Ferrying the River (below)

 Arrived at the center of the river, the depth of the water is really as Kerisopus said only to the crotch, which makes the heart of the soldiers a little apprehensive completely relieved, the pace is also more accelerated.

 The Persian army was already some distance away from the river bank, and their speed was affected by the dense reefs along the river bank in their haste. The stone throwers at the back of the mercenaries used their long range to disrupt the formation of the Persian army, so before the Persian army could reach the bank, and before the archers could shoot two rounds of arrows, the mercenaries had rushed to the bank.

 Ojontas, the great Persian nobleman who spent his days drinking wine and playing with dancing girls in his tent, never had a detailed investigation and understanding of the battlefield surroundings, and faced with the mercenaries wading across the river so easily and quickly, approaching him with the ferocity of a hungry wolf, he was completely flustered.

 Fortunately, his adjutant was calmer and urged the infantry to move up quickly to surround him.

 The first few columns of mercenary soldiers rushed ashore and had to slow down because of the jagged reefs along the shore, which gave the Persian army time to catch its breath, and they finally closed in like a tidal wave, gradually wrapping the mercenaries ashore in a tight circle ...

 For close combat, the mercenaries were never afraid. The round shield in their left hand protects their own body and that of their teammates, their right hand raises up their bayonet and crosses over the top of the round shield, stabbing at the enemy on the opposite side, while the soldiers in the back rows also stretch their bayonets forward as far as they can, protecting their teammates in the front rows of the battle and at the same time, also creating a deterrent to the enemy. Although the soldiers at the back of the array were unable to participate in the fight, they were not standing idly by, they tried their best to push forward against the soldiers in front of them, hoping to use their strength to push the other side's line backward, or even squeeze through ...

 The brawny Kardanians directly faced the ferocious onslaught of the mercenaries, swinging their spears back without any sign of weakness, while the Persians' greater strength and higher ground offset some of the Greek heavy infantry's onslaught. The bowmen at the back of the Persian army and the bow cavalry at the further back did not dare to show weakness, and desperately shot a round of sharp arrows to return the long-range strikes of the Greek stone throwers and archers.

 The two sides engaged in a bloody fight on the northern bank of the Kentrit River. If the mercenaries won, they would set foot on Armenian soil and ravage it, something Ojontas and the Armenian generals under his command desperately did not want to see; and if the mercenaries lost, they faced annihilation. So both sides were fighting tooth and nail.

 The mercenaries standing in the river faced the biggest dilemma: on one hand, the piercing river water was gradually taking away their physical strength; on the other hand, most of the arrows from the Persians were falling on them. It made them put their round shields to protect themselves while at the same time preventing from being washed away by the river.

 Davos witnessed a soldier who slipped and fell, and the soldiers around him went up to save him, out of the protection of his shield, and was struck by an arrow and fell into the water, a wound that was not very serious but made it difficult to get up because of the heavy armor he was wearing ...

 Why haven't the Spartan soldiers shown up yet? Davos was anxiously expecting it in his mind.

 Standing on the heights of a large rock, Ojontas, steadied by the balance of the battle, began to feel hopeful again in his heart as he saw mercenaries struggling to be swept downstream by the Kentritt River from time to time. Of course he could not see and would not look at the soldiers under his command who were likewise falling ...

 Suddenly, from the right flank of the military formation came a great clamor.

 "What is Artukas up to?" Ojontas looked out to his right with some annoyance and saw a startling sight: the light infantry and bow cavalry at the rear of the right flank were routing in panic, and in the wake of these defeated soldiers a few hundred heavily armed Greek soldiers formed a thin line of infantry, driving the defeated soldiers towards the center of the road ...

 "Greeks! It's the Greeks! Quickly! Quickly! ..." Ojontas panicked again, and a cry escaped his lips.

 Adjutant hastily led the governor's personal guard to meet up, want to stop the routed soldiers, to prevent them from rushing through the middle of the formation, who knows that those Greek soldiers are not at all like ordinary Greek heavy infantry, they run quickly, chasing the routed soldiers behind, a wave of the shield on the stunned, a shot out of the gun on the piercing of down, is simply a highly efficient tool for killing, the Persians like to escape from the devil of hell like life wildly running, personal guards are simply not able to stop, and the Persian people were instantly wrapped up and fled to the left front, the Persian right and center formation completely shattered. Instantly was wrapped up to the left front fled, the Persian right and center of the formation is completely broken ...

