Facing the companion cavalry led by Alexander, the soldiers around the Persian king were quickly killed or wounded, and even his horses began to lose control. The Persian great king would soon have become a casualty had it not been for a charge by his brother Oxesris that enabled him to escape from the battle. It was as if Darius was facing the angry Hercules and Achilles, swept away by the storm of fear and losing all heroic qualities.
Darius saw that his left wing had been defeated, Alexander had inserted himself between his army and the Amanus Gate, and he was in danger of being captured or even killed. The Persian king lost all self-control and fled in a light chariot specially prepared for him and pulled by spare horses. But because the terrain was rough and littered with deserters, the chariot didn't take him very far. Fortunately, Darius had already prepared a well-bred mare. In order to prepare for his escape, the Persians even left the foal of this mare at the Gate of Amanus. Shortly after escaping in the chariot, Darius transferred to the mare and galloped away from the battlefield. With the king fleeing in full view, the Persian left and center troops immediately lost all discipline. The second line of reserves, who were preparing to advance into battle, immediately followed Darius's footsteps and fled like melting. The Macedonian extreme right wing of the Pionians, archers, Agyrians, mercenaries and two squadrons of cavalry launched a pursuit and killed all the Persians who failed to escape in time. The Persian right-wing cavalry, which had gained the advantage, noticed the rout of the left wing, and soon heard the cry of "The king has escaped!" They immediately lost their courage, began to waver, and after realizing that they could not win no matter how hard they fought, they turned around and ran away. The Thessalian cavalry followed closely behind - in pursuit, not only killing a large number of these cavalry, but even causing the Persian cavalry to trample each other. -=
Before launching a full-scale pursuit, Alexander had to ensure the safety of the left wing and center. In addition, as night approached, he could not pursue too far. These two reasons allowed Darius himself to flee, but Alexander captured his chariot (with Darius' Mede cloak still in it), bow and arrows, and shield. Darius fled as far as the Euphrates River and stopped fleeing after crossing from Tapsakas to the other side of the river. From the remains of this army, he collected only 4,000 Greek mercenaries. All the Persian infantry who were not killed fled into the mountains, while the cavalry fled along the coast and finally escaped through the Upper Amanus Pass. It is said that a group of 8,000 Greek mercenaries, led by Amyntas, the son of Antiochus, fought their way south along the coast and fled to Phoenicia. They seized the ships from the Lesbos and burned them. The unwanted portion of the ship then sailed to Cyprus and then fled to Egypt. Also fleeing with Amyntas were Symondas son of Mentor, Aristodemus of Phares, Beanor the Acarnanian, and other fugitives.
Arthamis and Lomisrace, who escaped with their lives in the Battle of Granicus, were killed in the Battle of Issus. A large number of Persians were killed. According to the original history, the number reached 100,000, including 10,000 cavalry. Ptolemy, son of Lagus, claimed that his soldiers threw the dead enemies into ravines and piled them up to form bridges across them during the pursuit.
But this time, Li Ning's joining has changed things a lot.
According to Emperor Zhao Zhen's idea, Li Ning only needs to wait on the enemy's retreat and then take a huge advantage.
However, the bargain is so great that it is beyond the imagination of ordinary people.
First of all, they saw that the Porter front was unable to organize an effective attack. When they encountered Li Ning who was stabbing out of the enemy on the way to escape, they almost fell into greater chaos and tragic mutual trampling without any defense.
Secondly, the bravery in the Persian sword was habitually used on the battlefield. When they rushed towards Alexander as bravely as Wang Xin, they did not expect that the opponent's decisiveness far exceeded their imagination, so their lives were cut off like this. It was wasted on the previous battlefield, and after that, when their soldiers met Li Ning, these people who could have commanded the soldiers were gone, so more and more disorder and chaos took away more and more Persians. s life.
What was even more fatal was that the advantage Alexander gained through the Eastern Front battlefield also played a similar role at this time. The two sides almost drove the Persians to flee through a flanking attack from both sides.
Therefore, the results achieved by both sides along the way are very brilliant.
When the post-war inventory data came out, Li Ning learned that his group of soldiers had beheaded 70,000 people on the battlefield. Pang Ji had never fought seriously in his life. I simply can’t believe such a gain.
So he panicked and quickly ordered his men to re-examine it, but the result of the examination was that more heads were sent in and the number exceeded 80,000.
Many people would not dare to write such a battle report. Fortunately, Li Ning is a brave guy. The number he wrote for these soldiers was more than 100,000.
The two important border ministers who were simply in the emperor's heart were ready to use their positions in the emperor's heart to securely preserve the battle results that the soldiers had worked so hard for.
On the Macedonian side, 450 people were killed, of which 300 were infantry and 150 were cavalry, with a death rate of 1.5%.
In addition, Curtis believed that the number of killed was 180, while Justin said it was 280. There are also different opinions on the number of injured. The ratio of wounded to dead was usually 10:1 at the time. Based on this calculation, the number of casualties in the entire army reached 5,000, and the casualty ratio was about 17%, which was much higher than the average number of modern battles, in which the casualty ratio was rarely More than 10%.
There are no records to allow speculation about how many men in Alexander's army died from wounds. However, this number will undoubtedly be large, because even those wounds from javelins, stones, and bows and arrows that may not seem too serious today would have been fatal under the poor medical conditions at that time. What we do know for sure is that there were a lot of men disabled from their injuries, and the number of troops attrition was very high. It is impossible that the number of soldiers killed in battle was as small as the number of casualties indicates.
