Chapter 80 Dionia VS Carthage (4)

But this adjutant has been here for almost two months. He usually gets along day and night, but he doesn't even remember the adjutant's name. Fortunately, through this period of contact, the adjutant has a better understanding of Leotidides' character. He didn't care, but replied seriously: "My lord, my name is Mukru!"

"Are you a Brutian?" Leotides asked, looking at his different appearance from the Greeks.

"Yes, I am from Cosenza in Bruty."

"Yeah." Leotizides nodded and waved his hand: "Go and send the order."

"Yes." The adjutant hurriedly turned around and went out, but a smile appeared on his face. From what he knew about the commander, he knew that he had been dubbed "the most severe regiment commander" by his colleagues in the Ministry of Military Affairs. .

In fact, the identity of the adjutant Mukru is not simple. He followed Hieronymus to participate in the Great Battle of Crotone at the age of eighteen, and was injured. After the war, he was condolences by King Davos. Later, he officially joined the Fifth Army Corps. He participated in the kingdom's previous wars for more than ten years, and made many military exploits. He was almost promoted to the captain, but he asked to go to the staff of the Military Affairs Department for further study. For the senior team officers of Dionia, it was very rare that they seldom asked for further study, so although he was over 30 years old, Philisius made an exception to transfer him to the staff.

After being transferred to the staff, Muklu won the praise of his colleagues for his consistent diligence. This time, in view of the importance of this war, Philisius reluctantly dispatched this capable and stable subordinate. Now, it seemed that the request of the difficult-to-serve Leotidides was finally fulfilled.

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The 15,000 soldiers led by Leotides this time included 8,000 regular soldiers of the Eighth Legion, 5,000 reserve heavy infantry, nearly a thousand reserve light infantry, and one thousand of the Fourth Cavalry Corps Cavalry (The Fourth Cavalry Corps has always been short due to the population and horses of the Sicilian territory).

The soldiers of the Eighth Legion were all excited when they heard that there was a battle. The soldiers who fought to put down the Sikelians two years ago have been rewarded a lot. They have been eager to make new contributions, and now is the opportunity!

The soldiers of the reserve team are looking forward to performing well in the upcoming battles, adding a rich stroke to their military resumes, so that they can smoothly turn into full-fledged legionnaires.

Under the leadership of the team officers, the soldiers ran to the foot of the mountain in an orderly and swift manner and began to arrange the formation in a checkerboard format.

As soon as the formation was completed, the soldiers heard a huge noise coming from the front.

The chaotic and thunderous footsteps are getting louder...

Soon, they saw the black rout soldiers in front of them roaring and rushing towards them like a mountain torrent in a torrential rain pouring down to the low ground.

Some Dionysian recruits began to swallow nervously.

"Order the detachments to line up the shields quickly!" Diocassis, who was an inspector of Naxos two years ago, is now the company captain of the 1st Company of the 1st Brigade of the Eighth Legion, and he calmly gave the order .

Other team officers also issued similar orders one after another.

This time, Dionia's shield formation was different from the previous ones. The soldiers of each detachment not only erected their shields on the front, back, left and right periphery of the small square formation, but also pointed their spears to the front, back, left and right sides. Flattened in all directions, like hedgehogs with thorns erected.

At the same time, the soldiers continued to shout: "Go from the gap!!! Go from the gap!!!..."

In order to facilitate the retreat of the defeated troops, the intervals between the small squares of the eighth regiment's detachments were much wider than their usual positions during training.

Seeing the densely leveled stab guns, as long as they are not fools, they will not take the initiative to bump up, not to mention that there are voices reminding the defeated soldiers, and there are light armored soldiers in the front to guide them. In front of Dionia's formation, it divided into a small stream, and ran to the rear along the gap between the small square formations.

Of course, there were also rout soldiers who crashed into the shield wall because of shoving and panic, were stabbed by the stab wounds, and let out shrill screams, but the Dionian soldiers would not withdraw their stab guns and rescue the wounded because of this, they held their positions. ,not moving at all. And the screams of the companions will warn others to stop in front of the shield array and not to bump.

"Catch up! Don't let them run away!..." Milefio, who was riding on a horse, followed the Holy Order and rushed forward. He shouted excitedly, regardless of whether the soldiers running around could hear it.

Sitting high on the horse, he could see that the soldiers of the Holy Order were indeed well-trained. Even after the victory, they could still maintain a relatively complete formation, like a red tide pushing forward. Of course, This is also related to the fact that most of the enemies fled backwards directly and did not run around.

