Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece - Chapter 888

[Chapter 235 Surrounding Serinus]

Mukru hesitated for a moment and said, “…Sir Commander, do you want to tell Governor Cypros?”

Leotizides said lightly, “It’s too far, it’s too late. Your Majesty should put the Sicilian fleet under my command, it will save a lot of trouble, you can go and execute the order.”

Soon, Miltias’ response was not what Mukru expected, he not only refused the list Otizides offered to let him cruise, and also asked Mukru to speak, gently reminding Leotizides that the Sicilian fleet was not under his command, so he should not worry about the affairs of the navy.

Leotidides made a rare fire in the mansion, but there was nothing he could do.

In the afternoon, the scouts returned to Serinus with bad news: they found a large number of Carthaginian soldiers and ships on many beaches on the coast from Mazara to Liliba.

The Carthaginian army is landing!

Leotidides made the judgment easily.

“Send someone to tell Myrtias and let him figure it out.” Leotizides twitched the corner of his mouth and said sarcastically. It seemed that Myrtias’ response earlier made him very concerned.

“Immediately assemble the Eighth Legion and reserves, and follow me to the shores of Mazara!” At last, Leotizides gave the order.

“Yes!”

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In order to understand and supervise the boarding of the entire army of soldiers in the ports of Carthage and Utica, Margo was almost in the last group of passengers. The front ranks of the ship force entered the port of Lilibe.

As soon as he boarded the pier, he was warmly welcomed by officials of all sizes headed by Lilibe City Lord Imisere, the Carthaginian Army Acting Commander Admika and other officials. mansion.

Marco had just sat down, and before he had time to speak, news came that “tens of thousands of Dionysian troops had left the city of Serinus and marched westward.”

Most of the people present felt nervous, but Marco resolutely ordered: “Assemble the troops immediately and go to intercept!”

Liliba is a military fortress. There are several military camps in the city. There were more than 10,000 Numibian soldiers stationed before (the army led by Monte Adeno), and yesterday they were stationed by Hasdruba. There were about 20,000 Iberian soldiers, and Marco ordered his men to gather them quickly. For the sake of prudence, he also brought 6,000 Iberian soldiers who had just landed in the city.

Leotidides led the army against the wind and rain, and the normal march became somewhat difficult, so it took nearly three hours to approach the city of Mazara.

At this time, he was rewarded by the scout: a Carthaginian army, no less than 30,000, was coming toward them from Liliba.

Since the Battle of Minoa and the capture of Serinus by the Dionian army, Leotizides has thought of various ways to lure the enemies who were huddled in Liliba, Segsta, Mazara and other cities out of the city. Fighting in order to achieve another success, but has been unsuccessful.

Now that the Carthaginian army was finally out of the city, Leotides hesitated.

Although the battle of Miloa exposed the low morale and low combat effectiveness of the Carthaginian army at that time, this did not make Leotizides become arrogant. Through intelligence, he knew that Ibi, who had captured Seldiham, was arrogant. The Leah army should not be underestimated. The Carthaginian army, which is now coming from Lilibe, must also be the main force, and the number of its soldiers far exceeds the number of the troops he led.

During the period when the Dionysian army was stationed in Serinus,

since there was no war, many soldiers from friendly city-states have returned to their homes to prepare for the upcoming harvest season. After the Second Fleet arrived in Sicily, Myrtias once protested to Leotidides that he had arbitrarily adapted the excellent crew of the Dionysian navy into light infantry and served as a subsidiary of the legion in combat (referring to fluke in the storm). part of the tens of thousands of Sicilian fleet sailors who survived).

He also reported the matter to the Ministry of Military Affairs. In the end, Leotidides had to let these crew members return to the naval base in the Catania Plain, so the number of troops led by Leotizides was just over 20,000. More than 3,000 Allied soldiers remained in Serinus, and that was all he now had in western Sicily.

He originally thought that the landing of the Carthaginian army in such bad weather would inevitably cause temporary chaos, but he did not expect the Carthaginians to attack so quickly.

His eyes scanned the heavily armed Legionnaires beside them, their rain-soaked faces showing weariness.

After only hesitating for a moment, Leotizides, who had never been blind and impulsive in fighting, dismissed the idea of fighting the incoming Carthaginian army, and ordered the army to stop advancing and return to Serinus immediately.

Soldiers who ran for nothing and were drenched in soup complained a lot about this.

Leotidides didn’t care about this, he cared about whether the Sicilian fleet could gain something.

