Fanabazos expressed his concerns, but most governors still insisted on fighting with the Greek coalition here. In addition to the Persian nobles despising the arrogance of the Greeks, another important reason was that the two armies were located at the southwestern edge of the Missia region, not far from the coast. The Persian army was huge and the military rations were consumed. Coupled with more than ten days of continuous pursuit, the logistics transportation line was rapidly lengthened and supply became difficult. Most of the nearby towns surrendered to the Greek coalition. In addition, the Greek coalition fleet controlled the nearby waters, and logistics supply was advantageous. If the two sides confronted each other for one or two days, the Persian army would have to retreat due to the exhaustion of food, which would not only waste the previous efforts, but also lead to the loss of Persia's prestige in this area.

Under their insistence, Fanabazos finally strengthened his determination to fight the Greek coalition here.

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Upon learning that "the Persian army was advancing towards the camp", Leoticides, who had been prepared, immediately sent a messenger to inform the Allied generals to gather their respective troops and prepare to go out to fight.

At about one mile apart, the armies of both sides began to line up.

The Persian Asian Minor coalition consists of armies in western Asia Minor, Greek mercenaries, city-state reinforcements in Youkexinghai, and reinforcements in eastern Asia Minor, with a total of nearly 80,000 soldiers. Since there are many Greek city-states in western Asia Minor and the Ekexinghai, this Persian army is somewhat different from the traditional Persian army. Moreover, Fanabazos learned from the lessons of previous fights with the Greeks and emphasized in military mobilization.

The district should try its best to recruit Greek city-state infantry, so in addition to the 15,000 Greek mercenaries led by Jason, there are more than 6,000 heavy Greek infantry with strong combat power in the entire army, as well as Persian cavalry from eastern Asia Minor, Mesopotamian cavalry, and cavalry from other regions. The total number of cavalry exceeds 8,000. In addition, there are more than 40,000 Persian traditional infantry and archers, with a ratio of about 1:2.

Archers and cavalry were originally Persia's strengths, and their original weaknesses were also strengthened, and the number of troops was also greater than that of the other side. Although they were not superior in the terrain, Fanabazos was still very confident in this battle, so he adopted a relatively balanced formation: the heavy infantry of Greece was located at the forefront of the left, middle, and right-wing infantry array, Jason's mercenaries were mainly located in the middle, with 4,000 cavalry at the left and right ends, and the archers were located behind the infantry array...

Leoticides and the Allied generals were not in a hurry to arrange the array, but stood at a high place and observed the Persian array for a while. It felt that it did not exceed their expectations. Then they felt relieved to arrange the array according to the plan they planned last night.

The Greek coalition consists of three corpses of Dionia and cavalry corps of nearly 30,000, the Greek and Ionian Islands troops were about 27,000, and the Central Italian Confederate Alliance troops were 7,000, totaling about 65,000. Among them, there are more than 35,000 heavy infantry. In addition, there are more than 2,000 medium infantry in the central Italian allies, which obviously have the upper hand in medium and heavy infantry. However, the cavalry is only the Dionian Thessalian Cavalry Legion, Macedonian Cavalry, and other Greek city-state cavalry, which is less than half of the Persian cavalry.

In terms of light infantry, there are three light infantry brigades of the Dionian Legion, more than 1,000 Epirus light shield soldiers recruited by Leoticides in the mountainous areas around Thessali, 2,000 light infantry from the Allied Army in central Italy, and nearly 3,000 light infantry provided by Greek city-states. The total number of light infantry was close to 10,000, but it was still far less than the number of Persian archers, and the Javeliners accounted for the majority, which was obviously not as good as that of the Persian army in terms of range.

According to the advantages and disadvantages and quantity of enemy and our troops, the formation listed by Leoticids is: the middle is mainly in charge of Dionia, and there are also a small number of Greek soldiers; the right wing is the Greek city-state army; the left wing is the front row of Dionia soldiers, and the rear is the Allied soldiers in central Italy; the cavalry is not placed at both ends of the military formation, but stays in the rear of the middle.

The entire formation of the Dionian army was not completely parallel to the Persian army. Its right wing was slightly forward and the left wing was slightly behind. It was actually an oblique array, but it was different from the array of the Thebesian coalition in the Battle of Liuquetra. Leoticides did not thicken his right wing, but he placed the Spartan warriors led by Agsilos, the Thebes Saints led by Ipa Mironda, and the elite heavy infantry at the Athenians led by Iphiclatas, the strongest combative army among the three Greek allies at the far right end of the right wing. From a distance, the right wing of the entire Greek coalition was all Greek heavy infantry (Leoticides even prohibited Spartan warriors from wearing red cloaks), and even the thickness of the array was the same, making it impossible for the Persians to make an accurate judgment - the focus of the attack of the Greek coalition was on the right wing.

