Several kilometers of Persian "waves" crashed against the Greek "reef" of the same length, and the "waves" suddenly stopped moving; Layers of "waves" were shattered by stubborn and hard "reefs", and countless blood-colored "waves" were stirred up and splashed everywhere.

The Persian soldiers were inferior in size and strength to the Greek warriors, their shields were not as strong as those of the Greeks, and their spears were shortened. As soon as the two sides came into contact, the advance of the first Persian phalanx was cut down by one layer, and thousands of Persian soldiers fell with a scream; War is always cruel, and the Persian soldiers in the back continue to rush forward, without the slightest consideration of whether the compatriots who are stepping on their feet still have a breath.

Regardless of the city-state, the tactics of the army are the same; Stand up for the shield, open the shield, thrust, stand up the shield, the Greek warriors in the front row are as if they are rehearsing, repeating the movements mechanically; The Greek warriors in the back two rows used 2.5-meter spears to poke, retract, and poke out from above the shoulders of the striker warriors and between the shields of the striker warriors. If the striker soldier falls, the warrior in the rear immediately moves forward with his shield, and with a strong shield strike, the approaching enemy is bounced away, and the vacant position of the striker is replaced; As with the Persians, the fallen warriors, whether dead or alive at the time, had the same result; Tense battles, dense formations, whoever falls on the forward line is easily trampled to death by both sides.

The Persian forward line really suffered, almost nothing was achieved, and the infantry squad leaders of the first platoon were emptied; In the second row, still the squad leader with a light shield and a spear, quickly filled his position and stabbed the Greek warrior with his spear. The Greek phalanx was dense, the Persian phalanx was a little looser; Under normal circumstances, three spears and two spears flew out of the Greek phalanx, and only one spear could be stabbed in the Persian phalanx; In such a mutual stabbing, the Persian soldiers suffered greatly, coupled with the difference in the size and quality of the shield, the Persian infantry squad leader suddenly became the most dangerous post in the Persian army.

From the third row of the Persian phalanx, all archers were archers, but because of the close battle, only the third row of archers still used bows and arrows; It was they who brought the first wave of real battle losses to the Greek warriors; As soon as a Greek warrior stabbed the Persian infantry squad leader with a spear, his upper body would inevitably be exposed beyond the round shield, and these archers immediately fired from the infantry squad leader's side at very short distances, frequently succeeding. Unfortunately, the Persian infantry squad leaders in the first two rows, armed with spears and light shields, had very poor endurance and ran out of effort; When the Greek phalanx faced the third row of Persian soldiers, the brutal slaughter immediately began.

Many of the Persian soldiers in the third row were stabbed to death by Greek spears before they could abandon their bows and draw their swords; The third platoon of soldiers who had already drawn their Persian scimitars, as well as the fourth platoon, the fifth ...... How could the Persian soldiers, who had collected their bows and changed their knives, be able to fight against a wall of shields that were densely formed and "long" full of spears with just a short scimitar?

Against such a "tortoise" as the Greek phalanx, it would have been easier if the Persians had heavy crossbows; Now, the arms are defeated, and even if the Persian soldiers still bravely continue to charge, they can only become human meat skewers on the Greek spear.

War can destroy everything; War can also create everything.

The Persian battle array, which has been bull-nosed for more than half a century, has been repeatedly suffocated in Greece, resulting in the innovation ability of Persian generals being forced to a new level.

Seeing that the first phalanx was blocked, Madonhos immediately proceeded to the next step; The cavalry on both flanks began to speed up, and their mission was to attack from the flank or rear of the Greek phalanx; Yesterday, in the Battle of Marathon, the Persian cavalry contributed the most, and it also proved that this was effective against the tortoiseshell-like Greek phalanx. In addition to the cavalry, the 2nd Infantry Phalanx, the 3rd Infantry Phalanx began to shoot coveringly.

The sky was once again shrouded in "dark clouds", and countless arrows roared and fell towards the Greeks who were shaking the first phalanx of Persia; Of course, it was inevitable that a very small number of arrows that did not grasp the angle well covered the Persian soldiers in the front row of the first phalanx.

After Madonhos' victory yesterday, he figured out a new tactic.

Even if there is a hard wound of insufficient penetration due to arrows and other reasons, there is really no way to take the prepared Greek warriors, but if the Greek warriors are not prepared, or are busy PK with people, it is difficult to say the result of the attack at this time.

