In 331 BC, a great emperor of the West officially launched the Battle of the Eastern Expedition, and his target was the weakening Persian Empire.
Greece and Persia, like China and Japan in the East, were two countries that had long influenced each other and were hostile to each other, and at the height of the Persian Empire, Xerxes I crossed the Bosphorus with a vast army to attack Greece, and won the famous "Battle of Thermos Pass" with the Spartan city-state, conquering Athens, but ultimately due to the stubborn resistance of the Greeks.
Now that the mighty Greece had launched a counter-offensive, their leader was none other than the famous Alexander the Great, a young man who had taken the throne at the age of twenty, with an iron fist far beyond the reach of ordinary people, and when the contradictions in the country were cleared one by one, he quickly turned his strategic vision farther to the neighboring Persian Empire.
As the first of the four major military commanders in Western history and one of the most outstanding military and statesmen in the ancient history of the world, Alexander, who inherited Aristotle, conquered the whole of Persia in just over a year.
But when Persia was conquered, Alexander captured more than ten thousand Persian noblewomen, and for a monarch like him, beauty was obviously secondary, so how did he treat these women? This actually contains his great vision, and everything begins with his life.
Alexander came from a prominent background, his father was the king of Macedonia at that time, so he received an excellent education from an early age, studied with the famous philosopher and scientist Aristotle, and at the same time he also loved Homer's poetry, and his idol was Hercules in Greek mythology and legend, hoping to become a hero like him.
However, Heaven gave him amazing talent as he wished, and at the age of 16, Alexander began to rule Macedonia in place of his father, and personally led troops to suppress the rebellion in the north.
Later, the two city-states of Athens and Thebes allied against Alexander's father Philip II, and the two sides finally launched a decisive battle, the Battle of Caronia, in which the young Alexander had served as the commander-in-chief of the left wing of the army, and he led the team deep into the gap between the enemy forces with amazing eyes, slammed the coalition forces from behind, and completely annihilated the army of the City-state of Thebes in one fell swoop, laying the victory for the battle.
This was the true military genius, after all, the Macedonian general was only eighteen years old at this time.
Philip II was later assassinated by his personal bodyguard, and Alexander ascended the throne with the help of his military minister Antipat, and the assassination was pointed out to be the work of the Persian king, which was also the name he used to launch his later attack on Persia.
Alexander immediately executed a large number of political enemies on the excellent charge of participating in the assassination, and at the same time won the strong support of the army and the people by reducing taxes.
When it comes to Alexander's crusade, we have to mention the Macedonian phalanx, which is a battle formation organized by the army, which is recorded in the history books as follows:
It consisted of thousands of infantry with different functions, some with shields and some with spears, 64 armored soldiers in a platoon, 128 into a company, 256 into a battalion, 1024 into a regiment, and 4096 into a division.
Before the battle began, the lightly armed spearmen lined up in a horizontal line of about 8 people in depth behind the phalanx, while others, such as the servicemen, lined up in a scattered line in front of the phalanx, with cavalry on both wings and a certain number of lightly armed spearmen.
This phalanx was modified from the classical Greek phalanx, to be more aggressive, but the disadvantages are also very obvious, that is, bulky, and the flanks are relatively weak, before Alexander this phalanx has been created, he is not the inventor, but this kind of battle array in his hands is invincible, invincible.
After resolving the internal instability, Alexander formally prepared for the expedition to Persia.
After both sides paid a terrible price, the Greek coalition army was still constantly breaking through the defense line of the Persian king Darius's guard, and seeing the crisis approaching, the Persian king Darius III actually began to flee directly, he took off his royal robe and jumped on a war horse, and fled with the Guards with a thousand people behind him.
With this departure, the entire Persian army, which was still struggling, suddenly collapsed completely, and was slaughtered in a chaotic retreat, only a few people successfully withdrew from the battlefield, and Darius's mother, wife and daughter were taken prisoner.
Alexander once again achieved a fruitful victory with few victories with his astonishing military ability, and this victory also caused the Persians to suffer heavy setbacks, and almost all the cities on the Mediterranean coast were taken over by the Greeks, during which Darius also sent emissaries to make peace with Alexander, offering generous conditions for ceding the territory west of the Euphrates River, paying 10,000 Tarrants, and marrying one of his daughters to Alexander.
But these conditions were finally rejected, and alexander, although he was still not in his twenties, had begun to look forward to the world in his eyes, and this reward was by no means enough for him to stop the conquest.
Two years later, Alexander, who had easily conquered Egypt, re-sent his troops, this time to take all of the Persian Empire, and the Persian king Darius had no choice but to reconvene the persian armies to meet the terrible conqueror for the second time on the Gaugamela plain.
Even though the army was still superior in numbers and equipment, the difference in commanders still made the outcome of this battle unsettling, the first round of Persian chariot charge was completely avoided by Alexander's pre-arranged change of position, followed by a salvo of archers in the rear, and then Alexander led the light cavalry to hit the left flank of the Persian army, the opposing formation quickly collapsed, Darius fled again.
After the Battle of Gaugamela, although the Persian monarch had not yet died, the entire Persian land had been almost completely occupied by Alexander.
This was no small matter, and he naturally had other options than to treat the dead King of Persia with courtesy.
After the victory of the war, the Greek coalition naturally obtained countless booty, including gold and silver treasures, materials, land, and naturally women.
At that time, Europe was still under the cover of slavery, and ordinary slaves were not treated as people at all, so the women mentioned here basically referred to Persian noblewomen, that is, upper-class women with status and status, or women in the royal palace.
After the execution of Bessus and the burial of King Darius, Alexander held a grand joint banquet, not only to celebrate, but during the meeting he made a major decision to announce that Alexander himself would marry the eldest daughter of Darius III, and that his other daughter would be promised to Alexander's close friend Heffistion.
In addition, the Greek army captured more than 10,000 women from Persian aristocratic families, who were sure to escape their tragic fate, but who were now assigned to the generals and nobles in the army and were official wives.
The purpose of this action is to promote national integration, and at the same time, the maintenance of kinship can also allow him to further and more stable rule over this vast land, and his ultimate purpose, in his own words, is to become the "Lord of the World".
After conquering Persia, his desires were not satisfied at all, and he continued to lead his troops to Central Asia without stopping, so much so that he occupied northwestern India.
But Alexander was never able to escape the limitations of the times, his eagerness to achieve made him and the internal contradictions between him and the army deeper and deeper, and the expeditionary force was already exhausted after countless battles, and the soldiers almost mutinied, so that he could only stay here.
Soon after, in 323 BC, Alexander the Great, who was only 33 years old, suddenly fell ill with falciparum malaria and died because of it, and many people held the view of poisoning, but in any case, his life did end, and after his death, the entire Alexander Empire was divided up by the generals in an instant, and the whole of Greece fell into endless wars.
When the Persian king Xerxes I was about to cross the sea to attack Greece, looking at the vast army behind him, he suddenly burst into tears, he lamented how short life is, and now these countless elite soldiers will not be alive in a hundred years.
Maybe the same was true for Alexander.