Peroz III

Peroz III was the son of the last Sasanian king, spent his life at the Tang court trying to raise an army to take Persia back, and died in China. His father Yazdegerd III was murdered near Merv in 651, and Peroz fled east into Tokharistan, in what is now northern Afghanistan, where a local ruler sheltered him. He sent embassies to the Tang emperor Gaozong asking for troops against the Arabs; the Chinese declined, the distance being what it was, but in 661 they recognised him as king of Persia and named a nominal Persian governorate with its seat at Zaranj in Sistan, which was a diplomatic gesture rather than a government. He held some position there for perhaps a decade before Arab pressure forced him out for good, and he reached the Tang capital at Chang'an around 674, where he was given the rank of a general of the imperial guard. A Persian temple was permitted in the city for the exiles who had come with him. A later expedition under his son Narsieh was sent east with Chinese escort and got no further than Tokharistan, where it sat for twenty years before returning. The community that came with them is the origin of the Persian presence in Tang China, and Sasanian names appear in Chinese records for generations afterwards. What Peroz looked like is unknown; the statue at the Qianling mausoleum often connected with him is a headless figure of an unidentified foreign envoy. Chinese sources call him Bilusi. A Sasanian-style silver coinage was struck in his name in Sistan. The Persian temple at Chang an is recorded in Tang city registers.

• Lived: 636 CE – 679 CE
• Nationality: Persian
• Roles: royalty