Cambyses Ⅱ: The second emperor of Achaemenid dynasty in Persian Empire.

Cambyses Ⅱ (English: Persian Cambyses Ⅱ Persian: Ancient Greek: κ α μ β? ση? Reigned from 530 to 522) was the second emperor of Achaemenid dynasty in Persian Empire, and his father was cyrus the great, the founder of Achaemenid dynasty. When his father was alive, he won the title of King of Babylon, and as his father's agent, he presided over the religious ceremonies in the Babylonian New Year celebrations. After his father cyrus the great died unexpectedly in a war in 530 BC, he ascended the throne. In 525 BC, he led the army to defeat the last Pharaoh Psamtik III of the 26th dynasty in Egypt, conquered Egypt, forced cyrenaica and Libya to submit, and extended the territory of the Persian Empire to North Africa. Later, when he tried to invade Ethiopia and Ethiopia, he was frustrated in succession. In 522 BC, there was a rebellion in Persia, and Cambyses Ⅱ immediately sent troops home, but he died mysteriously on his way home. Darius, commander-in-chief of the Imperial Palace Guards, immediately gained the support of the army, led the army to quell the rebellion and acceded to the throne, and became Darius I.

Cambyses Ⅱ is the eldest son of Ka Sang Dan and the daughter of cyrus the great and Achemenied Farnspace [1], followed by a younger brother badia and three sisters: Arthus Tong, Atosa and Rosanna [when cyrus the great conquered Babylon in 539 BC, Cambyses Ⅱ came of age and was soon established as the Crown Prince. At the Babylonian New Year celebration on March 27th, 538 BC, Cambyses Ⅱ, as the agent of cyrus the great, presided over the religious ceremony in the celebration. After that, Cambyses Ⅱ lived in Babylon for eight years, during which he presided over the religious ceremony to celebrate the New Year as the agent of Ju Lushi, which made the local residents used to regard him as their own ruler. However, Cambyses Ⅱ's yamen is not in Babylon, but in Xibaier in the north. According to the clay tablets discovered later here, although Cambyses Ⅱ is the Crown Prince at this time, the actual decision-making power does not seem to be great, and even it is very difficult to perform the daily duties of a Crown Prince.

In 530 BC, Masagatai, a semi-nomadic ethnic group of Serbian tribes, crossed Araques and harassed the northeast border of Persia. A retaliatory war was inevitable, and cyrus the great decided to go out in person. Before leaving Persia, cyrus the great established the status of the ruler of Cambyses Ⅱ and allowed him to use the official title of "King of Babylon", while he himself retained the broader title of "King of the Four Kingdoms". Shortly after the New Year celebration on March 26th, 530 BC, Cambyses and Ju Lushi began to appear calendar years in business documents, which is usually regarded as the beginning of Cambyses Ⅱ's official power.

ascend the throne

In 530 BC, cyrus the great led an army to attack the Masagetai tribe in the grassland on the east coast of the Caspian Sea. The war went smoothly at first, and Prince Masagatai was successfully captured and killed. Then Ju Lushi was lured to the mainland by Queen Tomyris of Masagatai. In a particularly fierce battle with Masagatai's main force, the Persians were defeated, and Ju Lushi himself was seriously injured and died three days later. [1] His body was later discovered by Cambyses Ⅱ, brought back to Persia, placed in a coffin made of gold, and buried in his old capital, Passagard (located in Fars province today). The mausoleum where the coffin was parked faces the rising sun. In the mourning of prayers and helpers, Cambyses Ⅱ became the new owner of a huge empire. According to Elam's custom, he married two sisters, Athosha and Roque Sang Na, to ensure the purity of the great conqueror. After all, only Ju Lushi's son is the most qualified female spouse in Ju Lushi, and this kind of consanguineous marriage will be staged in Persian courts many times in the future.

After cyrus the great conquered the Middle East, Cambyses Ⅱ's foreign expansion naturally fell on Egypt. At this time, Egypt was in the 26th dynasty. Because Pharaoh Ahmos II (known as Amassis II by the Greeks) relies more and more on the support of incompetent mercenaries, and military expenditures are often corrupted by temple monks who have too much decision-making power, Pharaoh's army cannot be compared with the glorious years of ancient times. According to legend, Cambyses Ⅱ first asked Egyptian Pharaoh Yehmus II for the best ophthalmologist in Egypt, so Yehmus II chose an ophthalmologist from Egypt and forcibly sent it to Persia. The disgruntled ophthalmologist immediately persuaded Cambyses Ⅱ to propose to his daughter. Not wanting to send his daughter away or go to war with the powerful Persian Empire, Yehmus II married NiTertis, the daughter of former Pharaoh Aplis, instead of his own daughter. After Nettis married Persia, she told Cambyses Ⅱ what had happened, so Cambyses Ⅱ flew into a rage and decided to go to Egypt. At this time, Phanes, the leader of the Greek mercenaries of Amos II, fell out with Pharaoh and was pursued. Phanes knows a lot of important military information. He was captured when he fled to Lycia, but he escaped again after being drunk with the guards, and finally succeeded in going to Cambyses Ⅱ. Cambyses spent four years preparing for the invasion. All vassals of the empire should provide taxes and military service. People built and collected a large number of ships, and the Persian emperor became the commander-in-chief of a powerful navy for the first time, and invited consultants to seriously analyze the situation.

