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| - 551 The Franks finally subdue the Thuringians. Byzantine monks coming back from a voyage to China smuggle silkworms in Europe. Romancia (the soutwestern part of former Roman Rhaetia) overthrows local Frankish suzerainty with help from Totila. Additional troops from Byzantine Africa and Moorish/Berber mercenaries join Belisarius and Totila’s army in Italy. 551-552 The Ruanruans, overlords of Mongolia, are routed by Bumin’s Tu-jües (Turks) di Bumin and start migrating westwards, where together with other nomads absorbed along their way west will form the Avar power. Bumin, paramount ruler of the Turks, takes the title of Khagan founding the first Turkic empire in Mongolia. 552 Belisarius and Totila, reinforced by Hunnic and Slavic forces, trounce at Ostra (Marche) Narses’ Byzantines and Lombards, who had come from recentrly reconquered Dalmatia; afterwards they manage to starve Ravenna into surrender. Buddhism is introduced in Japan. The Wessex Saxons wrest Salisbury from the Brythons. 552-554 The Sabirs of Caucasia reject their old alliance with Persia in favor of Byzantium and invade Caucasian Albania/Azerbaigian, but their attack ends in defeat. 553-567 The Turkic Gök Turkiut Empire splits into an eastern (and a western confederation; it stretches from Manchuria to Central Asia. 554 Massive Frankish and Alamannic invasion of northern Italy; Verona is taken and destroyed. A new loyalist Byzantine army, after retaking Carthage and Sicily, is crushed at the Vesuvio near Naples. The Western Gökturks conquer Samarkand from the Wite Huns/Hephtalites. 554-558 The Sabirs gain a brief period of ascendancy over the Pontic steppes with Western Gökturk support, then are overwhelmed by the Avar break-in and come back to Caucasia/Daghestan. 555 The Eastern Gökturks annihilate the remnants of Ruanruan power in Mongolia and submit the Khitans and the Kirghizes. Pope Vigilius dies in Constantinople; after eleven years of exile of the Holy See, in a desolate and almost completely abandoned Rome Liberius II, supported by Totila and Belisarius, is appointed as the new Pope and excommunicates the Church of Constantinople over the Three Chapters affair. 555-560 Aquitaine goes as appannage to another scion of the ever-quarrelling Merovingians, Chramm, before reverting to the Frankish crown. 556 Belisarius and Totila trounce the Alamanni at Monza (Lombardy) and the Franks at Acqui (Piedmont). The western Wei of northern China change their dynastical title into “northern Zhou”. In Constantinople Justianian appoints Pelagius as anti-Tricapitoline antipope; the Catholic Church is in chaos because of the two rival popes in Rome and Constantinople and the Three Chapters schism, not to mention the Arian question still extant in Ostrogothic Italy and Visigothic Spain. A loyalist Byzantine army coming from Carthage is crushed by the pro-Belisarian African rebels at Siliana 557 The Chen replace the Liang dynasty on the southern Chinese throne at Nanking. Augustine, a North African, succeeds Liberius II as Peter’s successor in Rome. The Persians conquer Iberia/Georgia 559 The Avar invasion in the Ukrainian steppes pushes forward Zabergan Khan’s Kutrigurs and Slavs, who plunge on the Sklaviniai (*OTL Balkans) pillaging and destroying everything in sight. When news of the horde’s misdeeds reaches Italy, Belisarius marches south from Aquileia across Dalmatia, where he is hailed as a savior; then he enters the Sklavinian mountains and suddenly appears behind the Slavo-Kutrigurs vainly besieging Constantinople. The subsequent battle, coupled with a sortie of the Constantinopolitan garrison, sees the total extermination of Zabergan Khan’s horde; Belisarius enters Constantinople in triumph as is hailed as emperor (though many in the city still remember his role in crushing the Nika revolt) while Justinian retires to monastic life on the island of Proti; in Italy Totila remains the sole ruler of the Ostrogothic kingdom. The Anglian kingdom of Deira arises south of Eburacum/Ebrauc/York 560 Belisarius deposes the anti-Pope Pelagius, thus ending – for the moment being – the major quarrels about the Three Chapters affaire 560-561 Chlotarius reunifies for a while the Frankish kingdom upon Chramm’s death, then in turn quickly dies. The Frankish possessions are anew divided (according to the Salian customs) between Sigebert I, who in Reims founds the kingdom of Austrasia (north-eastern “Francia”), Gontran (Burgundy, with capital in Orléans), Chilperic I (the North, with his capital in Soissons) and Caribert (Paris and the southwest); needless to say, the four royal brothers hate each other passionately
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