Novels online

Chapter 998

On this day, the Dionysian Army that landed on the territory of Palermos was busy with the defense of the southern mountain road and the coastal trail. They were busy building camps and transporting the supplies transported by the cargo ships until evening.

The night was uneventful.

The next day, Leotychides did not rush to attack the city of Palermos. Instead, he continued to let the more than 10,000 soldiers build the camp. The Third Fleet, which had been guarding the nearby fleet yesterday, did not appear again. The lively camp did not return to peace until evening.

However, the mountains to the south of the Dionysian Army's camp were not peaceful. Carthage's army was blocked on the mountain road leading to the territory of Palermos. A forceful attack would not necessarily succeed, and instead, they would suffer heavy casualties. But Hasdrubal did not give up. He knew that once the Diónia occupied Palermos, it would further reduce the space for Carthage's army to move. Moreover, he was not a person who easily bowed in the face of difficulties. Now that time was very tight, he was worried that the people of Palermos would not be able to hold on for a few days due to the lack of soldiers. So he repeated his old trick and sent 4,000 Lusitanian warriors over the mountains to support Palermos and repel the Dionysian Army.

The Iberian army led by Hasdrubal had been stationed in Palermos for a few months, so he was more familiar with the terrain there. From the southern entrance of the mountain road to the east, after crossing several tall mountains, the streams on the surrounding mountains converged into a small lake. The lake flowed to the low-lying land in the east, gradually forming a small river. After flowing east for ten miles, the river turned north and flowed into the sea. The place where it flowed formed a narrow valley. Although it was difficult to walk, it allowed one to enter the territory of Palermos.

The Lusitanian warriors spent the whole day trekking through the mountains and valleys. It was not until dusk that they saw the river flowing out of the mountains and into the flat territory of Palemos. This place was located to the east of Palemos, more than ten miles away from the city. The Lusitanian warriors stopped advancing and hid in the dense forest. After eating their rations, they lay on the grass to rest and recover the strength they had expended during the day.

Late at night, the warriors who were still sleeping got up reluctantly under the urging of their leaders, and walked out of the mountain in a daze.

As they marched eastward, they gradually regained their senses. Especially when they saw the vague silhouette of the Diónia camp in the distance with the help of the moonlight, many of the warriors began to get excited.

In this expedition to Sicily, they first followed Hasdrubal to capture Thyedium, then slaughtered Agrigento, Econome, and Gela, looted a lot of trophies, enjoyed Greek women, and killed many Greek men. But they did not suffer many casualties, mainly because Hasdrubal never asked them to participate in difficult siege battles. For example, when attacking Enna and Paragonia, they just stood by and watched. They only participated in a frontal battle once, and it was against the soldiers of the Greek city-states on the south coast, so they did not feel much pressure.

Although Hasdrubal once said, "The Dionysian Army is a strong enemy!" On the contrary, they were eager to defeat the Dionysian Army and cut off the heads of the Diónia soldiers to prove their strength, and now was the opportunity.

The so-called civilized people of Carthage and the Greeks were afraid of the night, but they were not. On the contrary, they liked to use the night to cover their tracks, quietly approach the enemy, and then launch a deadly attack. In Iberia, this was how they dealt with the Carthaginians, and in the end, they forced the Carthaginians to sign a peace treaty. Now, they were going to use this tried-and-true method of attack on the pitiful Dionians. Thinking about how they were about to taste the blood of the Dionians, the Lusitanian warriors gripped their daggers tightly and quickened their pace.

But during the march, almost no one made a sound except for the sound of their footsteps. Just like that, 4,000 people quietly approached the Diónia camp.

The huge Diónia camp was also very quiet. There was a burning torch erected at every section of the wooden fence, illuminating the surroundings, but there were no sentries patrolling. Sentries could be seen on the towering sentry towers behind the wooden fence, but they were all in a deep sleep.

The Diónia people thought that since they had blocked the mountain road, they could boldly attack the city of Palemos. There would be no more enemies to threaten them, and they could boldly attack the city of Palemos. That was why the security of the camp was so lax! After discovering that the situation in front of them was advantageous to them, the Lusitanian leaders were very happy. They led the soldiers to no longer hide and approached the camp in a loose formation.

Due to the lack of time, the Diónia people had not set up traps around the camp, so the Lusitanians easily came to the trench at the east gate of the camp. Then, some soldiers carefully climbed over the trench and came under the wooden fence.

