Chapter 337
Magoben also wanted to make up for this deficiency with the advantage of numbers, and eventually defeated the opponent, but when the casualty number approached 2,000, he stopped sending troops into the tunnel.
And Amintas also quickly blocked the three tunnels. The First Corps and the reserve soldiers also paid nearly 500 casualties. Fortunately, the Dionian soldiers won every battle, so they were able to The wounded soldier was rescued for treatment.
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Marco sat in the big tent with a straight face, he was sulking with himself.
The Carthaginians prospered by trading in precious metals, and many citizens engaged in mining, and the Margonides family was no exception, especially after relocating to southern Iberia. The army he led occasionally also part-time miners when not fighting. , so his army was good at digging tunnels. The reason why he didn't do this when attacking Paragonia was because the town was located at the foot of the mountain, and the ground was too hard to dig, while Serinus could .
The last time he besieged the city of Serinus, he built the earth wall to attack through the tunnel, but soon after Hasdrubal successfully raided the rear of the south coast, the situation of the battle changed and he did not have time to implement it, and this time he carefully When the tunnel was successfully excavated under the city wall of Serinus, the Dionysians hadn't realized it yet. At this time, there were two options: one was to switch to horizontal excavation and hollow out the foundation of the city wall. , and then pull out the wooden pillars supporting the tunnel, let the city wall collapse, and a gap appears; the other is to continue digging forward into the city, and then wait until night, send troops to sneak into the city through the tunnel, directly raid the Dionians, and occupy the whole city .
Margo chose the latter one, because he thought this method would be a quicker and more effective way to get rid of the Serinus defenders, but he did not expect to be discovered by the Dionysians, and finally evolved into this, and from now on Dio The Nia people will definitely be more vigilant, and it will be difficult to dig a tunnel for a sneak attack.
Margo was regretting, but the messenger sent by Hasdruba entered the tent and gave him another blow: Hasdruba wanted to sneak attack on the Dionysian army attacking Palermos, but was ambushed. , 4,000 Lusitania fighters were wiped out.
Marco yelled Hasdruba's name in the tent, and scolded him all the time, even calling him too stupid to be a child of the Margonid family, as if he forgot that he had just suffered a failed sneak attack. , the messenger was so frightened that it was like a chill.
After the fire, Margo calmed down: Hasdruba's army was blocked and could not rescue Palermus, only hope that Palermus could hold on by himself, but now there are not many defenders of Palermus , it must strengthen its defense force, but now the land road is blocked...
Margo thought about it for a while, and decided to send reinforcements to Palermos by sea. It is definitely not possible during the day, and it is easy to be found.
Only at night, which is a bit of an adventure.
Although Margo had just suffered the failure of the tunnel plan, it did not wear away the spirit in his bones. He immediately asked his men to summon 3,000 Palermos in the army, and another 1,000 Solus people. 4,000 people rushed to Lilibe at once, and asked Imisere to find a way to gather the cargo ships in the port and send them to Palermos as soon as possible tonight.
These two days, these soldiers heard that their home country was under attack, and they kept clamoring to go back, which was their wish, so the soldiers stepped up their journey even in the dark, and arrived at Lilibe in the middle of the night.
But the sentinels at the head of Lilibee forbade them from entering the city, because the Sicilian fleet patrolled the western waters every day, and sometimes sent fleet infantry ashore to harass them, making the various Carthaginian and Phoenician city-states like birds of prey, very cautious, especially so many The soldiers who wanted to enter the military town of Lilibe in the middle of the night, of course, had to be very cautious. The city lord Imisere had to personally go to the city to conduct a strict inspection before entering the city.
It took nearly an hour after the identity of the body was verified and the intention of the army was known. Imisere hurriedly sent someone to the port to inquire, but it was too late.
It turned out that since the Dionysian fleet began to control the western waters, the number of ships coming to Lilibe has gradually decreased, and it has basically disappeared, and some ship owners in Lilibe are reluctant to keep their ships in this blockade. There was no profit in the port, and they all fled to Carthage, which made the ships in the port not many, far from enough to carry 4,000 troops (at least 100 large cargo ships) at one time. Opportunity was the fleet that came at night to carry baggage for the Carthaginian army.
Although Morbar had successfully organized a large-scale transportation of military rations and baggage to Sicily by using the method of "building the plank road in the bright and darkening the warehouse" before, he knew very well that the consumption of 100,000 troops was huge, and only one transportation It wasn't enough, and after the Dionysian fleet had learned its lesson, it wouldn't work the next time, so he came up with another solution.
