Chapter 244 The Battle of Cyprus (1)

Sekelian shook his head gently and said calmly: "The reason why Your Majesty made us take huge risks and travel long distances to come here, the capture of Cyprus is only a secondary purpose, the most important thing is to destroy the Persian fleet and control the Near East waters. Dominance... Now that more than 4,000 heavy infantry have landed, this has posed a great threat to Cyprus and has undermined the attempts of the Persian fleet to intercept us at sea. Under such circumstances, they are likely to face When the threat to our powerful fleet of Dionia, we choose to retreat temporarily, and instead send reinforcements and supplies to towns such as Nicosia on the island, so that it cannot be easily conquered by our army.

After all, our fleet has traveled long distances, and the supplies it carries cannot guarantee the material consumption of our fleet's huge crew. If the army cannot quickly capture towns such as Nicosia, our fleet will have to retreat first. Then... hum, Persia The fleet can easily cut off the sea supply line for the landing army, and the army will be in big trouble-"

Speaking of this, Sekelian's face became very serious: "The bad luck of the army is second, the key is that this time His Majesty personally led the army and wanted to obtain the great honor of conquering Persia. Our navy was given the opportunity to destroy the Persian fleet, The important task of gaining the dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, if I fail to lure the enemy due to passive avoidance of the war, or even lead to the failure of the first battle, which affects the entire war of conquering Persia, I may be ashamed of Your Majesty’s trust, and I even have no words to meet those people. The army generals I once laughed at!"

"It's not that serious..." The flagship captain murmured.

Sekelian glared at him dissatisfied, and said solemnly: "I am the commander of this operation, I must seize every possible opportunity to ensure the smooth progress of the operation, so we must stay here and cannot leave. For the Persian fleet, what could be more attractive to them than to destroy a Dionian fleet that was far fewer than them, while completely besieging the island with several thousand Diorian troops!"

"My lord, our warships are too few after all. I'm worried about the Persian fleet... Really eat us as a delicacy—"

The captain stammered halfway through his speech, when he was interrupted by Sekerian sharply: "Even if the number of Persian warships is two or three times ours, the fleet led by Sekerian will definitely be a hard rock. , it will break the teeth of the Persian fleet! What's more, I believe that Midorades, he is not only experienced in naval battles, but also has a good intuition, and will lead other warships to join us in time to destroy the Persian fleet together! "

After Sekelian made up his mind, the flagship captain did not dare to persuade him any more, but instead conveyed the command of the fleet commander to all the warships: All Raven warships were loaded on the drawbridge and prepared for battle!

More than an hour has passed, and no trace of the enemy ship has been found, but a small number of Cypriot cavalry have appeared on the island. They spy on the Dionian Legionnaires building a camp near the beach from a distance, but they have not dared to approach. It seemed that the Cypriots had no intention of gathering their troops for a decisive battle with the landing Dionian army.

Of course, the Dionian Legion who landed also had no plans to do so.

All they have to do now is to hold on to the landing site to facilitate the arrival of the successor troops.

"The clipper to the south has raised a yellow flag!" the lookout on the flagship mast suddenly shouted loudly.

Sekerian, who was anxiously waiting, was not excited, but muttered to himself with some doubts: "There are fewer Persian warships than us?"

Seeing Sekerian's dissatisfied expression, the flagship captain instead breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "Sir, do you want to inform the warships to prepare for battle?"

Sekelian paced back and forth on the deck, pondered for a while, and then said in a deep voice: "Wait a minute! Let all the clippers be divided into two parts, one part bypassing the Persian warship, continue to explore south, and one part northward. Probe."

The flagship captain's heart moved: "Sir, do you suspect that the Persian fleet is divided?"

Sekelian replied calmly: "I don't think the Persians are so daring to lead a small number of warships to attack us. What's more, I am convinced that our fleet can easily take this number without much preparation. All enemy ships are defeated!"

Just when the crew of the southernmost warship of the Dionian Fleet could see the silhouette of the enemy ship in the far distance, the Dionian Clippers, rushing to the south, passed the information back by changing the flag on the mast. fleet.

"Two yellow flags!" The lookout's shout made Sekerian still silent, but the flagship captain heard another report from the lookout, and clenched his fists nervously: "The Persian warship is not far from us. To four miles!"

He looked at Cykrian, who was sitting on the deck like a clay sculpture, and hesitated several times.

