In 492 BC, the king of Persia sent envoys to Greece to ask for "water and soil", hoping to make them yield by coercion, but the Greeks threw the envoys into the well and told them to help themselves and enjoy "water and soil". The king of Persia was furious and dispatch troops went to war, but his first expeditionary force was caught in a storm at sea and was completely annihilated. At that time, Persia was the first great empire in human history that spanned three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa, and it has been four generations since Ju Lushi (Ju Lushi, Cambyses, Hastapace and Darius I). The Greek world, on the other hand, is the floorboard of a series of city-states, which have never been unified. At most, some city-states have formed alliances. The Greek polis is not limited to the Greek peninsula, but also exists in Asia Minor Peninsula (today's Turkey) in Asia. Like the Trojan War 0/000 years ago, Troy was a Greek city-state in Asia Minor Peninsula. At that time, all the Greek city-states in Asia Minor had surrendered to the Persian Empire. Athens, Sparta, Thebes and Macedonia all belong to the Greek world.

In 490 BC, the Greek city-states under Persian rule rebelled, and Athens sent troops to support the rebellion. After the Persian Empire put down the rebellion, it sent troops to crusade against Athens. Darius, king of Persia, sent an expeditionary force to land in the marathon in northwest Athens. The decisive battle of the first Greek-Persian war was the marathon. Before World War I, Persia actually had a very clever strategy. They got in touch with the main pacifists in Athens, hoping to seize the dominance of Athens in cooperation with the Persian army. Therefore, the Persian army did not land near Athens, but landed in Marathon Bay, which is a distance from Athens (actually about 42 kilometers, the distance of modern marathon). The purpose was to lead the Athenian army out of the city, let the Persian fifth column in Athens occupy the city, and then destroy the Athenian army that lost its base in the field. The Persian plan to lure the snake out of the hole really worked. Under the command of Kalimarcos, the Athenian army marched towards the marathon, with a strength of 10000 men and 10 regiment. However, the tactical execution of the Persian army went wrong on the battlefield: when the Athenian army was lured to meet the Persian army, the Persian army (15,000 people) began to implement their next strategic plan: re-board the ship, land in another place, and prepare to raid the unsuspecting Athens city. Originally, it was a very clever serial plan, but the Athenian army came too fast, and they took the only feasible countermeasure in this situation: immediately attacking the Persian army defenders who had not boarded the ship. Under the command of Miltiades, the general on duty that day, the Athenian army has actually succeeded in half and easily won the marathon. The Persian army lost 6700 people, and the Greek side lost 192 people, including commander-in-chief Kalimachus. After the war, milt Deuce immediately sent a runner back to Athens to report (the origin of modern marathon). The news of this victory finally stabilized the turbulent situation in the city and made the Persian Fifth Column dare not act rashly. Long-distance runner Phipdyus flew back to Athens from the battlefield without washing his dust, and he broke down from overwork. This event is the source of contemporary marathon. The battle greatly improved the confidence of the Greeks.

In 480 BC, after the death of King Darius I of Persia, his son Xue Xisi succeeded to the throne. In order to realize his father's last wish, Xue Xisi vowed to crush Athens and conquer Greece. To this end, he carefully prepared for four years and mobilized the military power of the entire Persian Empire. The soldiers who participated in the expedition came from 46 countries that surrendered to Persia, 100 nationalities. There are Persians and Medes, who wear colorful robes and scales and hold short swords and spears; Assyrians wear bronze helmets and carry linen shields and sticks; Parthians and spiny mannequins with bows and axes as the main weapons; There are Indians in robes; There are Arabs wearing tunics and long bows on their right shoulders; Some Ethiopians wear leopard skin or lion skin and red and white bodies. Their weapons are bows made of palm trees and arrows made of flint and antelope fox skin. Thracians wore bright red cloaks and held javelins and shields; There are also soldiers of all ethnic groups in the Caucasus. Their helmets are decorated with ox ears and they are armed with leather shields and short spears. The Persian army has so many people, so many kinds and so many weapons and equipment that it looks like a big exhibition of armies and armaments of all ethnic groups.

