ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 1223
At the beginning, after the Thessalian army left, Iphicrates still led the somewhat unstable Greek coalition to suppress the Dionysian camp. This was one of the reasons. Now what he worried about has happened.But at this moment, he couldn't care much anymore. The order remained unchanged and must be carried out.

Of course, it is impossible for Iphicrates to retreat immediately, because the logistics supply of the Greek coalition is different from that of the Dionysian army. According to regulations, each city-state army is responsible for its own military food supply, so there is no specialized logistics department established. Instead, a market was set up near Leprion to allow merchants from various city-states to sell grain and other supplies. The armies of each city-state went to the market to purchase military rations on their own. Some merchants even followed the city-state's army when it set off. thereafter.Only the armies of Athens and Thessaly were different. With the aid of Persia, Athens and Jason unified the city-states of Thessaly, and they had enough financial and material resources to set up supply camps to meet the food supply of soldiers.So on the morning when Patroclus led his army into Central Greece, the outside of the small town of Leprion in the Peloponnese was extremely lively and noisy. In addition to soldiers from various city-states pulling out their camps, merchants from various city-states were also there. Packing up their own goods, arranging the pack team to prepare to leave... the whole scene was very chaotic.

In order to worry about accidents, Iphicrates ordered the nearly 2 Athenian soldiers who had gathered to prepare for defense, and their tents and belongings were completely left to the baggage trains to clean up.

The Dionian army did not appear, but the entire process of breaking out of the camp took a lot of time, and it was only in the afternoon that the entire army began to march eastward.

During this period, the Aelian army and the armies of the Arcadian city-states left the coalition one after another, reducing the number of troops commanded by Iphicrates to less than 3, which made the soldiers feel a little uneasy.

Iphicrates kept urging the coalition forces to speed up their march. Even at dusk, he did not let the troops stop to rest. He did not give the order to rest until night fell and the coalition forces reached the junction of Megalopolis and Tegea. The command.

There happened to be a camp built here by the Dionian army before. Later, when the Greek coalition attacked Lagnia, it was used for a short time, so it could be camped directly.

When the soldiers who had worked hard for a day quickly fell asleep, Iphicrates was still frowning in the military tent, because the Greek coalition had been very smooth from retreating to now, and had not been harassed or pursued by the Dionysian army. And the sentinels sent out also reported to him: No abnormalities were found in the Dionia camp on the northern border of Messenia.

Although the Dionian army has always been able to defend itself in the past, there was so much movement when the Greek coalition retreated today. Don't they want to retaliate? ! …Iphicrates was puzzled.

On the second day, Iphicrates suddenly asked the coalition forces to change their marching route. They would first turn back to the city of Megalopolis, and then go directly north through the mountains. This was equivalent to bypassing the Tegea-Mantinia plain, and then heading towards March to Corinth.

This method of marching by choosing a long detour instead of taking a convenient road was immediately opposed by the Argos people, because the west of the Tegea plain is close to Argos, and the Argos citizen soldiers have already gone out to fight. For more than two months, they originally wanted to take advantage of this march to return home. However, Iphicrates suddenly changed the march route, which made their wish impossible to realize. The Argives immediately refused.

Since the Argives were a powerful country in the Greek alliance and sent 7000 troops, second only to Thessaly and Athens, they had considerable weight in this new alliance. Iphicrates had to persuade them. For example, "he is worried that there may be an interception by the Dionian army in the Tegea area" and other reasons, but the Argosians have the same stubborn and conservative character as the Spartans, and once they make a decision, they are not willing to repent easily. , otherwise they would have succumbed to Sparta's dominance in the past hundred years.

Seeing that Iphicrates could not convince the Argives, he changed his mind and immediately proposed the plan of "the Argive army and the Greek coalition army march separately and meet in Corinth", and the Argives agreed.

Iphicrates' idea is: Now that the strength of the Greek coalition has been greatly weakened, if the Theonian army, which has been very calm before, dares to appear in the Tegea area to intercept, it must be sure of victory. The Greek coalition There was a danger of the whole army being annihilated, so it was better to let the Argosians go and test it.If there is really an interception by the Dionian army in the Tegea area, the Argosians can attract the attention of the Dionian army and buy time for the Greek coalition forces, which are the majority of Athenian soldiers, to escape smoothly; if not, the Greek coalition forces will not be able to escape. It's a little more detour, and everyone is happy in the end.

Iphithrax certainly hoped for the latter outcome, but unfortunately his instincts were not wrong.

