ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 288 The Battle of Anlern Hills (End)
The envoy sent by Pucheti for help had already arrived at the battlefield where Tarantum was ambushed, but he could not see the governors of the Messapian city-states headed by Paximerus because everyone was devoted to attacking Tarantum. The army is encircling and suppressing...

The Greek heavy infantry has strong defense and is even stronger in close combat. The heavy infantry that only focuses on defense and not offense is simply a hard turtle shell. It takes time and physical effort to break it open.

The initial ambush by the Mesapi cut Tarantum's serpentine marching column into a dozen sections, and the Mesapi soldiers were outnumbered as they surrounded each section of the enemy.But as the battle progressed, the Tarantum casualties increased, making each encirclement shrink smaller and smaller.

If they had not heard the bugle of Dionia, the Tarantum people might have given up fighting. Now, the only thing that supports them to continue to persevere is the belief in living.But as one small encirclement after another was gradually eliminated, the shackles around the necks of the remaining soldiers began to tighten tighter...

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Heitbarus had heard that Proseus performed extremely well in the boot camp, but he did not expect that on the real battlefield, Proseus would kill people without mercy at all. It was not like the first battle at all (it was not in the first place). ), his buckler defense, top attack and stabbing with the stabbing spear are all skillfully and skillfully connected. The stabbing spear will not be waved randomly, but as long as he takes action, it can cause the enemy to scream. It is really cruel and accurate.Proseus' ruthlessness actually made the fierce Pucetti fearful, and they subconsciously avoided his attack.

Under the leadership of Prosus, his teammates all competed for the lead, and the Puchetti defense line was in danger...

Matonis, who was supervising the battle in the center of the brigade, saw this scene below. He couldn't help but be overjoyed and asked excitedly: "Who is the warrior at the front?!"

Parmenius, the captain of the squadron, quickly answered from the small square in front: "Proseus!"

"It's Proseus!!" Teammates also rushed to answer.

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"Your Majesty, Commander-in-Chief, Matonis' third battalion has broken through the enemy's defense line!"

"Amintas' fourth group also broke through!"

"The light infantry brigade of Epithenes and Tsipit defeated the enemy's flank!"

"Izam's mountain reconnaissance brigade joined forces with Heraclea and Metapontum to defeat the enemy's flanks!"

……

Good news came one after another. When Tormid reported it to Davos, Umacus couldn't help but exclaimed excitedly: "Great! We finally won!"

Davos also showed a relieved smile: "Order, blow the attack horn again and defeat the enemy in one fell swoop!"

"...Retreat..." Tremoni looked desolate, but still calm. After all, it was not that he had never experienced failure. In the last war with the Dauni people, he lost a lot of land. Got through it too.

In fact, his order was not needed at all. The entire army collapsed and the Puchetti soldiers rushed to escape...

Before leaving, Tremoni did not forget to take another look at the top of the mountain opposite, as if to keep the dazzling flag in his heart.

"Your Majesty, do you want to tell the Messapians?" Purlo reminded him.

Tremoni was in a low mood and didn't want to say much at all, but looking at the defeated troops all over the mountains and plains, why didn't the Messapians know it? It was better to be a favor. He sighed: "Send someone to tell them, Dionia The people attacked fiercely, but we... did not block it. Let them decide whether to retreat or continue fighting..."

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The soldiers around him fell one after another, and Diomelas was also injured in many places. He felt that this time he was probably going to die in the underworld, but the Messapians surrounding them suddenly became commotion.

He heard the enemy shouting something loudly. Unfortunately, he could not understand the Messapian language, but some of the soldiers had already shouted excitedly with a tired voice: "The Messapians said that the Puchetis were defeated! Dai The Onianians won! We are saved!!”

When the desperate soldiers heard these words, they immediately cheered up and shouted the news of victory to each other, and finally turned into the same voice: "Hold on! Hold on! The Dionian reinforcements will be here soon!!!..."

As time passed with difficulty, the Messapian people's attacks gradually weakened, and they finally withdrew.

Facing the retreat of the Messapians, Diomelas had no intention of pursuing them. In fact, he could not command any of his soldiers at the moment. All the Tarantum soldiers, like him, had to resist for more than two hours, and their physical strength and energy were exhausted. Consumption reached the limit.

He slumped on the ground, not wanting to stand up at all. The joy of the rest of his life was when he saw the corpses of soldiers lying on the ground and the wounded soldiers lying on the ground groaning. No one was happy...

In this battle, the Messapians suffered 1200 casualties. The main casualties came from the almost annihilation of the reinforcing cavalry and the casualties of the Iglatian heavy infantry.