In the spring of 480 BC, the Persian army gathered in Little Athadis, claiming to be 5 million, but in fact there were about 300,000-500,000 people, who were divided into land and sea and headed for Greece. Persian troops arrived in Hellers Strait (now called Da Daniil Strait), and Xue Xisi ordered the construction of the bridge. The bridge will be built soon. These are two cable bridges, one is Egyptian and the other is Filipino. Hardly had the bridge been repaired when it was blown away by a strong wind. Xue Xisi was furious. He not only killed the craftsman who built the bridge, but also ordered to throw the chain into the sea, saying that he would lock the sea. He also ordered someone to whip the sea 300 times to punish the sea for stopping him from moving forward. His pretensions and arrogance are obvious. Of course, the bridge was finally built. But it changed from a cable bridge to a pontoon bridge. The craftsmen neatly arranged 360 warships and connected them with thick ropes. There are two roads paved with planks on the ship, one is walked by people and the other is walked by mules and horses. Railings are installed on both sides of the pontoon bridge to prevent people from falling into the sea. It took the Persian army seven days and seven nights to cross the channel. A local witnessed all this and said in horror, "Zeus, why did you become a Persian and change your name to Xue Xisi to lead all mankind to destroy Greece?" In the face of the menacing enemy, the Greek city-states, which have always liked internal struggles, organized unprecedented joint actions. More than 30 city-states formed an anti-Persian alliance, which was chaired by King Leonidas of Sparta. After crossing the Hellers Strait, Persian troops quickly swept across the northern part of Greece, and arrived at the Demobile Pass in July and August. This pass is the "gateway" of China and Greece, which is surrounded by mountains and seas. There are two sulfur hot springs in front of the pass, so it is also called "Hot Spring Pass". The mountain pass is extremely narrow and can only accommodate one chariot. It is the only passage from northern Greece to the south. At this time, the Greeks are holding the Olympic Games, but in Greece, the Olympic Games are above everything else, and fighting is forbidden during the competition.

2.3 Greek-Persian War

So the Greeks only deployed a few thousand troops at the gates. When the Persians approached, Spartan King Leonidas brought only 300 men to reinforce him. After the Persian army camped on the plain not far from Wenquan Pass, Xue Xisi first launched a psychological offensive. He sent a message to the Greek defenders, saying that there were countless Persian soldiers, and just shooting arrows could cover the sun. The brave Spartans laughed in horror and said, "Great, we can kill ourselves in the shade." . Two days later, Xue Xisi sent someone to inquire about the movement of the Greeks. It was reported that the Greeks piled weapons aside, some combed their hair, some did exercises, and there was no sign of war. Xue Xisi was surprised, and asked the insider to know that it was the habit of Spartans to comb their hair before the war, which meant a bloody battle. Xue Xisi waited patiently for another four days. Seeing that the Greeks guarding the customs showed no signs of surrendering, he ordered the ungrateful Greeks to be captured alive by force. According to the dangerous terrain of Wenquanguan and the narrow mountain road, the troops could not take action, and the cavalry and cars were useless, Xue Xisi adopted the storm tactics of sending heavy infantry to attack in turn, in an attempt to defeat the Spartans by numerical superiority. However, the Spartans took advantage of the geographical advantage of the hot spring pass, saying that "one person can keep it, but ten thousand people can't force it", and they were condescending and stabbed the enemy with sharp spears and Persian knives. The Persians fell one after another and attacked day after day, but failed to advance. Xue Xisi helpless, had to take out the most elite ten thousand body-guards into battle, but in addition to leaving a huge body, still can't attack. Seeing this, Xue Xisi stood up from his throne three times, frowning, shaking his beard and shouting wildly. Just when Xue Xisi was at his wit's end, a local farmer named Ebie Arthus came to report that there was a path leading to the back of the pass. Xue Xisi was overjoyed and immediately ordered the Greek traitor to lead the body-guard along the thorny path into the back hill. They crossed canyons, streams and climbed cliffs. At dawn, I walked through an oak forest and approached the top of the mountain. It turns out that Leonidas has laid more than 1000 defenders from the city-state of Foces on the mountain beside the road. When there is no war, they let their guard down, and only when there are noisy footsteps in the silent darkness do they rush into battle. The Persians came, arrows rained down and the fox was defeated. The Persians did not pursue, and went directly behind the hot spring pass. When King Leonidas of Sparta learned that the Persian army had retreated, he knew that the tide was over. In order to save his strength, he transferred the troops of other city-states without fighting spirit to the rear, leaving only 300 soldiers with him to fight. Because according to Spartan tradition, soldiers can never give up their positions. 700 soldiers from the city-state of Cesbia volunteered to stay and fight alongside the Spartans. The stranded Persians rushed to the pass like a flood, and the Spartans fought bravely between Scylla and Charybdis. They stabbed with spears, and the spears broke, and then they drew their swords to cut them. When the sword was broken, the Persians swarmed. Spartan repelled the enemy's four attacks and defended his commander-in-chief to the death. Their number is getting less and less, and they are gradually compressed into a small hill. Kill the red-eyed Persians, surround the remaining Spartans, and drop javelins on them at the sound of commands until the last one falls. At this point, the hot spring pass was finally captured. For Xue Xisi, the bloody battle in the hot springs was like a nightmare, which claimed the lives of 20,000 Persian soldiers. At the thought of Spartan who would rather die than surrender in a bloody battle, he asked with trepidation, "Are all Spartans like this?" It is said that the Persians only found 298 bodies of Spartans when cleaning the battlefield. It turns out that two Spartans didn't take part in the battle. One is because of eye disease, and the other is because of being ordered to go out. After the war, they returned to Sparta, and people in their hometown despised them and ignored them. One of them couldn't stand the humiliation and committed suicide. The other died in the later battle, but the Spartans refused to bury him in the cemetery of the glorious victims.