At this moment, the voice of the lookout sounded again: "Three yellow flags! The clipper in the south has raised three yellow flags! Nothing has changed in the north!"

Sekelian jumped up immediately: "Three yellow flags! The number of Persian warships exceeds ours, which means that their main force is coming, and the Persians have taken the bait!"

Sekelian danced with excitement, and immediately said the battle plan he had already thought about: "Blow the bugle, let all the warships line up in a circle, and conduct defensive operations!"

"Circle formation?!" The flagship captain was slightly taken aback.

"What? Think I can only attack, not defend?!" Cykrian said with a half-smile.

"I'll communicate it right away!" The flagship captain's worries were eased, and it was obvious that his respected fleet commander did not lose his calm because of the arrival of the fighter plane.

"By the way, arrange all the iron ships at the forefront of the circle, facing the direction of the Persian fleet!"

"Yes!"

……………………………………………………

This Persian fleet, headed by Phoenicia and Cyprus, has nearly a thousand warships and is stationed in various naval ports in eastern Cyprus. After receiving the order from Yalitaka, the Cypriot crew was the most active, and they were the most active. He boarded his own warship at a fast speed, and rushed out of the military port to drive the ship. Then, without waiting for the warships behind to line up together, he set off along the coast of Cyprus and headed west.

When Yalitaka's flagship sailed out of the military port, he discovered that under the leadership of the Cypriots, many warships did not stop after leaving the port, and headed westward like a swarm.

As the fleet commander, Yalitaka stomped his feet in anger, but he had no choice but to scold the Cypriots for being stupid. At the same time, he hoped that when the entire fleet reached the waters off the west coast of Cyprus, the Dionysian fleet had not yet arrived. He still has time to regroup the fleet.

The Persian fleet has formed a long column after leaving the port. During the journey, due to the different levels of input of the crew members belonging to various regions of Persia, this long column gradually began to get out of line, and the warships of Cyprus were in the forefront. , the Phoenicians are in the center, the Syrian and other warships are at the end... and the Cypriot warships in the front are also out of touch, and the warships from the westernmost port of Larnaca are in the forefront... …

After a voyage of more than three hours, the Cypriot warship rounded the westernmost cape of the island from the south. With the help of the south wind, the speed increased again. After only 20 minutes, the Cypriot warship's watchman We saw the Dionysian fleet in the bay, the many Dionysian cargo ships docked on the beach, and the Dionysian soldiers (actually the Dionysian soldiers went back and forth from the cargo ships to the beach) Carrying supplies on the cargo ship, due to the distance and psychological effects, the Cypriot watchers had an illusion).

The Diorians are landing! ... This news made all the Cypriot crew nervous, and the belief in defending their homeland made them forget their fatigue and made them feel the urgency of the situation. According to the military order, they should stop advancing after discovering the Dionysian fleet, join with other warships, and then follow the command of the fleet commander to launch an attack.

But at this moment, under the command of the Cypriot naval admiral, they only slowed down in the process of changing the formation, and after the completion, they continued to accelerate, charging the Dionia Fleet in a double-column formation. .

During the Hippo-Persian War, the warships of the city-states in the Near East were famous for their large and heavy hulls and large crews. As a result, they lost to the small and flexible Greek coalition warships in the Battle of Salamis, and after Athens. In the process of expanding to the eastern Mediterranean, he was repeatedly defeated by the Athenian navy, forcing the city-states in the Near East to abandon large and inappropriate warships and rebuild their fleets with three-tiered oars as the main body, even for the Phoenician city-states. So later, those two-headed dragon warships, four-tiered oar warships, and five-tiered oared warships were only still used by Carthage in the Western Mediterranean, and the Persian fleet, with the city-states in the Near East as the main naval force, was completely the same as that of Athens. The fleet is aligned.

At this time, although the Cypriot warship had lowered its sails, the sailors were rowing hard, and the forward speed of the warship was accelerating. Soon the Dionysian warship was close at hand, and the Cypriot crew was even on the deck. In the nervous maneuvering, they looked curiously at the crow suspension bridge that was erected high and constantly swaying on the enemy ship in front. Although they had not fought against the Dionysian fleet before, they had also heard of the peculiarity of the Dionysian navy. The warships were somewhat on guard.

Since the Dionysian warships were almost only turning in place, the warships on both sides were always bow to bow. At this time, the Cypriot warships did not want to die with each other, so the helmsman turned the rudder slightly, and the captain turned towards the bilge at the same time. Shouting: "Close the oars!"

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