After Marwan's 732 expedition, a period of quiet set in. Marwan was replaced as governor of Armenia and Adharbayjan in spring 733 by Sa'id al-Harashi, but he undertook no campaigns during the two years of his governorship. Blankinship attributes this inactivity to the exhaustion of the Arab armies and draws a parallel with the contemporaneous quiet phase in Transoxiana in 732–734, where the Arabs had also suffered a series of costly defeats at the hands of a Turkic steppe power. In the meantime, Marwan is reported to have gone before Caliph Hisham and remonstrated against the policy followed in the Caucasus, recommending that he himself be sent to deal with the Khazars, with full authority and an army of 120,000 men. When Sa'id requested to be relieved in 735 due to his failing eyesight, Hisham appointed Marwan to replace him.