If Alexander had killed China back then, he would really be "Alexander".
Because, in front of Qin Huiwen Wang Yingsi, Alexander's Macedonian phalanx was simply weak
Alexander was the third king of the Kingdom of Macedonia, and he was the head of the four greatest military commanders in European history. The other three were: Hannibal Baka, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon.
According to Plutarch, Alexander was fair-skinned, had a reddish face, thick and curly hair, a straight nose, and was 5 feet seven tall. The most special thing is his eyes, one eye is as black as night, and the other eye is blue as the sky. According to Plutarch, he also carries a natural body fragrance.
In order to make himself look eternally young, Alexander never grew a beard.
Alexander was gifted with intelligence, he loved poetry from an early age, and showed great talent in music and equestrianism. At the age of 12, he received a systematic education from Aristotle, where he studied philosophy, logic, ethics, political science, geometry, etc., which laid the foundation for his future talents.
When Alexander was 16 years old, his father went on a war expedition, and he ruled the entire Macedonian kingdom on his father's behalf, during which time he personally led troops to quell an armed uprising within the kingdom.
In the summer of 336 BC, Alexander's father was suddenly assassinated at his daughter's wedding, and Alexander, who had just turned 20, succeeded to the throne.
After Alexander succeeded to the throne, he launched a purge in the country to eradicate all enemies in the kingdom.
After the state power was stabilized, Alexan did not rest on his laurels, he was ambitious and thought that it was not enough to conquer the country, but also to realize his dream of conquering the world, so he embarked on an expedition.
In 334 B.C., Alexander himself led an expeditionary force of nearly 40,000 men to set out, and they embarked on that magnificent eastward expedition.
The expeditionary force was quite large, with a total of 30,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and 160 ships, and the first battle of land and sea in the history of the world began.
During Alexander's ten years of foreign conquest, he conquered Persia, Egypt, and present-day Turkey, Syria, West Asia, Central Asia and other regions, and fought all the way to India, laying down an empire of Alexander that spanned Asia, Africa and Europe.
It was with this Macedonian phalanx as the main force that Alexander was invincible on the battlefield of the Eastern Crusade, which made the enemy talk about the tiger and fear. Known as the invincible Alexander the Great.
When Alexander reached the Indus Valley, which is present-day India and Pakistan, he had been out for too long and the march was too hard, and the soldiers in the army were war-weary, and they had to withdraw and return. This is the end of this crusade.
At that time, Alexander would never have imagined that he was only separated from ancient China, the world's civilization at that time, just a mountain away.
And that mountain is the Pamirs.
The Pamir Plateau, known as the Green Ridge in ancient times, straddles the southwest of Xinjiang on the mainland, and was also a necessary place for the ancient Silk Road in China. If Alexander and the Eastern Expeditionary Army had not stopped at that time, if they had crossed the Pamir Plateau and crossed the Yangguan border, they would have reached the Qin Dynasty, where China was at that time.
"There are friends from afar", the monarch of the Qin State will definitely open the door to meet the enemy and end the myth of Alexander's undefeated.
There is no doubt about a bloody war. And the victory or loss of the war depends on strength.
Next, let's talk about Alexander's undefeated myth: the Macedonian phalanx.
What is the Macedonian phalanx?
Before the time of Homer, infantry fought in a chaotic swarm, in individual combat, and although the armor of the soldier was upgraded from leather to bronze, the soldier's movement during combat became more and more sluggish due to the influence of the armor.
In particular, the bronze round shield of the ancient Greek army was so heavy that it had to be tied to the left arm with several belts to support it, and it was exhausting to hold it, let alone fight.
It was because of the shortcomings of the traditional army that Alexander improved on this basis and created the Macedonian phalanx.
The guidelines of infantry are divided into three main categories.
The largest number is the standing army.
The standing soldiers were armed with Macedonian spears and round shields 2 feet in diameter, (the spears were about 14 feet long, and more than 18 feet in the later period). )
In phalanx battles, the soldiers held shields in their left hands and spears in their right hands. It can not only protect the left side of itself, but also cover the right side of the body of the adjacent comrade. Once the soldier in the front row falls, the soldier who was originally in the second row will quickly fill in the gap he left behind.
The soldiers in the first row generally squatted and pointed their spears in front of them.
The second-row soldiers put their spears on the shoulders of the first-row soldiers, which increased the lethality of the frontal cavalry.
The essence of the whole phalanx tactic is that all the soldiers work together and march together, and those who escape from the battle will be punished with the most severe.
Behind the standing army were the light infantry.
The difference between light infantry and standing soldiers is mainly reflected in armor and weapons.
Light infantry had lighter armor and better mobility.
In terms of weapons, the light infantry also carried spears and round shields, but their spears were shorter and the round shields were larger enough to cover the entire body of the kneeling soldiers.
