The Battle of Kulikovo is not only a major historic battle (signifying both the symbolic formation of the Russian Empire and the symbolic fall of the Mongols), but also one of the most balls-out super-heavyweight-battles in all of Eurasian lore. By the time the battle officially concluded, a good one-third of Dmitri Ivanovich’s troops (consisting mostly of warriors pulled from the numerous principalities of the pre-unified Russian countryside) were dead as shit, but in the process, they managed to basicallythe entire Golden Horde, uh, horde facing them, as before sundown on Sept. 8, 1380, the Don River was choked and clogged with at leastdead Mongol soldiers…no small feat, mind you, considering the Mongolians outnumbered the pre-Russians by a margin of at least 2-to-1

The Mongol-Russian hostilities began several decades earlier, when Golden Horde splintering resulted in the formation of independent, non-Mongol tribes in what is now modern day Russia. The Mongols, already on the decline as far as international influence was concerned, decided to stage a surprise siege of Moscow by sending Golden Horde general Mamai into the territory. The problem is, the dude camped outside Moscow for almost TWO YEARS waiting for a large enough Mongol army to join him, following the Tatar army getting their ass kicked at the Battle of Vozha in 1378. Not surprisingly, at some time during the waiting period, the leaders of the Moscow Duchy sort ofthe inordinate number of troops just hanging out across the river...and thus, one fateful September morn, the unified Russian ranks decided to stage a surprise attack of their own.

As customary, the battle began with the “champions” of both sides doing battle (with the Russians sending in, of all people, a monk to challenge the Mongolian ass-kicker extraordinaire Temir-murza), which resulted in a surprising double-death that nicely set the tempo for out and out bloodletting for the rest of the afternoon.

The Russians were successful against the Mongols for two primary reasons; first off, they pulled one of the greatest low-budget battle tactic moves of all-time by dressing up Ivanovich as your standard, run of the mill-looking knight, with the Golden Horde chasing after some unfortunate peasant pretending to be the head general for most of the fighting. They followed that up with a double-pronged flank attack, which left the Horde completely encircled and completely S.O.L…and if you’ve ever played any of those “Total War” games on a PC, you know exactly what happens next.

When it was all said and done, a good 20,000 Russian and Lithuanian forerunners had bitten the dust, at the expense of a Tataro-Mongolian body count at least five times as heavy. Needless to say, that was the last time the Golden Horde ever went camping alongside the Ugra River….

The Battle of Chibi

(Winter, 208-209 A.D.)





Military Lesson Learned: If your military opponent offers you several ships worth of "priceless treasures," and said ships sort of look like they're on fire as they come hurdling towards you, odds are, those boats probably don't contain treasure.

Historically, the Battle of Chibi symbolizes the death of the Han Dynasty and the birth of the Three Kingdoms age in China – unless, of course, we’ve all been lied to by a series of niche-market lots and lots of people dying somewhere close to the southern end of the Yangtze River a long, long time ago. Historically, the Battle of Chibi symbolizes the death of the Han Dynasty and the birth of the Three Kingdoms age in China – unless, of course, we’ve all been lied to by a series of niche-market Super Nintendo games . Admittedly, we’re not really 100 percent sure what went down at the Battle of Chibi – occasionally referred to as the Battle of Red Cliffs – outside of the fact that it involvedof people dying somewhere close to the southern end of the Yangtze River a long,time ago.





This much, however, we do know. At the beginning of the third century, China was split into three major provinces, with these guys named Sun Quan and Liu Bei running competing (but not combative) territories in the south, and this dude named Cao Cao ruling the northern plains with an iron fist…when he wasn’t writing limericks about turtles, of course.





yourself “Master of the Universe” in the modern day), he decided that then was the time to unify his empire with the two provinces to the south…and by unify, I really mean “kill the shit out of.” After Cao Cao declared himself the Imperial Chancellor of Han in 308 A.D. (which is sort of like naming“Master of the Universe” in the modern day), he decided that then was the time to unify his empire with the two provinces to the south…and by unify, I really mean “kill the shit out of.”





In a move right out of a James Bond movie, Cao Cao decided to “formerly” declare war against Sun Quan by sending a letter promising 800,000 troops at his doorstep in the not-too-distant future…to which Quan allegedly responded to by chopping his desk in half with a sword and declaring that anyone that even thought about surrendering would likewise get equally katana-ed. Shortly thereafter, Quan sent a good 20,000 troops to link up with Liu Bei’s armies in preparation for an all-out donnybrook against Cao Cao’s massive army – an army, by the way, which was really only about a quarter of the size Cao said it was in his letter to Quan. And if that wasn’t enough, almost one half of Cao’s standing military consisted of captured southern Chinese troops. Shockingly, this was a strategic oversight that Cao never seemed to mull prior to starting his campaign, which, of course, was destined to be an absolutely monumental failure from the start.





