Chapter 135 The Battle of Taranto (7)

Davers was relieved. When they made the crazy plan of "baiting with oneself" in advance, Sekelian and he made detailed arrangements for it, and arranged more warships around Davos' ship to protect Davos's Safety while fighting the enemy in the final battle.

"There is a warship rushing forward from the left!"

"There are warships on the starboard side!"

"There is an enemy ship on the right side of the stern!"

...

The exclamations of the three lookouts continued, and the Syracuses launched a frantic attack on Davos' ship, which made the nerves of the whole ship tense.

"The drawbridge is retracted! The drawbridge is retracted!" At this moment, the deck sailors in the bow shouted loudly.

Miltias breathed a sigh of relief, and he shouted, "Back off!"

At this time, the sea around the ship was full of two warships, two together, and there was only a large space at the rear.

The sailors immediately rowed backwards, and the speed of the ship was just up, when they heard the watchful hand at the end of the bed screaming: "An enemy ship is crashing at the rear! An enemy ship is crashing at the rear!"

This Syracuse warship is quite cunning. With its superb maneuvering skills and blocking the line of sight by the surrounding warships, it nimbly shuttles between the ships like a swimming fish, quickly approaching the ship, and is found by the watchman. When the distance was only 40 meters.

But the ship was rowing backwards again, so the distance was rapidly closing, and Myrtias shouted sharply: "Turn to the rear right! Turn to the rear to the right!..." Suspension Bridge" worked, but it seemed that time was running out.

"Row forward! Row forward!..." he shouted again.

Although the oarsmen did not understand the situation outside, they had a premonition that something was not good after listening to the captain's frequently changing orders and nervous voice. For a while, they became a little flustered, and some people even fell into the sea.

Seeing the bronze ramming horns of the enemy ship rushing in, and even the face of the enemy at the bow of the ship can be seen clearly, at this moment, a heart of Davos was brought to his throat, but Martius led the soldiers. Catch up and take off the armor for Davos urgently. If a ship is hit and sunk, they will take Davos and jump into the sea until they are rescued.

At this moment of lightning, in the narrow gap between the warship and the warship (the three-tiered oar warship could not pass through at all), a warship sprang out of the slanting thorn, blocking the enemy ship and the warship. In between, it was Dionia's 50-paddle warship. In the usual naval battles, the role of the fifty-grain warships is mostly used for reconnaissance, messaging, rescue, assisting in jumping ships, etc.

Generally used for clippers. However, in Dionia's fleet, when the new naval tactics began to be implemented, in view of the weakness of the three-tier oars equipped with the "Crow Suspension Bridge", the flexibility and speed of the three-tier oars were relatively poor. A new tactical role of the paddle warship is to use the small, flexible and fast features of the fifty paddle warship (the fastest can reach 15 to 16 knots) to block the attack route of the enemy ship, so that the main warship can escape

In order to ensure the safety of Davos, there are naturally several such warships wandering around the ship. At this moment, the enemy ship had no time to turn at all, and the bronze ram rammed directly into the fifty-paddle warship, only to hear a loud "bang", followed by the sound of wood breaking, the screams and screams of sailors, and the whole body was cut open. A big hole, the sea water rushed in immediately, diluting the blood of the wounded...

The fifty-grain warship quickly sank under the crush of the enemy ship with three layers of oars...

However, the forward momentum of the three-deck enemy ship had significantly weakened and eventually came to a standstill.

Just when its captain shouted in panic, "Row back quickly", the ship where Davos was on had turned around, quickly approached, and the "Crow Suspension Bridge" smashed down.

Davos shouted angrily: "Avenge the brothers!"

Lead the escorts and personally committed suicide on the deck of the enemy ship...

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The Syracuse originally hoped to use their superb sailing skills and rich experience in naval warfare to deal with Dionysian's eccentric warships, but they found out that the Dionias' warships were less flexible. , but the device was extremely flexible, when it turned in all directions and fell in various ways, so that those warships that approached them could not escape the ending of being hooked and were eventually captured.

The people of Syracuse were completely terrified.

Due to Leptines' willful actions, the assault on Davos' ship became the last madness. More than 30 Syracuse warships were captured around Davos' ship. Syracuse The fleet finally can't stand it anymore...

Let Leptines shout loudly: "Rush up! Let me rush up! Let me die here! Let me go, let me drown! Ahhh..."