Whether it is Monte Ardeno or Milefio, they only know that the Dionysian coalition built a camp on the hills on the east bank of the Pratara River, but what kind of arrangement? What's the terrain like here? They are not very clear. On the one hand, it was because they did not have a strong sense of actively acquiring information about the surrounding environment and the enemy. On the other hand, under the long-term influence of the "Dionysian Military Law", Leotizides had the ability to protect his own army. The initiative not to leak military secrets, so while building the camp before, he sent all the reconnaissance cavalry and mountain reconnaissance teams, and even some light armoured soldiers to patrol around the camp, expel the Carthaginian spies, and shield the area around the camp. Information.

Therefore, when Milefio, who was in the middle of the battlefield, was chasing the enemy excitedly, he did not know very well that there was a hill a mile away on the left and right of it, with the enemy's military camp on it, and he didn't even know that There was a larger hill three miles ahead, blocking their way, and the army of Dionia, the real enemy of Carthage, was stationed on this hill. Now, these three hills are like giant crabs with their claws open, waiting for the rout to lead the unsuspecting Carthaginians into its hungry mouths.

The company led by Diocassis was divided into four small squares, two in the front and two in the back. Diocassis stood in the center of a square in the rear, passing through the gap between the squares in front. , paying close attention to the situation of the collapsed soldiers.

Suddenly, his eyes narrowed, and through the gap between the Allied soldiers throwing their helmets and disarming, he saw the Carthaginians in gorgeous armor.

According to the usual tactical principles of the Dionian Legion, the small phalanx of the back row should move forward quickly to fill in the gap in the front row to form a complete dense large phalanx, but in this way, running at the end These routed soldiers will be intercepted before the phalanx formed by the Dionysian army, sandwiched between the Dionysian army and the Carthaginian army, and become the victims of the confrontation between the two armies.

However, the small phalanxes of the various divisions of the Eighth Legion did not move. The soldiers pressed the long shields closer and pulled the stab guns tighter, but they still stayed where they were, motionless.

Not because they had to take care of these poor Allied soldiers, but because that was Commander Leoticides' tactic.

Some of the soldiers of the Holy Regiment who were chasing saw the dense phalanx of thorns in front of them. They stopped their progress in surprise, but were pushed by their comrades behind and involuntarily met them, so they could only protect themselves with round shields. , thrusting spears at the newly emerging enemy; while some of the Guild soldiers followed the rout and rushed into the gap between the small squares, and were then blocked by the next small square. Some of the Guild soldiers Blindly followed the defeated soldiers and turned to the next gap...

"There are enemies ahead!!"

"It's a Dionian!!"

...

The slightly panicked shouts of the soldiers reached Milefio's ears, and he could see more clearly on his horse: Dionian soldiers in black armor gathered into small phalanxes. The impact of the Holy Order soldiers was like a small island in a torrent, and there was a danger of being submerged at any time...

Even though he knew that he had lost control of the Holy Order army, Milefio still waved his spear and shouted: "Kill me, warriors of Carthage, and crush the Dionysians!"

But in the eyes of Leotidides, who was halfway up the mountain and overlooking the entire battlefield: the checkerboard array set up by the Eighth Legion had divided the chasing Carthaginian army, which was surging like a tide, into countless trickles. The Carthaginians who lack organization and command and cannot form a joint force cannot shake the phalanx of the Dionysian detachment that is as solid as a rock in the torrent!

"Close the reserves!" Leotizides ordered.

Adjutant Mukru hesitated for a moment: "Would you like to wait a little longer? After all the soldiers of the allies escaped—"

Leotidides looked indifferent: "The current situation is that all the Allied soldiers have escaped, and some Carthaginians will also run to the rear of the array, adding unnecessary trouble to our soldiers in the next battle. Given their chance, it's only their fault that they didn't run fast enough!"

"Yes!" Muklu said no more, and immediately accepted the order.

"In addition, inform the generals of those allies, seize the time to gather those fallen soldiers, and quickly lead them back to their camp to resist the enemy's upcoming attack."

"Woo!..." A high-pitched bugle sounded from the mountainside.

The reserve team officers at all levels, who had been repeatedly instructed by the legion commander in advance, began to command the small phalanxes of the various detachments behind the entire array, and they slowly moved forward and inward toward each other.

The torrent composed of the routed soldiers and the chasing soldiers passed through many gaps and flowed to the rear. The impact on the small phalanx had weakened. There were spears clearing the way, long shield defenses, and the screams of enemy and friendly soldiers. Relying on a dense array of 50 people, the soldiers of the Legion Reserve at the end of the formation successfully entered the gap in front of them without much hindrance. Together with the small phalanx of the detachment in front, they formed a four-column-thick, but about two-inch-long formation. The dikes in the dam completely cut off the torrent.

.. Literature Museum m.