Battle of Berussia

At Phanes's suggestion, Cambyses Ⅱ sent messengers to make a covenant with the princes, asking them to use camels to provide water for Persian troops when they crossed the desert and reached the Egyptian border. When everything was ready, the Persian army encountered unexpected resistance when passing through Gaza, and the Persians ran over the unwilling city with siege. Six months before Cambyses Ⅱ arrived in Egypt, Pharaoh Yehmus II had died, so when the Persian army arrived at the Egyptian border, Psamtik III III, the new Pharaoh of Egypt, had assembled his troops and waited for a long time at the mouth of Berusia River.

In order to stop the Persian invasion, Yehmus II successfully wooed the Phoenician city-state of Cyprus and made an alliance with Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos. Owning their fleet means controlling the Mediterranean. So before the Berussia War, Psamtik III thought that the allies and Greek mercenaries were enough to deal with the powerful Persian army. However, the plot planned by the Egyptian nobles succeeded in making Policrates change his position, and Policrates even sent 40 three-row paddle warships to assist the Persian army. To make matters worse, Phanes, who has defected to Persia, still holds a lot of important Egyptian military information. According to legend, the angry Psamtik III killed all two sons left by Phanes before the war, and used their blood wine to do heroic deeds for the soldiers.

In May 535 BC, Persians and Egyptians launched a decisive battle in Berussia. It is said that Cambyses Ⅱ ordered soldiers to tie cats to shields, so that the archers of the other side were afraid to shoot arrows, because cats occupied a sacred position in the beliefs of ancient Egypt, which would make them angry but helpless. Therefore, shortly after the end of the war, the balance of victory quickly tilted to the Persians. In this chaotic rout, more than 50,000 soldiers were killed, and Psamtik III led the defeated army back to Memphis. The Persians, who only lost more than 7,000 people, won a total victory. Two generations later, Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian, came here and could still distinguish the bones of the battlefield of violent corpses. Later, Persian warships sailed along the coast. The navy and the army echo each other, and amphibious operations work closely together. The betrayal of Udjahorresne, commander-in-chief of the Egyptian navy, led to the fall of the strategic city of Seth, and Heliopolis was captured after the siege. Psalmtic III, who was hiding in Memphis, did not escape. Memphis was occupied after a siege. According to legend, before the city of Memphis was breached, Cambyses Ⅱ sent messengers into Memphis to persuade the Egyptians to surrender voluntarily to avoid more bloodshed and sacrifice. However, when the ship carrying Persian messengers landed in the suburbs of Memphis, more than 200 people, including Persian messengers, were brutally killed and dismembered by the Egyptians. Angry Cambyses Ⅱ announced that the Egyptians would pay back the blood debt tenfold.

Conquer Egypt

According to legend, after Cambyses conquered Memphis, the capital of Egypt, more than 2,000 Egyptian nobles, including Ahamos, the son of Pharaoh Psalmtik III, were executed as revenge for killing Persian messengers. They were taken to the execution ground in front of Pharaoh with ropes around their necks and horses in their mouths. Pharaoh's daughter became a slave, and under Pharaoh's witness, she drew water with other slaves at the well. At first, Psamtik III's reaction was unexpectedly calm. However, when a friend of Pharaoh became a beggar and was taken to the Pharaoh to beg, Psamtik III could not help crying. When asked why, Psamtik III replied: "My inner pain has already exceeded the degree of crying. However, my partner's misfortune caused my tears of sympathy. A person who has lost great wealth and happiness will have to beg when he is old. " Perhaps Psamtik III's answer touched Cambyses Ⅱ's sympathy and he decided to pardon Pharaoh's son. However, when the messenger arrived at the execution ground, Pharaoh's son had been executed. Psamtik III was then taken back to Susa, the capital of Persia, where he was treated with preferential treatment at first, but was executed shortly after being accused of planning an uprising.

