Middle East and Central Asia:
The 1st century AD (of Agade Dag) saw the spectacular ascent of the Neo-Akkadian Empire to a position of utter and unchallengeable superiority in the Middle East. This new empire stretched further than any of the preceding imperial powers in the region. However, by the beginning of the 2nd century AD, the early religious impulse that kept the Akkadians going was starting to run out. The empire had spread over vast and diverse lands, governing very different peoples, and indeed central power was declining, with local governors growing in significance. However, many were determined to not allow Akkad to go the way of its ancient predecessor, or that of a more recent failed empire, Paphlagonia. In 101 AD, the Kur’kannag (convent) had assembled in Nippur under the Dag’Uru (the Pure Emperor) Shabatu to breathe new life into the empire and its religion. Diverse religious issues were discussed and important decisions were taken. Absolute monotheism and trinitarianism (the belief in the tripartite nature of Enlil) was imposed, and henotheism, as well as various non-Akkadian religions, was denounced and purged. The missionary ideal was formulated and the practice of state-backed missions both within the empire and beyond its borders was introduced. The network of urban temples - centres of spiritual life - was solidified; the local Ekus (high priests) ruled the temples, but were subordinated to the Ek’annu - the High Priest of Nippur. Assorted monastic orders were created as well. Shabatu saw to it that the “demon-worshipper cults” (i.e. all religions other than Agade Dag) are rooted out, and in the process reasserted central power in the Neo-Akkadian Empire. There was resistance. It was crushed.
As for the missionaries, they established an Agade Dag presence in numerous Mediterranean and Central Asian trade centres, to a lesser extent in India and Nubia, though no truly major conversions – outside of some Central Asian tribes – had occurred outside of the empire within this century. Inside the empire, the demon-worshippers survived in the underground and amongst the populace as well, but none dared openly claim a faith other than Agade Dag, and indeed, after a few generations the religious imposition had concluded in success.
Naturally, while the occasional revolts against the Neo-Akkadian Empire still occurred, opportunistic powers frequently attempted to bite off some frontier provinces. Wushans and Saganu struck from the north, and the Paphlagonians too tried to reunite Anatolia in the 140s AD; in the meantime, Arabic and Libyan tribes kept raiding and harassing the southern holdings. But the military settlements and vast armies of the Neo-Akkadians kept all attackers at bay early on. Furthermore, the Neo-Akkadians counterattacked the Saganu and the Wushans, both in retaliation and in punishment for “mistreatment” (in the Saganu case, gruesome slaughter) of missionaries. The Saganu lost some border lands, but ultimately proved too hard to subdue; as for the Wushans, their army was massacred at Samarkand and their core territories were conquered in a series of campaigns, the empire falling apart and the Wushan tribes becoming easy pickings for other nomads then arriving from the east.
However, that was the zenith of the Neo-Akkadian Empire, and after it came the inevitable decline. For in truth, the Neo-Akkadian army was badly overstretched, and despite all the efforts to improve the situation agriculture continued to decline. Many regions of the empire never were properly restored from the ravages of previous wars. The sheer size of the empire, furthermore, unavoidably challenged efforts at centralised rule, and the military governors of the frontiers grew de facto independent; while that allowed them to deal with foreign incursions better, the cohesion of the empire as such suffered. And meanwhile, new threats were emerging. While the Mediterranean powers were preoccupied with other affairs, the Nubian Empire to the south of old Karung was definitely more interested in northwards expansion now, while in Central Asia, the Turko-Mongolic tribes which arrived from the east – most notably, the Huns – displacing the Wushans and prompting them to acts of great desperation, while themselves preparing to move further, lured by rumours of rich lands in the southwest.
