Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece - Chapter 1224

[Chapter 173]

At first, after Thessaly’s army left, Ifikrates still led the somewhat unstable Greek coalition to suppress Dionia’s camp, which was one of the reasons, and now what he was worried about happened.

But at this moment, he can’t care much anymore, and the order remains unchanged and must be executed.

Of course, it is impossible for Ifikrates to retreat immediately, because the logistics supply of the Greek coalition is different from that of the Dionysian army. According to the regulations, each city-state army is responsible for its own military supply, so there is no special logistics department. Instead, a market was set up near Leprion, where merchants from various city-states could sell food and other supplies, and the army of each city-state would go to the market to buy military supplies, and some merchants even followed the city-state army when they set off. thereafter.

The only difference between Athens and Thessaly army is that Athens has the assistance of Persia, and Jason has unified the city-states of Thessaly, and has enough financial and material resources to set up a cargo battalion to meet the soldiers’ ration supply.

Therefore, on the morning when Patroclus led his army into Central Greece, the small town of Leprion in the Peloponnese was extremely lively and noisy. In addition to the soldiers of the army of the city-states pulling out their tents, merchants from various city-states were also there. Packing up their own goods, arranging the pack team to leave… The whole scene is very chaotic.

In order to worry about accidents, Ifikrates ordered the nearly 20,000 Athenian soldiers who had assembled to make defenses, and their tents and items were completely handed over to the baggage team to pack up.

The Dionysian army did not appear, but the whole process of pulling out the battalion took a lot of time, and it was only in the afternoon that the entire army began to march east.

During this period, the army of Elis and the city-states of Arcadia left the coalition one after another, reducing the number of troops led by Ifikrates to less than 30,000, which made the soldiers feel a little uneasy.

Ifikrates has been urging the allied army to speed up the march, even at dusk, he did not let the army stop to rest until night fell, when the allied army reached the junction of Megalopolis and Taigea, he issued a rest. The command.

This happened to be the camp that the Dionian army built here before. Later, when the Greek coalition attacked Lagonia, it was used for a short period of time, so it could be directly stationed in the camp.

When the soldiers who had worked hard for a day soon fell asleep, Ifikrates was still frowning in the military tent, because the Greek coalition had retreated very smoothly and was not disturbed or pursued by the Dionysian army. And the sentry sent out to report to him: Camp Dionia on the northern border of Messenia found nothing unusual.

Although the Dionysian army has always been unable to hold firm in the past, but today the movement of the Greek coalition forces is so great that they do not want to retaliate?

!

…Ifikrates was puzzled.

On the second day, Ifikrates suddenly asked the coalition to change the marching route, first turn back to the city of Megalopolis, and then go directly north through the mountains, which is equivalent to bypassing the Tygea-Mandinia plain, and then heading towards the city of Megalopolis. Corinthian march.

This kind of marching method of choosing a detour instead of taking a convenient road was immediately opposed by the Argos,

because the west of the Taigea Plain is close to Argos, and the Argos civic soldiers have already come out to fight. For more than two months, they originally wanted to take this opportunity of the march to return home by the way, but if Ifikrates suddenly changed the marching route, their wish could not be realized, and the Argos immediately refused.

Since the Argos is a strong state in the Greek alliance, the army sent out is full of 7,000 people, second only to Thessaly and Athens, and has considerable weight in this new alliance. Ifikrates had to persuade, For example, “he was worried that there might be an interception by the Dionysian army in the Tygea area”, etc., but the Argos have the same stubborn and conservative character as the Spartans. Once a decision is made, they are reluctant to repent easily. Otherwise, they would have long since succumbed to Sparta’s 100 years of hegemony.

Seeing that he could not convince the Argos, Ifikrates thought about it, he immediately proposed a plan of “the Argos army and the Greek coalition march separately and meet in Corinth”, and the Argos agreed.

Ifikrates’ idea is: Now the strength of the Greek coalition has been greatly weakened. If the Dionysian army, which has been very calm before, dares to appear in the Taigea area to intercept, it must be a victory. The Greek coalition forces There is a danger of annihilation of the entire army, it is better to let the Argos go to test.

If there is a Dionian army intercepting the Tygea area, the Argos can attract the attention of the Dionian army and buy time for the Greek coalition forces dominated by Athenian soldiers to escape smoothly; if not, the Greek coalition forces will only It was a little more detour, and in the end everyone was happy.

