ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 999
Mago wanted to make up for this deficiency through numerical superiority and eventually defeat the opponent. However, when the number of casualties approached 2000, he stopped sending troops into the tunnels.

And Amyntas quickly blocked the three tunnels, and the First Legion and reserve soldiers also suffered nearly 500 casualties. Fortunately, the Dionian soldiers won in every battle, so they were able to Injured soldiers were rescued and treated.

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Mago sat in the big tent with a straight face, sulking at himself.

The Carthaginians prospered by trading in precious metals, and many citizens were engaged in the mining industry. The Magonides family was no exception, especially after they moved to southern Iberia. The army he led occasionally also worked part-time as miners when they were not fighting. , so his army is good at digging tunnels. The reason why he did not do this when attacking Paragonia is because the town is located at the foot of the mountain and the geology is too hard to dig, while Selinus can .

When he besieged the city of Selinus last time, he built earthen walls in order to attack through tunnels, but soon after Hasdrubal successfully raided the rear of the south coast, the battle situation changed, and he did not have time to implement it. This time he carefully With planning and enough time, when the tunnel was successfully dug under the wall of Selinus, the Dionysians had not noticed it yet. At this time, they had two options: one was to switch to horizontal excavation and hollow out the foundation of the city wall. , and then pull out the wooden pillars supporting the tunnel, allowing the city wall to collapse and create a gap; the other is to continue digging forward into the city, and then wait until night, send troops to sneak into the city through the tunnel, directly attack the Dionians, and occupy the entire city .

Mago chose the latter one because he believed that this method could more quickly and effectively eliminate the Selinus defenders, but he did not expect to be discovered by the Dionians, and it eventually evolved into this, and from now on Dion The Nian people will definitely be more vigilant, and it will be difficult for them to dig tunnels for sneak attacks.

Mago was regretting it. The messenger sent by Hasdrubal entered the big tent and gave him another blow: Hasdrubal wanted to sneak attack the Dionian army attacking Palermos, but was ambushed. , 4000 Lusitanian warriors were wiped out.

Mago yelled Hasdrubal's name in the big tent, scolded him, and even called him too stupid to be a child of the Magonid family. He seemed to have forgotten that he had just experienced a failed sneak attack. , so frightened that the messenger stood aside like a chilling cicada.

After getting angry, Mago calmed down: Hasdrubal's army was blocked and unable to rescue Palermos. He could only hope that Palermos could hold on by himself, but now there are not many defenders of Palermos. , it is necessary to strengthen its defense force, but now the land route is impassable...

Mago thought for a while and decided to transport reinforcements to Palermos by sea. It would definitely not work during the day as it would be easy to be discovered. It could only be done at night, which would be a bit risky.

Although Mago had just suffered the failure of the tunnel plan, it did not weaken his spirit. He immediately asked his men to gather 3000 Palermo people in the army, and an additional 1000 Sorus people were added. A total of 4000 people immediately rushed to Lilibi, asking Imisele to think of a way to summon cargo ships in the port and send them to Palermos as soon as tonight.

In the past two days, these soldiers had heard that their mother country was under attack and had been clamoring to go back. This time their wish was fulfilled, so the soldiers hurried on their way even in the dark and arrived at Lilibi in the middle of the night.

But the sentries at the head of Lilibi prohibited them from entering the city, because the Sicilian fleet patrolled the western waters every day, and sometimes sent fleet infantry ashore to harass, making the various Carthage and Phoenician city-states like frightened birds, very cautious, especially with so many Soldiers who wanted to enter the important military town of Lilibi in the middle of the night had to be very cautious. The city lord Yimisele had to go to the city in person for a strict inspection before entering the city.

It had already taken nearly an hour after they were identified and informed of the army's intention. Yimiserei hurriedly sent people to the port to inquire, but it was already too late.

It turns out that since the Dionian fleet began to control the western seas, the number of ships coming to Lilibi has gradually decreased, and now it has basically disappeared, and some ship owners in Lilibi are unwilling to keep their ships in this blocked area. There was no profit in the port, and they all looked for opportunities to flee to Carthage. This left few ships in the port, which were far from enough to carry 4000 troops at a time (at least 100 large cargo ships were needed). The opportunity came at night to transport the baggage fleet to the Carthaginian army.

Although Morbar had successfully organized a large-scale transportation of military rations and baggage to Sicily before by using the method of "openly building plank roads and secretly transporting warehouses", he knew very well that the consumption of 10 troops would be huge. It was not enough, and after the Dionia fleet learned its lesson, it would not work next time, so he came up with another way.