In addition, ancient victorious armies did not lose men due to capture. Therefore, when comparing the loss of personnel in ancient battles and modern battles, we must subtract the so-called "missing" personnel who are often quite large in modern battles [illustration]. The treasure the Persians brought to the battlefield was worth less than 3,000 talents, but they also kept a large amount of gold in Damascus. After the battle, Alexander sent Parmenio across the Orontis Valley to seize Darius' treasure. Due to the treachery of the Syrian governor, this part of the treasure, which had been transported out of the city, was intercepted by Parmenio, and was later stored there. The next day, although Alexander himself was cut by a sword in the thigh, he limped forward to visit the Macedonian wounded, praised those who performed outstandingly in the battle, and rewarded them with cash. Afterwards, he participated in the ceremony of burying the deceased with military etiquette. The whole army attended the funeral solemnly as if they were participating in a battle.
Li Ning and his Song Dynasty army also suffered heavy casualties in this fierce battle.
Especially in the initial tug-of-war, the battle loss ratio between the two sides was actually close to 1:1.5, which was a very dangerous number.
However, after Li Ning decisively changed his strategic plan, any losses had nothing to do with Song Chang's main army. Instead, it was the Greek mercenaries and landlords who had just joined them and found the most suitable place to use them.
But their funerals were not held together with those of the Macedonians. Because their bodies need to be transported back to the Song Dynasty, and their merits will be admired by future generations.
However, after the collective funeral, Li Ning still received a piece of good news that shocked him inexplicably.
Darius's family was actually abandoned in the camp by the Persians.
In the previous war, Di Qing, who followed Li Ning to this station, first discovered the camp. Ferotas followed him and rushed in, and then Amyntas followed Alexander.
When they saw the family members and treasures inside, they were shocked and speechless.
Especially the stunningly beautiful Queen Statis, which made all three grown men drool.
Li Ning felt that he had given the vigorous Di Qing a hard lesson. Immediately afterwards, Amyntas also scolded him. Fortunately, the other party did not regard Li Ning as an outsider at all. Instead of being angry, he proposed to give half of the treasures in the camp to Li Ning.
However, his proposal was not finally implemented, because Alexander arrived later. He stopped Amyntas's idea and believed that the important reason for the victory in this battle was that both countries participated in the battle together. Therefore, the treasures that should be divided equally should not only include those in this small camp, but also those transported to Damascus by Darius III before.
There is no doubt that Alexander once again showed his generosity here, but Li Ning felt a little undeserved. After all, it was Alexander, not Li Ning, who was responsible for the main offensive task on the front line.
What's more, he is also worried that Alexander will learn about his true history from the Song Dynasty in the future. If he learns that he can achieve such a great victory without the Song Dynasty, he will definitely regret giving away some of the spoils. Distributed to Li Ning.
But the Song Dynasty would also feel wronged, because they did indeed contribute, which greatly reduced the difficulty of Alexander's victory.
But no matter what, if the other party finds an excuse, it is very likely to bring danger to himself.
Therefore, he praised Alexander's bravery as much as possible in this battle, thinking that this was a victory given to him by God. Although the Kingdom of Heaven had suffered heavy casualties in the previous battlefields, it also played a huge role in stabilizing the battle line and restricting the Persian king's escape route. But he still doesn't think Heaven should use this as an excuse to get too much loot.
Alexander was very moved by Li Ning's statement. When he later saw Li Ning imploring him to adjust the distribution ratio of the spoils, he couldn't help but hug him. Then the two parties agreed that half of the spoils would be distributed in proportion to the number of dead soldiers on both sides. Give it to both parties, and the other half will be divided according to four or six.
As for the pensions for the fallen soldiers, they are distributed according to existing practices. They can be drawn from the spoils of war, or allocated from savings or warehouses. Both Alexander and Li Ning emphasized that because of the great victory in this battle, more pensions can be appropriately distributed. To the fallen soldiers.
After the funeral, the good news that Li Ning got from Alexander was the final agreement. At the same time, Alexander also proposed to engrave these terms on a stone tablet according to the way they had formed an alliance before, so that it could be called the law of change. .
Since this stone monument will be located on this battlefield, the Battle of Issus also has an accessory because of their creativity, which is the Issus Alliance Monument.
After handling this matter, they began to deal with another very important matter, which was the family members of the Persian king who were also found in the camp.
They were respected and treated favorably by Alexander from the beginning. Even if it is true, as many people claim, that Alexander's generosity did not come from his heart, he also controlled his emotions under etiquette, which is unusual for young people.
And in fact, Plutarch, Arrian, and other historians said that Alexander was magnanimous when he evaluated him. Obviously, this evaluation is closer to the truth. We cannot do justice to Alexander's character if we see only the evil deeds that exposed his shortcomings and not the good deeds that proved his nobility and kindness.
The history books mention that after Alexander returned from the chariot chasing Darius, he heard the cry of a woman while eating with his fellow cavalry in Darius's camp. In the reality that Li Ning saw, although this situation did not occur, of course this may be due to the butterfly effect, His Majesty the King was still very considerate and polite in caring for the female family members.
The Persian Queen Mother Sisygambis and Queen Statila were the most famous beneficiaries of this.