Ifetrax certainly hoped the latter would turn out, but unfortunately his instincts were not wrong.

Patroclus had the ships of the First Fleet relay the news to Clotokatax in Messenia when Thessaly assembled his army to head south.

After discussing with Plintos, Clotokatax believed that the Greek coalition would soon withdraw, so it was decided to quietly withdraw the legionnaires stationed on the northern border of Messenia to Lagnia, while the camp’s troops would retreat. The defense was taken over by the newly formed Messenian Reserve.

Since the Greek coalition did not carry out any decent attack on Camp Dionia these days, Ifikrates did not find anything unusual.

Clotokatax also sent mountain reconnaissance soldiers to closely monitor the movements of the Leprion camp. As soon as the Greek coalition began to retreat, the scouts rushed back to Lagnia desperately and reported this to Clotokatax. The news, so when the Greek coalition troops stationed in the original Dionysian camp in Megalopolis, the first and seventh legions of Dionia had quietly entered the territory of Tygea.

The plan drawn up by Printols is: when the Greek coalition marches to Tygea tomorrow, the first and seventh armies and the newly formed Lagna Brigade will form an interception in front of it, and when the enemy has to stop. When preparing for the battle, Commander Crotokatax led the 4th and 6th Corps and the 1st Cavalry Corps, which had long been hidden on the northern border of Lagonia, and rushed to the battlefield, attacked from front and back, and completely wiped out the Greek coalition forces.

But contrary to Plintos’s expectation, this large net, which was carefully arranged, finally caught only the large and small fish of the Argos army, which also delayed the Dionysian army for most of the day. time.

Not only did Ifikrates lead the main force of the Greek coalition, Jin Chan, to escape and jump out of the siege, but he also ordered his troops to abandon the merchants and packs accompanying the army, accelerate their advance, and finally entered the city of Corinth ahead of the Dionysian army.

The main force of the Greek coalition led by Ifikrates and the army that had previously surrounded Mandinia converged here, and the strength was restored to more than 30,000, but he soon learned that “Thessaly’s army was defeated, and the north of Dionia was The landing army has invaded the Attica area.” He did not rest in Corinth, so he was anxious to bring the army to Attica and guard Athens.

But at this time, the Greek coalition was divided again: Corinth refused to let the civic soldiers of its city-state follow, because it also faced the threat of the Dionian army from the south; Worrying about the safety of his city-state, no matter what Ifikrates discouraged, he insisted on risking his way through the Pioxia League, which had declared war on the Greek League, and returned to his home state.

In this way, the entire Greek coalition is actually left with more than 10,000 troops from Athens and its maritime allies, and the Greek coalition has already existed in name only.

After the army led by Patroclus

merged with the army of Thebes, the first target of the attack was not any town in Athens, It was Oropus, the easternmost city-state in the Pioxia region.

Although Oropus belongs to the Pioxia region, it has always been attached to Athens and refused to join the Pioxia League. The Thebes have long regarded it as unpleasant, but they were worried about Athens’ interference, so they never did anything to it.

Patroclus chose it as the first target, also to show Dionysian goodwill to Thebes.

The 40,000-odd Dionian coalition forces quickly surrounded Oropus, and the Athens reinforcements did not even show a shadow. Thousands of Thebes soldiers launched a storm on Oropus.

One day of fierce battle, although the city was not conquered, it has already caused a lot of casualties to the Oropus. Kaicheng surrendered early in the morning.

The morale of the Dionian coalition turned to the Athenian border.

There are continuous mountains as a natural border dividing line between the Attica region of Athens and the Pioxia region.

After learning of the news that “Thessaly’s army was defeated and the Dionysian army went south”, Athens carried out an emergency military mobilization, quickly forming an army of 10,000 people and nearly 8,000 mercenaries of Jason’s housed, Rush to the border for defense.

In the north, take Panisa Mountain as the defense center and arrange the defense line, and in the south, take the West Saron Mountain as the defense center and arrange the defense line.

Considering that Platia, controlled by the Thebes, was not far from Mount Sisalon, it had a lot of convenience for attacking, so Athens deployed more mercenaries in the mountains to the south, because their combat effectiveness was stronger.

Patroclus did appear to be preparing for a breakthrough from the mountains to the south, as he led more than half of his army into Platia.

But in fact, the north was the focus of the attack of the Dionian coalition. The Gallic Reserve Brigade, the Twelfth Army and the Third Army were all arranged in the north. Led by Lizaru, they first attacked the defense line.

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