Chapter 1000
Amyntas was stunned. He had been so excited by the idea that he had forgotten that the Carthage soldiers also had ballistae.
Calsidis had obviously considered this problem before. He said calmly, "The Carthaginian ballistae are indeed worthy of our attention, but in fact, their accuracy is not very high. We can also think of ways to overcome this, such as … tightening fishing nets on the wooden city walls, or filling the gaps between the wooden frames with enough soil …
In addition, since we are going to use wood to build the city walls, can't we do it like how we usually build the sentry towers for our campsite? We can first let the engineering camp build the framework in the city. When the Carthaginians finish building the hill, we can move the wooden framework onto the city walls and quickly finish building it. Then, we can suppress the Carthaginians from above and suddenly kill the Carthaginian light infantry on the hill. This will make the Carthaginians waste so much time building the hill. If they want to regain the upper hand, they will have to build a bigger foundation to build a higher hill. This will take more time … "
"Good idea! That is indeed a good idea! " Amyntas laughed heartily. "I can't wait to see the faces of the Carthage soldiers who thought they were proud of themselves suddenly turn into disappointment. Aristonos, immediately call the engineers from the engineering battalion and have them inspect the walls. Then, according to Calsidis' suggestion, build a wooden wall like this to defend against the Carthage soldiers' attack! "
"Yes, Commander." Aristonos immediately turned and went down the wall.
Not long after, the catapults from the light infantry battalion arrived at the top of the wall. They followed Amyntas' instructions and began to attack the Carthage heavy infantry below the wall. Heavy lead pellets the size of eggs hit the helmet at a short distance. The impact from the pellets could cause dizziness, and when they hit the breastplate, it would cause unbearable pain …
Soon, the orderly line of the Carthage soldiers became chaotic. The soldiers ignored the officers' attempts to stop them and threw down their wooden baskets. They screamed and jumped as they dodged the pellets flying towards them. They began to flee in a sorry state.
The slingers' attacks were effective.
However, not long after, the Diónia soldiers at the top of the city wall suddenly shouted in panic, "Be careful! Flying Rocks! … "
Amyntas suddenly saw countless tiny black dots flying out from the inner wall of Carthage's camp a hundred meters ahead.
This time, it was the Diónia soldiers' turn to be nervous. They hurriedly raised their shields diagonally, trying to form a shield wall to provide shelter for themselves and the stone throwers.
Amintas gritted his teeth as the others groaned in pain. "It must be the Balearic Slingers!"
After the main army landed in Sicily, Leotychides had mentioned to the Devers and other high-ranking Diónia generals that Carthage had thousands of Balearic Slingers. Amyntas was the only one who had one, and he was concerned about the Balearic Slingers' combat ability. He did not expect to personally experience it in Salinus.
The First Legion's stone throwers were not to be outdone and retaliated. Countless lead pellets flew in the air. The other soldiers at the top of the wall could use their shields to dodge the pellets, but the stone throwers could not be protected while they were hurling rocks. As a result, some of the stone throwers were constantly injured.
After all, the Diónia's stone throwers were few in number and could not hold on for much longer. In order to preserve their strength, Amyntas had no choice but to switch them out. Soon, he saw the Carthage heavy infantry forming a long line with wooden frames on their backs, piling up mountains of dirt again.
At that moment, he heard someone shouting, "General Calsidis! General Calsidis! … "
He stared at the person who shouted and vaguely remembered that it was a platoon leader of the reserve troops. He immediately shouted angrily, "What are you shouting for?! What's the matter?! "
The platoon leader had rushed to the top of the wall and was reprimanded by Amyntas before he could report to Calsidis. When he saw Amyntas' angry face, he immediately remembered the rumors about him and panicked.
"Commander Amyntas is asking you a question. What's the matter?" Calsidis quickly reminded him.
"Oh … Yes … Commander … It's like this. We found something strange when we were digging the trenches. The Carthage's men might be digging tunnels!"
Amyntas and the people around him were shocked.
"Where did you find it?! Quick, take me there! "Amyntas said anxiously.
It turned out that after Amyntas became the commander of the defense of Selinus City, he followed Calsidis's suggestion and began to build inner walls in the city. To ensure that he could build a few more, he built the first inner wall less than 50 meters away from the outer wall.
Usually, the walls and trenches were built together. This ensured that the excavated soil could be used to build the walls directly. Amyntas also had strict requirements. The trenches had to be at least four meters deep and four meters wide. The task of digging the trenches was mainly undertaken by the original defenders of Selinus (some of the reserve troops complained about this, but Calsidis comforted them well).
