Expeditionary warfare

The raiding tactics were expanded into the more complex expeditionary warfare operations by Alexander the Great who used naval vessels for both troop transporting and logistics in his campaigns against the Persian Empire.

The next exponents of expeditionary warfare in the ancient world of the Mediterranean Basin were the Carthaginians who introduced two entirely new dimensions to the use of naval forces by staging not only operations that combined naval and land troops, but also eventuated in combining strategic multi-national forces during the land phase of the operation when Hannibal in his most famous achievement at the outbreak of the Second Punic War marched an army, which included war elephants, from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into Northern Italy.

The Han dynasty of ancient China also famously used expeditionary warfare to deal with the nomadic Xiongnu people during the Han–Xiongnu War.

The exploits of famed Han generals Wei Qing and Huo Qubing were of particular note, with both recording multiple successful expeditions between the years 127 and 119 BC, eventually annexing the Hexi Corridor and expelling the Xiongnu from the Qilian Mountains.

Shortly after the collapse of the Roman empire in Italy, the European Middle Ages began with an expedition of imperial Byzantine general Belisarius against the Vandals.

Because the wokou were weakly resisted by the Ming dynasty, the raiding eventually developed into fully-fledged expeditionary warfare with the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598).