After the Persians broke through the customs, they marched in and invaded Athens, but the Athenian navy defeated the Persian fleet in Salamis Bay near the city, decisively annihilated the Persian navy and turned the tide in one fell swoop. Xue Xisi, a mountainous country as poor as Greece, could not maintain a huge army without naval supplies, so it had to withdraw its invading troops to Persia. But the second Greek-Persian war did not end there. Xue Xisi still has 300,000 troops in the northern part of the Greek Peninsula (according to Herodotus, the ancient history of Cambridge is estimated to be 65,438+10,000), under the command of General Madoni.

In 479 BC, 65,438+10,000 Greek allied forces pursued heroically and fought a decisive battle with 300,000 enemy troops in Asia Minor. The Greek allied forces led by Spartan King Pausanias attacked the Persian garrison, and the last decisive battle of this war broke out-the Battle of Platia. The king of Sparta is elected, and there are always two kings tied at the same time. This movement has very strongly exposed the advantages and disadvantages of the opposing sides. At the beginning of the campaign, the two sides confronted each other for a long time, and several small-scale encounters and outpost wars broke out. At first, Persian cavalry attacked Greek infantry on rugged terrain unsuitable for cavalry fighting, and suffered heavy losses. Then the commander-in-chief of the Persian army learned a lesson and used the characteristics of cavalry mobility to harass the rations supply of the Greek army. On the other hand, in the encounter with the Greek army, we should try not to confront the Greek phalanx head-on, but take advantage of our own joint arms and use the long-range firepower advantages of archers and trebuchets to annihilate the Greek army. As a result of the stalemate between the two armies, the Greek side did not take any advantage, there was a problem with the supply, and it had to be prepared to retreat. Pusanias' retreat plan was originally an army array, and then retreated part by part under the cover of darkness at night. However, the implementation of the plan has been delayed. When the central front retreated, the right wing retreated by half, and the left wing did not move. It was already dawn, and the action was discovered by the Persian army and turned into a life-and-death war. At the beginning of the war, the situation on the Greek side was very critical. Not only was it forced to face it during the maneuver, but the Persian commander Madoni adopted the correct tactics and caused heavy casualties to the Greek army with intensive long-range firepower. But soon, Madoni uz made a tactical mistake: he ordered the main infantry to gather behind the first-line archers and cavalry, for the purpose of preparing for a decisive attack on the Greek army, or preparing for a chase.