……………………………………

Myrtias, after being reminded by his adjutant Mukru, did not fully believe Muklu’s words, given his poor relationship with Leotizides , so he did not immediately lead the fleet to sea, but sent a clipper to the western sea area for inspection.

After being confirmed, he hurriedly led the fleet out of port.

This back and forth, coupled with the fact that the fleet sailed against the wind, by the time it bypassed the cape and arrived at the waters near Mazara, it was already dusk, and the sea, which was full of boats and unusually lively, had basically returned to calm, and the Carthaginian army had returned to normal. The landing was over, and the transportation of baggage and horses that followed was more than half completed.

The Carthage Clippers, which had been observing the movements of the Dionysian fleet, quickly notified the ships that were still on the way. Some of them returned to Carthage immediately, and some rushed into the beaches and ports of Sicily, so the Dionysian fleet was in this area. After searching the sea area for a period of time, only a dozen cargo ships were sunk and captured. Although they also saw many Carthaginian ships docked on the beach from time to time, they did not dare to approach the attack, because there are many ships on these beaches. For many Carthaginian soldiers, it was obviously foolish for the navy to give up its own advantages to fight land warfare, and because of the dark sky and strong wind and waves, two warships accidentally hit the rocks and sank.

Therefore, Myrtias had to order the return voyage, and he was in a very depressed mood on the way: the Carthaginian army was able to successfully land in Sicily, and he had to bear a great responsibility, neither His Majesty Davos nor the Ministry of War would have any questions. Turn a

blind eye to this

……………………………………

The battle in western Sicily took on an eerie calm over the next few days.

In Carthage, Marco was busy reorganizing the chaotic army after the landing, and transporting the supplies scattered on the coast back to Lilibe. At the same time, he also took time to meet officials from the Carthaginian sub-state and the envoys of the allies to learn more about Sicily. In this case, he even summoned Arconis, the leader of Sikel, who had been neglected by Monte Ardeno.

On Dionia’s side, Leotidides no longer sent troops to destroy his opponent’s fields and villages, but ordered his soldiers to fortify the city.

In fact, he has been doing this since the capture of Serinus, because he knew very well that the Minoan battle would not be enough to hurt Carthage, but would attract more violent Carthage Counterattack, the south coast of Sicily is the main offensive route of the Carthaginian army. Serinus at the starting point of this route is very important. As long as it sticks to it, it can give the Carthaginian army further to Dio on the south coast. The offensive of the friendly city-states of Nia creates a great obstacle and helps to accomplish the strategic purpose given by King Davos.

At the same time, Leotizides also sent messengers back to Catanay to inform Cypros of the new war situation. Increases the defenses of Serinus.

Leotizides wanted the battle to take place as late as possible, but Margo couldn’t wait, after all, he had made a promise in the Senate to drive the Dionians out of Sicily within a year.

So three days later, the mighty Carthaginian army surrounded Serinus.

Margo orders the army to start building the camp, while engineers and carpenters build siege equipment.

After the camp began to take shape, he began to send thousands of light infantry formed by various Sicilian allies to gradually clear the traps and obstacles around the city of Serinus.

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Of course Leotidides would not allow the enemy to approach the ditch so easily, so he not only ordered the defenders at the front of the city to carry out fierce long-range attacks on any enemy who entered the attack range under the city, And from time to time, hundreds of thousands of light armored soldiers are organized to take advantage of their unpreparedness to go out of the city to raid the enemy who is busy clearing obstacles.

The aggressive defensive tactics of Leotidides caused a lot of damage to the Carthaginian soldiers who were clearing the obstacles under the city, but after a few days, Carthage’s encirclement of Serinus was still gradually shrinking.

For Marco, who has an army of about 120,000, a few casualties are nothing but a scratch, and it will not affect him in any way, but with the strong military as the backing, the Carthaginians’ clean-up work outside the city of Serinus was not. has never been interrupted.

As the Carthaginian army advanced under the city in an orderly manner, and strengthened the defense against the defenders’ surprise attack, the Dionysian army also reduced the number of raids out of the city after suffering a small loss or two.

Soon, the Carthaginians set up dozens of ballistas in front of the city, continuously bombarding the walls of Serinus with stone bullets.

Since the Dionysian Legion had city wall attack and defense training in their usual military training, of course, they also had their own research on how to defend against the siege weapon ballista.

In addition to letting the ballistas arranged on the city walls and inside the city strike accurately against the enemy’s ballistas, Leotides also asked the soldiers to collect a large number of fishing nets from the fishermen in the port, hang them down from the city head, and cover the walls. to cushion the impact of the stone bullet.