ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 1041 Conquering Sicily

Samors looked at Hanno and said frankly: "Lord Hanno, we must consider temporarily abandoning Numbia. Carthage's consecutive defeats have been seen by the tribes in eastern Numbia. With the hope of breaking away from our rule, the reason why I can barely cope with their rebellion now is because the young and middle-aged people of each tribe have basically been transferred to Sicily, and now I am afraid that they have all become prisoners of the Dionians.

If I were the commander of the Dionians and wanted to land in Africa and attack Carthage, I would definitely win over these Numibians and let them become the support of the Dionians..."

"You are being alarmist. We Carthaginians spent decades, money and manpower to conquer Numbia. How could we just give up?" Delewica said a little bit. shouted angrily.

"Alas...Samors is right, we should recognize the reality!" Hanno sighed heavily, with a look of pain on his face, and said slowly and in a heavy tone: "Drevica, once When the Dionians attack Carthage, can those eight thousand citizen soldiers stay in Numbia?! It is better to take the initiative to transfer them back. As long as Carthage is defended, they can be recaptured in the future. Opportunity for Numibian land!
In addition, we can also discuss with the surrounding Phoenician allies. When the Dionian army lands in Africa, they can temporarily take refuge in the city of Carthage. In this way, we not only play the role of leader and ensure their safety, but also There are more defensive forces..."

"Lord Hanno, this is a good idea! But it will increase our food consumption!" Summers reminded.

"Will our Phoenician allies hide in Carthage with empty hands?! Don't we remind them to move all the food in their cities to our city?!" Tepanlaco reminded.

Summers looked slightly embarrassed. He was too anxious and forgot about this.

Hanno continued: "We can also send envoys to Tire to ask our mother state for help and plead with them to ask Persia to mediate this war."

Persia!The eyes of the others lit up.

Tepanlaco immediately asked: "Will Persia agree to this invitation?"

"I heard that the King of Persia did not like Dionia, otherwise he would not have allowed the East Phoenician fleet to come under the banner of Persia... It has ensured the safety of Carthage in the Western Mediterranean. For Persia, there is only There are advantages and no disadvantages, I believe the King of Persia will make the right choice." Hanno said confidently.

"With the pressure from the Persians, I believe that the Dionysians have to carefully consider the truce issue. Maybe we can use this to win back more benefits in the negotiations." Delewika finally showed a smile.

Okcreton seemed a little worried. He reminded: "I think King Dionia is a tough person. Before he ignored our protests, he still chose to go to war with Rome. And according to intelligence, Dionia is still Formed an alliance with Egypt, don't the Dionians know that Egypt is now a deadly enemy with Persia?! It can be seen that the Dionians are not like the Greeks, they are very afraid of Persia, we can use the power of Persia, but we can't Too dependent on it!"

"Occreton, you are right. Persia is still too far away from the Western Mediterranean. The possibility of them sending reinforcements like Tire is very small. The Dionians can indeed be confident, but at least it will be a pressure on them." Hanno said this and fell into deep thought. After a while, he made up his mind and said in a deep voice: "Since you have concluded that the Dionysians are indeed willing to negotiate, we are strengthening the defense of Carthage City. While being safe, we can continue to make concessions in negotiations. When the benefits gained from negotiations are greater than the possible losses in war, the Dionians will choose to sign a peace agreement with us..."

Hanno's eyes were a bit sad, and he slowly swept across everyone's faces: "Corsica, Sardinia, and western Sicily have fallen into the control of the Dionians. It is impossible to take them back. You can Use it as a bargaining chip and give it up when necessary; Cadiz, Huelva, Malaga in southern Iberia... are an important driving force for the rise of our Carthage, and they are the only ones after we may lose Corsica and Sardinia. The remaining sources of precious metal trade must not be handed over to the Dionians; but other territories in southern Iberia...we can give up if necessary."