Some of them piled on top of each other and climbed up; some took out lassos, threw them onto the wooden wall, and accurately hooked onto the wooden stake at the top. Then, they grabbed the rope and climbed up. In a short while, more than a dozen soldiers climbed over the wooden fence and quickly opened the camp gate.

The Lusitanian soldiers who were waiting outside the camp rushed into the camp eagerly. They let out a deafening roar and killed their way into the tents, but the soldiers who rushed into the tents found that there was no one in the tents.

Just as they were feeling surprised, a loud bugle suddenly sounded in the camp. Darkness surged in front of them, and countless Diónia soldiers appeared in the passage between the tents, holding long shields and spears. They lined up in a dense formation, forming a shield wall, and approached the Lusitanian soldiers.

The first reaction of the Lusitanians was not to go forward to fight, but to realize that they had been tricked. "If the sneak attack fails, retreat immediately and try again next time" was their traditional tactic. So, the Lusitanian leaders immediately shouted, "Retreat! Let's retreat! … "

The soldiers turned around and wanted to run out of the camp gate.

However, the bugle earlier was not only to let the Diónia soldiers stop the sneak attack inside the camp, but also to inform the troops lying in ambush outside the camp to take action. So, when the Lusitanian soldiers rushed out, they found that there were also countless Diónia soldiers outside the camp gate, completely blocking their way out. At the same time, there were also soldiers coming from the passage inside the wooden fence, cutting off their last way out.

"Lord Commander, we have completely surrounded the enemy!" Tagrou, who was standing on a sentry tower in the camp, said excitedly as he observed the situation inside the camp.

Although Leotychides did not say anything, he looked a little more relaxed. He and Zantiparis had long expected that Carthage might send the mountain tribes to support them, so he and Zantiparis had sent out the mountain reconnaissance team of the two legions to closely observe the abnormalities in the surrounding mountains.

The specially trained reconnaissance soldiers were evenly scattered in the mountains in the south. As a result, at noon, someone discovered the Lusitanian army trekking in the mountains. They did not act rashly to alert the enemy. Instead, they sent people to continue to follow and monitor them while sending someone back to the camp to inform Leotychides. Therefore, the Lusitanians thought that their actions were secretive, but they did not know that their movements were completely under Leotychides' control. He had already cast a net, waiting for the ignorant moths to crash into it.

Seeing that there was no hope of retreat, the Lusitanians decided to use force to fight their way out. They held up their wooden shields and used all their strength to hit the shield wall of Diónia that blocked their way. Then, they used their Fakara daggers to stab the Diónia soldiers who exposed a gap in their defense.

The soldiers of the Legion of Dionysia tried their best to maintain a dense formation, using their bayonets to force the enemy to stay away from them. At the same time, with the strong support of their teammates in the rear, they used their strong shields to suppress the enemy.

The ones who really killed the enemy were the light infantry behind the heavy infantry of Diónia. They threw round after round of arrows and javelins at the enemy in the encirclement.

Most of the Lusitanian soldiers had no other protection except for their helmets and wooden shields. Therefore, the long-range attacks of Diónia caused a lot of damage to them.

However, the continuous fall of the soldiers who were hit by the arrows inspired the courage of their companions. They were like injured beasts, fiercely hitting the shield wall formed by the soldiers of Diónia. They used wooden shields, daggers, fists, teeth … They used everything they could to kill the enemy that blocked their way.

Therefore, even though Diónia had surrounded the Lusitanians with nearly four times the number of soldiers, the battle continued.

The people of Palermos were awakened by the movement outside the city. They went up to the top of the city wall to take a look. They saw that the camp of Diónia was brightly lit and the sound of killing was loud.

They were excited about the arrival of the reinforcements, but at the same time, they were worried about their safety. Almost all of them were praying to God Melkat at the top of the city wall, but they never thought of sending troops out of the city to support them.

Of course, even if they had the guts to send troops out of the city, the 1,500 light armored soldiers that Leotychides had left behind would be put to good use.

The prayers of the people of Palermos did not work. When it was almost dawn, the sounds of fighting from the camp of Diónia gradually disappeared. Four thousand Lusitanian soldiers were either killed or wounded, but no one surrendered. The east gate of the camp was surrounded by corpses. The Dionysian Army had also lost nearly six hundred men.

On the morning of the second day, Hasdrubal led his army to the wooden stockade at the exit of the mountain path with anticipation. Instead of being welcomed by the gates, he was shocked to see the heads of hundreds of Lusitanian warriors piled up into a small hill. Hasdrubal and his men were all terrified.