The battle (which went on for months, by the way), began with Sun-Liu troops engaging Cao’s troops…who, as fate would have it, had been marched into absolute fatigue by their leader, and thusly about as effective in battle as teats on a boar. Following a quick retreat, Sun-Liu strategist Huang Gai capitalized by sending Cao Cao a fake surrender letter, promising the northern leader boats and boats of treasures as a sign of graceful defeat. Of course, those boats were actually the third century equivalent of suicide bombs, as the Sun-Liu troops followed behind the decoy ships, which were then set ablaze and shoved right into Cao Cao’s armada. Much confusion (and even more people being broiled alive) followed suit, along with yet another Cao Cao retreat.





100,000 of them over the course of The retreat ultimately proved to be Cao Cao’sundoing, as his troops got caught in a ferocious rain storm that completely impeded their attempts to advance the Huarong Road. Doused in mud and festering with disease, the Cao forces were basically eradicated before they even made it to Jiangling. The end result? The Sun-Liu brigade of no more than 50,000 troops absolutely decimated Cao’s 200,000 man plus forces, killing at leastof them over the course of just a few months





NUMBER TWO

The Battle of Fei River







Military Lesson Learned: Never EVER let a captured head of state go free so he can tell his countrymen that he has been captured, because odds are, he'll probably tell his military or something to attack you instead.



Nobody does civil war quite like the Chinese, and the Battle of Fei River remains one of the most important – as well as amazingly one-sided – battles in all of history. (November, 383 A.D.)





th century China, the country was divided by two warring regimes, the Former Qin Dynasty in the north and the Jin Dynasty in the south. The Former Qin Dynasty was led by this guy named always felt the need to display his superiority by brute force. As such, he ultimately decided that the south needed to be absorbed into his empire, and plans were made to do battle with the smaller, albeit scrappier, Jin Dynasty in the spring of 383 A.D. In 4century China, the country was divided by two warring regimes, the Former Qin Dynasty in the north and the Jin Dynasty in the south. The Former Qin Dynasty was led by this guy named Fu Jian , who was one of those types thatfelt the need to display his superiority by brute force. As such, he ultimately decided that the south needed to be absorbed into his empire, and plans were made to do battle with the smaller, albeit scrappier, Jin Dynasty in the spring of 383 A.D.





Although Fu’s troops were larger than those in the south, they were also poorly trained. Fu, in a statement that seems to encapsulate the failings of thousands of cocky military strategists, once remarked “My army is so huge that if all the men throw their whips into the Yangtze, its flow will be stopped.” The Jin troops, actually aware that they would be fighting in their own territory, quickly arranged for a quick advance-and-retreat model, which would not only lead to a decisive victory for the boys from the South, but led to one of the most monumental ass-beatings in the history of classical military warfare.





After Jin forces captured Shouyang in October of 383, Fu made the disastrous decision to free the captured Jin official Zhu Xu so he called go tell a fellow high ranking official to surrender. The thing is, instead of telling him to throw in the towel, Zhu told him that not all of Fu’s troops had yet to advance, thus giving the Jin troops an easy opportunity to stage a surprise counter attack back in Shouyang. When Fu ultimately made it into Shouyang, he made the fatal assumption that the Jin Dynasty troops were just as large as his, leading to a completely unnecessary strategic retooling that basically guaranteed his own ass-pounding.





Despite being told by his generals to not do it, Fu authorized his troops to make a fateful trip down the Fei River, were his ships were routinely ambushed by Jin forces. Zhu, a military genius a good 1,800 years ahead of his time, decided to bribe a number of Former Qin officials to disobey orders, culminating with Zhou just saying that the Qin had been defeated, and spreading the propaganda around China until the Former Qin troops and officials actually believed it. In other words? Zhu conquered a nearly one million man strong army, using what is tantamount to the Jedi Mind Trick.





With the Former Qin troops in absolute disarray, Zhu authorized an offensive that wiped out almost 80 percent of the standing Fu forces…which led to the Former Qin Dynasty absolutely imploding and falling into a civil war, while Zhu – the P.O.W. turned courier turned god of war – went on to have the greatest prestige imaginable attached to his namesake, with a long running “Dynasty Warriors” character being named in his honor









Whether or not the real-life Zhu, at any point in battle screamed " The Drive-In Totals on this one? According to Jin Shu records, a humble force of no more than 80,000 Jin troops killed, at rough estimate, about 700,000 of the almost 900,000 invading Qin warriors.Whether or not the real-life Zhu, at any point in battle screamed " I'm starting to work up an appetite! ", however, has yet to be verified by historians.