ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 1189 Spartan Landing Battle ([-])

Xenophon strolled over, and the Spartans who saw him greeted him one after another: "Xenophon, you are here again!"

"Don't worry, old man. As long as we are here to guard you, the Dionians will not be able to get to the shore at all. You old people over 60 years old can just rest at home."

"I said, Xenophon, the reason why you come here every day is not because you are afraid that we will not be able to guard the coast, but because you are afraid that we will capture a lot of Dionian prisoners and not give them to you."

"Hahaha……"

Xenophon was not angry when he heard the soldiers joking, and said with a smile: "If I want prisoners, do I still need you to send them? I will capture them myself."

"No, you have no chance." A Spartan warrior joked: "The Council of Elders has stipulated that elderly people over 60 years old can only stay at home. As a final preparation, I think you should go back to the city to listen. Good news for us!”

The soldiers laughed again.

Xenophon liked this atmosphere. He felt the soldiers' confidence in defeating the powerful enemy, so he clapped his chest and said loudly: "Although I am over 60 years old, I am no worse than you young people! If you don't believe it, come out and follow me. Let’s compete!” As he said that, he lifted up his clothes and put on a wrestling posture.

The soldiers booed. You pushed me, I pushed you, but no one was willing to stand up and compete with him. They all felt it was embarrassing to compete with the old man.

At this moment, a high-pitched trumpet sound suddenly sounded in the camp.

"There is an enemy situation!!" The soldiers reminded each other loudly and quickly ran back to their tents. Soon they put on their armor, picked up their shields and spears, and formed a team of 10 people in front of the tent, and then stood in front of the tent. Under the leadership of the team officer, they ran out of the camp and towards the seaside.

In just a quarter of an hour, Xenophon's surroundings became empty, and he couldn't help but sigh: If only the Spartan troops defending the coast were all such warriors!

It is a pity that there are only more than 300 well-trained, young and strong Spartan warriors like this here. Although there are more than 500 50-60 year old Spartan warriors who are not weak in combat ability, they are assigned to the camp. He served as a captain among the Pileas and Helots.

So when Xenophon continued to move forward, he saw a chaotic scene where the old warriors were yelling and the Piliasian soldiers and helots were running around with their armor in disorder.

He frowned, quickened his pace, walked through the camp, stood on a higher place, and looked ahead: Under the sunlight, the rising tide of the sea was sparkling, and except for the soaring seabirds, it looked very peaceful. Nothing seems out of the ordinary.

But Xenophon did not take it lightly. The Spartans built several 5-meter-high sentry towers on the seaside. The sentries on the top of the buildings would naturally detect the enemy's situation earlier than he did.

Sure enough, after a while, some small black dots appeared in the farthest corner of the field of vision. It didn't take long for the black dots to turn into sails, and then into warships, and then quickly covered them. He crossed the sea in front of him and headed straight towards the bay where he was...

During this process, groups of Spartan soldiers ran to the seaside one after another. Under the command of the team officers, they arranged in an arc-shaped array along the flat coast.

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

These Dionian warships stopped moving less than a mile from the coast, lined up in a row, then lowered their sails, dropped their anchors, and tried their best to stay still in place...

This scene is not much different from yesterday. Is it another feint attack by the Dionia fleet? ...Xenophon was thinking doubtfully, and then he saw many sailless boats sailing out between these tall Dionysian triremes. There were many soldiers on board, taking advantage of the high tide. At that time, with the push of the tide and the shallow draft of the boat, it was able to cross the underwater blocking pilings and continue to sail towards the coast...

The Dionians are really going to land this time!Xenophon was shocked.

The Spartan commander on the seaside was obviously aware of the enemy's intentions, and the bugle sounded again.

Hundreds of Pileasian sailors swarmed more than a dozen small and medium-sized warships anchored on the beach and pushed them into the sea.

Sparta suffered a disastrous defeat in the naval battle with Athens last year, and more than 20 remaining warships were anchored in the Gulf of Laconia. As a result, after the arrival of the Dionian fleet, in order to prevent them from being completely destroyed, they had to destroy all of them. Pushed ashore.

When the Spartans set up a large number of ship-blocking stakes to prevent the Dionian warships from docking, they specially left blank spaces in the sea area of ​​more than [-] meters near the shore to ensure that their own warships can also participate in the defense.In the last landing operation to block Dionia, the Spartan warships did play a big role. This time it was the same old trick.

These Spartan warships were pushed away from the coast, and under the vigorous paddling of the sailors, they were ready to attack the Dionian boats heading for the coast.

