Editing Yazdegerd III (section)

===Flight===
[[File:Delegate with Simurgh design on his dress in the Afrasiab murals 648-651 CE.jpg|thumb|300px|It has been suggested that a foreign visitor at the court of king [[Varkhuman]] of [[Samarkand]] in 648-651 AD, clad in sumptuous dress with [[Simurgh]] symbols, may be Yazdegerd III. [[Afrasiab murals]], 648-651 AD.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Baumer |first1=Christoph |title=History of Central Asia, The: 4-volume set |date=18 April 2018 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-83860-868-2 |page=243 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DhiWDwAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA243 |language=en}}</ref>]]

After the Sasanian disaster, Yazdegerd fled to [[Isfahan]], and raised a small army under a certain military officer named Siyah, who had lost his property to the Arabs. However, Siyah and the rest of the army mutinied against Yazdegerd, and agreed to help the Arabs in return for places to live.{{sfn|Pourshariati|2008|p=239}} Meanwhile, Yazdegerd had arrived in [[Estakhr]], where he tried organizing a base for resistance in the province of [[Pars Province|Pars]]. However, in 650, [[Abdullah ibn Aamir]], the governor of [[Basra]], invaded Pars and put an end to the Persian resistance. Estakhr was made into ruins after the battle and a force of 40,000 defenders including many Persian nobles were killed. After the Arab conquest of Pars, Yazdegerd fled to [[Kirman (Sasanian province)|Kirman]] while being pursued by an Arab force.{{sfn|Morony|1986|pp=203–210}} Yazdegerd managed to flee from the Arab force in a snowstorm at Bimand.

After arriving at Kirman, Yazdegerd became unfriendly with the ''[[marzban]]'' (general of a frontier province, "[[margrave]]") of Kirman, and then left Kirman for [[Sakastan (Sasanian Province)|Sakastan]]. Another Basran army later arrived which defeated and killed the ''marzban'' of Kirman in a bloody fight. When Yazdegerd arrived at [[Sakastan (Sasanian province)|Sakastan]] he lost the support of the governor of Sakastan by demanding tax from him.{{sfn|Morony|1986|pp=203–210}} Yazdegerd then headed for [[Merv]] to join the leader of the [[Turkic people|Turks]]. However, when he arrived in [[Greater Khorasan|Khorasan]] the inhabitants did not agree with Yazdegerd's decision to continue waging war and told him that it was better if he made peace with the Arabs; Yazdegerd, however, refused. Sakastan was later taken by the Arab forces after a bloody fight around 650–652.{{sfn|Morony|1986|pp=203–210}} Yazdegerd was also supported by the [[Principality of Chaghaniyan]], which sent him troops to aid him against the Arabs. When Yazdegerd arrived in [[Merv|Marw]] (in what is today's [[Turkmenistan]]) he demanded tax from the ''marzban'' of Marw, losing also his support and making him ally with [[Nezak Tarkan]], the [[Hephthalite]] ruler of [[Badghis Province|Badghis]], who helped him defeat Yazdegerd and his followers.

====Chinese assistance====
[[File:Ambassador from Persia (波斯國), visiting the court of the Tang Dynasty. The Gathering of Kings (王会图) circa 650 CE.jpg|thumb|upright|Ambassador from Persia (波斯國), visiting the court of the [[Tang dynasty]]. ''[[The Gathering of Kings]]'' (王会图), c. 650 AD]]

After Yazdegerd III started to suffer from the onslaught of the Muslim Arabs, he had sent an envoy to ask for Chinese help against the
invaders in 638, after his first defeat against the Arabs; but nothing seems to have come of it,<ref>{{cite book |last=Crone |first=Patricia |title=The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran |date=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, New York |page=5}}</ref> he soon also sent an envoy to the [[Tang dynasty|Chinese court in 639]] "for offering tribute”.<ref name="XZ"/> As he continued to suffer defeats from the Arabs, he again sent envoys to China, in 647 and 648, in order to “seek assistance from the Chinese court with the hope to form a new army".<ref name="XZ"/> Some form of help would only arrive in 661, after [[Peroz III]], the son of Yazdegerd, again sent envoys in 654 and 661. The Chinese established a "Persian military commandery" (波斯都督府) in the city of [[Zabol|Zābol]] (疾陵城 ''Jilingcheng'') in [[Tokharistan]], and Peroz was appointed as Military Commander (都督 ''Dudu'').<ref name="XZ"/> Only in 679 would a Chinese army accompany [[Narsieh]], the exiled son of Peroz, in order to restore him to the Sasanian throne, but the army stopped in Tokharistan and instead repelled the invasion of [[Western Turkic Khaganate|Western Turkic]] Khan [[Ashina Duzhi]], leaving Narsieh to fight against the Muslim Arabs for the next twenty years.<ref name="XZ">{{cite journal |last1=Zhou |first1=Xiuqin (University of Pennsylvania) |title=Zhaoling: The Mausoleum of Emperor Tang Taizong |date=2009 |journal=Sino-Platonic Papers |issue=187 |pages=155–156 |url=http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp187_taizong_emperor.pdf}}</ref>