Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

Davos was energized and immediately asked, "Great! Where are they?!"

Felicius handed over the plank with permission.

Izzam gasped, took the plank, looked carefully at the diagram of the Persian military formation drawn on it, then pointed to the center front of its right wing and said excitedly, "There it is! Remy had the Persians use the bronze shields they had been given by the Persians to bob up and down regularly against the sun, as we had agreed before I left, so that I could see them clearly from the other Persian armies, even when I was on this side. -"

"Great! You did a great job!" Davos interrupted his rambling and then asked, "Which unit are we up against?"

"The Third and Fourth Battalions of the Eleventh Legion Corps." Izzam replied immediately.

"Your Majesty, you may send the XVIII Corps Legion as a reserve, in order to make fuller use of the opportunity to increase the attack on this section of the Persian army when Izam II's forces are withdrawn!" Felixus also excitedly suggested.

"One legion is not enough!" Devers shook his head, tapped the board hard, and said firmly, "Send the XIX Corps over there again, this will be the breakthrough for our infantry!"

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While Dionysian's two legions were quietly mobilizing at the rear of the array, Mardonius had ridden up to the Persian king's carriage and said with some urgency, "My lord, the troops have already been arrayed, so why haven't you given the order to attack?"

Altaxerxes said hesitantly, "...... Should we wait for the Dionysians to attack first?"

"The Dionysian army is too small to attack us first!" Mardonius, swallowing his displeasure, turned his head to look at Trebassus, who was not far away, and vented his anger on him: "How is it that you are the wisest minister in the kingdom, as you call yourself, to advise the king on military matters! Since the plan of attack was made before the war, we should assist the King in executing it! It's been almost half an hour since the army was formed, and the soldiers are still standing around waiting. Do you know that when I came here from the left flank, I saw that a number of auxiliary troops were already a bit unstable, and even the formation of the East Uxians was starting to get confused!

Trebassus remained silent and did not retort. He had urged the king of Persia several times before, but the king seemed to have some concerns and had not made a decision, which was why he delayed again and again.

Altaxerxes turned pale, of course he could hear that Mardonius was accusing him, but he could not be angry on the spot, on the one hand, because of the current enemy, which would affect the morale, and on the other hand, because of guilt. It is true that before the war, he had discussed with several important ministers repeatedly to develop offensive-oriented tactics, but when he saw the opposite side of the Dionysian army's simple and quick formation, after its array of soldiers standing silently, calm and steady as a mountain momentum, compared with his own side's loose and noisy army, his heart suddenly aroused a strong anxiety, the past experience of several failures come to mind, inevitably made him worry and lose again.

But when he heard the rest of Mardonius' words, he was taken aback.

Trebassus, who was a good judge of character, immediately said: "My lord, those auxiliary troops are not our well-trained Persian army, and although they have been undergoing strict training, it is difficult for them to maintain their formation for a long time.

Altaxerxes looked at Trebasus and then at Maldonius: "Then order an attack?"

Mardonius said urgently, "My lord, do not hesitate to give your orders!"

After a few moments of silence, he took a deep breath and said aloud. "Prepare to attack!"

With a flourish, Mardonius pivoted his horse and ran back.

Trebassus, for his part, then shouted, "Prepare to attack! Prepare to attack! ......"

"As the Persian bugle sounded, Terebassus continued to give orders for the king of Persia: "Archers attack! "

In front of the wagon of Artaxerxes a banner embroidered with a bow and arrow was raised high, but the only people who could see the banner swinging were the archers in the center of the center.

Two teams of Persian orderly soldiers in flashy uniforms galloped out from both sides of the wagon, rushed through the gaps in the line to the front, and then raced along the military line to both sides, shouting at the same time, "Archers to the front! The archer strikes! ......"

The archers in the middle of the road are moving! The archers on the left wing are moving! The archers on the right flank are moving! The archers at the forefront of the Persian line, in a loose formation for more than ten miles, began to advance slowly toward the Dionysian army like a snake just awakened from hibernation.