It was in the end of the 2nd century AD – in the late 180s AD, to be exact – that the beginning of what would be called “the Trying Times” by Neo-Akkadian chroniclers had come. When it began, the standing Neo-Akkadian armies were bogged down in siege warfare against the Saganu and in punitive expeditions against the Arabs, while the frontier troops had with time grown careless and undisciplined. First came a Nubian attack in Karung; it scored initial victories, but eventually was fought off. Then a Saganu counteroffensive threatened northern Mesopotamia, diverting the Neo-Akkadian reserves even as the Nubians launched a second invasion. And then came a great Hunnish attack, however. The loss of Karung and other disasters, including natural ones, caused a great crisis of confidence and this combined with the onset of economic hardships due to droughts and warfare resulted in peasant rebellions, as well as in violent (though not successful) resurgence of “demon-cults”. In 201 AD a restless and ambitious northwestern frontier commander, Ishpuinis, launched a rebellion and marched on Nippur. Soon after, Dag’Uru Ninkhanna died in mysterious circumstances, causing dynastic infighting and persuading some of the court factions to support Ishpuinis. Ishpuinis successfully captured Nippur and was, after some persuasion, crowned as Dag’Uru by the Ek’annu. Rumours of coercion involved, combined with the general chaos in the empire, resulted in a confusing, multi-sided civil war as various other generals marched to support or overthrow Ishpuinis. In the meantime, Hunnish raids resumed in full strength.
While all this happened, changes occurred in Nubia as new lands were being incorporated. Influences of both Karrism and Agade Dag, as well as those of Paramatmanism (Coalescent Tendency in particular), had fused with the Nubian tradition in the teaching of Prophet Asha, who preached in the war-wrecked Karung in the late 2nd century AD prior to his sudden and violent death at the hands of bandits. Ashaism as a religion was also monotheistic, based on the worship of the ancient Nubian (and Egyptian) god Amon Ra, and called for world-wide proselytism. This religion soon gained immense popular support in Karung, where even many of the Akkadian colonists grew disenchanted with the old religion after the conquest, and also spread into Nubia. So it was that in 223 AD, a new king rose to power in Nubia; named Harsiotef, he embraced Ashaism, fusing it with the old Nubian state religion and using it to bring the diverse peoples of the empire together. He then declared that in order for Amon Ra’s reign of peace and brotherly law to occur, the false gods had to be overthrown, and the evil empires built in their name destroyed. Introducing vast military reforms and recruiting Libyan and Arabic tribes for their valuable camelry, Harsiotef set out with his forces in the war that would be remembered in Nubian history as the Ankhade.
By 227 AD – when the Ankhade began – Ishpuinis had more or less secured his power base in Akkad and even temporarily repulsed the Huns; he also restored unity and coordination between the centre and the provinces. Nonetheless, the empire remained unstable and plagued by revolts, as well as by Saganu and Hunnish raids. The underlying weaknesses were soon exposed as the Nubian army invaded the Levant; as the superior strategic maneuverability allowed Harsiotef to destroy army after army, several cities, awestruck, surrendered to him without a struggle. Ishpuinis marshaled his forces and desperately tried to halt the Nubian advance, but Harsiotef once again proved capable of outmaneuvering his enemy and defeating him in detail. The Neo-Akkadians retreated to defend Mesopotamia, but the Great Desert Wall has been decaying over time and the reinforcements didn’t arrive fast enough to save the garrisons there; in a carefully-plotted desert maneuver, the Nubians attacked a southern point in the wall and broke through, creating a serious threat to Sumeria itself, while another army advanced into the Mitanni province. Ishpuinis repulsed the northern invasion, but the southern one caught him off guard. The decisive battle came at Babylon, as the Neo-Akkadians hurried to relieve the besieged Nippur. The Neo-Akkadians held the field, but suffered huge casualties and were unable to proceed, while the Nubians fell back in good order and finished the siege. Ishpuinis was killed by a traitor soon after, although finishing off the remaining Neo-Akkadian forces took years; only 235 AD was Harsiotef able to declare this campaign over, having defeated the last Neo-Akkadian warlord in Media, although most of the further northeastern holdings of the empire were by then lost to the Hunnish tribes.