Covered by a rain of arrows, it has always been the most deterrent way of fighting in the Persian infantry phalanx; The Persian Empire crisscrossed Asia, Europe and Africa, facing an almost lightly armed enemy, as soon as the arrow array came out, it immediately wailed all over the field; Objectively speaking, during this period, there were few countries in the world that would have soldiers like the Greek city-states, each soldier had a huge, thick, copper-covered round shield (historically Greek warriors also had full body armor).

When the Greek phalanx and the first Persian phalanx were hard to shake, the two phalanxes in the rear carried out bow and arrow raids, although there would be some accidental injuries, but the shooting accuracy of the Persian archers was originally good, as long as they played a little better, the number of accidental injuries, Madonhos was still acceptable; Now that the front of their own infantry is engaged in a battle with the Greeks, at this time they send cavalry to attack from both flanks, and the middle is covered with a dense rain of arrows.

Indeed, as Madonhos had hoped, a sudden rain of arrows swept away the forward lines of both sides...... However, judging from the results, not many people fell, and almost all of them were Persian soldiers.

Leonidas led 20 small Greek phalanxes of 1,000 men, behind the horizontal phalanx of Greek strikers; Because they had not yet entered the battle, these elite Spartan forces easily defended against a rain of arrows that had no penetrating power, and were unscathed.

The forward phalanx, which was less than 60,000 men, did what the Persians considered shameless when the rain of arrows was about to fall; The warriors on the forward line, leaning close to each other, crouching on the ground, and standing on the ground with their shields tilted back a little, facing the scimitar-wielding Persian soldiers; The Greek warriors in the second row took a half-step forward, with their left knee against the body of the warriors in the front row, and the lower edge of the shield was obliquely resting on the upper edge of the round shield of the warriors in the front row; The warriors in the third row and in the back, with their round shields raised flat above their heads, moved closer to each other. All the large round shields, the shields and shields were interlocked, and the only gap between the shields was also squeezed by the spears that protruded.

What is this? A giant turtle shell covered in spikes?

It doesn't matter what it is, anyway, the current phalanx of Greek strikers suddenly stopped attacking and killing, and let you cut, poke, and rain arrows.

Because of their orientation, the soldiers of the first phalanx of Persia were several seconds later than the Greeks to find that the sky was covered with a rain of arrows from behind; The Persian soldiers, who were huddled in the front row and wielding scimitars desperately, suddenly lost the faces of their opponents, and there were only shields and immovable spears in front of them.

In this case, do you cut a spear or a shield?

"Poof! Poof! Poof! ”

The dense rain of arrows interrupted the Persian soldiers' thoughts.

Madonius must rejoice, as must most of the Persian soldiers in front of the shield wall, that most of their comrades in the second and third phalanxes in the rear are of a good level of archery; The dense rain of arrows began from the fourth row of shields of the Greeks' shield wall and extended to the rear of the Greek phalanx, with only a few arrows falling on the shields of the first three rows of Greeks, and of course some arrows falling on the less fortunate colleagues nearby.

Seeing that this new method was basically useless to the Greeks, and that it had taken the lives of many Persian soldiers, Madonios frowned; Any tactic needs to be verified in actual combat to know how effective it is; Madonhos was not heartbroken and killed nearly a thousand of his own people by mistake, but was depressed by the failure of the new tactic to prove it.

As soon as the rain of arrows stopped, the Greek forward phalanx immediately opened its shield and took the opportunity to start a reverse push; Shield strike, spear out, shield return, next shield strike, Greek warriors use forward attacks, relying on their own dense formation, constantly killing Persian soldiers with only scimitars; Stepping on countless corpses, the Greek forward phalanx slowly but surely began to move forward; Behind them, 20 small phalanxes of 1,000 people remained motionless and held their positions.

The second and third phalanx of Persia stopped the needless rain of arrows and began to press forward slowly; Based on the experience of the previous battle, all the Persian generals understood that their first phalanx would not last long. In fact, the first phalanx sent by the Persians can only be regarded as tactical cannon fodder, and when the Persian cavalry on both flanks attack, then the battlefield form will be reversed; Because they believed in their own cavalry, the soldiers of the second phalanx of Persia were all imposing, and even if they saw the first phalanx being half-crippled by the Greeks, they were fearless.