3.3 Greek-Persian War

But as a result, a large number of Persian troops gathered together, and the first-line troops lost the room and flexibility to retreat. Spartan king Pusanias captured the fighter plane, assembled the Greek armored infantry phalanx, and violently rushed to the Persian army. Because as long as it is close, the Persian army has no room for maneuver to keep its distance, and the projectionist and cavalry can't play a role. In melee and melee, Persian soldiers are brave, but their skills in using weapons (that is, martial arts) are not as well trained as those of Greek soldiers, and their personal protection is not as good as that of Greek soldiers (without hand shields). Even so, with the number advantage of the Persian army, they could still drown the Greek army, but at this time, the Persian commander Madoni uz himself was killed in the chaos. Because the Persian army is a rabble of all ethnic groups, not a new one, when the command core dies, the whole army immediately falls apart. After this battle, the Greeks basically wiped out the Persian invaders on the Greek peninsula.

In 449 BC, Persia agreed to conclude a peace treaty, and the Second Persian War officially ended.

4365438 BC+0-404 BC, after the Second Greek-Persian War, the Greek world had no trouble looking east for the time being, so Sparta and Athens broke out the Peloponnesian War for 30 years in order to compete for the hegemony of the Greek world. The result of the war ended in the defeat of Athens. (Ten Years' War, 43 BC1-42 BC1; Sicilian War, 4 15 BC-4 13 BC; Dikaria War, 4 13- 404 BC. )

In 40 1 BC, Ju Lushi, the Persian royal brother and governor of Asia Minor, betrayed his brother, and there were many Greek mercenaries in his army. Ju Lushi was defeated and killed, but his phalanx of Greek mercenaries and infantry did not move. The Persian government pretended to negotiate by means of the Hongmen banquet, seduced and killed all the generals of the Greek mercenaries. But xenophanes, an Athenian, stepped forward, took command in the army, quickly restored order, and then led 10,000 Greek mercenaries, surrounded by Persian government forces, from the hinterland of Asia to the Greek border (similar to China's Long March). This event is the famous "Xenophon retreat".

Since the 4th century BC, Macedonia has gradually become an important country in northern Greece. In 395 BC, Philip II ascended the throne. Under Philip's rule, Macedonia became the leading military power in the Balkans. Facing the rise of Macedonia, Greece established an anti-Macedonian alliance headed by Athens. In 338 BC, Macedonia defeated the Greek allied forces in colonia and gained control over the whole of Greece. In 336 BC, Philip was assassinated and his son Alexander ascended the throne. After Alexander ascended the throne, he quickly put down the uprising of the Greek city-state and consolidated the political power. In 334 BC, Alexander led a great army to cross the sea and crusade eastward, which started his journey to conquer the world. Alexander's greatest enemy is the powerful Persian Empire. Alexander defeated the Persian army in grani and the Kass River in Isus, and seized Syria and Egypt from the Persians. Persian King Darius Iii tried to make peace, but was rejected by ambitious Alexander. In 33 1 year BC, the decisive battle of Gauguin Milla broke out between Alexandria and Darius Iii. Alexander won again, occupied Babylon, and the Persian Empire perished. Alexander continued eastward until the Indus Valley turned back. In 323 BC, Alexander died of illness, and his huge empire fell apart. The history of ancient Greece ended and the Hellenistic era began. (See Alexander the Great for details. )

4.3 Greek-Persian War

Greco-Persian Wars In the second half of the 6th century BC, the Persian Empire pursued an aggressive policy of pushing westward. In 546 BC, Persia annexed Lydia and then conquered the Greek city-states of Asia Minor. In 5 12 BC, King Darius I of Persia crossed the Bosphorus and made an expedition to Sicily, north of the Danube. Although he failed, he took the opportunity to occupy Thrace and the Black Sea Strait and cut off the traffic between Greece and the Black Sea. The commerce originally controlled by Athens and other city-states is now transferred to Phoenician merchants attached to Persia. Persian rulers were not satisfied with this and tried to conquer the Greek peninsula. In this situation, all Greek countries must wage war against Persian aggression, whether for their own survival or for the development of maritime trade.