When Patroclus gathered his army in Thessaly to prepare to march south, he asked the warships of the first fleet to convey the news to Clotocathax in Messenia.After discussing with Printoles, Clotokataxus believed that the Greek coalition forces would soon retreat, so he decided to quietly withdraw the legion troops stationed on the northern border of Messenia to Lagnia, and the camp was The defense was taken over by the newly formed Messenian reserves.

Since the Greek coalition forces did not conduct any decent attacks on the Dionia camp these days, Iphicrates did not find anything unusual.

Crotokatax also sent mountain reconnaissance soldiers to closely monitor the movements of the Leprion camp. As soon as the Greek coalition forces began to retreat, the scouts rushed back to Lagnia and reported the incident to Crotokatax. news, so when the Greek coalition forces entered the original Dionian camp in Megalopolis, the first and seventh Dionian legions had quietly entered the Tegea territory.

The plan drawn up by Printors is: when the Greek coalition forces march to Tegea tomorrow, the [-]st and [-]th legions and the newly formed Lagnia brigade will form in front of them to intercept them. When the enemy army has to stop When preparing for the battle, Commander Clotokatax led the Fourth and Sixth Legions and the First Cavalry Legion, which had been hidden on the northern border of Lagnia, to quickly rush to the battlefield, attack from the front and back, and completely wipe out the Greek coalition forces.

But to Printors' expectation, this carefully arranged big net only caught the Argos army, a medium-sized fish. For this reason, it also delayed the Dionian army for most of the day. time.

Iphicrates not only led the main force of the Greek coalition, Jin Chan, to escape the shell and jump out of the siege, but he also ordered the troops to abandon the merchants and pack teams accompanying the army, speed up the advance, and finally entered the city of Corinth before the Dionysian army.

The main force of the Greek coalition led by Iphicrates and the army that had previously surrounded Mantinia converged here, and the strength once again returned to more than 3 people, but he soon learned that "the Thessalian army was defeated, and the north of Dionia "The landing army has invaded the Attica area", he did not take a rest in Corinth, but was anxious to lead the army to Attica and defend Athens.

But at this time, the Greek coalition was divided again: Corinth refused to let the citizen soldiers of its own city-state follow because it itself also faced the threat of the Dionysian army from the south; the citizen soldiers of Phocis and Locris were worried Worried about the safety of his city-state, no matter how much Iphicrates tried to dissuade him, he insisted on risking his way back to his mother-state through the Boeotian League, which had declared war on the Greek League.

As a result, the entire Greek coalition actually only had more than 1 troops from Athens and its maritime alliances, and the Greek coalition existed in name only.

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After the army led by Patroclus joined the Theban army, the first target of the attack was not any town in Athens, but Oropus, the easternmost city-state in the Boeotian region.

Although Oropus belongs to the Boeotian region, it has always been attached to Athens and refused to join the Boeotian alliance. The Thebans had long disliked it, but they were worried about Athens' interference, so they never took action against it.Patroclus chose it as the first target to attack, also to express Dionia's goodwill to Thebes.

More than 4 Dionian coalition troops quickly surrounded Oropus. Athenian reinforcements did not even show up. Thousands of Theban soldiers launched a strong attack on the city of Oropus.

After a day of fierce fighting, although the city could not be captured, the Oropus people had suffered a lot of casualties. The enemy was strong and they had no strong support. The desperate Oropus people had to open the city and surrender early on the fourth day.

The morale of the Dionian coalition forces approached the border of Athens instead.

There are continuous mountains between the Attica region of Athens and the Boeotia region as a natural border dividing line.After learning the news that "the Thessalian army was defeated and the Dionysian army went south", Athens carried out emergency military mobilization and quickly formed an army of 1 people and nearly 8000 mercenaries from Jason. Rush to the border for defense.

To the north, Mount Panisa is used as the defense center and the defense line is arranged, and to the south, Mount West Saron is used as the defense center and the defense line is arranged.Considering that Plataea controlled by the Thebans was not far from Mount Sissaron and had many advantages for attacking, Athens deployed more mercenaries in the southern mountains because they had stronger combat effectiveness.

Patroclus did appear to be preparing a breakthrough from the southern ridge, for he marched into Plataea with more than half his army.But in fact, the north is the focus of the Dionian coalition's attack. The Gallic Reserve Brigade, No. 12 Army and the Third Army were all deployed in the north, led by Lizaru, who first launched an attack on the defense line.

　Thanks to Yujing and book friend 160423141112331 for the reward!Your support is my motivation to write!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)