At his suggestion, the Carthage Senate passed a decision: Let Carthage and nearby Phoenician city-states trade with Sicily all year round, be familiar with the sea conditions there, and have experienced sailors to form three teams with dozens of ships. A small fleet of cargo ships takes turns loading food and supplies during the day, departs at dusk, and arrives at Lillibe, Mazara, or Elyx late at night... (The destination is temporarily decided upon departure to avoid an overly fixed route. After being noticed by the Dionians, they came to sit back and wait). After unloading the cargo, the fleet had to leave the port and return immediately to avoid bumping into the Dionian warships cruising after dawn.

Therefore, the port workers in these cities rest during the day and are on call at night. The flames of the lighthouses are extremely bright.Of course, if the weather is bad at night, these small fleets will stop transporting.

So far, the fleet has successfully transported several times. Although the materials transported each time are not much, it is better than the long flow of water.

Coincidentally, the destination of the fleet tonight was Lilibi, but unfortunately, when Ymiserei sent people to the port, the fleet had already left.

After sighing, Imisele decided to send people to inform the two cities of Mazara and Elyx tomorrow morning. No matter which city's port the Carthaginian fleet arrived tomorrow night, they would be notified to help transport soldiers.

In addition, he also asked these two cities to drive all the idle cargo ships in the ports to Liliberi, so as to gather a sufficient number of ships to transport all the soldiers to Palermos at one time.

After making these decisions and placing the soldiers in the military camp, Imisele finally went back to sleep with peace of mind.

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Not long after Mago sent away the reinforcements, he received a messenger from Lilibi. He brought an order from the Senate: Due to the several attacks by the Dionysian fleet on the Phoenician allies in Africa, the Senate decided The fleet was transferred back to defend the mainland coastline with all its strength, and it was hoped that Mago could speed up the siege and capture the city of Selinus as soon as possible.

After reading this order, Ma Ge became angry again: Although there have been no results in this period of time since Morbar won that naval battle, the Dionia fleet is still cruising in the western waters, but the Carthage fleet is in the west. The intermittent existence of the sea area made the Dionia fleet dare not to land on a large scale to attack the rear of the Carthaginian army. The number of attacks was significantly reduced, and he was able to concentrate on building the inner and outer walls of the camp. and Earth Mountain, and concentrated their forces to attack the city of Selinus.Now that the fleet has been transferred back to Carthage, the Dionysian fleet can unscrupulously harass the rear of the army, forcing Mago to be distracted.Moreover, the defense of Dionia's defenders is tight. If the Carthaginian army attacks by force, even if the city of Selinus is finally taken, the casualties will inevitably be heavy. How can they realize the intention of a decisive battle with the main force of Dionia!
Mago extremely suspected that the order of the Senate was made under the instigation of the Hanno faction. While cursing Hanno in his heart, he also decided to ignore the order and attack the city in an orderly manner according to the original plan.

On the second day, the Carthaginian soldiers continued to build the earth mountain. They had begun to pound earth on the wooden frame.

The soldiers with Balearic heads on the inner wall continued to throw lead shot to suppress the long-range attacks of the defenders at Selinus City, so that the operation of building the earth mountain could proceed in an orderly manner.

While Amyntas asked the light infantry at the top of the city and the ballista units that moved into the city to attack the Carthaginian soldiers busy in front of the city to destroy and delay the enemy's mountain-building operations, he also asked the soldiers from the mountain reconnaissance team to Distributed throughout the trenches in the city, listen carefully to the movements underground to prevent the other party from digging tunnels again.In addition, he also assigned some soldiers to assist the engineering battalion in building wooden city walls.

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In the evening, the Carthaginian fleet and the cargo ships from Mazara and Eryxus all arrived at Lilibi as scheduled. After loading 4000 reinforcements, the more than 100 cargo ships quietly went north and finally entered Palle smoothly. Moss port.

When these soldiers jumped off the ship excitedly, boarded the pier, and were about to rush back to their homes to enjoy the tenderness of their wives and children, countless black-armored soldiers appeared in front of them and surrounded them.

The hearts of the reinforcement soldiers suddenly hit the bottom: Palermos has been occupied by the Dionians? !

The fact is: Palermos surrendered to the Dionian army.

Why did Leotizides seem more confident when discussing the attack on Palermos with Midorades? It was because in his team there were people left by Davos to assist him in attacking the city of Syracuse. When a team of several hundred engineers left Syracuse by boat, they dismantled as many of the siege equipment they had used to attack Syracuse as possible, placed them in cargo ships, and transported them together.

(End of this chapter)