As soon as he heard the bugle call from the opposite side, Alcinous, like the other officers, immediately raised his spirits and shouted to his men, "Attention, brothers, the Persians are attacking!

While shouting, he saw that some of the soldiers in the unit were over-excited and eager to try, and immediately reminded: "Everyone must strictly follow the pre-battle arrangements and be ready to defend! Anyone who dares to disobey military orders will be severely punished!"

The soldiers were in awe, and their looks became solemn.

"Captain, the Persian archers are killing us!" The soldier in the 1st column shouted.

"Prepare the defense!" Alcinis, with his heart in his mouth, stared ahead.

The Persian archers were advancing slowly, for the Persian generals under their command had learned the details of the battle of Asia Minor and knew that the Dionysian army also had a good number of light infantry with good fighting ability, so they were carefully guarding against their opponents.

However, they were already less than 250 meters away from the Dionysian army, and the opposing light infantry still did not appear in front of the battle, and the generals, though confused, did not stop the soldiers from advancing.

As they approached 100 meters from the Dionysian battlefield, the archers voluntarily stopped their advance.

"Shoot the arrows!" At the shouts of the generals, the archers set up their arrows and drew their bows, at a great angle of elevation, high up.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! ...... "The sound of thousands of bowstrings, originally very soft, came together in such a way that it could be heard very clearly by the Dionysian soldiers a hundred meters away.

"Tortoise formation!" Alcinis shouted.

The soldiers, who were already in a dense formation, quickly shrank inward, and at the same time placed their long shields on the outside and above of the small formation, and in the blink of an eye it was as if a layer of black iron had been placed over the 50 men, protecting them tightly.

Alcinis, who was in the middle of the formation, looked up through the small gap between the shields, and saw the arrows pouring down like torrents of rain in the mid-air, and even with the protection of the thick shields, he could not help but feel his heart tighten.

"Peng! Peng! Dang! Dang! Peng! ...... "The arrows continued to hit different parts of the shield with different sounds, as if they were playing a melody of death.

The Dionysian soldiers in the tortoise formation were all nervous, but when the melody died away, no one was hurt.

They didn't have time to catch their breath before the melody resumed.

After three or four repetitions, there was finally a long interval.

This was because the generals of the mixed Persian archers had noticed that the front line of the Dionysian army had adopted this peculiar formation, which allowed them to throw their arrows with little casualty, so they urged the soldiers to continue to advance and to increase the penetration of their arrows by getting closer.

At a distance of 50 meters, the Persian archers dared not advance any further, for they had heard that the Dionysian heavy infantry could throw javelins, and were too close to the enemy to evade a sudden charge by the Dionysian soldiers on the opposite side as they fired their arrows. Because of this danger, not all archers were willing to continue to close in on the Dionysian line, and some archers of other races cowered even when urged to do so by the Persian generals.

The Persian archers used direct fire from the front ranks and parabolic fire from the back ranks, and concentrated their shots on a single tortoise shell formation instead of a wide range of attacks, which resulted in inefficiency, since the Dionysian checkerboard formation spread out the entire formation, causing many of the parabolic arrows to land in the open.

Each long shield was filled with arrows like hedgehogs, and the soldiers occasionally grunted in pain as the sharp tips of the arrows pierced through the shields and touched the bare arms or thighs of the Dionysian soldiers, occasionally the arrows passed through the gaps in the shields, but because they were blocked by the thick helmets and breastplates, they did not cause much damage.

The Dionysian soldiers gritted their teeth still, but of course they were almost shoulder to shoulder and back to back, so that even if they were wounded, they could not evade or retreat.

As a squad leader, Alcinis not only had to spy on the enemy in front of him from time to time, but he also listened to the frequency of the arrows hitting his shield.

Suddenly, he said in a deep voice, "Brothers, hold on a little longer, the Persians don't have many arrows left!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the noise outside the battle began to thin out, and soon disappeared.

The Persian archers still had three or four arrows left in their quivers, but they chose to retreat at this point because they needed to rest from the numbness in their arms caused by the continuous drawing of their bows, and they also needed to support the infantry in the coming melee, which was the traditional tactic of the Persians.