Chapter 999
At the same time, Leotychides ordered the soldiers to place the corpses of thousands of Lusitanian soldiers in front of the city of Palermos. At the same time, he ordered people to shout in Phoenician language at the foot of the city, threatening the people of Palermos to open the city and surrender. Otherwise, they would suffer the same fate.
Witnessing the terrible fate of the reinforcements with their own eyes, the threatened people of Palermos panicked. They had an urgent discussion about whether to surrender to Diónia. After all, more than 20 years ago, when Dionysius led 100,000 troops to conquer western Sicily, they had surrendered once. They were all Greeks. If they could surrender to Dionysius, why couldn't they surrender to Diónia?
… …
While the people of Palermos were worried about their fate, Midolades was smugly leading the fleet to the south.
The port of departure for the Third Fleet was not Thyedium or Messina, but Saros on the island of Sardinia. The day before yesterday, after finishing the discussion with Sykerian and completing the task of escorting the fleet, he led the fleet directly to Sardinia and docked at the outer port of Saros. He was warmly welcomed by the commander of the Ninth Army, Tegthinus.
At this time, the governor of Saros had already been appointed. He was the old senator from Amendolara, Strompoli. He had no intention of serving in other places, but after a long discussion between the five rotating presidents of the Senate, they finally agreed that he was the most suitable candidate among the retired senators of Turií. So, Cornelus personally came to persuade him as an old friend.
In order to ensure that the kingdom would win the war, Strompoli finally accepted the appointment. Along with him were 3,000 reserve soldiers from Turií and Bruti.
With the new governor's proposal, Tegthinus, who had received reinforcements, quickly led the army north and easily captured Saint Iberia. This time, the Ninth Army did not start a massacre. Instead, they did their best to capture the people of Saint Iberia. At the same time, they tried not to damage the various facilities inside and outside the city.
When Midolades arrived in Saros, Strompoli was reorganizing the order in the city. At the same time, he was trying his best to persuade the captive Saint Iberians to serve the kingdom and continue to collect and smelt precious metal ores. Tegtinus, on the other hand, was training his army and preparing to attack the surrounding Phoenician towns.
After the Third Fleet made sufficient preparations in the outer port of Saros, they left the port early in the morning on the third day and quickly sailed south. Their target was the Phoenician city of Agilgili on the coast of Africa.
Compared to Sicily, the southern tip of Sardinia Island was closer to the Afrika mainland, but it was not directly facing Carthage, so its strategic position was not as important as Sicily. However, it was precisely because it was close to Afrika and far from Carthage that it created favorable conditions for the Third Fleet to launch a surprise attack.
The burning of Hadrumentum did arouse the vigilance of Carthage and its allies, but it was mainly on the side close to Sicily. The Carthage fleet's patrol and defense center was also on this side. After all, two fleets of Diónia had already appeared in the waters of Sicily.
As a result, the Third Fleet's surprise attack was successful. Not only did it burn down another Phoenician city on the coast of Africa, but it also captured some Phoenician citizens and returned with a full load. This was because Strompoli had told Midolades that Saint Iberia was in urgent need of labor.
The news of the "burning of Ogilgili" quickly spread throughout the land of Afrika. The repeated attacks on the Phoenician cities caused the Phoenicians to panic. Messengers from various cities rushed to the Carthage Senate, strongly requesting Carthage to fulfill his duty as the leader of the alliance and give their cities security protection.
The people of Carthage also gathered and once again protested to the Senate, hoping that they would take action to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.
The elders of Carthage were under a lot of pressure. After a fierce debate, the Hanoverian party's opinion was adopted, and the Senate finally made two decisions. First, they ordered the Navy Commander Morbar to not lead his fleet to the waters of Sicily for the time being. Instead, he had to patrol the coast of Afrika every day to ensure the safety of Carthage and its allies. Second, they sent messengers to Sicily to pressure the military commander Margo to capture Serinus as soon as possible. Otherwise, Carthage would have no choice but to negotiate peace with Diónia.
… …
In the city of Serinus, the battle between the Diónia garrison and the Carthage army had been going on.
Although the Diónia garrison used ballistae and abdominal bows to carry out long-range attacks, and occasionally sent troops out of the city to attack and kill the soldiers who were building the walls of Carthage. However, while Margo defended against the attacks of the Diónia garrison, he urged the soldiers to speed up the construction of the inner wall. Due to the large number of Carthage's army, despite the Diónia garrison's efforts to obstruct the construction, the inner wall of Carthage's camp was still completed.
