WI: Bahram Chobin takes over the Sassanids

[Fed]

(Yay, the annoying user obsessed with late antiquity Iran asking for seemingly random events in Iranian history is back!)

I'm planning to write a TL here, which would be my first in AH.com, dealing with late antiquity Persia (hence the questions) for a while, and I've been wondering about Bahram Chobin for a while. Bahram Chobin, in a quick rundown, was a general from the House of Mihran (one of the seven Parthian clans) in Ray who was one of Hormizd IV's chief generals, was offended by him after a mild failure, was humilliated and then rebelled, crowned himself king and ruled for a year before Khosrau II came from Byzantium with an army lent to him by Maurice. This ended the Sassanid-Byzantine War of the 570-590 and would lead to the 602-628 one. It seems that Bahram was trying to tie in Zoroastrianism to the fall of the Sassanids, as well as was very east-focused.

But is it possible to, say, have Khosrau flee to China or the Göktürks instead, and Bahram remaining on the throne in Ctesiphon for longer (or his whole lifetime)?

 

[Deleted member 67076]

The last Sassanid prince did flee to China away from the Muslims, but I don't think that's too plausible because the Tang haven't gone into power yet. Gokturks, I don't know. Maybe the Gupta?

 

[katchen]

The Tang don't have to be in power. If Khosrau can get that far, the Pei Wei would do, and they might even find him useful.

 

[Fed]

The last Sassanid prince did flee to China away from the Muslims, but I don't think that's too plausible because the Tang haven't gone into power yet. Gokturks, I don't know. Maybe the Gupta?

The Sui, IMO, would still be happy to accept a contender; but I don't know much about the Sui and this is basically a ploy to have Zoroastrian Tocharians flee to what the Hephtalites actually called Tokharistan in Bactria.

The Guptas also seem interesting, but weren't they collapsing by this point in time?

 

[Fed]

The Tang don't have to be in power. If Khosrau can get that far, the Pei Wei would do, and they might even find him useful.

The Pei Wei? I tried looking that up and it seems to be some sort of Chinese fast food brand.

 

[Grouchio]

The Guptas collapsed a century prior, around 510 CE. In their place are petty Hindu kingdoms, like the Hephalite-Gupto Kingdoms of Bactria, Sindh, Kashmir, Thanesar, Gurjara, the Chalyukas, and the Kalachuris.

 

[Fed]

The Guptas collapsed a century prior, around 510 CE. In their place are petty Hindu kingdoms, like the Hephalite-Gupto Kingdoms of Bactria, Sindh, Kashmir, Thanesar, Gurjara, the Chalyukas, and the Kalachuris.

Which, I'd imagine, kinda rules out any purpose Khosrau might try in India, since no country is going to be powerful enough to help him gain the throne back.

Of course, if he isn't going to Constantinople which is what I'm attempting to evade, then he'd most likely given up and might just attempt to carve a little state of his own?

I still like the idea of he and his court fleeing to the Sui and leaving Zoroastrianism back in the Tarim Basin with the Tokharians.

 

[Grouchio]

I think the tocharians have been culturally wiped out by Indianization and Hunnic invasion by now.

 

[Fed]

I think the tocharians have been culturally wiped out by Indianization and Hunnic invasion by now.

Well, Wikipedia says they were extinct by the ninth century, so if that's correct they still have a while. Though I'm not sure.

All the linguistic groups of late antiquity which ended up extinct tend to have both the "they died by Germanic and Turkic barbarians" and "they died by Arabisation after Islam", and there's no reason to trust one over the other really. So I tend to take the later Islam date and try and save as many linguistic groups as possible.