Two dragons of smoke and dust rolled up on the wings of the battlefield, and all the warriors could feel the earth tremble; Tens of thousands of cavalry appeared on the flanks of the Greeks, murderous. The Persian infantry shouted as if victory was at hand; The first phalanx of Persia, wielding scimitars, also roared in response, and broke out into a final madness, hoping to hold out until the arrival of the cavalry.

Maybe it was the Persian cavalry that frightened the Greeks, maybe it was the small universe of the remaining infantry of the first phalanx, in short, the Greek forward phalanx, which had the upper hand before, now began to retreat slowly; In addition to the excitement, the first phalanx, which had reduced its strength by half, once again paid for the lives of a group of soldiers, magically forced the Greeks back to the original point.

Under the expectant gaze of Madonios, the Persian cavalry, which had circled the Greeks' flanks, was already about to sprint into the phalanx of infantry that the Greeks had placed on either flank; A 10-line deep phalanx of Greek infantry can block a 20-line deep Persian infantry phalanx, but they definitely can't stop tens of thousands of Persian cavalry!

Standing in front of a small phalanx of a thousand men, Leonidas grinned; This uncle-level cool brother was slowly taken away by Wang Jun. The Spartan warriors on either side, seemingly to defend against attacks from the flanks by the Persian cavalry, were in fact two sweet decoys; In the open space in front of the 1.5-kilometer-long 10-row deep queue, if you look closely, you can see that there is obvious camouflage on the ground; A huge trench 1.6 kilometers long, 6 meters wide, and 3 meters deep was 3 meters in front of the procession, with a long tree trunk as the main beam on the surface, plus branches and leaves, linen cloth, and a thin layer of floating soil.

The camouflage was really average, but it was enough for the Persian cavalry running at high speed.

In order to create two long trenches on either side of the intended battlefield, Leonidas used all his army and all the men and women who could work in Athens, and in half a day and half a night, he managed to manage this huge project.

In addition, the area 50 meters in front of the rudimentary camouflage trench is covered with many, many small holes in the ground; The hole is not large, and the depth is average, but if the hooves of the war horse "accidentally" step into the hole, then it will be a tragedy.

It doesn't matter if the method is dirty, it's easy to use; Athens, with a population of hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of slaves, should do some civil engineering work in order to defend their homeland; In this matter, the Athenians were very much with Leonidas.

Madonios' face began to distort, and his right hand, which grasped the hilt, was exposed, and his knuckles were white; The Persian cavalry in the distance first bizarrely appeared one after another war horses stumbled, which did not rush in front of the Greeks, but suffered a lot of losses, and the stormtroopers were in a mess. This had already made Madonios' heart pound, but it was not over, as the first wave of cavalry suddenly disappeared from the horizon, a crack in the ground suddenly appeared, and the black Hengheng was in front of the Greek infantry; Madonios suddenly turned pale, unable to save everything, and could only watch; Groups of Persian cavalry, who had lost their entire ranks, rushed down the crack at high speed like dumplings.

Because of the distance, Madonhos couldn't really see it, but that didn't prevent him from getting a rough idea of what was going on.

Damn the Greeks!

They had prepared the trap early and waited for their cavalry to jump inside!

In some areas where the Persian cavalry was concentrated, the trenches were quickly filled, but the follow-up cavalry was still unable to pass; The stacked horses and cavalry do not matter whether they live or die, what matters is the surface on which they are stacked, which is very uneven, and the texture is different from soft and hard; If the Persian cavalry wanted to ride their horses over, it was inevitable that the horses would stumble.

On both sides of the battlefield, the duel between the Persian cavalry and the Greek infantry was more powerful and shocking than the battle on the frontal battlefield; The soldiers Leonidas placed on the two flanks were the Spartan Wehrmacht and the Spartan militia, who had come for status or for freedom, and each of them had a high fighting spirit, hoping to fight a big battle.

However, after the combination of traps was powerful, the original imposing Persian cavalry basically announced their dismissal before they could PK with the Spartans; Only a few lucky Persian soldiers were able to get up from the ground or the surface of a trench filled with men and horses; There were also extremely rare Persian cavalry who were hung to the sky, miraculously rushing into the Spartan phalanx.

Of course, the end is already predestined.

The hot-blooded Spartan warriors trampled on their bodies and horses, drowning the remaining Persian cavalry like a tide; Losing speed, or losing their horses, such Persian cavalry, inferior to even Persian light infantry, was quickly slaughtered; Many of the wounded soldiers and horses crushed in the trenches kept neighing, but it was clear that the Spartans did not care about this.

;