Then, Margo sent troops to guard the inner wall. At the same time, he learned from the Diónia garrison and moved the ballistae to the top of the wall to fire at the defenders, thus changing the previous relatively passive situation.
Amyntas stood on the top of the wall, looking ahead with a solemn expression. Countless Carthage's heavy infantry lined up in a long line, pouring out of the newly built inner wall. They did not carry weapons or shields, but each of them carried a wooden frame filled with soil on their back. They placed the wooden frames closely in the open space between the inner wall of Carthage's camp and Serinus's city wall, then returned to the inner wall in turn, repeating the process repeatedly. Like building blocks, it did not take long for a "wooden hill" with a wide base and a height of almost three meters to be built.
While Carthage's men were busy, the ballistae on Serinus's city wall did not stop firing. Stone bullets could easily break the wooden frames, but when the wooden frames were broken, the scattered soil would invade the gaps between the wooden frames, making the "hill" that was being built more solid.
There were also ballistae that targeted Carthage's men, but they were too close to the city wall (about sixty to seventy meters). If the ballistae on the city wall wanted to attack them, they had to raise the angle of elevation. In this way, the stone bullets fell almost vertically. It looked amazing, but in fact, the lethality was limited, and it was easy to avoid.
The arrows shot by the Diónia light infantry were not much of a threat to the Carthage heavy infantry. They could not cause fatal damage to them. Under the urging of the officers, the Carthage heavy infantry had no choice but to face the incoming arrows head-on and complete the task of building the earth frame with the wooden frame.
The Abdominal Archers posed a greater threat to them, but Carthage's men had already pushed out dozens of ballistae, stacked in front of the long line of arrows. The powerful iron arrows might be able to penetrate one or two thick wooden boards, but they could not really threaten the lives of the Carthage soldiers.
"Commander, should we send soldiers out of the city to launch a surprise attack?" Aide-De-Camp Aristos asked.
Amyntas shook his head. From the top of the city wall, he could see that behind the ballistae, there was a group of Carthage's soldiers on guard. The enemy's inner wall was also filled with light infantry on standby. The Diónia garrison did not have the advantage of defense. If the soldiers were to attack, it would only lead to a fierce battle with the enemy. Although Amyntas fought bravely, he knew very well that Carthage's forces were four to five times his. It would be disadvantageous for him to fight recklessly. Moreover, Carthage had a large number of cavalry that could rush out from the other doors of the inner wall at any time. They could quickly circle behind his own soldiers and surround them.
"Deploy the stone throwers. Let them deal with the Carthage soldiers!" Amyntas's words made Aide-De-Camp Aristos's eyes brighten. Among all the legions of Diónia, only the First Legion had more than 400 stone throwers. These soldiers from Rhodes were ruthless and accurate within a distance of 100 meters, and could cause blunt damage to the heavy infantry.
"How should we distribute these stone throwers?" Aide-De-Camp Aristos asked again. The north gate was not the only place where the earth mountain was being built. There was another one outside the east and west walls.
"Focus on the enemy here first!" Amyntas said firmly as he pointed to the front.
"Commander Amyntas, I have a suggestion," Calsidis suddenly said.
"Oh, Calsidis, go ahead." Amyntas looked at the general of Selinus's garrison. His tone became polite. During this period of time, Calsidis had done his best to assist him and had indeed given him a lot of help. He had also won his respect.
Calsidis said after some deliberation, "Carthage's people rely on their numbers to build the earth mountain at all costs. The most we can do now is to delay their progress. Just like the wall they built, they will eventually finish building the earth mountain. The purpose of building the earth mountain is probably to allow their ballistae and light infantry to attack our soldiers from above and assist their soldiers in attacking the city. We can also increase the height of the wall and make it impossible for Carthage to achieve their goal. "
Increase the height of the wall? Amyntas was surprised.
Calsidis gestured with his hands and continued to explain, "The stone wall built by the Selinus is very sturdy, and the walkway is wide and flat. We can continue to build the wooden wall on the walkway facing the earth mountain. We can at least increase the height of the seven-meter wall by five to six meters …"
Amyntas' eyes lit up after hearing this.
At this time, Aide-De-Camp Aristos objected, "But the Carthage have ballistae. The wooden wall can't withstand the attacks of stone bullets. When the time comes, it won't be of use and will instead increase the casualties of the soldiers!"
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