Athens, 23 September 480 B.C.

A seagull flapped its wings and flew higher into the sky with the current.

In the vision of the seagull, both on land and at sea, it is all people; Both the Greek and Persian armies were in full swing to adjust their queues, and the two sides were looking at each other from a distance, and a big war was about to break out.

The combined Greek army numbered 120,800 men and the navy 67,375 men, almost enough to reach 190,000 men, and this was the first time since the formation of the Greek city-state that such a large army had been massed.

However, even so, the Greek coalition was still not enough to see the huge military power of the Persians.

To the northeast of the city of Athens, the Persian army of about 280,000 was slowly approaching the Greek army, and the Greek army used the hills and mountains to arrange defensive positions and wait for the battle.

Outside Salami Bay, 800 Persian warships blocked the eastern entrance of the bay, and 200 Egyptian warships, which had just arrived, blocked the western entrance of the bay; 385 Greek warships, like turtles in the middle of the war, have nowhere to escape.

The royal army did not worry about the problem of naval warfare, there was such a thing in history, and the result was a great victory for Greece; And the person who actually commanded the naval battle in the record was, of course, the commander of the Athenian navy, Themistocles.

Now, Yuribiad from Sparta is nominally the commander of the navy, but the Spartan navy is weak, and the navies of the other city-states look down on him at all; The reason for this name is entirely based on Leonidas' face, or rather on the strength of Sparta's army. Yuribia himself knew very well, plus Wang Jun's suggestion, so he, the "commander of the combined fleet", only directly commanded the 16 warships of Sparta, and the rest was handed over to Themistocles; The navies of the other city-states were of course very happy to see Yuri Biad's knowledge.

In the second Greco-Persian War in history, it was through the Battle of Salami that the Athenians were lucky to pick the largest peach; After the naval victory, the Athenian navy rapidly expanded its influence, greatly weakening the social role of the army. At the same time, the problem of the low status of naval soldiers has been greatly improved; The officers and men of the navy were given the same political status as the army, and as a result, the political power of Athens was expanded; Since then, Athens' comprehensive national strength has increased rapidly, and it can be called Sparta.

And the Spartans, without the intervention of the king's army, would have fought the Persians on land from beginning to end; In the end, Sparta only picked up some rotten peaches, and a few years later the Athenians challenged the position of Greek military commander; Not only that, but the rotten peaches that Sparta picked up also stimulated various contradictions in the country, in short, Sparta was later burned out.

In a sense, the reform of the political system of the Spartan state, which Wang Jun single-handedly indulged, has a lot in common with the reforms that Athens will passively carry out after the naval battle; For example, increasing the proportion of the population enjoying political rights, strengthening citizens' sense of belonging to the country, and so on. Of course, Wang Jun did it more thoroughly, and now Sparta has solved the 400,000 free people in one go, you know, if Athens is not a slave now, it will have a population of 400,000; Moreover, Sparta even took into account the helots who were in the status of slaves, and Athens, according to the historical trajectory, in the future, they only made some status adjustments to more than 30,000 navies and their families, slaves, continue to be slaves.

However, the current course of history has quietly changed; It is difficult to say whether Athens still had a chance to implement reforms.

As the commander of this large Persian navy, Arahasia was confident.

A few days ago, the Aegean Sea may not be accustomed to seeing itself rampant and domineering on it, so it swept away its fleet with hurricanes and waves, reducing the fleet with a total of 1,207 warships to 800 ships; The loss of the battleship was a trivial matter, and he almost ruined himself. In recent days, Aegean has suddenly changed its surname, and every day is windy and beautiful; Now, the fleet of the subject Egyptians arrived, and their own fleet returned to a four-digit rank, no more, no less, exactly 1000 warships.

Looking at the past, the Greeks not only had a pitiful number of warships, but also a pitiful hull; The Persian gods were probably also present over the battlefield, and now their fleet was sailing with the wind, and Alabasia was very satisfied; Everything seemed to indicate that he could win a light victory and annihilate the Greeks' navy.

Compared with the determination of Arahasia to win, the supreme commander of the Persian army, Madonios, was more optimistic.