In fact, Leoticides' careful arrangement did play a role. It took more than an hour for the two armies to set up their formations, but neither of them immediately launched an attack. During this confrontation, Persian military commander Fanabazos had already roughly understood the formation arrangement of the Greek coalition, but did not make any formation adjustments. It was obvious that he believed that the opponent's formation was nothing surprising and that the Persian army could deal with it.

But the reason why he had not issued an order to attack was that the Greek coalition was at a high place and the Persian army was at a disadvantage in attacking upwards, so he never ordered the entire army to advance, just to see if the opponent could attack first, so that the Greek coalition would have to go down a gentle slope and fight against them on the flat ground. But obviously the commander of the Greek coalition was very cautious and had a relatively effective control over the entire army.

From a distance, the Greek coalition soldiers were like small trees standing still, neatly planted on the hill half slope... This made Fanabazos more cautious.

But after the half-hour confrontation between the two sides, the Persian generals couldn't help but rush to question Fanabazos, because it was already noon and the weather was hot, and standing for a long time consumed a lot of energy for the soldiers. If this continued, they might be unable to fight and had to retreat.

Even the Governor of Missia, Theopupus, threatened: If Fanabazos did not issue an offensive order, he would lead Missia's army alone to attack the Greeks.

Fanabazos could not resist everyone's insistence, but he did not immediately issue an order for the entire army to attack, but instead notified the archers to move to the front of the formation.

After completing this formation change, he ordered again: the large army remained unmoved, the archers advanced and attacked the Greek coalition at a long range.

More than 20,000 Persian archers lined up in a loose formation of six or seven miles long to approach the Greek coalition...

Leoticides, who learned of this situation, immediately ordered that all the coalition light infantry move forward to the front of the formation and prepare for shooting.

The two armies were only more than 500 meters apart. The Persian archers marched at a fast speed. After a moment, they approached a hundred meters. The enemy was still outside their range; but for the archers in the Greek coalition light infantry standing at a higher terrain, this barely entered their range.

The officers of the Dionia Light Infantry Brigade shouted one after another: "Arrowers are ready!"

Archers pulled their bows and arrows, and thousands of arrows were shot into the air, and they turned into the array of Persian archers, and screams rang out one after another.

Led by the Dionian light infantry, other coalition archers also began to shoot one after another.

Although Persian archers kept falling to the ground, for their huge number, it was just a splash of water. Moreover, in order to fight against Persian archers, the Greek coalition light infantry also pulled their formation to a length of several kilometers. However, their total number was less than that of the other party, and there were even fewer archers. Therefore, the long-range attack power spread to each area was naturally much weaker, which was not enough to cause a devastating blow to Persian archers in this area. Therefore, the Persian archers firmly advanced faster under the rain of arrows.

When the distance was shortened to six or seventy meters, the javeliners in the Dionian light infantry squad roared everywhere, and heavy javelins were thrown at the Persians in lightning. The archers also changed from the initial shooting to direct shooting. More Persian archers fell, but at the same time their counterattack began.

Both sides were arrows coming and going within a distance of dozens of meters. Since there was no protection, the casualties caused by arrows and javelins that covered the sky and the sun were increasing sharply.

Persian archers gradually brought back the entire situation from the initial hasty shooting to the gradual stable output, and gradually began to gain the upper hand. They are worthy of being one of the most powerful weapons for Persia to dominate the Middle East and Asia Minor. In addition to the well-trained Dionian light infantrymen who can fight against it, the light infantrymen of the allies have begun to feel a little dissatisfied. The Epirus light shield soldiers even used leather shields to protect their heads and rushed over to fight with the Persian archers at close range.

The Persian archers were resolutely not afraid and drew out a specially equipped short blade to fight. Although the light shield soldiers were equipped with better equipment, the Persian archers actually gained a slight advantage from more to less.

The entire battle situation began to be a little unfavorable to the Greek coalition, but Leoticides, who had been paying attention to the situation at a high place, did not seem anxious. He just ordered: to move the entire cavalry unit forward to the far right end of the entire army.

Then he calmly ignored the light infantry of the coalition and did not take any action. Because in his opinion, although the light infantry of the coalition was at a disadvantage, they were able to deal with Persian archers who were far more numerous than their own for a long time. Even if they were all damaged in battle, the arrows of Persian archers were almost exhausted by then, and there was no great threat to the infantry of the coalition. Therefore, he would rather continue to confront each other than give up the geographical advantage that he had finally obtained and give orders to attack the entire army. Moreover, he firmly believed that the patience of the Persians might not be as good as him.
Chapter completed!