By this point, the old Nubian rivalry with Nyayana had once more risen to the forefront. Alarmed by the Nubian march of conquest, the Nyarnans worked hard to prop up Ishpuinis, and after he lost, the various Neo-Akkadian and rebel warlords; they also attempted to retake the Gate of Tears, but the Nubians managed to fight off that attack. Frustrated in his efforts to consolidate the empire by the Nyarnan spies who kept killing officials and inciting rebellions, Harsiotef snapped and launched an invasion of Avyaktaraga itself. Building up a powerful fleet in the Persian Gulf and marching along the coastline, he allied with some Hunnish tribes and attacked Nyayana. He greatly underestimated the epic fortifications in the Lower Indus, however; the Nyarnans fought back assault after assault, mauling Harsiotef’s army. He then committed, with his remaining forces, to a naval attack; though he had somehow managed to actually sneak in and land near Nyayana, his fleet was soon enough attacked and destroyed in an epic battle by the main Nyarnan armada, leaving the king stranded and without supplies. Refusing to surrender, but realising that his situation was hopeless, Harsiotef and his entire force assaulted the walls with great ferocity, shocking the defenders and briefly advancing to the second line of defenses before being cut down in a vicious Nyarnan counterattack.
Upon Harsiotef’s death, things quickly fell apart. Rebels, generals and heirs warred all over his empire, and the Nyarnans made sure to destabilise things further, playing various warlords off against each other. Soon, however, other issues emerged as the Huns pressed forward into the Upper Indus valley.
The post-Harsiotef wars raged for the rest of the 3rd century AD and indeed into the beginning of the 4th century AD, various kingdoms gradually emerging. Nubia itself was comparatively untouched, although it did see a fair amount of fighting and the final end of Qahtani rule, a native Nubian dynasty taking power with the leadership of King Nashta in 280 AD. The Nubians successfully reasserted their power in Karung and Hejaz, but further progress proved unfeasible as a surprisingly strong Levantine state arose around the city of Ammon, and beside that Nashta was more interested in exploiting Nyayana’s short-term weakness to seize Nyarnan colonies in Africa. This bid succeeded and the Nubian hold on the Gate of Tears was strengthened, allowing the Nashtids to seriously raise toils in order to fund the reconstruction efforts and the integration of Karung; however, this resulted in great Avyaktaragan opposition. Around the middle of the 4th century AD, Nyayana’s Third Nubian War came and the Nubians (as discussed in more detail in the Indian Ocean section) were defeated badly, losing all of their gains made against Nyayana as well as much of their fleet. At the same time, wars with Ammon weakened both sides; this and the naval defeats allowed the Hejazi Arabs to rebel and form their own (Ashaist) kingdom, while Ammon fell to Dag’Uru Ibruum, who had led an Akkadian resurgence and managed to rebuild the core of the Akkadian Empire, although Karung, Central Asia and southern Anatolia remained out of his reach (not that he minded, being more interested in ensuring the rebuilt empire’s long-term viability). Still, on the plus side, the Nubians had successfully held on to Karung and largely succeeded in integrating it into their empire (thanks in part to the return of the Nubian capital to northern Nubia), although the hold on the southern regions of Nubia was now weakening, and the regional tensions indeed were far from gone elsewhere as well, threatening to tear the state apart in the long term.
Beyond Nubia, Hejaz and the rebuilt Akkadian Empire, Hessonia, Saganu (who had to flee southwards as their northern lands were overran by newly-arrived steppe-peoples) and the Hunnish tribes had expanded to a fair extent; the latter remained a serious menace, even as northern and central parts of Central Asia came under the control of the Toba tribes. The Toba were disunited; although they did have a confederated empire in the early 4th century AD, it was shattered by internecine strife and the constant violent migrations that dominated the steppe in this day. The consequences for Europe have already been explained.
Indian Ocean:
The fall of Magadha in the 1st century BC did not mean the end of large-scale warfare in India; if anything, it meant a new period of struggle for local hegemony between the various local empires, struggle which largely remained on a border war level for most of the 1st centuries BC and AD, but which inevitably escalated further in the 2nd century AD, as the Indian great powers (the Nyarnan Irinate, the Girnar Ascendancy, the Banghan Empire and the Kingdom of Sinhal) finished consolidating their gains and looked hungrily beyond their borders.