How dare its captain let him have any accident. When charging before, he secretly asked the paddlers to slow down the paddle speed and keep the flagship outside the assault circle. The fiasco of the naval battle this time also had to ensure the safe return of the Admiral to the Sili Court, otherwise the wrath of the plenipotentiary general was not something they could bear.

The few remaining warships of the Syracuses turned and fled south in a hurry, and the Dionian fleet did not pursue, because their ships could not catch up with the fleeing enemy ships at the speed of their ships. Most importantly, they also have to rescue the soldiers who fell into the water and take the time to deal with the aftermath.

"Your Majesty, the Syracuse navy is retreating - retreating! We - we are victorious!!" In the cheers of the paddlers and the escorts, Myrtias rushed to him and reported to him with a very excited expression. .

Davos looked at the enemy who had disappeared in the skyline, suppressed the excitement in his heart, and replied with a slightly trembling voice: "Victory... just the beginning!"

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This large-scale battle of Taranto lasted for more than two hours, and finally came to an end.

The Syracuse Navy lost two hundred and twenty-three warships, the vast majority of which were triple oars. The Dionysian fleet lost more than 40 warships, half of which were fifty galleys. The Dionia Fleet, which was at an absolute disadvantage, surpassed the expectations of many outsiders and defeated the Syracuse Navy.

A very different picture from other naval battles emerged during the war. The Syracuse Navy lost so many warships, yet there were few scenes of warships being rammed and sunk, hordes of sailors afloat, and tragic cries. Because there are a total of 157 three-tiered oars, which were completely captured by the Dionysians, they only need a little repair, with their own sailors, they can go to sea to fight, and the strength of the Dionysian fleet will suddenly turn over. more than twice as much.

This has really become a strange thing in the history of Greek naval warfare. The naval battle has always been that the warships are fighting less and less, and I have never heard of the truth that they are fighting more and more.

As the sailors and soldiers of the Dionysian fleet cheered their victory, the shore boiled.

The Castellons were cheering. After witnessing a thrilling naval battle, they knew their homeland would never be ravaged by the vicious Syracuses again.

What a miracle! After seeing the warships of the Syracuses retreating, Amicris was so surprised that he didn't return to his senses for a long time. Although he had a bit of luck in advance, it was a fluke after all, but the Dionysians turned out to be real. Make it a fact! In this regard, it took Amycles a long time to come to a conclusion: "Hades' oracle has really come true! After Davos was elected king, Dionysus was really blessed by Hades! "

His words were approved by the surrounding Castellon high-level officials, and a council member hurriedly asked: "Then everyone... do we still see the messenger of Syracuse?"

"No!" Amicris said firmly: "Kill him immediately!"

"Is this...will it be too intense?" Someone said worriedly: "In case the dictator of Syracuse is angered..."

"Aren't you afraid of angering our neighbor Dionysius!" Amicklis reminded them: "We are so close to Turii, that sooner or later the Dionysians will know that the envoy of Syracuse has entered the city, At that time, what will Davos think, what will the Dionysian Senate think! Dionia, who has the blessing of Hades' oracle, has won such a disparate number of naval victories, and they will inevitably win in the end. Just as Athens, blessed by the famous 'Wooden Wall' oracle at Delphi decades ago, finally defeated Persia. We can only make up for our mistakes in such a drastic way that we are determined to stand with Dioria. Resolve together!"

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The cheers of victory from the Dionian populace came earlier.

Every citizen watching the naval battle from the shore cheered and greeted the legionaries on deck as each captured triplex was compelled to sail to the sea and then to the north along the coastline into the mouth of the Klaty River. The soldiers waved desperately. And this kind of cheers continued, because the captured Syracuse warships continued to sail to the sea.

The other Syracuse warships did not take advantage of their slow speed to ram and sink these captured warships. On the one hand, the attack of the Dionysian fleet made them unable to spare time, and also because Syracuse The Zaren knew that the crew of these captured warships were their sailors from Syracuse, and no one was willing to make such a crazy decision to send their comrades who had lived together and trained together for a long time to the grave of death, and once they did so After returning to their home state, they will also face accountability from the people of the city-state. Moreover, their benevolent Admiral Leputines would not have given such a cruel order.

So, as the captured ships of Syracuse sailed past the people of Dionysus, everyone knew that victory was not far off. But probably because they were afraid of scaring away this hard-won victory, everyone didn't dare to let it go and celebrate. It was not until the Syracuse fleet retreated that the joy in the hearts of the people of Dionia broke out completely.