Chapter 14: Kunogolata's Advice

"We'll just wait and see." Davos said with a relaxed smile, completely ignoring the threat of Lysias: "But I also remind you that the next time you come again, the conditions I mentioned will not be It's such a good condition now! Also, I want to remind you that Crotone is not the only enemy of Dionia... The war continues, who knows what will happen?"

Lycias was shocked when he heard this.

……………………

From noon to noon, the first batch of food packers arrived at the barracks.

Davos breathed a sigh of relief, and at the same time brought a letter written by Kunogolata, which mentioned that the messenger of Locri had arrived in Turii, and proposed to the Senate that "Locle and Dai Onia's alliance against Crotone" was proposed, but the Senate did not reply for the time being, citing the absence of the consul. The messenger fell ill with a high fever due to fatigue on the road and was being treated in the hospital. He was unable to go directly south to find Davos in a short time.

Kunogolata put forward his opinion at the end of the letter: "Regardless of whether the consul has the confidence to solve Crotone independently, please take into account that the city-state strength of Locle is second only to Crotone, and its With the strong support of Syracuse behind it, destroying or severely weakening Crotone and causing Locri to take the opportunity to annex Crotone's allies will create a more powerful enemy for Dionia..."

Davos read it several times, and then picked up another letter, which was a secret letter from Aristillas and handed over to Davos through a special channel. The letter mainly mentioned this. Some of the things that happened in the city of Tulii in the past few days, of course, also included the arrival of the envoys of Locklee. In addition, it also mentioned what happened around Dionia, such as: after the consul Diomilas of Tarantum led his army to capture Manduria, he let Achita lead his army to attack the city of Brindsey , while the fierce battle with the Mesapis continued; Potentia was gathering the surrounding tribes and seemed to be preparing to attack Grummentum in the south...

The last piece of news caught the attention of Davos: Dionysius, the plenipotentiary general of Syracuse, led 80,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and 400 warships to fight against Carthage... Count Dio The war between Nia and Crotone, at the beginning of this year, the entire Greek world of the Western Mediterranean was in full swing.

80,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, 400 warships? ! ! ! Davers widened his eyes and carefully confirmed the numbers on the letter. Although he knew before that Syracuse was the leading Greek state in the Western Mediterranean, the power it displayed at the moment still made Davos tremble. But it's not far, just two or three days by boat. When the brother of Dillon, the dictator who created Syracuse a few decades ago, succeeded the tyrant, there was a precedent for interfering in the internal affairs of other city-states in Greater Greece, and Davos could not help but be vigilant.

He picked up Kunogorata's letter again, read it again, and thought for a long time...

………………

After Lycias returned to Crimea,

Naturally, Miron talked about his meeting with Davos, the Dionysian consul. Miron was angry at the Dionysians for daring to impose such harsh terms on Crotone, and at the same time felt extremely guilty.

All morning, Miron watched the Dionysian barracks on the city wall, thinking about ways to defeat the enemy. Whether it was on the south or north shore, Dionia's soldiers continued to build camps and moved the defensive line forward. The trenches, deer villages, traps... and so on were laid at intervals, making people feel as if they didn't want to. Attack Crimesa, as if the Crotones were going to attack them.

Miron sometimes sighs: what means did the commander of the Dionian army use to make such brave and opinionated citizen soldiers willingly continue to do such hard work and dirty work, if Croto The inner soldiers have long since quit, causing trouble.

At noon, Crotone's fleet commander Askamas rushed to the port of Crimea. Miron was finally excited, because Askamas, one of Crotone's ten generals, was also Miron's friend. , the representative of the radicals, Miron believes he can agree to his plan and help him.

………………

After sending Askamas away and getting his affirmative answer, Miron could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Just as he was about to lie down and rest for a while, the guards came in and reported that the enemy outside the north gate had changed.

Before, the Dionysian soldiers had been working a few hundred meters away from the north gate, but at this time they suddenly advanced to within a hundred meters. They started to level the ground just outside the range of the Crotone light infantry on the city wall and tamp it. Land, sort out a large piece of flat land. At the same time, they were guarded by heavily armed light and heavy infantry on both sides to prevent the defenders from raiding the city.

No slings have appeared in this era, and there are moats and city walls blocking such a long distance. It is impossible to do any harm to the city of Crimea. Therefore, the Crotone soldiers watched curiously on the city walls and did not have much nervousness. .