The Puchetti suffered less than 600 casualties. The reason for their low casualties was that in infantry battles, frontal battles often suffered few casualties, and the main losses occurred after the rout.Like the second battle between Dionia and Crotone, the pursuit by light infantry and cavalry captured most of the fleeing Crotone heavy infantry. Such a good opportunity did not appear in this mountain battle. , because the Puchetti people are familiar with the mountains and have poor equipment. It is these characteristics that make it impossible for them to let Dionia's light and heavy infantry catch up when they flee, and Dionia's cavalry did not play in the battle. Even if he appears on the battlefield, there is nothing he can do to defeat Puchetti in the mountains.

On the other side of the war, Tarantum suffered more than 4000 casualties, nearly 1/3 of its army, and most of them died in battle; Dionia suffered 600 casualties, but most of them were injured, most of whom fell from the hillside. wounded; Heraclea and Metapontum suffered more than 800 casualties.Therefore, although it was the Mepp coalition that ultimately retreated, the Greek coalition actually suffered more serious losses.It's just that Mesapi and Pucetti lost a lot of cavalry, and Dionia gained nearly 400 high-quality horses.

When Davos saw Diomelas, he did not assume a savior's attitude, but still faced him with a normal attitude. At the same time, he enthusiastically directed the medical team to rescue the wounded soldiers of Tarantum, allowing Diomeras to Si felt ashamed.

The Maple coalition forces withdrew from the Anlern Hills, entered the Tarantum territory, and quickly retreated north.

However, the Greek coalition forces were unable to catch up due to fatigue and too many wounded soldiers. They stationed themselves in several nearby villages to rest and recuperate temporarily. At the same time, they sent people to Tarantum City to report the battle situation and escort the wounded soldiers back to the camp.

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And on this day, the Dionia Senate received a person.

His name is Metropates, and he came to seek help from Dionia, but he is not from any of the allied city-states of Dionia, but from the Xilu tribe in Bruti.

It turns out that the Bruti tribe alliance in Cosenza began to speed up the incorporation and merger of large and small tribes in the territory during the process of unification. Under the general trend and the coercion of force, most tribes chose to obey, but with Xilu A small number of tribes headed by tribes refused to integrate.

According to Mitropates: They are Greeks, and most of them were forced to flee into the mountains after the destruction of Sybaris. They have the pride of the Greeks, how could they be incorporated by the barbarians? Really Lived a wild life.

The envoys from Bruti Cosenza City sent envoys to the Xilu tribe several times. After their persuasion failed, there was no movement. The people of the Xilu tribe thought that the matter was over.However, a few months later, after Cosenza completed the administration of most of the Bruti tribes and effectively managed them, he sent envoys to Silen again.

This time the envoy made a direct and tough request: the Xilu tribe immediately surrendered and fully accepted the governance of the tribal alliance, otherwise they would send a large army to destroy them!
The Xilu tribe panicked and hurriedly sent Mitropates to ask Trina for help.

Trina believed that he was incapable of intervening in this matter. Fortunately, he had already asked Sipulos to vent his anger on Davos, the governor of Dionia, so he asked Metrobatus to turn to Dionia for help.

On this day, the rotating chairman of the Senate was Cornelus. He looked puzzled at the envoy who claimed to be a Greek but did not look like a Greek at all.

Mitropates saw the doubts of the senators and argued: "I inherited the appearance from Bruti's mother. It is precisely because my appearance does not look like a Greek that the leader of Cyrus chose me, because only in this way can I It won’t arouse the suspicion of the surrounding Brutians.”

Cornelus muttered inwardly: Davos had raised the issue of Bruti once before setting off for the expedition, but before the in-depth discussion could begin, it was interrupted because of Tarantum's request for help.

At this time, Polyxis stood up and said: "What can we Dionia do now? Protest to the Brutians and ask them not to annex this small tribe?! I am afraid that all the adults here will not believe that just With just one word from us, we can make the Brutians stop the action they have been preparing for a long time. Once the Brutians reject us, what should we do?! If we give up here, we will only lose Dionia as Daionia. The prestige of the most powerful alliance in Foss! But if we want to take further action, then I can't think of any other measures to take except war.

However, the citizens of Dionia have experienced enough wars this year!Now our consuls are leading our citizen soldiers to fight against the powerful Messape and Pucheti people at Tarentum! "Polyxis pointed at Metropates, with a look of compassion, and said in a deep tone: "And look at this envoy from Cyrus, he said that they resisted Brutus because they were Greeks. Man, but who knows if it’s true!Are we willing to send our citizens once again into unfamiliar and bloody battlefields to fight against the fierce Brutians for a race that looks nothing like us Greeks? ! "

(End of this chapter)