Chapter 239 Unfamiliar Fleet

After Myrtias left, Leotidides immediately said: "Tagru, hurry up and inform the troops who are going to rescue to rush to the port immediately."

"Yes, Lord Commander." Taglu received the order and did not execute it immediately, but asked with some doubts: "Are the Carthaginians too risky? They sent tens of thousands of troops to cross the traffic. In the mountainous area where food transportation is inconvenient, and separated by Serinus and Minoa, they want to capture Agrigento. Once our reinforcements arrive and their attempts fail, these tens of thousands of Carthaginians may even If we don't need to attack, we will be defeated because the food cannot be supplied in time..."

"Yeah, this Carthaginian commander Marco really dares to take risks. It seems that he believes in the ability of his army very much." Leotizides looked at the wooden map hanging on the wall, his eyes twinkling: "So we The reinforcements have to be fast.”

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Since the Dionian army occupied Serinus, half of its port was quickly converted into a simple military port, which not only allowed the warships of the Sicilian fleet to dock for supplies, but also could be pushed ashore for maintenance and repairs... It has a stable and secure foothold in western Sicily, which facilitates its patrolling and attacking the western seas.

Now, more than 150 warships of the Sicilian fleet are docked at the docks, soldiers from Minoa, Agrigento, Gera, Camerina, Exonome and other friendly city-states on the south coast, as well as 1,000 soldiers Soldiers of the Dionysian Reserve Corps, a total of 6,000 soldiers, are boarding the battleship in batches.

In order to be able to transport the support army to the port of Agrigento at one time, Myrtias did not even let the fleet soldiers board the crow warship, just to free up more space for the warship.

In this regard, Sekelian expressed his objection. He believed that the entire fleet could not be used to transport soldiers, and at least half of the warships needed to be used as escorts. This is the vigilance that a naval commander must have.

Miltias retorted: Only half of the warships are freed, which means that half of the soldiers must be transported for the second time. Now the enemy is urgent, in case Agrigento is defeated due to insufficient troops, this responsibility Who will take the blame? And after the completion of the troop delivery, the Sicilian fleet must also cruise to the west, so there should be no delay.

The two sides broke up again.

Sekelian simply boarded the first clipper to leave the port, out of sight and out of mind.

In order to save time, every warship was loaded with soldiers and set off immediately, so when Myrtias boarded the last flagship and left the port, the entire fleet spread as much as four or five miles east, showing a curve A single, crooked line, with each ship full of soldiers, traveled slowly.

Myrtias was also a little anxious about this. He frowned as he looked at the soldiers lying on the deck, and estimated the time it would take to get from Serinus to Agrigento at such a speed. By the time the delivery was over, it might already be afternoon. , the fleet can no longer go to patrol.

At this moment, he hoped that there would be a relatively strong northwesterly wind like the day the Carthaginian army landed, which would greatly shorten the sailing time.

And just when he was thinking about it, the exclamation of the watcher suddenly sounded above his head: "Attention! Attention! There is an enemy situation in the southeast!!"

Miltias was shocked, and then he was puzzled: Carthage's warships have been destroyed, where is the enemy in the sea to the southeast?

When he was confused, the watchman on the mast shouted anxiously again: "The clipper has raised two blue flags! Two blue flags!"

The blue flag means it's not a Carthaginian warship,

Otherwise, the clipper will raise the yellow flag for the first time, but the two blue flags mean that there is a fleet nearby, and the number is equal to that of the Sicilian fleet. Whether it is hostile or not, it poses a considerable threat to the Sicilian fleet. .

Miltias felt flustered. He clawed on the side of the ship and tried to look southeast, but he could only vaguely see a few small spots on the sea in the distance.

Among the four fleet commanders, neither Myrtias nor Flarios had any experience in commanding large-scale naval battles independently. During the South-Italian War, Myrtias was only the captain of a three-tiered oar, and after the establishment of the 4th Fleet, the Ministry of War once provided Davos with a number of candidates for fleet command, their qualifications, record , and their abilities are similar, Davos was having a hard time deciding. In the end, he chose Miltias because Miltias once served as the captain of Davos' ship, and Davos still had some impressions of him, which added points to him.

