Then I studied the tactics of Scipio Africano, Alexander the Great, and Genghis Khan.
Of the three, I think Alexander was the greatest, no pun intended.
Scipio was evenly matched against Hannibal of the Carthaginians, and relied on his greater number of cavalry in addiction to his anti war elephant formations. You see, the Carthaginians had about 80 elephants, but very little cavalry support. 80 elephants, was enough to destroy an army. But, Scipio had encountered elephants before, and knew that if he spaced out his men, he would give clear paths for the elephants to march through. He also knew that all beasts of battle choose the easiest path to traverse when in danger. So, when the battle had started, Scipio ordered for the trumpets to sound, making the elephants go all nutty. That meant that a stampede. which disrupted the Carthaginians, who were tightly formed. The Italians(Scipio's force) were unharmed because of the spacing.
Genghis was ok too. He did kick China and Arab butt. But his tactics were more in the weapon technology. The Mongolian composite bow has a range of nearly 400m. Each warrior of Mongol wore a Chinese silk shirt under a leather tunic. This silk shirt minimized the effects of projectiles on them. This just goes to show how you don't need plated armor or chain mail to maximize your defensive advantage. It's all in the physics. Genghis showed his greatest tactical display in the Battle of the Indus River, when some 50000 Mongolian warriors clashed with the same number of Arab cavalry. Both forces were equal in training and numbers. The Arabs tried to envelop themselves onto the left flank of the Mongols, but in secret, a few thousand Mongol riders had crept up behind the Arabs. Only 700 remained of the 50000 under Jalal ad-Din's command. Well, that's what the book says. Wikipedia tells it differently.
Depends on what you want to believe. I just looked under The Battle of Gaugamela, and found this under the location description...
"Darius likes little kid dick"
Either that phrase has a historical meaning, or Wikipedia is sometimes not as reliable as you think. Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. Maybe my book is lying to me too...
Alexander was the coolest. He was so outnumbered. so. so. outnumbered.
Need I say more?
Go read it up your self, I malas wanna explain.
Don't read it up on Wikipedia.
Because the internet truly is evil. Go search for a real history book from a library. Because, you see, the internet makes everyone stupid. People used to spend hours, days, weeks studying something. Now, you just need to go online, look for a summary of the whole damned thing and boast about how you know everything there is to know about it.
I am no exception. I thought I knew Alexander. I thought I knew Plato and Socrates because I saw them in my History text books once or twice. Everyone thinks "wow, so smart. Pythagoras theorem. Wah."
Seriously. Children have no idea how the world works. These thinkers had no idea how the world works. Imagine a child discussing the benefits of justice and inventing gadgets. That's how smart these people were. And here we are, stupidly hoping we can all get straight A's for SPM in an effort to assure ourselves of our intelligence. I will have none of it! I acknowledge my stupidity. I don't go emo in the corner saying how lucky other people are to be intelligent.
And me saying "I'm stupid" is just about the best excuse I can think of to not study right now.
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I also watched 3 good movies very recently.
The first was "Batman Begins". My brother got the nearly 7GB big HD-DVD version of it. Crystal clear. The movie itself is under appreciated by most people. Before that movie, the audience was expected to believe that being bitten by radioactive insects mysteriously grants you powers, making a deal with the devil makes you a hell-spawn super soldier, and aliens from different galaxies look like finely chiseled humans who where red underpants. Batman Begins changed EVERYTHING in the action genre. That's why "fantastic four" movies were so lame.
You see, with Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan delivered a legendary comic book hero to the screen in a realistic fashion. I remember my brother telling me when we were kids, "the cool thing about batman is, he has NO superpowers. He's just a billionaire who's a genius". Christopher Nolan recognized that too. He took Bruce Wayne and gave him a reason to become the Batman. Unlike those 80's and 90's batman movies where villains were colorful and heroes were cool, Batman Begins was just too believable to be called a super hero movie.
Right after Batman Begins, super hero movie makers began making films more believable. Think Transformers, Iron Man, and The Hulk(2008). Mission Impossible III and James Bond suddenly became movies where the hero wasn't the cool guy who played it all by the book. Which is a rip off of the Batman.
Sure, Del Toro made a decent job of the Hellboy movies. Still, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight will always be the best movies in my eyes.
I also watched "The Ghost and the Darkness". I remember when I was about 6, I used to get scared, even though I had no idea what was going on. Then, late last year, my brother asked me what old movies I would want to see. Godfather, duhh. But all we had was "Scarface", also an old school Al Pacino movie. Bad idea, F-bombs every 2 minutes. So, I told him later he should get "the ghost and the darkness", because, just like the movie "Congo", it gave me the creeps when I was a kid, but I couldn't understand why. I wanted to face that fear. So, just a few hours ago, I watched the entire thing. I am truly, truly, still a little freaked out. The story is about 2 man eating lions in Africa, that kill nearly 130 workers. So what's so scary about that you might ask? It's a true story. With little modification. 130 people. They didn't kill for food. Which is something unnatural for lions. Just watch it and get freaked out yourself.
Then I watched Se7en. Staring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman(black guy last). Another scary show. I don't feel like leaving my room, even though I did plan to get something from downstairs a minute before I saw the film. I'm just too freaked out.
These two movies aren't your average scary movies. They weren't even meant for scaring people. They just are scary because of how real they are. And how possible it is for the bad things in these movies to happen than how possible it is for the bad things from a usual horror film to happen. Confusing. I'm just scared now, bare(bear?) with me.
I'm going to sleep now. Hopefully, I can put to sleep all my addictions too. Including blogging. Good night.
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