After a few days of hard work, the trenches were basically dug. Then, the soldiers had to bury sharp wooden stakes in the trenches. Today, while they were doing this work, one of the soldiers had just dug a sharp hole and was about to bury the wooden stake in it. However, he realized that the sand kept seeping into the hole and sinking it. He was shocked and thought that he had provoked a monster. He hurriedly jumped out of the trenches, knelt on the ground, and prayed devoutly to Hades.
Soon, the news spread like wildfire.
The leader of the reserve troops, who had rushed over after hearing the news, had more military experience. When he saw this strange phenomenon, he immediately felt uneasy. He immediately got the soldiers to keep quiet and carefully jumped into the trenches. He put his ear close to the place where the soil was sinking and listened carefully. In the end, he heard the sound of digging coming from below.
He immediately rushed over to report.
The location of the accident was not far from the north gate. When Amyntas and his men rushed over, he personally climbed into the trenches and confirmed the situation reported by the leader of the reserve troops. Then, he was pulled up by the guards with a gloomy face. He cursed with lingering fear, "Cunning Carthage men!"
He did not expect that the Carthaginians were building inner walls and piling up mounds of earth. They looked as though they were going to attack Serinus on the surface, but they were secretly digging tunnels to launch a sneak attack on Serinus!
Amyntas was completely kept in the dark. Of course, one of the reasons was that after the Carthage men built the inner walls, it cut off the Diónia defenders' observation of Carthage's camp from the top of the city wall. They had no way of knowing the movements of the Carthage men inside the camp.
"Lord Commander, the Carthage men may have dug more than one tunnel!" Calsidis came forward and reminded him in a low voice.
Amyntas nodded and immediately ordered all the soldiers to stop digging the trenches. The Mountain Reconnaissance Team led the light armored troops to use the trenches built in the inner city to carefully investigate whether there were other tunnels.
After a while, the Mountain Reconnaissance Team came to report that they had also found the Carthage men digging tunnels under the east and west walls.
Although Amyntas and the rest were already mentally prepared, they were still a little shocked when they heard the news. Adjutant Aristos even speculated, "It seems that the soil used by the Carthage men to build these three earth mountains came from the tunnels. How cunning!"
Amyntas' face was now ashen. He sternly ordered, "Hurry up and call the engineers over. Let them carefully survey the site and estimate the direction and depth of the tunnels that the Carthage men are digging. Then, design a tunnel that we want to dig that can quickly connect to the Carthage men's tunnel. Then," Amyntas waved his hand forcefully, "kill all the Carthage men in the tunnels!"
The order was immediately carried out. The engineers determined the route, the reserve soldiers were responsible for digging, and the three teams of the First Legion were responsible for killing the enemy.
Thousands of soldiers dug with all their might and quickly connected the tunnels. The First Legion, who were already prepared, immediately rushed into the tunnels.
The Carthage soldiers were caught off guard. In order to dig, they did not wear any armor or carry any weapons. As a result, they were brutally killed. The Carthage men who were responsible for transporting the soil at the back fled in panic.
The First Legion did not continue to pursue them. Instead, they retreated to the back and let the reserve soldiers come in to block the tunnels.
He had just started working for a while when the fully armed Carthaginian soldiers came in through the tunnel.
The First Legion hurried forward to meet the enemy.
As a result, the Carthage and Diónia were still intermittently fighting each other with long-range attacks on the surface. But underground, they were engaged in a bloody head-on battle.
This battle lasted for the whole day. Both sides kept sending soldiers into the tunnels.
In the narrow tunnels, the superior military strength could not be displayed. It was more dependent on the individual ability of the soldiers. In this regard, the First Legion of Diónia's exquisite stabbing skills were clearly better than their opponents. In addition, the narrow tunnels were more suitable for short-range weapons. So, the Diónia soldiers had an obvious advantage in the battle.
Based on this, Amyntas did not hesitate to send the various teams of the First Legion to take turns.
It was not that there were no soldiers in the Carthage army who were good at using daggers. The Lusitanian and northern Iberian Celtic warriors were experts in this field. But when Margo asked them to participate in this battle, the leaders of these mountain races firmly refused. They claimed that their warriors were used to standing on solid ground and fighting the enemy bravely under the hot sun. They hated to drill into the dark and damp underground like rats.
When the Carthage soldiers, as well as the Phoenician and southern Iberian soldiers that Margo relied on, were defeated again and again from the tunnels, he finally realized that except for the Iberian natives, the main force he relied on may not be weaker than the opponent in a head-on battle, but in a narrow space that relied more on individual ability, they were obviously weaker than the opponent.
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