Milong is also watching all this, and he is already a little tired, and he also wants to understand clearly: what exactly do the Dionysians want to do?

The Dionian soldiers began to pick up four or five-meter long tree trunks, placed them on the edge of the flat ground, drove the trunks into the soil one by one at intervals, and connected and fixed them with ropes. A wooden frame about 30 meters long and 5 meters wide.

"Don't the Dionians want to build houses here, and they are not afraid that we will burn them!" A Crotone soldier said jokingly, which immediately caused a burst of laughter.

But I saw Dionian soldiers carrying heavy sacks one by one, putting them into the edge of the wooden frame one by one, and neatly stacking the bags...

"Hahaha...I see the Dionians don't just want to build houses, they want to make bread (because that's the sack for grain flour)!" another Crotone soldier's quip sparked another flurry giggling.

Since there were several thousand Dionian soldiers participating in the labor, a wall was built with sacks in a blink of an eye, and the height of the wall quickly reached the same level as the city wall of Crimea, and it continued to rise...

Seeing this, Miron's face changed greatly, and the adjutant beside him shouted: "No, the enemy will build a high wall to attack us!"

Seeing the scene in front of them, the Crotone soldiers who were still watching the lively before already understood, and they began to panic: There are many powerful slingers in the Dionysian light infantry. The original range was relatively long. Now Dio The Nias quickly built a platform nearly two meters higher than the four-meter-high Crimea wall, which meant that their light infantry mounted this high wall and could use their height to make their Arrows and stones attacked the soldiers on the walls of Crimesa.

Once the enemy attacks the city, their slingers and archers can stand on a high platform and attack the soldiers defending the city wall, which will make the defenders at the front of the city too busy to avoid the attack and have no intention of defending the city wall... Miron has already It was a cold sweat: this platform must be destroyed!

But he also knew that the enemy would be on guard, so he decided to set the raid time in the evening.

Soon, he saw the Dionians dig trenches around the high platform, and filled the gap in the middle of the high platform with the excavated soil...

Miron was a little mad: the Dionysians are simply mice, thinking about digging holes all the time to save their lives!

By dusk, the Dionians had set up another small camp around the high wall.

Miron finally gave up the decision to attack. He didn't want to waste the lives of soldiers on this less hopeful action, and he already had a trace in his heart.

……………………

In the early morning of the second day, the bugle of Dionysian North Camp rang loudly, and the soldiers of each company of the Second Corps carried up the ladders and formed a small square array, which was lined up in a fish-scale array 100 meters away from the city wall.

Davos stepped on the slope built with mud, stood on the high platform for the first time, and subconsciously stomped his foot twice, feeling relatively stable.

The first time he saw the city of Crimea, he had the idea of ​​building a high platform. The city wall more than three meters high is indeed too short. However, it is not easy to build a soil base higher than the city wall with soil, because it is easy to collapse. Fortunately, the engineers came up with a good way to use tree trunks and ropes as frames, sacks of soil as support, and then fill with soil... Both fast and firm.

Davos was condescending, and the situation on the northern city wall of Crimea was unobstructed. Seeing that the opposite city was full of soldiers, Daves said to Epithenes beside him, "Can our archers hit the enemy?"

"Lord Commander, there is no problem at all!" Epithenes said confidently.

Davos nodded: "Then attack."

"Send the arrows!" Epithenes gave an order, and the archers on the high platform began to shoot the first round of arrows. The slingers in the back, next to the archers, also started waving their slings.

The siege has finally begun! Miron, who was standing on the head of the North Gate City, was full of fighting spirit at this moment. Facing the arrows and flying stones flying in the sky, he shouted: "Defense!"

On this section of the city wall facing the high platform, he specially arranged heavy infantry to defend the city, and they raised their round shields to protect the top of their heads...

……………………

There is a newly-built village on the south bank of the Krati River in the Sybari Plain, and Aguilas is the head of this village. He is the lowest-ranking official in the current Dionysian administrative system. According to the newly promulgated law Provisions: The village chief is elected by the citizens of the village for a one-year term.

However, it is not an easy task to be the village head. Candidates must meet several necessary conditions: first, they must be an official Dionysian citizen; Records; in addition, those who have served in the military, have made military exploits, and have made special contributions to the Dionysian Alliance are preferred. 8)