Chapter 235 Surrounding Serinus

Mukru hesitated for a moment and said, "...Lord Commander, do you want to tell Governor Cypros?"

Leotidides said indifferently: "It's too far, and it's too late. His Majesty should have placed the Sicilian fleet under my command, which would save a lot of trouble. You should go and execute the order."

Soon, Myrtias' response was not what Mukru expected. Not only did he reject Leotitsi's proposal to let him cruise, but he also asked Mukru to speak and remind Leotti tactfully. Des: The Sicilian fleet is not under his command, so let him not worry about naval affairs.

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 said sarcastically with the corners of his mouth slightly curled. It seemed that Myrtias' response earlier made him very concerned.

"Immediately assemble the Eighth Legion and the reserves, and follow me to the shores of Mazara!" Finally, Leotizides gave the order.

"Yes!"

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In order to understand and supervise the boarding of the soldiers of the entire army in the ports of Carthage and Utica, Marco was almost at the forefront of the last group of ships entering the port of Liliba.

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 time the Dionian army was stationed at Serinus,

Since there has been no war, many friendly city-state soldiers have returned to their homes to prepare for the upcoming harvest season. After the Second Fleet arrived in Sicily, Myrtias once went to Leotizides. Protest: Unauthorized adaptation of the excellent crew of the Dionysian Navy into light infantry, as an appendage of the legion in combat (referring to some of the tens of thousands of Sicilian fleet sailors who survived the storm).

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.

He glanced at the heavily armed Legionnaires beside him, 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.

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After being reminded by his adjutant Mukru, Miltias did not fully believe Muklu's words in view of his bad relationship with Leotizides, so he did not immediately lead the fleet to sea, but sent a fast The ship went to the western waters for inspection.

After being confirmed, he hurriedly led the fleet out of port. This back and forth, coupled with the fact that the fleet was sailing against the wind, by the time it bypassed the cape and arrived at the waters near Mazara, it was already dusk. The landing was over, and the transport of baggage and horses that followed was more than half completed.

The Carthage Clipper, which has been observing the movements of the Dionysian fleet, quickly notified the ships 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 winds and waves, two warships accidentally hit the rocks and sank.

Therefore, Myrtias had to order the return voyage, and he was always depressed 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 Military Affairs would take any responsibility for it. Ignore this...

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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 of the Carthaginian sub-state and the messengers 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 lead to 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. Nea friendly city-state territorial attack creates great obstacles and helps 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.

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 of the city, but also organized hundreds of enemy troops from time to time. Thousands of light armored soldiers, taking advantage of their unpreparedness, went out of the city to raid the enemy who was 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 have any impact on him, 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 placed on the city walls and inside the city make precise strikes against the enemy's ballistas, Leotidides also let the soldiers 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 buffer the impact of the stone bullet.