Samarqand indeed was gradually becoming more and more isolated, but no assistance could be given from Khurāsān. During his three years of office Asad’s attention was wholly engaged with the situation in _T_ukhāristān and the South. Even here his constant expeditions, to Gharjistān, Khuttal, and elsewhere, met with no success. Worse still, in 108/726 he found his forces in Khuttal opposed by the Khāqān with his Türgesh. The princes of _T_ukhāristān had taken to heart the lessons of the “Day of Thirst”, and the powerful chief who had already all but driven the Arabs out of Sogdiana was now called in to expel them from the Oxus basin as well. Asad visited his failure on the Mu_d_arites, whom he may have suspected of treachery, but the indignation called out by his treatment of such men as Na_s_r b. Sayyār, ʿAbdur-Ra_h_mān b. Nuʿaym, Sawra b. Al-_H_urr, and Al-Bakhtarī, made his recall inevitable. Nor had his measures removed the distrust and hatred of the subject peoples. The land was wasted and desolate[81], the crushing taxation was not lightened, and all Persian governors were not of the stamp of Tawba; many of them were but too ready to rival their Arab rulers in greed and cruelty. Asad may have gained the friendship of many dihqāns[82], but that was an easier matter than to placate the population. In such an atmosphere it was only to be expected that Shīʿite and ʿAbbāsid propaganda, though actively combated by the administration, found a fertile field among the Muslim converts in Khurāsān and Lower _T_ukhāristān, and was already beginning to undermine the whole fabric of Arab government.