Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

"Enough time?" Orontas also said coldly, "I don't think so! Wasn't the news that the Dionysians had sent part of their army westward to capture the cities of Issus and Kastabulum, and had opened the road from Cilicia to Syria? Farabazos is only harassing them, and does not dare to stop the Greek allied forces head-on.

At this point, Orontas turned around, bowed respectfully to the king of Persia, and then said solemnly, "My lord, the Greek soldiers are very capable of melee combat, and this time the Dionysians also brought together the most powerful of the Greek city-states, the armies of Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, although according to the reports of Phanabazos, it was the revolt of the Greek mercenaries that caused the entire city-state to be destroyed. Therefore, we must defeat the Dionysian army in Syria as soon as possible before the Greek army arrives in order to secure the final victory of the war!"

When Orontas was ordered to intercept the Greek expeditionary force and suffered a crushing defeat, he was impressed by the terrifying impact of the Spartan warriors, so that the great man, who had been governor of Amelia for decades and was like an emperor of the soil, was able to temporarily abandon the arrogance of the Persian nobility and issue a warning.

His words immediately made Artaxerxes' face turn ugly, for he had the same memory: during the battle with Cyrus Minor, he had seen ten thousand Greek heavy infantry rout his left flank in a single charge, which had almost driven him to despair.

For the other generals present, the fact that the Greek army was able to defeat Darius and King Xerxes twice, and that it was able to maintain a superiority in victories and defeats over the Persian army for decades afterwards, was clearly more worthy of their attention than the army of Deiodea, which had not yet won a single brilliant victory over the Persian army (the battle of Cyprus was a crushing defeat for the Persian fleet, but not for the Persian nobility). The Persians were shocked because naval combat was not their specialty, and the entire Persian fleet was almost completely devoid of Persians. (As for the battle in western Asia Minor, the battle report by Artaxerxes, who did not publish the real situation, gave them the wrong impression that the defeat of the Persian army was mainly due to the betrayal of the Greek mercenaries).

Seeing the eyes of all in the room focused on him, Trebassus was very clear: at the beginning of today's meeting, Mardonius, Halpergus, and Ojontaus questioned the strategy adopted by the Persian army, which was in fact an expression of dissatisfaction with him.

The root cause of the long-standing conflict between Trebassus and these top Persian nobles was jealousy. The Persian king considered Trebassus to be his confidant and obeyed him in a way that several of the kingdom's most important vassals, who were far from the court, obviously could not, but there was also a conflict between the old and the new Persian nobility. Since the rendezvous, they had repeatedly expressed their discontent with Trebassus, but with the Persian king's blessing, the matter was eventually settled, but today their joint outburst gave Trebassus a bad feeling in the way Artaxerxes looked at him: the military mediocrity of the king had wavered as to whether or not to continue with his proposed strategy!

Fortunately, he had been prepared beforehand, and without panicking, he pulled out something from his bosom and said softly, "This is the map of the Dionysian army camp that Lord Maktonos sent out his most capable men to carefully draw after many explorations and a lot of time.

With that, he unfolded the white cloth in his hands and placed it in the center of the open space.

Marktonos, who had been watching from the sidelines, first walked over, looked down at the cloth placed on the ground, and then said, "This is indeed the map of the Dionysian camp drawn up by my men."

Mardonius, Ojontaus, and Halpergus walked over slowly and carelessly, but soon their faces showed surprise and they bent down to examine it carefully.

Seeing this, Artaxerxes asked the eunuch to bring a table and place the map on it.

As the three of them gazed at the map, Trebassus said in a deep voice: "Five years ago, the Dionysian army invaded Greece, and the Greek city-states united to form a large army of nearly 100,000 men. The camp had two or three times the number of Dionysian soldiers, but the siege lasted for more than two months without much success, instead allowing the Dionysians to take advantage of the Greeks' long and fruitless siege and the emptiness of their rear guard to send their troops to land on Thessaly, and eventually Greece fell to the Dionysians, alas ......."

This sigh seemed to wring the heart of Artaxerxes, and made him lean back in his chair: had it not been for the rebellion of the Asia Minor, Persia would have been regained by him, and even with the immediate support of Asia Minor, Greece would not have surrendered so soon! ......

"The Dionysian army is up to its old tricks again, you see - with the mountains on both sides of its camp and the bay at the back, we can only attack from the front, which is narrow and clearly not conducive to our advantage of having more troops."

Trebassus drew on the map and said with great emphasis, "Look again - the camp they have built has two layers of wooden walls. Our spies could not find out the depth of the trench, but based on the Dionysian army's defensive operations in the Peloponnese, it could not be easily crossed, and it would be difficult and time-consuming for our soldiers to reach the wooden wall behind it. And you see - there are so many towers behind this wooden wall that the Dionysians will certainly place a large number of archers on it to attack our attacking troops from a distance.

In addition, Lord Halpergus' men mentioned an intelligence that demanded our attention. During this period of time, the Dionysian army sent a large number of soldiers to set traps in front of the camp without stopping ...... Based on what we have learned, we know that the Dionysian camp is very tightly defended, and our army may suffer a lot of casualties just to reach the real camp's wooden wall, not to mention a long period of time! It only takes one or two unsuccessful sieges for those affiliated troops to lose the will to fight, and once the well-bred Dionysians launch a full-scale counterattack, our army will be in grave danger!"

The three Persian noblemen were all long-time commanders of the army, and were all well versed in military matters.

After a brief silence, Orontas asked in resignation, "Are we going to stay here and do nothing but watch the Dionysian army and the Greek allies meet?

Trebassus waited for this question and calmly replied, "The Dionysian army invaded our borders with great fury and took Canaan, the airplane, and Syria in succession, and originally we thought that they would continue eastward into Mesopotamia. We can't let the Dionysians have their way, so we must force them to leave the camp and take the initiative to attack us, so that the whole situation will be more favorable to us."

Halpergus sneered: "Since the Dionysian army was able to suddenly switch from a smooth offensive posture to a defensive one, it is clear that their king is cautious.

This is one of the reasons why Dionysia expanded so rapidly in just a few decades and became our rival. On the contrary, he is very adventurous, and it is only because the king arrived in time with a large army and the difference in strength between the two sides was too great that he temporarily took the defensive position to wait for reinforcements, but as long as we pay some price, I believe he will have to abandon the defense and actively seek our decisive battle!

"At what cost?!" Artaxerxes asked eagerly.

Terebasus looked at the king of Persia with an extremely serious look and said in a deep voice: "My lord, Pharnabazos was able to hold back the Greek army mainly because he burned and evacuated the villages and towns along the advance route of the Greek army, making it impossible for the Greek army to collect any provisions and supplies, making it difficult for them to transport supplies. Now we can adopt similar tactics and evacuate the entire population of the area around Tapsacus, burning villages and supplies that we cannot take with us, leaving a white field between Tapsacus and the Syrian area-"