Chapter 1220
Polidorus had a gentle and steady personality. He was kind to the soldiers, so the militiamen were more willing to accept him as their commander. His death was very strange, and it made the soldiers suspicious. Asidorus and the other six ministers were all very famous people in the Thessaly city-states. They were specially selected by Iazon to help him unify the entire Thessaly region. In the end, they were killed by Polidorus on a groundless charge. How could this not make the militiamen from the various city-states angry? They were just afraid of Polidorus's power and temporarily endured it.
When the Diónia soldiers' swift and violent attacks led to a disadvantageous situation, the soldiers of Thessaly who did not have a strong fighting spirit quickly gave up fighting and chose to escape. There were even Philae militiamen who were dissatisfied with Polidorus's actions and killed Polidorus who was also fleeing in disorder in the chaos.
The Thessaly army was defeated, and the soldiers were no longer restrained. They wanted to escape back to their motherland. They scattered in all directions, causing the whole area to be full of defeated soldiers. It seemed to be a little disadvantageous for the Dionysian Army after the battle.
Matonis and Lizaru did not expect the Thessaly army to be defeated so quickly. But at the same time, they both thought that the victory of this battle would help them capture the city of Philae, which may have been completely defenseless, as soon as possible and completely solve the problem of the Dionysian Army's food supply. This was the original purpose of their eastward march, so the two of them ordered the light armored soldiers, light infantry battalions, and cavalry legions who did not contribute much in the battle, not to chase after the defeated soldiers, but to hurry to Philae.
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While the armies of Matonis and Lizaru were fighting with the Thessaly army in the northern plains, Patroclus had led the army over the mountains and entered the same flat southern plains of Thessaly. The soldiers continued to march northeast to the hilly area, regardless of exhaustion. In the afternoon, they arrived at the center of the southern plains, Pharsalus.
When the Dionysian Army landed in the Gulf of Mariacos, the Lamias had sent messengers to ask for help from Pharsalus. Therefore, the Pharsalus people were prepared for the arrival of the Dionysian Army. They even sent messengers to ask for help from Philae. But when the messenger arrived in Philae, Polidorus had already led his army to Larissa. He received the news that "Asidorus, who was respected by the Pharsalus people, was killed." He did not have time to send the news back to the city.
The people of Pharsalus did not expect the Dionysian Army to come so quickly and in such large numbers. The militia looked down from the city and could only see endless black surging. It was terrifying.
The city of Pharsalus was built on a hill, and they had been prepared in advance. It was getting late, and the Diónia soldiers had been marching for a long time and were physically exhausted. So Patroclus ordered the army to camp and rest less than a mile away from the city of Pharsalus. The distance between the two sides was so close that it was easy to be attacked. But Patroclus, with his absolute advantage in strength, was not worried. Instead, he was happy to see it happen.
But just as the soldiers began to dig trenches and build camps, he received a report from a cavalry scout: there were many defeated soldiers of Thessaly in the north.
After thinking for a while, Patroclus immediately issued an order: let some of the troops who were building camps immediately surround the city of Pharsalus to prevent any defeated soldiers from escaping into the city. At the same time, the cavalry legion, light infantry, and light armor troops were sent to hunt down the defeated soldiers of Thessaly.
These defeated soldiers of Thessaly, who had been running for several hours, thought that they had escaped the pursuit of the Dionysian Army, but they did not expect to run into another huge Dionysian Army. This was a great blow to them, who were extremely tired. Many of them simply chose to surrender.
Before dusk, the pursuit was coming to an end. The Dionysian Army had captured nearly 2,000 defeated soldiers of Thessaly, most of whom were people of Pharsalus.
Through their interrogation, Patroclus learned about the general movements of the armies of Martonis and Lizaru in the north in the past few days. He was happy for their successive attacks on Peleus, Larissa, and the defeat of Thessaly's main force. At the same time, he reminded himself to speed up the military action, so that when the two armies met, his prestige would be reduced due to too few military achievements, even though it was he who had taken the initiative to land on the most difficult southern coast.
Therefore, Patroclus selected five high-ranking and reputable captives from the captured Pharsalus soldiers. First, he assembled the army and let these captives follow him to review the tens of thousands of high-spirited soldiers. Then, he called Lamia's guide and explained the fact that the Dionysian Army had occupied Lamia, Heraclea, and Hot Spring Pass in the south.
