syria and Alania, and enlists twenty thousand soldiers from the Tsardom of Bulgaria to make sure he triumphs. As an ironic reversal of his birth name, Angelos is uncommoningly brutal, especially to the Arabs, earning him the name of "Iblis" or "The Devil".[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1005: The Volga Bulgars, seeing an opportunity to weaken the hated Khazars, declare war upon Khagan Melech for the thin pretext of "Our Western Cousins are warring against the Khazars, and as kin we must protect them". The Arab Caliph, though distressed that the Bulgars are wounding a potential ally against the Greeks, nonetheless realize the long-term consequences of the Byzantines being trapped in the northern steppes, so give the Bulgar (Muslim) king the title of "King of the Saqaliba[3]", and his people the name of Saqlibians. This recognizes the power of the newly titled ruler, and allows him to centralize his command over the Islam-following tribes.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1006: Emperor Angelos sacks the Arab and Khazar fortresses of Derbent (Arab) and Samandar (Khazar) respectively, and his forces capture even Aleppo.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]In the north, King Yunus of the newly named Saqlibians leads a powerful force of 15,000 assorted Turk warriors against the Khazars. They burn several border villages, and march on Kiev, the armies made even larger by forced recruitment. They are stopped at the gates of Kiev by Prince Yaropolk of Kiev, but the now elderly warrior dies stopping them. He is succeeded by his son Radimir, and legend tells that Yaropolk enlisted even the old Rabbis to defend the city.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]With the fall of Kiev averted, the aging Khagan Melech lets loose his greatest weapon; his son [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]. The prince of the Khazars leads a fanatically loyal army engorged on the riches of the rebel Alans to Samanader, where the fortress is retaken. By the end of the year, [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] has retaken the Khazar lands, and earned the monikor of "Admoni" or "Red", for both his characteristic red hair[4], and the color of the blood he sheds in the brutal assaults upon the Greek defenses.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1007: [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] Admoni pushes his way into Anatolia, but Emperor Angelos spreads his agents among the Khazar army to bribe the minor tarkhans, thus delaying their advance. Consequently, this allows Emperor Angelos to resume fighting the Arabs, specifically the Abbasids. The cunning Angelos gives a secret series of letters, known as "The Prophet's Nobility" to the Fatimids, the rivals of the Abbasids. Caliph Al-Hakim thus raises the white banner of the Fatimids in support of Angelos. The Fatimid-Byzantine alliance ravages Abbasid lands up to Bagahad.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1008: Prince [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] resumes his advance into Anatolia, but is forced to stop once more by his tired troops. While he rests, Emperor Angelos begins seeking peace with Khagan Melech, as both rulers have budding revolts at home. By the end of the year, Melech accepts a peace, in return for free passage of Jewish merchants (who ineviatably go through Khazaria) inside the Byzantine lands, as well as the recogniation of the Crimea as a Khazar fief, in return for a small payment to restore the cities sacked by [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1009: The revolts so feared by the Greeks and Khazars come to fruition. The Khazars face a large-scale rebellion by Radimir of Kiev (nominally Bene Noach, but now revealed as a devout pagan, and leader of a faction desiring a weaker Khagan) while Emperor Angelos faces a peasant revolt with Constantinople aided by various religious leaders disappointed with the alliance with the Islamic Fatimids.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Radimir of Kiev crushes the army sent against him, and settles in for the winter.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]In Constantinople, the religiously supported peasants revolt is solved in a unique fashion: Emperor Angelos appoints the priestly ringleaders as captains of an entirely fictional thematic army, gives them command of a few battilions of pardoned criminals, and orders them to smash the peasant rebellion. Now military leaders and thus subject to the Emperor's will, the priests are forced to destroy their on rebellion or be executed themselves. Angelos then has the criminals themselves executed for killing citizens of the Empire, and strips the priests of their offices for conspiracy and murder. However, Angelos is poisoned by the knife of the agent of an unknown enemy.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1010: The Abbasids are defeated, and forced to flee Baghdad, where the triumphant Caliph Al-Hakim proclaims that "now, and forever more, the Abbasids are outlaws within the rightful Caliphate". In return for the Byzantine aid in seizing Baghdad, Emperor Angelos is allowed to keep Aleppo and the northern Arabic lands for the remainder of his rule, but not the rule of his successor.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]In Khazaria, Khagan Melech and Prince [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] have their hands full dealing with both the still dangerous King Yunus of the Saqlibians, and Radimir of Kiev. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] shatters the Saqlibian army and kills King Yunus, causing a succession crisis within Saqlibia.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1011: As a result of the costly wars and rebellions of the past half-century, the Khazars, though still extremely rich, have an empty treasury, and are forced to increase taxes, thus giving more weight to the claims of Radimir, leading to the rebellion growing.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]However, in mid-May, [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif], by now extremely adept in the art of war, meets Radimir in battle outside Kiev, and wounds the rebel leader. When Radimir takes refuge in Kiev, [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] gives an ultimatum to the city elders: Give him Radimir's head, or their own heads. By the end of May, the city gates are opened and Radimir's head on a pike is presented to the Khazar prince. Once in Kiev, [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] appoints the timid Danil, a younger son of Yaropolk who has converted fully to Judasim, as new ruler of the Khazar-controlled Rus. The long wars are, for the Khazars, and only for a time, over.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1012: Far from the eyes of schemers in Atil or Constantinople, the wars for dominance over the northern pagan Rus are over. Sviatopolk, one of the three sons of Vladimir Sviatoslavich (the others being Fyodor and Borislav), came back from exile among Sweyn Forkbeard's court with five thousand Danes at his command and Sweyn's daughter as his wife. Fyodor, Borislav, and his lackey Thomas Lekapenos are all killed. Sviatoslav appoints his captains ruler of the northern Rus state.
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[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Sviatopolk also converts to Christianity (the Roman rite in particular) at his father-in-law's request (Sweyn wished to find grounds to appoint a Northern bishop, under his own control). He will be known as Sviatopolk the Pious, as through his rule, many churchs are built and pagan shrines taken down.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1013-1017: Khagan Melech spends the last of his years peacefully handing over power to Prince [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Reuben[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif], and writing prodigiously in Hebrew (with a Khazar tinge to it), Greek, and Latin, the three languages he knows how to write. Among his many surviving Latin writings are [/FONT] G[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]raeci Cogitavit[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] (Thoughts On Greeks), [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Regnum Judaicum[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] (The Jewish Kingdom), [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Post Diluvium[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif] (After the Flood, explaining the traditional Khazar legend of being directly descended from a great-grandson of Noah), and several other books.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Melech dies in 1017 after 40 long years of rule, leaving the mighty and peaceful Khazar Khaganate to his son Reuben Admoni (“The Red”). The long-suffering Emperor Angelos dies in the same year, leaving the Eastern Roman Empire to his brother [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Theodosius IV, who will be known to history as “the Patient”.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Sorry for the wait, everyone; I simply didn't have any good ideas until a few days ago. But there you have it; the last years of Khagan Melech. What did you all think of Melech? He's going to be the last Khagan without much of a personality, I intend to focus intently on the mindsets of the Khagans in the future. Also, I'll ask a variation of my earlier question: What do you think will be different by now in the West and further East?
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[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][1] In some sources, Seljuk is claimed to be a Khazar captain. Thing is, from his death date (1038 AD, Wikipedia says) he literally cannot have been in the main Khazar empire, unless he was 80, 90, or 100 at the time of his death.. It's more likely that Seljuk served in one of the Khazar successor kingdoms. Since Khazaria remains, there isn't that problem, I'm just letting you guys know why the Seljuk Turks (or I suppose they'll become the Seljuk Goths) are suddenly in Cherson.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][2] I don't like dynastic names all that much. Actually, no, that's a lie. I love dynastic names that aren't Louis, Charles, Edward or Henry. Regardless, no Bardas II, at least not yet.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][3] Arabic word for Slavs and a hypothetical "Slavica". Yes, the Volga Bulgars are Turkic, but at this point, the Arabs don't really care. Neither do I. Truthfully, it's a way to avoid having to specify "Volga Bulgars" and "Danube Bulgarians" ever again. Feel free to tell me if it's a terrible name or not.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][4] You know how a surprising number of Eastern European Jews have reddish hair and pale skin? Yeah, that's actually a distinctive Khazar trait, according to the excellent book Jews of Khazaria. I know, I didn't know either.[/FONT]