First to seize initiative was the Irinate of Nyayana. The further aristocratisation of the ascendant capital city itself, the gradual rise of a semi-feudal class in the countryside and the terrible mishandling of the First Nubian War resulted in a series of power-struggles, coups and civil wars, which however ended as early as in 111 AD, when Irin Balani took power and waged a series of campaigns against the petty Saka principalities, the disunited Girnarese feudal empire and the Banghan Empire. Despite logistical difficulties and growing resistance, the disciplined and well-organised Nyarnan armies had allowed the conquest of much of northern India, and war was carried further south as well. The invasion of Kaitarpur was however defeated, while the Girnarese rallied under one of the stronger Damaras (warlord-barons), Toral of Vidisha, who had inflicted major losses on the Nyarnans as well, though failing to reconquer the northern lands. In the end, however, it was political opposition at home that halted Balani, as by 124 AD the urban aristocrats had reasserted their power and elevated a puppet to the throne, causing a new civil war. Balani won, but his progress was greatly undone and his empire was severely destabilised both by the civil war and by the purges that occurred in the aftermath. After his death, yet another civil war began, and though the Upper Gangetic plain and Thar Desert remained in Nyarnan hands Bangha had already rebounded. The Nyarnans continued to suffer from intrigue and disunion later on – Balani’s heirs constantly sought to regain power, another army faction which occasionally aligned with them pushed for the conquest of India, various aristocratic factions were generally in favour of consolidation but also usually against each other, engineer-farmers wanted to regain their old influence and to properly integrate the new gains and a mercantile naval faction demanded a war of revanche against Nubia. Still, the rest of the 2nd century AD didn’t see many full-blown civil wars.
In the meantime, the southern empire of Sinhal prospered. Its unique blend of land despotism with Bahulatvan philosophies and mercantilism produced strong power both on the land and in the sea. Under the great King Rajaratne (r. 154-197 AD), the Sinhalese – in alliance with the Lankan ascendancy of Podhigai – had established a very strong presence in Dwipa and Malaya, while also taking advantage of the weakened state of northern India to greatly expand northwards, their numerous yet also well-disciplined armies conquering the Girnarese feudals on the Narmara and the already-weakened mountain kingdom of Kaitarpur. These wars were costly, however, and the army was seriously weakened; furthermore, resources had to be stretched thin by the imperial wars in both the north and the east. Though the Sinhalese golden age continued into the very early 3rd century AD, it was cut short when a major coalition successfully conspired against Sinhal; Kaitarpur rebelled and reclaimed independence, Girnar, reunited and revitalised under the High King Morari, reconquered Narmada and waged a great war of conquest of pillage in the very Sinhalese heartlands, and Bangha attacked along the coast, also defeating (though not quite destroying) the vaunted Sinhalese fleet. The royal family and court, panicked, fled to Podhigai, where an alliance and union had been negotiated with the local ruling council, creating the parliamentary monarchy of the Prasanna Empire, ruled by both the council and the Sinhalese royal family from the city of Podhigai. From there, the Prasannans struck back, reconquering the southeastern and south-central heartlands, though the northern territories were lost to Bangha, Kaitarpur and the rapacious Girnarese feudals (also, several western cities chose to declare independence and ally with the Bahulatvan city-states instead, also receiving the support of Nyayana).
Under the High King Morari (r. 199-264 AD), Girnar was reunified after a prolonged period of feudal strife and greatly reorganised; a new code of laws was adapted, regulating the relations between the elected High King (first among equals, but still recognised as supreme military commander) and his feudals (both the Damaras and the petty nobles used to balance their influence). This stabilised the High Kingdom and allowed Morari to organise a series of successful campaigns of conquest in the early 3rd century AD; in addition to the aforementioned war against Sinhal, Morari also backstabbed and conquered Kaitarpur, pushed the Banghans out of their northwestern holdings and attacked Nyayana, then already busy fighting the Second Nubian War in the Middle East and the Arabian Sea (as has been related elsewhere). The Upper Gangetic Plain was conquered with comparative ease, and the Thar Desert was recaptured after some intricate maneuvers, but after that the war bogged down; much like Harsiotef of Nubia, Morari proved unable to breach the powerful Nyarnan inner defenses, and the war in the Upper Indus too had devolved into siege and raid warfare soon enough. Still, the Nyarnans were significantly weakened by their extensive warring, and though they had managed to expel the Girnarese out of the Upper Indus after Morari’s death, they were unable to effectively fight back against what came next; namely, the fresh hordes from Central Asia. First the Wushans (dubbed Osans by the Indians) and then their Hunnish pursuers (soon to become known as the Hunas) invaded the Upper Indus, ultimately overwhelming and severely beating the Nyarnan garrisons there, forcing the Irinate to fall to back to the fortifications in the Lower Indus.