At the back of the phalanx were heavy cavalry made up of young nobles.
The heavy cavalry held a Macedonian spear. When waiting for battle, they usually rested their spears on their shoulders with the head slightly downward.
As they charged, they stabbed the spears from their shoulders downward. After stabbing the first enemy, he often leaves the spear in his body and does not draw it, and then continues the fight with the sword. Wait until the battle is over and retrieve the spears.
The Macedonian formations were strict and could easily defeat numerically superior but chaotic enemies. The essence of the whole phalanx is that during the battle, all the soldiers who heard the command rushed forward in unison, and slammed into the enemy like a barbed wall.
It was for this reason that the phalanx of Alexander the Great also turned into a kind of legend: he was invincible.
In fact, this phalanx is not a perfect "undefeated West", and one of its biggest weaknesses is that when it launches a charge, the most powerful place is only the front, and if several sides are attacked at the same time, it will be very fatal.
Let's take a look at China's Qin army.
The Qin army also has a very powerful magic weapon, called the crossbow phalanx.
In the main army of the Qin army, there were three rows of crossbowmen each arranged in the front army and the rear army, in addition, there was also a crossbowmen phalanx on each side, and their crossbow arrows could shoot through any ancient armor within a range of more than two hundred meters.
Crossbowmen are divided into three rows in small groups, with the front row of crossbowmen firing and the last two rows loading and winding, and one crossbow can be fired in about two seconds.
So, how many arrows can an army of the Qin army release?
According to the configuration of the Qin army, each army was equipped with 5,000 crossbowmen, and each crossbowman carried two negative arrow rings, and 100 crossbow arrows were placed in each negative arrow ring, that is, each crossbowman carried 200 crossbow arrows.
That's an average of 1 million bolts per team.
It only takes two seconds to fire a crossbow arrow, and these 1 million arrows are enough for the Qin army to shoot continuously for 20 minutes without stopping.
From this point of view, some of the arrows raining down in the TV series are not just talking.
With so many arrows, the number has gone up. And what about the hit rate?
The crossbows of the Qin army all have aiming devices, which means that while ensuring the coverage of the number, the accuracy of shooting can be guaranteed as much as possible. Not only that, but the powerful Qin State also had a lot of heavy weapons with a range of nearly a thousand meters.
Of course, for the Qin State, how can the crossbow array alone reflect the strength of the country, and how can it carry forward the wisdom of China's military wizards?
Alexander's army had spears, and Qin had ges and halberds. What they don't have, we still have. In addition to the soldiers' warbands, the Qin State also had more complex military formations such as various chariots.
Another point, the descendants of China all know that Chinese to go to the battlefield has always paid attention to military strategy, in addition to force, you must also have wisdom. For example, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Thirty-six Strategies, and so on. It is impossible for the Macedonian phalanx of Western Macedonian to understand the wisdom of Chinese civilization.
And most importantly, Alexander's army, which had only 40,000 soldiers at the time of departure, died and wounded after ten years of campaigning, and the number of dead and wounded only decreased, so let's consider that there were still 30,000 soldiers. Moreover, these soldiers have not been able to rest for many years, and they have long been so tired that they are on their backs.
Let's take a look at the Qin army, just in the Zhao State to fight the Battle of Changping, the total number of troops invested by both sides started at 1 million.
How can a mere 30,000 fight against millions?
Let's imagine the picture of Alexander's army encountering the Qin army.
As the weakened Macedonian army regained its strength under Alexander's enthusiastic encouragement, they charged towards the Qin army with firm and concerted steps.
The first of the Qin army to "perform" were the warriors of the crossbow team. I saw that they were all concentrating, only listening to the "whoosh" like the wind, and ten thousand arrows flew by in unison, and the Macedonian army had already lost most of it before they had time to see the face of the Qin army.
After the "debut" of the crossbowmen, the cavalry of the Qin army began their splendor.
Two cavalry teams dispatched from the left and right flanks to flank the Macedonian army, which stung the soft underbelly of the Macedonian army.
The Macedonian army was lost on all sides, and at the moment of death, he sighed: "I said that I would attack forward, but the enemy would flank the left and right!"
If the staying power of the Macedonian army is long enough, what they will appreciate next is that the infantry army of the Qin State formed a battle formation one by one, and they rushed towards the Macedonian army step by step, quickly annihilating the messy Macedonian army.
Then, Alexander's situation was that he was pulled off his horse and sent to the king of Qin with a lot of flowers.
Of course, maybe King Qin wouldn't have fought mosquitoes with such anti-aircraft guns - overkill. He only had to take two of the thirty-six tricks, and perhaps Alexander's army didn't know how he died.
If Alexander had known later, he would have secretly rejoiced that he had not set foot in China, otherwise his Macedonian myth would have turned into a "joke" in the end.