Under his proposal, the Carthaginian Senate passed a decision: let Carthage and the nearby Phoenician city-states trade with Sicily all year round, familiar with the sea conditions there, and have several dozen shipowners with experience in sailing. A small fleet of cargo ships that take turns to load food and supplies during the day, set off at dusk, and arrive at Liliba, or Mazara, or Eryx in the middle of the night... (The destination is a temporary decision at the time of departure, to avoid the route being too fixed, After being noticed by the Dionysians, wait for a while.) After unloading the cargo, the fleet had to leave the port and return immediately to avoid encountering the Dionysian warships after dawn.
Therefore, the port workers in these cities are resting during the day and on standby at night, and the flames of the lighthouses are extremely bright. Of course, if the weather is bad at night, these small fleets will stop shipping.
So far, the fleet has successfully transported several times. Although the materials transported each time are not many, it is better than a long stream of water.
Coincidentally, the destination of the fleet this evening was Lillibe, but unfortunately the fleet had already left when Imiserai sent people to the port.
After sighing, Imisere decided to send someone to inform the two cities of Mazara and Eryx early in the morning that no matter which port the Carthaginian fleet arrived at tomorrow night, they would be notified to help transport the soldiers.
In addition, he also asked the two cities to drive all the idle cargo ships in the port to Lillibee, and gather enough ships to transport the soldiers to Palermos at one time.
After making these decisions and placing the soldiers in the barracks, Imisere finally went back to sleep with peace of mind.
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Not long after Marco sent off the reinforcements, he received another messenger from Liliba. He brought the order of the Senate: because the Dionysian fleet attacked the Phoenician allies in Africa several times, the Senate decided to The fleet was transferred back to defend the coastline of the homeland, and I hope that Margo can speed up the progress of the siege and capture the city of Serinus as soon as possible.
After reading this order, Marco became angry again: although since Morbar won that naval battle, there has been no victory in this period of time. The Dionysian fleet is still cruising in the western seas, but the Carthaginian fleet is in the west. The presence of the sea from time to time prevented the Dionysian fleet from daring to land on a large scale to attack the rear of the Carthaginian army. The number of harassments was significantly reduced, and he was able to concentrate on building the inner and outer walls of the camp. He Tushan, and concentrated his forces to attack the city of Serinus. Now that the fleet has been transferred back to Carthage, the Dionysian fleet can unscrupulously harass the rear of the army, forcing Margo to distract him. Moreover, the defenders of Dionia are closely defended. If the Carthaginian army attacks, even if they finally take the city of Serinus, the casualties will inevitably be heavy. How can they achieve the intention of a decisive battle with the main force of Dionia!
Margo was extremely suspicious that the order of the Senate was made under the instigation of the Hanno faction. While cursing Hanno in his heart, he also decided to ignore the order and attack the city in an orderly manner according to the original plan.
On the second day, the Carthaginian soldiers continued to build the earthen hill, and they had already begun to ram the wooden frame with earth.
The Balearic soldiers on the inner wall kept throwing lead pellets to suppress the long-range attacks of the defenders of Serinus City, so that the construction of the earth mountain could be carried out in an orderly manner.
On the other hand, Amintas let the light infantry at the front of the city and the ballista troops moved to the city to attack the Carthaginian soldiers who were busy in front of the city, in order to destroy and delay the enemy's construction of soil and mountains. At the same time, he also let the soldiers of the mountain reconnaissance team Distributed all over the trenches in the city, listen carefully to the movement of the underground, to prevent the other party from digging the tunnel again. In addition, he also assigned some soldiers to assist the engineering battalion to build the wooden city wall.
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In the evening, the Carthaginian fleet and the cargo ships of Mazara and Eryx all came to Lilibe as promised. After carrying 4,000 reinforcements, the more than 100 cargo ships quietly headed north, and finally successfully entered Paisley. Port of Remus.
When these soldiers jumped off the boat in excitement, boarded the dock, and were about to rush back to their home to enjoy the warmth of their wives and children, countless black-armored and black-armored soldiers surrounded them in front of them.
The hearts of the reinforcements suddenly fell to the bottom: Palermus has been occupied by the Dionysians? !
Fact: Palermus surrendered to the Dionian army.
Why did Leotizides seem more confident when discussing with Midorades about attacking Palermos, because his team had someone who was left to him by Davos and helped him attack Syracuse City? When the team of hundreds of engineers left Syracuse by boat, they also dismantled the siege equipment previously used to attack Syracuse as much as possible, placed them in the cargo ship, and transported them together.
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