In 500 BC, Miletus in Asia Minor and other city-states set off riots against Persian rule, which became the fuse of the Persian War. At that time, Miletus asked for help from the Greek peninsula city-states, but most of them did not send troops to help, only Athens and Alexandria on British Columbia sent 25 warships to help. Darius assembled heavy troops to suppress the resistance of the city-states of Asia Minor. Since then, Persia has directed its aggression at the Greek peninsula.

In 492 BC, Persian Lu Haijun attacked Greece. When the fleet sailed to Cape athos, it was hit by a hurricane, most of the ships sank, and 20,000 marines were buried in the belly of fish. The army encountered resistance from local people in Thrace and suffered heavy losses, so it was forced to turn back. After the Persian expedition failed, Darius continued to prepare for the war while threatening. He sent messengers to the Greek States to demand "water and soil", which meant surrendering to Persia. Athens and Sparta resolutely refused. Athens threw the Persian messenger into the abyss. Sparta threw the messenger into the well and said with a smile, "Go and get the soil and water yourself!" " "

In 490 BC, Darius launched a second attack on Greece. The Persian navy crossed the Aegean Sea, captured Aldoria, and landed in the Marathon Plain northeast of Athens. Athens mobilized all its citizens and recruited 65,438+0,000 heavily armed soldiers. In addition, it only received 1 1,000 reinforcements from Platia, a small town in attiya, while Athens faced 1 1,000 Persian troops, which was far inferior in number. In a very urgent situation, Athens took the advice of General Mittayad and sent all the troops to participate in the marathon. At the beginning of the war, Mitea arranged the army into a phalanx, with the main force concentrated on the two wings, while China's army was weak. After the contact between the two armies, Zhong Jun of Athens retreated under the pressure of the Persian army, while the two wings broke through the Persian army's bow and arrow shooting with an urgent March, repelling the Persian army's two wings with a dense phalanx of spears, causing the Persian army's lineup to be in chaos and fleeing to warships at sea. The two wings of the Athenian army turned to the rear to unite with the China army, panic in the Persian China army and win the marathon. After the victory in Athens, a soldier was sent back to Athens to report the good news. He ran more than 40 kilometers in one breath, arrived in Athens and said, "We won." As soon as his voice fell, he fainted and died. In order to commemorate this heroic event, later generations decided to hold regular marathons.

After the marathon, both sides are actively preparing for another battle. Athens greatly expanded its navy, built 200 new three-row paddle warships, and 3 1 Greek city-states formed an alliance to fight against Persian aggression. Persia also forced manpower and material resources from all over the world to prepare for another massive invasion of Greece. In the spring of 480 BC, King Xue Xisi of Persia set out from Abedos and entered Europe, and invaded Greece by land and sea along the coast of Thrace. According to Herodotus, Persia dispatched 1.7 million soldiers, 1.207 warships and 5 million non-combatants. These figures are obviously exaggerated, but the team is indeed huge. In order to meet the Persian army, Spartan King Leonidas led 300 soldiers and insisted on guarding the hot spring pass in central Greece. Leonidas led his troops to fight hard, but because of the spies leading the way to sneak attack, the hot spring pass fell, and all Spartans died heroically. Later generations erected a monument to commemorate. The inscription reads: "passers-by, go and tell the dreamers in LaXidi that we listened to their orders and were buried here." After the fall of Wenquan Pass, the Greek navy stationed in Cape Artemia voluntarily retreated to Salami Bay in Attica. Persian troops crossed the hot spring pass, went straight to Attica and occupied the city of Athens. At this time, the Athenians had moved women and children to troy Sen in the Peloponnesian Peninsula under the command of the navy commander Tammy stokely, and recruited all the adult men to prepare for a decisive battle in Salami Bay. On the morning of September 20th, 480 BC, the naval battle of Salami began. Large Persian warships are not allowed to be displayed in narrow bays, while small Greek warships are free to move. The Athenian soldiers fought bravely and dealt a heavy blow to the enemy ships. At the end of the night battle, the Persian navy was defeated, losing more than 300 warships, while Greece lost only 40.