The capital of the 'Abbasid Caliphate is…

Li Fuguo, bearing a grudge against Xiao, insists to Emperor Suzong in 762 that Xiao be removed and replaced with Yuan Zai.

Throughout the years, Empress Zhang and Li Fuguo's alliance has held.

However, as of spring 762, when both Emperors Xuanzong and Suzong are seriously ill, Empress Zhang and Li Fuguo have begun to be rivals.

She summons Li Chu (whose name had been changed to Li Yu and who had been created crown prince) and tries to persuade him to join her in killing Li Fuguo and his ally Cheng Yuanzhen.

Li Yu declines, and she instead tries to persuade his younger brother Li Xi the Prince of Yue, to join her.

Li Xi agrees.

She and Li Xi thereafter have the eunuch Duan Hengjun select some two hundred strong eunuchs, ready to ambush Li Fuguo and Cheng.

On May 14, Empress Zhang issues an order in Emperor Suzong's name, summoning Li Yu.

Cheng finds out and informs Li Fuguo, who intercepts Li Yu at the palace gate and then escorts him to the camp of the imperial guards under Li Fuguo's command.

The guards under Li Fuguo's command now enter the palace and arrest Empress Zhang and Li Xi; the other eunuchs and ladies in waiting flee, leaving Emperor Suzong without care.

On May 16, Emperor Suzong dies, and Li Fuguo thereafter executes Empress Zhang and Li Xi, as well as Li Xian the Prince of Yan, and then declares Li Yu emperor (as Emperor Daizong).

Emperor Daizong is secretly displeased, but in order to placate Li Fuguo, gives him the title of Shangfu (meaning, "like father") and ordersthat he not be referred to by name.

He also makes Li Fuguo Sikong (one of the Three Excellencies) and Zhongshu Ling—the head of the legislative bureau of government (Zhongshu Sheng) and a post considered one appropriate for a chancellor.

Li Fuguo gives a major part of the command responsibilities to Cheng Yuanzhen.

Carrying out further retaliation against Xiao Hua, Li Fuguo has Xiao further demoted.

Li Fuguo does not expect that both Emperor Daizong and Cheng, who want more power, will turn against him.

In summer 762, at Cheng's secret suggestion, Emperor Daizong issues an edict that strips Li Fuguo of the titles of minister of defense and assistant of military affairs to the supreme commander—thus stripping him of military command—giving the latter post to Cheng.

He also orders Li Fuguo to leave the palace and take residence up outside, although he creates Li Fuguo the Prince of Bolu.

Li Fuguo becomes apprehensive and offers to retire, and Emperor Daizong declines and sends him away with formal respect.

Because Li Fuguo had killed Empress Zhang and had supported him for the throne, Emperor Daizong does not want to kill him openly.

Instead, on November 8, 762, an assassin gets into Li Fuguo's mansion and kills him, taking his head and an arm away as well.

Emperor Daizong formally issues an order seeking the arrest of the assassin, and buries Li Fuguo in a grand ceremony, after having a wooden head and wooden arm carved to be buried with the rest of the body, although he gives Li Fuguo the unflattering posthumous name of Chou (meaning "power abuser").

The Bulgarian Khan Vinekh, after the success in the battle of the Rishki Pass in 759, had showed surprising inaction and desire for peace.

This eventually costs him the throne and his life when, in 762, he is assassinated, together with all his kin.

Telets, a leader of the conspiracy, is elected to succeed him.

According to the Namelist of Bulgarian Rulers, Telets reigned for three years "instead of another", and he was a member of the Ugain clan.

This is corroborated by the Byzantine sources, which indicate that Telets replaced the legitimate rulers of Bulgaria.

The same sources describe Telets as a brave and energetic man in his prime (about thirty years old).

Scholars have conjectured that Telets may have belonged to an anti-Slavic faction of the Bulgarian nobility.

…Baghdad, within the territory of the former Persian Empire; this transfer will prove to be a momentous event for Baghdad, which will develop into a center of international trade and culture.

Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya raises the banner of the Alid Revolt against the Abbasids at Medina, followed by his brother Ibrahim ibn Abdallah at Basra.

Initially, he had hoped to rebel against Umayyad rule, when the children of Hashim paid their allegiance to him at Abwa.

Among them were Ibrahim al-Imam, As-Saffah and Al-Mansur.

But it soon became clear that Abbasid rule was established, so those who had paid allegiance to him deserted him, and another group of Shiites flocked around him.

Muhammad is an inspirational figure to many throughout the caliphate who believe that he is destined for glory due to his ancestry.

For years, he had disguised himself and traveled stealthily, since his professed relationship to the Prophet meant that he posed a threat to the established political order.

He is eventually able to amass a sizable but ragtag army and on September 25, 762, Muhammad declares himself at Medina, catching the Abbasid governor, Riyah ibn Uthman, by surprise.

The rebellion is bloodless and Muhammad quickly gainsthe support of the old Muslim families of Medina and Mecca (the Ansar), but the movement has been doomed from the start: despite Medina's great symbolic value, it has little strategic importance, and the error of using it as the center of a rebellion becomes apparent when the Abbasids immediately cut off the grain supply from Egypt that fed the city.

Medina is an exceptionally poor place for any large-scale rebellion due to its dependency on other provinces for goods, and his motley army of devotees is no match for the Caliph's imperial soldiers, who arrive in December under Isa ibn Musa, the caliph’s nephew.

Despite the advantage held by the Abbasid troops, Muhammad refuses to step down in the hours before battle, blindly believing that utilizing the historic trenches dug by the Prophet to fortify the city decades earlier would result in victory.

His naiveté leads to a crushing defeat at the hands of the Abbasids, quelling for the time the possibility that the prophet's family would ascend to political power.