The Hunas eventually emerged as the preeminent force in the Upper Indus; rallied by a powerful chieftain named Uldin Haital, they not only subdued the Wushans and the surviving Nyarnan colonists in the region, but also attacked the High Kingdom of Girnar, severely defeating several northern Damaras and raiding extensively in northern India. The Upper Gangetic Plain and the Thar Desert alike came under Huna rule, the Girnarese feudals there displaced, and Bangha, now reasserting its control over the Lower Gangetic Plain, was likewise incapable of stopping their raids. In the end, ofcourse, the Huna invasion ended much like one would expect it to happen; after Uldin Haital’s death in 289 AD, the Hunas collapsed into infighting, granting respite to Girnar and Bangha. Though the Hunas retained control over the Upper Indus and the Thar Desert for some time, their subsequent raids were largely repulsed, and no new strong Huna leader subsequently arose. Huna principalities now squabbled over northern India.
After Morari’s death and the Huna invasions, the High Kingdom of Girnar had suffered some new crises; feudal strife, though decreased by the Morari Code, continued on a lower level, and election wars were waged frequently. The southern and eastern Damaras, far from Girnar and governing newly-conquered lands, gained both effective and self-declared independence over the rest of the 3rd century AD. Nonetheless, Morari’s and Uldin Haital’s wars had effectively put an end to this cycle of hegemony wars in India; in Nyayana, the naval-mercantile faction had triumphed and set about restoring the badly shaken and neglected Nyarnan hegemony in the Arabian Sea, while both Bangha and Prasenna had firmly shifted their focus to the eastern seas. And so when in 326 AD High King Sejal restored comparative peace and order in the Girnarese Core and forced the Hunas in the Upper Ganges and the Thar Desert as well as the splintered nobles in western Kaitarpur to swear allegiance to him after a series of campaigns, no one stopped him from proclaiming Girnarese hegemony over the Indian inlands, even though the Upper Indus remained in the hands of Huna feudals while eastern Kaitarpur was conquered by the Banghans, who had by then moved their capital southwards to Simhapura.
The Bahulatvan cultural life declined somewhat during this time, stagnating and decreasing in intensity, although some progress still was made, especially in the 4th century AD (with the invention of a primitive printing press). Likewise, a “Coalescent Vehicle” philosophical tradition (based on incorporation of ideas from different Paramatmanistic cults) arose, causing the rise of High Paramatmanism which gained much support amongst the intellectual elites in both Bahulatva and other cosmopolitan centres, especially in the Sunda Ascendancy. Commercial life remained vigorous, and superior economical practices arose. Also, greater degrees of political and economic cooperation between the Bahulatva cities had to be adapted in order to compete more effectively with the ascendancies and states, a short-lived but extensive anti-Nubian coalition having tried (and ultimately failed) to conquer the Gate of Tears from the Nubians.
In the wake of Harsiotef’s grand campaigns and subsequent civil wars, Nubia – now under a native dynasty – emerged in a fairly strong position. The vassal Cushite tribes were incorporated, and most of the Nyarnan colonies in the Horn of Africa (somewhat neglected in the later 3rd century AD as Nyayana fought with Girnarese and Huna invaders and entered a new cycle of internal power struggles) were conquered. The strong Nubian galley fleet was able to defeat the Bahulatvan coalitionary expedition, although it was a close-ran fight. However, under Irin Bhrgu (r. 334-354 AD), Nyayana reemerged as a strong naval power in the Arabian Sea. Control over the remaining colonies was reasserted, and a very large armada was constructed, the Nubian galley designs being adapted and improved upon for the purpose of coastal warfare. Furthermore, a strong coalition was assembled; both the Ksayarnan Ascendancy (where a Paramatmanistic Judaist political elite had by then risen to power) and the Bahulatvan city-states had scores to settle and trade routes to liberate from high tolls. And so a grand fleet sailed west and crippled the Nubian naval capability in the battles of Caluula and of the Gate of Tears and in coordination with Avyaktaragan and Jewish uprisings reclaimed the former colonies. Breaking into the Red Sea, the Nyarnan fleet fought a series of skirmishes with the surviving Nubian fleet, and ultimately succeeded in burning the key Nubian dockyards. Still, the Nubians managed to inflict a fair amount of damage, harassing the Nyarnan fleet with fireships. Ultimately it was for naught, as the loss of his fleet and the resurgence of Akkad forced the Nubian king to sign a peace treaty in 352 AD, restoring to Nyayana its colonies (plus some extra coastal territory nearby) and lowering tolls, allowing the Nyarnans to reestablish a (very limited) Avyaktaragan commercial presence in the Mediterranean.