After becoming the commander of the Fourth Fleet, Miltias spent most of his time leading the fleet to cruise the Adriatic Sea, fighting pirates, and helping the army transport luggage. When Chetty attacked the Maple Combined Fleet, because the opponent was too weak, it took little effort to defeat it.

Now when Myrtias may encounter the first sea battle, the situation is so complicated: the opponent is an enemy and a friend, and he can't tell the difference, so he can't make a sudden decision to fight; his own fleet is not only out of formation , and each warship was full of soldiers, which slowed down the speed and weakened the ability to fight; at this time, the entire fleet was located on the sea near Germer, so it was difficult to retreat. As a small town, The small and humble port of Germes simply could not accommodate the Sicilian fleet.

Under such circumstances, he was inevitably a little flustered. He tried his best to calm himself down, and then issued the first order: "Raise the flag of Apollo and blow the bugle!"

With the sound of the bugle, the golden flag rose to the top of the mast and fluttered in the wind.

The warships in front of the flagship heard the sound of the bugle and saw the flying flag, and turned their bows one after another to approach the ship of Myrtias.

The slogan of the Apollo flag is: take the flagship as the center, move closer to it, and the distance between warships and warships is shortened, which is convenient for command and defense.

Myrtias' thinking at this time is: now the fleet is full of soldiers, which is not conducive to combat, and his flagship is located closer to Serinus, when all the warships are approaching him, if this strange fleet is really attack, then he can lead the fleet back to Serinus first.

The Dionysian Fleet stretched too far on the sea, especially the warships at the front. Looking at the hand, he could neither see the flags on the last flagship nor the signals from the clippers cruising at the rear. , they can only make corresponding changes after seeing the warships in the rear make tactical maneuvers, and the transmission of this kind of news seems a little slow at this critical moment.

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The clipper that Sekelian was on had already moved a little away from the entire fleet because he was the first to go. Since he sat on the bow after getting on the boat, the crew saw that he was in a bad mood, and no one dared to come forward to disturb him. , the whole ship is unusually quiet.

At this moment, his expression suddenly froze, he touched his ears, and asked the captain who was watching the sea conditions, "Did you hear it? It seems that there is a bugle sound."

The captain shook his head blankly, and listened carefully for a while, and then answered truthfully: "Sir, I didn't hear it."

The captain's words did not reassure Sekelian. He stood up, looked at the rear, then raised his head and asked, "What happened to the warship behind?"

After a while, the watchman at the top of the mast replied: "They haven't changed."

"My lord, maybe you heard it wrong," the captain said.

As if he hadn't heard of it, Cykrian felt a sense of unease in his heart. Perhaps this uneasiness had been buried when he learned that Myrtias had filled the entire fleet with soldiers without escorting warships. The feeling became stronger.

He no longer hesitated, and said decisively, "Turn around and drive back to have a look."

The captain complained a little in his heart that he was suspicious, but he didn't dare to express his objection face to face. After all, Cykrian was a hero worshipped by the former commander of the navy, the victorious general and the crew, and his prestige was too high.

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Just as the Dionian warships turned around and returned, the fleet was also approaching the Sicilian fleet, and many small black spots had appeared in Myrtias' field of vision, which made him tremble.

At this moment, he heard the exclamation of the watchman at the top of the mast: "Two yellow flags! Two yellow flags are raised! It's the enemy! It's the enemy!!..."

The last chance in Myrtias' heart was shattered. Now that the other warships have not fully approached, it is too late to retreat to Serinus. Fortunately, while waiting, he already has a prepared plan: "And then Sound the bugle, let the warships dock at the nearest beach, put down the soldiers, and return to battle!"

Of course, these latter words cannot be expressed in semaphore, so his flagship must lead by example and let other warships follow suit, so after giving the order, the flagship sailed straight to the coast.

The Dionysian Clipper, which was cruising and exploring on the southeast side of the fleet, did not know the approaching fleet. However, the preparation process of the standard fleet before entering the battle, of course, is the enemy.

It turned out that the fleet was not from Carthage, but from the Phoenician region of the Eastern Mediterranean. Since the storm destroyed the Carthaginian navy, the Carthaginians completely lost their maritime superiority. The Dionysian Sicilian fleet ran rampant at sea, not only cutting off the connection between Carthage and Sicily, but also beginning to threaten Carthage. sea ​​trade in the city. At this time of life and death, Carthage also thought of its home state while stepping up the construction of new warships.