After that, Patroclus formally talked to them and told them clearly that Diónia had sent 100,000 troops to attack Thessaly, and the main force of the army was far away in Thessaly in Peloponnesus. The city-states of Thessaly would certainly find it difficult to resist, but as long as Pharsalus surrendered to Diónia, he could swear in the name of 'Hades, the patron saint of Diónia' that the Dionysian Army would not harm the people of Pharsalus and would not plunder the property of the people at will. But if Pharsalus still refused to surrender before dawn, he would execute more than 2,000 Pharsalus captives, and then lead the army to attack the city of Pharsalus. After capturing the city, all the people of Pharsalus would become slaves of Diónia.
Soon, Patroclus let the captives, who served as messengers, into the city of Pharsalus.
The captives hurried to the council of Pharsalus and conveyed the request of Diónia to the councilors who had not left. At the same time, they also told them what had happened in Thessaly in the past few days.
The councilors of Pharsalus were shocked when they heard the story. In order to conquer Thessaly, Diónia had sent 100,000 troops (although the captives gave a positive answer based on the number of Dionysian Army they saw in the northern and southern plains of Thessaly, the councilors still had some doubts about such a large number). They had already captured Peleus, Larissa, Lamia, Heraclea, and Hot Springs Pass (this information was less doubtful). On the side of the Thessaly Alliance, not only was the temporary commander Polydorus murdered, but the only defensive army in Thessaly had just suffered a crushing defeat. What made the people of Pharsalus even angrier was that their backbone, the respected Asidamus, had been executed by Polydoron as a traitor.
The invasion of the Dionysian Army was irresistible, and the Iazon family was not trustworthy. Where should Pharsalus go?
At dusk, the bells in the city of Pharsalus rang, and the councilors urgently convened a citizens' meeting. As one of the most powerful states in Thessaly, there were less than 2,000 citizens attending the meeting, and less than 500 young and middle-aged citizens. Most of the citizens were either captives of Diónia or still in the army led by Iazon.
In fact, the citizens of Pharsalus had been intimidated by the huge Dionysian Army outside the city. Now that they knew that the enemy was stronger than they had seen, and they were isolated and helpless, most of the citizens agreed to surrender to Diónia.
The citizens of Pharsalus quickly passed a resolution. They declared that the reason for passing the resolution was to save the lives of their compatriots outside the city, and to prevent the destruction of Pharsalus (after all, the tragedy of the Tegea people's betrayal of the covenant and their eventual destruction by Diónia had spread throughout Greece, and the people of Pharsalus did not want to repeat the same mistake).
That night, Pharsalus sent messengers out of the city to discuss the surrender with the Dionysian Army.
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Among the powerful states of Thessaly, Phyllis was relatively special. It was surrounded by undulating hills. Restricted by the terrain, its urban area was not large, and there was no flat and fertile land in its territory. The reason why it was rich was that it relied on maritime trade. Especially after Iazon became the tyrant of Phyllis, he vigorously expanded the port, causing the area of the port area to almost occupy half of the entire city. Therefore, it was difficult to completely separate it from the main city.
There were more than a dozen cargo ships docked at a dock in the port. A fat middle-aged man staggered towards the dock. He greeted the owners of the merchant ships nearby while he was hiccuping. It was not until he approached the innermost of the dozen cargo ships that he stopped and put on a drunken posture. He took the opportunity to quietly glance around. After he found nothing unusual, he staggered and jumped onto the ship, then wobbled into the cabin.
Compared to the crew sleeping on the deck, there were three people sitting in the narrow cabin, discussing something in a low voice.
"Captain, I'm back!" The sailor who jumped onto the ship said in a low voice.
The man who was addressed as the captain was around 40 years old. He was abnormally burly, and there were several obvious scars on his face and body. His every movement exuded an awe-inspiring aura. He was the current captain of the Mountain Ridge Reconnaissance Brigade of the Sacred Kingdom of Dionia — Tegetus.
Why would Tegetus, who was supposed to follow Cloto Catax to fight in Peloponnesus, appear at the port of Phyllis?
It turned out that the Ministry of Military Affairs had formulated the military plan to land and raid Thessaly. The Mountain Reconnaissance Brigade was an important part of the plan. As the landing troops had to capture Thessaly as soon as possible to alleviate the shortage of food supplies, the issue of how to successfully capture Phyllis, the center of Thessaly, became the most important issue. Sending a small team to infiltrate in advance and coordinate with the main force of the siege was an important method for the Dionysian Army to capture cities in previous wars. The Mountain Reconnaissance Brigade happened to be the team that was best at this tactic. They had made many military achievements, so they were assigned to infiltrate Phyllis.
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