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Surrounded by powerful enemies, the building is about to collapse - how can a thousand-year-old empire continue to prosper? A history of a millennium war to survive against the odds, combining macro strategies with specific combat examples, and drawing on the strengths of classic historical materials and contemporary historians; translated by Ma Qian, the translator of "1453: The Fall of Constantinople", the author of "The Complete History of the Knights Hospitaller", and a well-known military history broadcaster. Eleven high-definition and fine historical maps provide an overview of the thousand-year history of changes in the Eastern Roman Empire's mountainous territories, provincial military districts, and urban road networks. More than twenty refined strategic situation maps provide dynamic analysis of famous battles in the history of the empire. With clear logic and flying words, this book tells how the Eastern Roman Empire withstood thousands of years of military hardships, learned, adjusted, and evolved from disasters that could destroy most civilizations, and developed tit-for-tat new tactics against endless new enemies, thus gaining new life again and again. The author of this book, Dr. Michael Decker, an expert on Byzantine history, relies on his solid professional knowledge to introduce the relevant historical background, the organization and leadership, training and equipment of the imperial army, and the main enemies faced by the empire in various periods. He combines macro strategies with specific combat examples, and finally refines and summarizes the war philosophy on which Byzantium depends for its survival. Surprisingly, many of the experience summaries of this Byzantine art of war coincide with Sun Tzu's art of war 2,500 years ago, and can even be seen as expressions of the same idea in different contexts. It can be seen that even in the most extreme and cruel field of war, human wisdom is still the same.