A fourth expedition sent from Syria by…

China's population reaches approximately fifty million.

Emperor Xuanzong begins to favor Taoism over Buddhism, adopting the new reign title Tianbao ('Heavenly Treasures') in 742 to indicate his divine mandate.

Boniface establishes a bishopric at Erfurt, situated on the Gera River in the piedmont area north of the Thuringian Forest, in 742.

Sulayman, taking advantage of the civil war between the usurper Artabasdos and Constantine V, leads another raid in 742 that reaches as far as Paphlagonia undisturbed and takes many prisoners.

The Pallavas’ capital at Kanchipuram is again overthrown in 742 during their long and sporadic conflict with the western Chalukyas under Vikramaditya II, initiating the slow decline of the dynasty.

Pope Zachary, like his predecessor, strongly supports the missionary work of Boniface among the Franks.

In 642, Zacharias promotes Boniface to archbishop, still without a fixed diocese.

Zacharia continues the Holy See’s friendly relations with the Lombards, whom Zacharias persuades to end their attacks on Ravenna and to return a number of areas seized from the papacy.

Command of the Syrian armies devolves to Thalaba ibn Salama al-Amili, who is of 'Yemenite' tribal stock, like most Andalusian Arabs, rather than the usual 'Qaysid' stock of the Syrians.

For the next few months, the Syrians remain bunkered down in Córdoba, while …

…the Andalusians (soon joined by what remains of the Berber rebels), assemble in Mérida.

Thalaba ibn Salama.

Much of the ensuing few months is spent in an intercenine Arab civil war, the Berber question relegated to a secondary concern.

Sometime in late 642 or early 643, Thalaba marches onto Mérida, an area of rebel activity, but soon finds himself trapped with his small army in the citadel by the Andalusians.

Calculating there is no escape, Andalusians carry the siege of Mérida in a leisurely fashion.

The siege camp soon takes on the character of a fair, attracting numerous onlookers and their families, but one early morning, when the besiegers are preparing for a much-anticipated festival, Thalaba launches an unexpected sally out of Mérida, and quickly overwhelms the siege camp, taking as many as ten thousand prisoners, including many women and children.

Thalaba marches his prisoners to Córdoba, where he is said to have sold many of the high-ranking Andalusian captives as discount-price slaves.

The remnant of the Syrian expedition, some ten thousand men under Balj ibn Bishr, had remain trapped in Ceuta through much of the winter of 741-42, besieged by the Berber rebels.

The Andalusian ruler Abd al-Malik ibn Qatan al-Fihri, wary that the presence of the Syrians in Spain will only aggravate matters, refuses them passage across the water.

Indeed, he forbids any relief of the stranded Syrians, going so far as to publicly torture to death an Andalusian merchant who had dared to dispatch a couple of grain boats to Ceuta to feed the desperate Syrians.

But news soon reaches the Andalusian governor that the Berber rebel armies from Galicia had been organized and are now barreling south in three columns, towards Toledo, Córdoba and Algeciras.

Not having enough Arab forces at hand, the Andalusian governor Abd al-Malik realizes he has little choice but to make use of the stranded Syrian force to defeat the Berber armies.

In a carefully negotiated treaty, Abd al-Malik grants the Syrians permission to cross over, on the condition that they promise to return to North Africa within a year of the settlement of the Berber matter in Spain.

Hostages are taken to secure Syrian compliance.

The Syrian junds under Balj ibn Bishr cross the straits in early 742 and immediately head to the environs of Medina-Sidonia, where they intercept and dispose of the Berber column aiming for Algeciras.

The Syrians next join the Andalusian Arabs in crushing the main Berber rebel army in a ferocious battle outside of Córdoba in the spring of 742.

Shortly after, …