Aside from that, the western Indian Ocean was a mostly quiet place in this era. The Ksayarnan Ascendancy rose in wealth and importance as clove trade picked up, and, as already mentioned, the greatly Judaified Ascendancy saw the rise of a Jewish or Yahweist ruling class. The southern cities of Western Bahulatva were incorporated into the Ksayarnan Ascendancy and some southwards expansion occurred; also colonies were established on the recently-discovered great island of Andana [3], though some Bahulatvan city-states established colonies there as well.
The eastern Indian Ocean, meanwhile, was tumultuous, as it was since at least the 1st century BC. Contemporarily with the hegemony wars in India, the “Aksapata tejobhiru” (“Tournament of the Shadows”
occurred in Dwipa and Malay, where imperial powers jockeyed for the control over the weak local city-states, native proto-states and Annihilation Tendency baronates. This wasn’t as much a military conflict – though proxy wars and even direct naval showdowns too had happened – as a tournament of shadowy manipulation, the great powers using diplomacy, espionage and assassination in additional to simple cultural and economic influence. Podhigai and Sinhal had, as already mentioned, established a strong position after a successful naval campaign against certain resistant city-states followed up by skilled diplomacy in the late 2nd century AD, but Sunda had a fairly strong position as well, due to geography and past ties, as well as general prosperity; Bangha, the Bahulatvan city-states and southern baronates of Pralayadesha had likewise participated, though the latter focused more on piracy and raiding. After the Sinhalese semi-collapse, their situation briefly deteriorated, the Tumasik Ascendancy [4] briefly arising in the rebellious eastern colonies, but the Prasanna Empire had made the recovery of the eastern positions a major priority and after a bitter naval war in 223-251 AD the Tumasik Ascendancy was reabsorbed into the Empire. Pralayadeshan pirates were likewise defeated, though the attempt to conquer Pralayadesha was a costly failure. Though the Prasanna Empire had emerged as the regional hegemon, forcing most of the local Bahulatvan city-states and colonies to submit, the Banghans too had established and maintained a minor presence in Malaya, as did the south Chinese state of Luoyang, which also set up a colony in Borneo. The Sundanese Ascendancy too had expanded somewhat in Dwipa. Nonetheless, Sunda’s priorities lied in trade and technology; superior shipbuilding and cash crops were developed. Close contact was maintained with Luoyang, which had become a Sundanese ally, and with Ayutamradvipa, which received lots of Avyaktaragan migrants in this time.
The Indochinese peninsula had its own share of conflicts. Pralayadeshans ceased attempts to build an actual empire, and instead focused on raids, general destruction, havoc, chaos and piracy in every feasible direction. The Khmer Kanakan Empire suffered accordingly, but continued to expand along the Mekong for a while, as well as to launch counteroffensives into Pralayadeshan territory. In the end, the strain of military efforts combined with economical damage caused by Pralayadeshan raids and earthquakes, and the regional tensions that plagued the empire from the start resulted in a collapse; though the western core area was recovered around the provincial city of Uthai Thani, the southern Mekong Valley seceded and formed the Thipadei Kingdom, while in the north the Laotians created the Buddhist Xiang Kingdom, strongly influenced by both Luoyang and Tibet. The Malay state in southern Borneo had in the meantime fractured as well, falling apart into city-states.