Persians who entered Egypt as winners initially destroyed and plundered temple property in Egypt. Under the influence of the Egyptian aristocrat Udjahorresne, Cambyses Ⅱ restrained his subordinates. He also ordered the demolition of houses and belongings of Greek mercenaries, the cleaning of temples, the return of all serfs in temples, and the restoration of real estate income of knights and other gods. Temple celebrations and * * * are held as usual. After Uga Horesini introduced the Egyptian tradition, Cambyses Ⅱ personally visited Sai, entered the temple to pay tribute to the goddess knight, and gave alms and offered sacrifices like all previous pharaohs. Subsequently, Cambyses Ⅱ accepted the official title of King of Upper and Lower Egypt, a descendant of Rashin. At the same time, on a limestone obelisk, Cambyses Ⅱ is depicted in the costume of a local king and wearing a snake crown symbolizing Egyptian kingship, kneeling in front of sacred animals.

Cambyses Ⅱ's tolerance and respect obviously didn't make Egyptian priests happy for long. Cambyses immediately found that Egypt's fiscal revenue was pitiful, while the mayor of Tamplo held huge wealth. The resulting contradiction between the temple and * * * began to appear in the period of Yehmus II. In a papyrus document discovered later, a decree of Cambyses Ⅱ was recorded. Except for temples in a few cities, all temples in Egypt have raised taxes, and part of the income of temples has been recovered by the state. Although some temple priests got some real estate as compensation, it was still enough to make Egyptian priests hate Cambyses. Egypt was incorporated into Mudraya province of Persian Empire, with Memphis as its capital. Guards continued to guard the border, and a large number of Jewish mercenaries immigrated to Daphne in the eastern delta, Memphis in Baicheng and Eli Pantini in the northern part of the First Waterfall.

After conquering Egypt, Cambyses Ⅱ marched along the Nile and captured the Kharja Oasis from Thebes. He also sent an army of 5,000 people to occupy the Siva Oasis, but the troops were swallowed up by sandstorms when crossing the desert.

He also sent troops to investigate the situation of Ethiopians, and the reports brought back by the investigators were full of overseas anecdotes: Ethiopians generally lived to 1 20 years old, and some even lived longer. Their food is barbecue. In the evening, the city leaders will put the barbecue on the grass outside the capital, and everyone can eat it the next day. It is said that of all people, the king is the highest and most honest person. Even prisoners' shackles are made of gold, but bronze is relatively rare and precious. The coffin for burying the dead is made of glass, through which the body can be seen.

However, the invasion of Ethiopia was not smooth. Mahakubai, Cambyses Ⅱ's confidant and commander-in-chief of the palace guard, was killed in the war with Ethiopia, and Darius, who turned the corner after Cambyses's death, was appointed commander-in-chief of the palace guard. Although Cambyses Ⅱ set up a warehouse in the second waterfall area to supply the troops, the Persian army still failed because of the supply interruption. According to legend, when Cambyses Ⅱ returned from Ethiopia after the defeat, the Egyptians were holding a grand sacrifice to celebrate the "appearance" of Abi Shengniu. Disturbed and depressed, Cambyses Ⅱ thought it was a mockery of his defeat in the battle, so he drew his sword and stabbed Abisheng bull in the abdomen, but he cut the calf. A few days later, the sacred cow died in the temple. It is said that Cambyses Ⅱ was punished and went crazy. However, modern research has confirmed that when this sacred ape cow died, Cambyses Ⅱ was on an expedition to Ethiopia, and the next sacred ape cow lived to be four years old as Darius. Therefore, Cambyses Ⅱ's crazy record is no longer credible.

Cambyses Ⅱ then led the army to invade Ethiopia, but when the army crossed the desert, it suffered serious losses and was forced to return. The constant frustration of exploration led to the outbreak of anti-Persian riots in Egypt. Cambyses Ⅱ returned to Egypt between 523 and 522 BC and quickly quelled the riots. However, due to Cambyses Ⅱ's long stay abroad and continuous military failure, the Persian mainland also began to stir up.

Mysterious death

1 1 BC, in March, 522, Cambyses Ⅱ's younger brother badia declared himself king in Pishijovada, Arak Deris, Kadri. According to the records of ancient historians, the self-proclaimed king of Baldia was forged by a Zoroastrian priest named Gomanda, and the real Baldia was secretly executed shortly after Cambyses Ⅱ ascended the throne. However, this view has been questioned by many modern scholars. It is generally believed that this usurper is the real Baldia himself.

Whether this badia is true or not, in April of 14, he was accepted as king by Babylon. After making a promise of exemption from imperial taxes and military service for three years, he was recognized by the whole empire in July 1. Cambyses Ⅱ made Aryandes, a member of his own clan, the Egyptian governor and returned to China, but he died mysteriously when he reached EC Platthana near Carmel. The specific cause of death is controversial. Darius, the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Guard, immediately got support from the army, returned to China to kill badia, who usurped the throne, and then suppressed the uprisings in Babylon, Elam and Miti. After many bitter battles, he finally turned the empire around.