Madonhos chose to watch the game on a hill, and the higher he stands, the farther he can see.

To be honest, looking at the huge number of Greek armies, he was somewhat surprised by the number of the other party's armies; According to the information provided by the Greek traitors, it is very good that the Greek Army can gather more than 50,000 people, and he has already destroyed 22,000 Greek troops in the Battle of Marathon; it stands to reason that the Greek Army has only more than 30,000 people, but now it seems that the Greek Army has at least 100,000 or more scales, is the traitor telling a lie? In fact, the traitors are telling the truth, and the reason for the huge variables is that Sparta suddenly raised an army of 100,000; Not to mention that Madonios couldn't figure it out, even the generals of the other city-states of the Greek coalition couldn't figure it out.

However, even if the Greek army suddenly had a lot more people, Madonhos was not worried at all, only surprised.

The terrain of this area is a combination of plains and small hills, which is suitable for large-scale battles; The battlefield is more than ten kilometers wide, there are not many obstacles, only a few small hills; In other words, the Greek coalition forces were in no danger to defend, and there would never again be the same aggrieved situation as on the Thermopylae Pass and the Ancient Sheep Road.

Through yesterday's battle of Marathon, Madonios discovered the weaknesses of the Greeks and understood how to exploit the strengths of the Persian army; Now the Persian army still has more than 280,000 people, more than twice as much as the other side, according to yesterday's 1:1 battle loss ratio, the Persian army has won! Madonhos only cares if he can win or not, as for how many people die? Most of these armies were recruited by subordinate countries, and as long as they won and died more or less, Madonios would not feel distressed.

In the other battlefield, the duel between the two navies, Madonhos was even less worried, if he didn't have to watch the army, he might climb to a certain battleship to watch the show; The commander of the navy, Alahasia, is his old subordinate, experienced in naval warfare, and, in terms of the number and the size of the warships, the Persian navy has an overwhelming advantage, so what is there to worry about?

The battle between the Persian army and the Greek army was first fought on the ground.

"Uh......h Woo! ”

The four-digit horn sounded one after another, and the sound was desolate and long; The Persian army was slowly pressing towards the Greek coalition on the opposite side, and the distance between the two sides was not close, and if you ran at the beginning, it would be a futile drain of physical strength, and it would be difficult to maintain a large and long battle formation.

The Persian Army still used the battle array that tasted the sweetness of Marathon, and laid out three 3-kilometer-long 20-row deep phalanxes in the front, middle and rear; The two wings of the infantry phalanx were all cavalry, and other miscellaneous arms were placed behind the infantry phalanx. In each column, there were still two ten-person squads; The two captains are one in front of the other, holding a square shield and a 2-meter spear, and wearing scale armor; Behind them were 18 infantrymen lined up in a column, with unchanged equipment, each with a bow and arrow and a scimitar.

Madonios ignored the fact that this time the commander of the Greek army was Leonidas, the king of Sparta, not the former military governor of Athens, Calimaya!

Originally, regardless of the number of people, the Spartans of the Greek army were the boss in terms of combat strength and tactics; Now, considering the numbers, the Spartans are still the bosses.

Leonidas had received information from the newly defeated Athenian army about the Battle of Marathon yesterday, and had made arrangements accordingly; With the presence of Wang Jun, who had been the commander of the Roman legions six or seven hundred years later, and gave several suggestions, Leonidas naturally would not be stupid and stubborn with the Persians.

The distance between the two sides gradually narrowed, and under the strange gaze of the Persians, the Greek warriors, who were known for their bravery, not only did not charge, but did not even make a move forward, but remained in place; The Persian soldiers on the forward line could see more clearly, and their stomachs were scratching.

Your sister's!

Wouldn't these warriors have to run half the way so that they could get over the Greeks?

Let the Persians charge! See how much physical energy they have.