However, the Dionian boat running at the front stopped when it was still about 200 meters away from the coast. The fleet infantry carrying leather shields and helmets and carrying short swords jumped off the boat one after another.The sea depth here has exceeded two meters, but the soldiers do not need to expend physical strength to tread water. The dense wooden piles that block the ship have become their assistance. They only need to be gently supported to stay in place and rest.

The Piliasi crew members were surprised to find that the Dionian soldiers had stayed put after jumping into the sea, and the small boats began to return.If they want to attack the Dionian soldiers floating on the sea, they must pass through the dense ship-blocking wooden piles, which is undoubtedly more difficult.

Just when they were hesitating, they suddenly saw dozens of small black spots flying from the Dionian warship in the distance.

"It's a Dionian ballista! Hide quickly!" a crew member exclaimed.

"Don't worry too much. The distance is too far. They can't hit us at all." A crew member comforted. The last time the Dionians landed in battle, they used ballistae, but they hardly caused any damage to the Spartan warships. Any losses, so most of the crew weren't too worried.

Unexpectedly, dozens of stone bullets roared in and fell on the two Spartan warships at the front. While smashing up a column of water, eight or nine stone bullets accurately hit the hull.

In the sound of "Boom! Boom!", some stone bullets hit the mast, and some smashed through the deck. Wood chips flew everywhere, and the crew's exclamations and screams were intertwined.

Just when the two ships were in panic, dozens of stone bullets flew in, more accurately hitting the two almost stationary warships. Soon, the masts were broken and the hulls were seen. Start capsizing.

Sekerian learned from the last experience and lessons, and after brainstorming with the squadron commanders, he specially selected today as the day of attack when the wind and waves were calmer, and the 40 ballistae borrowed from the land army were no longer scattered. Instead of the 40 warships, the five crow warships closest to the center of the coast were arranged horizontally, close to each other, and connected to each other with crow suspension bridges to form one body. 40 ballistae were concentrated on the decks of these ships. First, unified command, use the smallest type of stone bullets (this can increase the range), and focus on attacking one target, instead of fighting individually like last time, which greatly improves the hit rate.

The first two rounds of firing hit the enemy ship, which greatly increased the confidence of the soldiers of the Dionysian Ballista Team. Under the command of the team officer, they then concentrated on bombarding the Spartan warships that were being dispersed one by one. .

The commander of the defense of Sparta's territory was Eudamidas, the brother of Phoebus, a general with outstanding military exploits. At this moment, he was standing on the shore, paying close attention to the enemy situation on the sea. He did not think of Dionysus. The Asian soldiers would go into the sea so far away from the coast and stay in the sea area where the ship was blocked by wooden piles to join the soldiers on the small boats coming from behind. Neither the warships nor the archers on the shore sentry towers were temporarily able to deal with them. They attack.

He did not expect that the stone bullets fired by the ballistas on the Dionia warships today would be so accurate. Less than half an hour after the Spartan warships left the beach, seven or eight warships had already been sunk. , that is, it is too damaged to be used.

He had to order the few remaining warships to be stranded on the beach.

Unexpectedly, he then saw Dionia's ballista firing stone bullets again, and the target was no longer the warship, but the Spartan warriors roaring towards the shore.

He shouted urgently: "Get out of the way! Get out of the way!..."

After all, what they experienced during the last defensive landing was that the soldiers behaved quite calmly. They looked at the direction in which the stone bullets were coming and quickly dispersed to avoid them.

Loud stone bullets fell one after another, causing mud and sand to scatter, but they did not cause any casualties.

But when Dionia's ballistae turned to attack other troops along the coast, riots immediately broke out, resulting in casualties.

Under such circumstances, Eudamidas had to order: "All troops must retreat beyond the range of the ballistae!"

As a result, there was a distance of about a hundred meters between the Spartan army's line and the beach.

Eudamidas made up his mind: once he found that the enemy was about to land, he would lead his army to rush forward quickly and fight with the enemy in an irregular formation. The two sides were close together, so the ballistae would naturally be unable to work.

Just when he was having a headache with the new landing tactics of the Dionian army, he received two bad news in succession: the Lagunda Pass Fortress was attacked by thousands of Dionian soldiers from the west. violent attack.At the same time, many Dionian soldiers also appeared on the seaside path on the western promontory of the Laconia Gulf, trying to capture the fortress south of Ision Port.

Since Agesilaus led the main force northward and Messenia had been relatively calm, there were only a hundred soldiers left in these two important defensive positions, and most of the soldiers were Piliasians.

(End of this chapter)