 And the mercenaries who were blocked on the river bank easily broke through the line of panicked Kardanians at the moment, and also began to kill in a big way ...

 It must be said that the Spartan warriors, who had been engaged in military training since childhood, had great tactical skills, and according to a rough plan beforehand, they began to consciously drive the routed soldiers towards the river bank, and except for a few sober Persians, most of the soldiers did not know the direction, but just fled along with the flow of the people, and when they saw that ahead was the wide river Kenterit, they all heaved with despair... ...

 After his personal guard escorted Ojontas to safety, Ojontas could not help but howl when he saw that the originally vast army of more than 20,000 men was now followed by only a few hundred. He knew that he could no longer stop the Greek mercenaries from setting foot on Armenian territory with his power.

 The mercenary chiefs were excited, and faced with a large number of surrendered Persian soldiers, they made quick decisions: to release soldiers of other Armenian races, such as the Kardans, and to show them the goodwill of the Greek mercenaries; and for the Persians, the choice of the chiefs, including Davos, was to massacre them!

 Ignoring the bitter pleas of the thousands of Persian soldiers who were already unarmed, the Greek heavy infantry in dense formation drove them into the Kenterite River with a wall of shields and bayonets, stabbing them indiscriminately, causing them to push and shove in the river in confusion with stones and arrows, and those who fell into the water would pull down others around them in an effort to survive, like crabs in a jar pulling at each other's legs, with no one able to escape... ...

 It wasn't long before Davos, looking at the river densely filled with floating corpses, sighed darkly and averted his eyes to the opposite bank: not a trace of the Duchesses could be seen any longer, apparently cowering in fear after seeing the great rout of the Boers.

 The rear guard of the mercenaries, as well as the supply battalion, were also able to cross the river Kentritt with ease, and then the whole army, led by the chiefs, occupied the camp of Ojontas, which was already empty, and the Persians, who had fled in haste, had left behind them a great quantity of material and provisions, so that the whole army, after making another sacrifice to Zeus and Okeanos, began the orgiastic celebrations of their victory.

 For everyone knew that after the defeat of Ojontas, there was no one in Armenia who could stop them, and they were more confident that they would be able to return to Greece!

 Concluding Remarks of Volume I

 After writing the first volume, Davos's adventures in Persia have come to an end for the time being, in fact, I wrote this section in Xenophon's "The Longest Journey" is only a very small part of the back of the mercenaries also experienced a lot of difficulties and frustrations, but there is no need to waste more ink on this, because that is not the focus of the book, and it's not that I'm boasting that I don't like to water down the book too much (in fact, it's that the author is poorly written and won't pile up the flashy rhetoric ... laugh!) .

 Davos was reborn in this era, adapted to this era, and through his own wisdom and hard work, became a mercenary leader, gradually mastered the military skills, won the hearts of the army, and stood firmly on the ground, and had already achieved the purpose of this volume. Next, he should fight for his own ideals instead of endlessly conquering and killing on his way back home ...

 For me, it is also a relief, because this volume is too restrictive to the play of my imagination and thinking, after all, the idea of this volume of the novel can not deviate too much from the time, characters, events, and other clues in the "Long March Chronicle," in retaining the original book of about twenty percent of the story based on eighty percent of the innovation.

 The next place where the story takes place is a piece of territory that is unfamiliar to readers and not familiar to scholars. The history of this area is only mentioned in Herodotus' History, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, and the remnants of other scholars' writings of that era, and combined with the ruins, inscriptions, and artifacts unearthed by the later generations, scholars have a general idea of the history of the area during that period, but there is no detailed record of its history. However, there was no book that recorded its history in detail, so the recorded history of the various city-states there was intermittent, not only the political system and diplomatic relations of the city-states were vague, but also the characters, events, and the time of the occurrence of the event were not very specific.

 Based on the information I've gathered (there's even less information about it in China), combined with my own deductions, and imagination, I've constructed a story line that feels more plausible to me, and unraveled the mystery of it as Davos moves forward. I hope you guys will be satisfied.

 Davos has a long journey ahead of him in life, and this is just the beginning. Let's stay with him, encourage him, and go through his legendary journey together ...