Chapter 834
This caused the soldiers to speed up again and again. Zantiparis, who was almost 60 years old, found it a little difficult even on a horse.
After entering the mountain path, no matter how urgent it was, Zantiparis had to slow down his troops to prevent being ambushed by the enemy.
At this moment, the soldiers saw fire in the distance.
The scouts sent out hurried back to report: the Kautini had retreated and burned the entire town of Papania.
By the time Zantiparis arrived with his army, the bustling town built in the valley was already shrouded in flames. Three headless corpses were placed in the open space south of the town, with a wooden sign next to them. A line of Greek words was written in human blood on it: I have 134 Diónia people in my hands. Give me the captured Samonese warriors in exchange. Otherwise, they will end up like these corpses!
The soldiers were furious when they saw this tragic scene. They all requested to chase after the enemy and rescue the captive people.
The old Zantiparis was certainly not as impulsive as the soldiers. He just asked the soldiers to collect the three corpses and line up in place, waiting for the scouts' report.
Soon, the news that came back confirmed his guess: there seemed to be an ambush on both sides of the mountain path ahead, and there were Kautini warriors waiting at the exit of the road.
Zantiparis led the army back without hesitation. He knew that the long-term peace between Naconia and Diónia had been broken, and the war had reached the northwestern border of the kingdom. Not only did he have to gather the reserve army as soon as possible to defend Enona, but he also had to inform the Ministry of Military Affairs as soon as possible to send more troops or give himself more authority to lead troops. Otherwise, it would be difficult to deal with the upcoming war with just these 4,000 new soldiers.
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Pompeii was a small Greek city with a small population. Now that more than half of the residents were captives, even if the elderly and women of Pompeii took up weapons and went to the top of the city, it was difficult to resist Segovani's premeditated attack.
The battle lasted until the afternoon, and the city was breached.
The cheers of the soldiers made Segovani feel good, but he was still not satisfied. He needed more victories to wash away the humiliation he had suffered before.
So he left some of the soldiers to garrison and continued to lead the army north along the coast. By dusk, they arrived at Herculaneum, only 15 miles from Pompeii.
Herculaneum was located at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. It was also a small Greek coastal city, but it was richer than Pompeii because it was close to the Bay of Naples, thus becoming a subsidiary trading port of Naples' prosperous sea trade.
But the Herculaneans had their own pride. They believed that their town had a longer history than Naples, because it was founded by Hercules (as could be seen from his name).
The people of Herculaneum were prepared for defense, having been informed of the enemy's attack by the Pompeians who had fled to Herculaneum beforehand.
Seeing this, Segovani did not order another attack, but set up camp on the spot.
Herculaneum's messenger had rushed to Naples to ask for help, but at this time, Naples was facing the threat of the Samonese coalition from the northeast. Originally, they were going to send the Campanian coalition to repel the enemy, but now that they heard that a large number of enemies were attacking from the south, the Neapolitans, who were likely to be attacked from both sides, immediately gave up on the idea of fighting. At the same time, they also sent messengers to Diónia to ask for help.
(Note: After the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, it was not only Pompeii that was buried under the volcanic ash, but also Herculaneum. Unlike Pompeii, which had been excavated, 75% of its town was still buried, and most of it was intact.)
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After Diónia won consecutive victories against Asculum and Venosa, the Samonese were forced to retreat to the mountains. Even the mountain reconnaissance team reported that there were no traces of the Samonese in the hills at the border of the Downey region.
Obviously, the heavily injured Samonese coalition gave up on the plan to continue harassing the Downey region. The Kingdom of Diónia's commander in the Downey region, Alexis, did not take advantage of the situation to lead the army to attack the Samonese region.
On the one hand, it was because of the Devers's solemn reminder. "Without absolute confidence, do not enter the Samonese mountains to fight the Samonese." More than ten years ago, Alexis once led the Legio III to fight the Samonese in the Lucania mountains. Although he won a small victory, he also felt the power of the Samonese warriors in mountain battles. Moreover, he was in Potentia at that time. If it was in the Samonese mountains, the terrain was unfamiliar, transportation was difficult, and they were in enemy territory. There was no doubt that they would have encountered more trouble.