At this point, Hanno suddenly became angry and said loudly: "Drevica, you are right, Mago is a sinner of Carthage! His brother Himilko is also a sinner of Carthage! Ten Himilko provoked a war in Sicily a few years ago, and suffered a disastrous defeat, which severely damaged Carthage's national power. This led to the fact that when the war broke out between Dionia and Syracuse, we Carthage could only watch. In the end, We had to sign an agreement with Dionia to maintain peace! But this time, Mago's incompetence ruined our 10-strong army and put Carthage into such a dangerous situation... The Magonid family must be punished by the Senate Severe punishment!
The land they conquered in Iberia, said to be for the benefit of the Carthaginians, has actually become the territory of the Magonides themselves. They do not obey the orders of the Senate at all, and do not accept the officials sent by the Senate. In this way, it is better to use southern Iberia as a bargaining chip and give it to the Dionysians at the appropriate time, which can not only increase the chances of winning the peace talks, but also maintain the stability and unity of Carthage. "

Hanno completely blamed the Magonides family for the reason why Carthage was in today's dangerous situation. In fact, he was covering up his own mistakes of being too tolerant of Dionia and not strictly restricting it in the past 10 years.For Typanlaco and Occleton, since they belonged to the Hanno faction and had not received any benefits from southern Iberia before, they had no objection to Hanno's decision.

Summers has his own views on this, because through previous battle reports, he believes that there are a large number of good-quality soldiers in southern Iberia, and they should try to keep them as much as possible.But he did not say this, after all, he is not a pure soldier, he is a veteran of the Hanoi faction, saying such words at this special time will only arouse Hanoi's suspicion.

At this moment, Hannuo happened to cast his eyes on him, which made his heart jump suddenly: Could it be that Hannuo saw what I was thinking?
"Samors is right, now we don't have enough troops to keep the land of Numbia, so what if we simply agree to Dionia's conditions? Wait until our strength recovers, and then take it back again That’s it, the land is there anyway, it can’t escape…”

Hanno's tone seemed relaxed, but several people present could feel the pain in his heart. After all, it was he who held high the banner of "March to the Inland" and gathered many Carthage elites around him for more than 10 years. He came to lead the citizens of Carthage and seized a large amount of land in eastern Numbia, thus consolidating his leadership position in the Senate and his reputation among the people. But now everything is in vain...

Thinking of this, everyone present looked sad.

................................................

On the second day, the Hannonite senators who reached a consensus passed resolutions one by one at the meeting: recall 2 citizen soldiers, carry out war mobilization again in the city, send envoys to negotiate with surrounding Phoenician allies, and send envoys Heading to Tire in the Eastern Mediterranean...

However, when the two negotiating conditions of "ceding southern Iberia and returning the land to the Numibians" were put forward, it immediately caused an uproar.

Most of the senators among the Magonid faction and the neutral faction firmly opposed it, and angrily scolded the Dionians for their greed, and denounced the Hannonites as traitors.

The Senate fell into fierce quarrels and could not reach a unified opinion.

By this time, the situation in Sicily had become increasingly clear.

On the third day after the battle of Selinus, the Segestans quietly sent envoys to Selinus and proactively requested surrender.

It turned out that most of the tens of thousands of defeated soldiers who fled into the city of Segesta were Carthaginian citizens. They seemed to regard themselves as the new owners of Segesta, and not only forcibly occupied the residences of the Segesta people. , robbed their food, and used them as slaves, the Segesta people were miserable, so they conspired with the Dionian army to quietly open the city gate at night, cooperated inside and outside, and quickly quelled the defeated army.

Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, led an army to besiege Segesta for more than half a year, but failed to conquer Segesta. Now the stubborn Segesta people have surrendered to Dionia obediently. , which undoubtedly boosted the morale of the Dionia soldiers.

Immediately two days later, Mazara also opened the city gate to the Dionian army.

It turned out that the broken troops who fled into Mazara were under the control of Hasdrubal. The situation at the beginning was much better than that of Segesta, but this broken army was mainly composed of Phinian infantry, Iberian infantry, and Lusitani infantry. Composed of Asian warriors and Celtic warriors, most of them are natives of Iberia. They were either conquered by Mago's force or attracted by the generous salary, so they participated in this war. Now not only are they not What benefits they got, but because Carthage suffered a disastrous defeat, which put them in a difficult situation, they naturally had other thoughts in their hearts.

However, Hasdrubal, who wanted to regroup, did not realize the changes in the psychology of these natives. Instead, he acted in accordance with the previous military laws and severely punished several Lusitanian warriors who robbed Mazara residents of food in the city. He wanted to kill chickens to scare monkeys and clean up military records, but it intensified conflicts and led to a mutiny among the Iberian natives. Later, Hasdrubal completely lost control of the army. The foreign soldiers respected him as a brave warrior, but they just killed him. He was taken prisoner but not killed.

(End of this chapter)