Bayan had eyed the plain of Moesia, just south of the Lower Danube, what would become northern Bulgaria, as his promised land, but the Byzantines were adamant the Avars should not in any case cross the river. So Bayan and his horde in 563 rode around the northern Carpathians to Germany, where they were soundly stemmed along the river Elbe by the Frankish king Sigebert I of Austrasia. This defeat induced them to come back on their footsteps to the Lower Danube region. After vainly trying to force the Danubian border when the new Byzantine emperor Justin II denied them both entry and wage, the Avars renewed their ride to Thuringia. This time (566) they did defeat Sigebert, but had nonetheless to stop; in the meantime the Göktürks, in pursuit of their former subjects, remained a real danger.