The second aspect was the problem of food supply. Alexis had gathered three legions and one cavalry legion, a total of nearly 30,000 people. The rations that the soldiers brought with them had been eaten up. The amount of food provided by the kingdom every day was not a small amount. Now that the King of Devers was leading an expedition to the Latinum region, the already small amount of rations would naturally be given to the expeditionary army.
The Ministry of Military Affairs had already made a suggestion to Alexis: Since the Samonese had suffered heavy losses, they had stopped attacking the Downey region. They hoped that he could disband some of the legions to reduce the food supply.
In addition, a few days ago, the administrator of Augentum sent a messenger to Downey, telling Alexis a piece of news: According to the pirates who came to the port to trade stolen goods, the former Pucchetti King's son, Vardalka, who had escaped to the other side of the Adriatic Sea, was in the Epirus region gathering the Pucchetti, Messapians, and Downeans who had escaped to the mainland of Greece.
Therefore, Alexis finally decided to disband the Ninth, Tenth, and Second Cavalry Legions. However, as usual, they still had to keep a company stationed in each barracks. They also had to send another company of soldiers with four days of rations. The Cavalry Legions would send 200 cavalrymen to Asculum in the Downey region. Alexis would lead them on duty there.
In the barracks in the Downey region, every two companies of soldiers of the 11th Legion would bring their own rations. They would rotate once every four days, under the command of Capus.
The Downey barracks were in the north, while Asculum was in the south. At the same time, there were a total of 4000 soldiers and 200 cavalrymen guarding the borders of the Downey region and the Samonese region. Supplemented by the citizens of the neighboring towns, it was enough to deal with the small and medium-sized Samonese invasion.
Once the remnants of the enemy who escaped from Apulia landed in other locations in the Apulia region, the garrison of the other barracks could first resist them. Then, the citizens who were ready for battle would quickly gather from the towns to the barracks under the orders of the messengers. They would form a complete legion and completely destroy the enemy. This way, the kingdom's military rations would be consumed very little, and the safety of the area was basically guaranteed.
The reason why Alexis dared to do this was because the Apulia region was a plain. The terrain was basically flat. In addition to the main roads, there were also relatively smooth roads between the towns. From the city of Lucenia in the north to Augentum in the south, it would only take a little more than a day for the army to march quickly. However, because of this, the soldiers of the legion were relatively busy. They were always on the move, but for the warlike people of Mesapi and Puchetti, it was exciting to have a war to fight, merits to be earned, and land to be divided.
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In the many exchanges between the Ministry of Military Affairs and the King of the Devers, the kingdom's current strategy for this war was: attack from the north, defend from the south.
The army led by the Devers was attacking in the Latin region, while the army led by Alexis had stopped in the Downey region. In the southern region of Sicily, the army led by Leotychides did not retreat to defend. Instead, they used Salinus as a base to attack everywhere, looting all the villages and towns outside the cities of Mazara, Lili, Segesta, and other cities to ensure an adequate supply of food for the army. This was to achieve the goal of disrupting the order of Carthage's rule in Sicily and creating favorable conditions for future battles.
Leotychides adopted a combat strategy of attack and defense.
When the Devers led the army to the coast of Latin, the drowned body of the commander of Diónia's Third Fleet, Franio, had been found in the reefs of the coast between Minoa and Agligento. As the body had decomposed, Leotychides led all the soldiers and fleet sailors to hold a solemn cremation funeral for him in the city of Salinus.
Everyone was crying.
However, traces of the commander of the Sicilian fleet, Sequerian, had yet to be found. Leotychides once speculated that Sequerian might have fallen into the coast controlled by Carthage's people and was captured. When exchanging prisoners with Carthage's people, he had proposed to exchange more prisoners for Sequerian.
Carthage's people did not reply.
As the order signed by the Devers "agreeing to transfer the Fourth Fleet to Sicily" had not yet reached the Ministry of Military Affairs, the former commander of the Fourth Fleet, Stefakas, temporarily took on the responsibility of commanding the entire Sicilian fleet (in fact, there were only a few dozen warships left in the Sicilian fleet).
The Dionysian Army wreaked havoc on the western land of Sicily, causing Carthage's allies and colonial cities to complain incessantly. They all asked for help from Lili.
The morale of the troops in Lili was low, and the military system was in chaos. Pomirka only wanted to protect himself and did not dare to go out of the city to fight the Dionysian Army.
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