This was the first piece of advice Wang Jun gave; The forwards of the two sides are more than 300 meters apart, and it stands to reason that the two sides advance in opposite directions until contact begins; But now only the Persians are acting, and the result is that the whole journey must be completed. Don't underestimate the extra one or two hundred meters of the road, especially the 50-meter charge before the contact, under full armament, the physical consumption of the soldier is still not small; Physical fitness, the Greek warriors were originally stronger than the Persian soldiers, not to mention that the Greek warriors took advantage of the other.

All right! Stay and stay; The Persian soldiers didn't really care, and since the battle yesterday almost wiped out the Athenian army, the Persian army regained its self-confidence; The shadow brought by the Hot Springs Pass and the ancient sheep road has faded a lot, and most of the Persian soldiers thought that the Greeks only occupied the geographical advantage at that time, otherwise why would they stop eating as soon as they arrived on the plain?

As the distance drew closer, the Persian bows and arrows began to wield; More than 100,000 bows and arrows are fired at the same time, which can definitely scare people. However, the Persians do not seem to know how to improve the arrowhead, or the rules of this world prevent them from doing so, and the Persian arrow is still a three-edged broad-edged arrow made of bronze; In Wang Jun's view, this is absolutely unscientific, and the Persians should be very good at absorbing the experience of other countries, otherwise how could they lay down such a large territory?

The arrow of the scorpion's tail-shaped barb seems to look very bullish, but it is indeed lethal after actually hitting the human body, and it is not easy to deal with; It's just a matter of penetration, and it's troublesome.

In order to ensure the play of their bows and arrows, the Persian battle formation deliberately maintained a loose formation; The Greek coalition was in dense formations, and everyone had shields, large round shields covered with copper skin.

Led by the soldiers of the Spartan Royal Guard, the Greek coalition troops who collectively squatted on the ground to defend against the rain of arrows burst into laughter; This Persian arrow is also too inferior, and it is completely to tickle the Greeks.

It cannot be said that the Persians did not have military qualities, at least their arrow array control was still coordinated, and the accuracy of their shooting was okay, but they did not have many great results; If all these Persian archers were dressed with the longbows and heavy arrows in the Ring of the King's Space, then the Greek coalition army in dense ranks would be crippled; The quality of weapons and equipment, regardless of the era, is of paramount importance.

After a few rounds of firing, except for the archers in the second row, the rest of the archers gathered their bows and drew their swords and turned to light infantry; The sound of the conductor's horn began to become short, and the Persian soldiers began to trot.

Leonidas was the first to rise, and still with that miraculous spear he severed the shaft of the arrow in his shield; The 120,000 Greek warriors also got up, stepped on the arrows planted beside them, lined up neatly, and looked at the Persian soldiers running happily on the opposite side without fear.

Leonidas did not have as many men and horses as the enemy, but he also invested 60,000 soldiers, pulled out a dense phalanx of 15 rows in depth 3 kilometers long, and faced the Persian phalanx head-on; Although under the second suggestion of Wang Jun, Leonidas had arranged some means last night, in order to prevent accidents, 10,000 Spartan Wehrmacht and 10,000 Spartan militia were arranged on the two flanks of the phalanx, a total of 40,000 soldiers, lined up in two 1.5 kilometers wide 10 rows of dense phalanxes in depth, diagonally facing both sides of the battlefield.

Of the remaining 20,000 troops, 10,000 were the Spartan Royal Guard and the other 10,000 were the Spartan Wehrmacht; Leonidas led them into 20 separate reading phalanxes, which were arranged behind the forward phalanx and used as reserves.

the forward phalanx of the allied Greek army, composed entirely of warriors from other city-states and Spartan militia; This way of arranging troops is undoubtedly the idea of Wang Jun, if it is according to the original Leonidas's surname, he will definitely pull the royal guards to the front.

Although Wang Jun had washed Leonidas' head several times, Leonidas was still a little depressed about this arrangement; But what Wang Jun said really made Leonidas unable to refute, so he had to suppress the urge to stab people and rank in front of the second echelon to command the battle.

The Persians are getting closer, and the forwards of both sides are about to make contact.

Leonidas's face was serious, and he silently repeated Wang Jun's instructions in his heart.

"As a commander-in-chief, it is more important to command the battle well than to go into battle yourself...... All for Sparta! ”

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