Muhammad's corpse is beheaded and his head dispatched to the Caliph.

Due to the unrealistically high expectation among his followers of success, a section of his followers are shocked and cannot bear the news of his defeat, and do not believe his murder, since they believe he was the Mahdi, whose appearance they had been awaiting for a very long time.

They believe he had not been not killed, but is alive and staying on the Mount of Ilmiyyah (between Makkah and Najd) until the time when he will reappear.

This section of his followers hold onto a hadith of Muhammad, which implies that the Mahdi’s name is like Muhammad’s name and the Mahdi’s father’s name is like Muhammad’s father’s name (Abdallah).

Al-Mansur, the Abbasid Caliph, had sent over four thousand Arab mercenaries in 756 to assist the Chinese against An Lushan.

After the war, they remain in China.

Al-Mansur is referred to as "A-p'u-ch'a-fo" in the Chinese Tang Annals.

The Old Book of Tang describes Guangzhou as important port in the south of China.

Direct routes connect the Near East and China in this period: a Chinese prisoner, who had been captured in 751 in the Battle of Talas and had stayed in Iraq for twelve years, returns to China by ship on a direct route from Iraq to Guangzhou.

Sacked by Arab and Persian raiders during the turmoil of the An Shi Rebellion, tThe port will remain shut down for the next five decades while foreign vessels dock at Hanoi instead, yet Guangzhou will thrive again once it is reopened to foreign trade in the early ninth century.

Telets leads a well-trained and well-armed army against the Empire and devastates the Empire's frontier zone, inviting the emperor to a contest of strength.

Emperor Constantine V marched north on June 16, 763, while another army is carried by a fleet of eight hundred ships (each carrying infantry and twelve horsemen) with the intent to create a pincer movement from the north.

Telets at first fortifies the mountain passes with his troops and some twenty thousand Slavic auxiliaries.

Later he changes his mind and leads out his troops to the plain of Anchialos (Pomorie) on June 30.

The bloody battle of Anchialus begins at mid-morning and lasts until dusk.

At the end, Telets is deserted by his Slavic auxiliaries, who desert to the emperor, who wins the field, but chooses to return home in triumph.

According to the Byzantine sources, Constantine V brought home a throng of Bulgarian prisoners in wooden restraints, for the entertainment of Constantinople's populace, then had them killed.

Jerusalem, despite being proclaimed a goal of Muslim pilgrimage, loses some of its earlier importance when the caliphate is moved by the new 'Abbasid dynasty from Damascus to Baghdad in 762.

Like most of the Umayyads, their successors, the 'Abbasids, pursue a liberal policy toward Christians and Jews.

Along with Syria, Palestine becomes subject to 'Abbasid authority, based in Baghdad, and, like Syria, it does not readily submit to its new masters.

Unlike the Umayyads, who leaned on the Yemeni (South Arabian) tribes, the Abbasids, in Syria, favor and indeed use the Qays (North Arabian) tribes.

Enmity between the two groups is, therefore, intensified and becomes an important political factor in Palestine.

Pepin’s Conquest of Berry and Bourges (762–763)

As the Frankish-Aquitanian War continues, Pepin the Short intensifies his campaign against Duke Waifer of Aquitaine, aiming to dismantle his power and fully incorporate Aquitaine into the Frankish realm.

In 762, Pepin captures Berry and Bourges, two key strongholds on the northern frontier of Aquitaine. Bourges, a major fortified city and regional center, had long been a stronghold of Aquitanian resistance, making its fall a significant blow to Waifer’s authority.

The following year, in 763, Pepin consolidates his gains, further securing control over Berry and the surrounding fortresses. With these victories, the Frankish advance into Aquitaine accelerates, as Waifer loses vital defensive positions and finds his realm increasingly fragmented and vulnerable.

The capture of Berry and Bourges marks a turning point in the war, setting the stage for the final phase of Pepin’s conquest of Aquitaine.

Ibrahim, due to his brother Muhammad's rushed actions, had failed to coordinate his own uprising with his brother's, and had only declared himself two weeks before Muhammad's death, on November 23, 762.

Ibrahim's revolt at first had met with quick success, securing control over Ahwaz, Fars and Wasit, and his army register (diwan) was said to number one hundred thousand names.

When the news of Muhammad's death arrived, the rebels had acclaimed Ibrahim as his successor.

Ibrahim now was faced with a choice: a group of dedicated Alid supporters, which had managed to escape from Kufa, urged him to march on the city, while the Basrans preferred to stay in place and reach a negotiated settlement.

This dissension is indicative of the disparate nature of Ibrahim's supporters.

The Alid cause is fractured into several competing groups with different political objectives, and Ibrahim represents the Hasanid branch only.

The Husaynids refuse to take part in an uprising, while Ibrahim quarreswith the Zaydi branch on everything from political objectives and leadership to the tactics to be followed or the provisioning of their troops.

Elsewhere, support for the uprising is cautious and most Alid supporters adopt a wait-and-see attitude, limiting themselves to verbal support or contributions of money.

Al-Mansur in the meantime uses his time more effectively: he mobilized troops in Syria and Iran and brings them to the Iraq, and recalls Isa Ibn Musa from Medina to lead them.

Finally, Ibrahim decides to march on Kufa, but on the way he abandons this plan and turns back.

Instead of returning to Basra, however, he encamps at Bakhamra, a location on the road between the two cities.

Here, on 21 January, Ibrahim with his troops, reduced by defections to some fifteen thousand men, confronts the Abbasid army under Isa ibn Musa.

Isa's vanguard is at first beaten, but the battle ends in a crushing Abbasid victory.

Ibrahim himself is heavily wounded and escapes with a handful of supporters.