Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

At first, after Thessaari army left, Iphikratus still led the unsteady Greek coalition forces to suppress Dionia's camp. This was one of the reasons, and now what he was worried about really happened.But at this moment, he can't take care of a lot, the order remains unchanged and must be executed.

Of course, it is impossible for Iphikratus to retreat immediately, because the logistics of the Greek coalition army is different from that of the Dionian army. According to regulations, the city-state armies are responsible for their own rations, so there is no special logistics department to establish. Instead, a market was set up near Leprion, where merchants from various city-states could sell grain and other materials. The troops of each city-state went to the market to purchase military rations. Some merchants even followed the city-state’s troops when they set off. Afterwards.Only the army of Athens and Thessaly differed. Thanks to the assistance of Persia, Jason unified the city-states of Thessaly, and they had enough financial and material resources to form a battalion to meet the supply of soldiers.Therefore, on the morning when Patroclus led his army into Central Greece, the small town of Leprion in the Peloponnese was extremely lively and hustle and bustle. In addition to soldiers from the city-states pulling out their tents, merchants from all the city-states were also there. Packing up his own goods, arranging the pack team to leave... the whole scene is very chaotic.

In order to worry about accidents, Iphikratus ordered the nearly 20,000 Athenian soldiers who had assembled to defend themselves, and their camps and belongings were completely handed over to the squadron to clean up.

The Dionian army did not appear, but the entire process of pulling out the camp took a lot of time. It was only in the afternoon that the entire army began to march east.

During this period, the Alice army and the Arcadian city-state army left the coalition one after another, reducing the number of troops led by Iphikratus to less than 30,000, which made the soldiers feel a little uneasy.

Ifekrates has been urging the coalition forces to speed up the march. Even at dusk, he did not let the troops stop and rest. He did not give a rest until night fell and the coalition forces reached the junction of Megalopolis and Tagya. The command.

There happened to be a camp built by the Dionian army here. Later, when the Greek coalition attacked Lagnia, it was used in a short time, so it can be stationed directly in the camp.

When the soldiers after a tiring day soon fell asleep, Efekratus was still thinking about it in the military tent, because the Greek coalition forces have been very smooth from the retreat until now, and they have not been harassed or pursued by the Dionian army. And the sent out sentry reported to him: No abnormalities were found in the Dionian camp on the northern border of Messenia.

Although the Dionian army had always been unable to defend itself in the past, the movement of the Greek coalition forces retreating today is so great, don't they want to retaliate?!...Effikratus was puzzled.

On the second day, Ifekratus suddenly asked the coalition forces to change their marching route, first turn back to Megalopolis, and then go straight north through the mountains, which is equivalent to bypassing the Taga-Mandiniya Plain and heading again. Corinth marches.

This way of marching with a convenient route instead of taking a long route was immediately opposed by the Argos, because the Taigeya Plain was next to Argos to the west, and the Argos citizen soldiers had already come out to fight. For more than two months, they wanted to take the opportunity of this march to return home by the way, but Iffekratus suddenly changed the marching route but their wish could not be realized, and the Argos immediately refused.

Since the Argos are the strong state in the Greek alliance, the army sent out is 7,000, second only to Thessaly and Athens. They are of considerable weight in this new alliance. Iphikratus had to persuade. For example, "he was worried that the Taigeya area might be intercepted by the Dionian army" and so on, but the Argos have the same stubborn and conservative character as the Spartans, and once a decision is made, they are unwilling to repent easily. , Otherwise they would have succumbed to the centuries of Spartan dominance.

Seeing that he could not persuade the Argosians, Ifikratus thought about it, and immediately proposed the plan of "the Argos army and the Greek coalition forces march separately and join in Corinth", and the Argos agreed.

Ifekratus’s thoughts are: Now that the strength of the Greek coalition forces has been greatly weakened, if the Dionian army, which had been very calm before, dared to appear in the Taga area to intercept, it must be a winner. The Greek coalition forces There is the danger of the entire army being wiped out, so it is better to let the Argos go and test.If the Taigeya area is really intercepted by the Dionian army, the Argos can attract the attention of the Dionian army and buy time for the Greek coalition forces, which are dominated by the Athenian soldiers, to escape; if not, the Greek coalition forces can’t It was a little longer, and everyone was happy in the end.

Efetrax certainly hopes that the result will be the latter, but unfortunately his instinct is not wrong.

When Patroclus assembled his army in Thessaly to go south, he asked the warships of the First Fleet to convey the news to Cloto Catacs in Messenia.After discussing with Plintors, Klotokatax thought that the Greek coalition forces would retreat soon, so they decided to quietly withdraw the legionary troops stationed on the northern border of Messenia to Lagnia, and the camp’s The defense was replaced by the newly formed Messenian Reserve.

Since the Greek coalition forces did not conduct any decent offensives on the Dionian camp these days, Iphikratus did not find anomalies.

Klotokatax also sent mountain scout soldiers to closely monitor the movement of the Leprion camp. As soon as the Greek coalition forces began to retreat, the sentry desperately rushed back to Lagnia and reported this to Klotokatax. The news, so when the Greek coalition troops stationed in the original Dionian camp in Megalopolis, the First and Seventh Legions of Dionian had quietly entered the territory of Taga.

Plintors’ plan is: When the Greek coalition forces march to Tagia tomorrow, the first and seventh legions and the newly formed Ragnia Brigade will line up in front of it to intercept, when the enemy has to stop. When preparing for battle, Commander Cloto Kataks led the Fourth and Sixth Army and the First Cavalry Army that had long been hidden on the northern border of Lagnia and quickly rushed to the battlefield. They fought back and forth and completely wiped out the Greek allied forces.

However, what Plintors did not expect was that this elaborately arranged net finally caught the Argos army, a small fish, which also delayed the Dionian army for a long time. time.

Iphikratus not only led the main force of the Greek coalition, Jin Chan, to escape from the siege, but he also ordered the troops to drop their merchants and packs, accelerate their advancement, and finally rushed into the city of Corinth before the Dionian army.

The main force of the Greek coalition led by Iphikratus and the army that had encircled Mandinia joined here, and the force once again recovered to more than 30,000 men, but he quickly learned that "Thessari army was defeated, north of Dionia. "The landing army has invaded the Attica area." He didn't rest in Corinth, so he was anxious to take the army to Attica to guard Athens.

But at this time, the Greek coalition forces split again: Corinth refused to allow the citizen soldiers of his city-state to follow, because it also faced threats from the Dionian army from the south; the citizen soldiers of Phokes and Locris were at heart. Worrying about the safety of his own city-state, no matter how Ifkratus dissuaded him, he insisted on taking the risk of passing through the Piosha alliance that had declared war on the Greek alliance and returning to his home state.

As a result, the entire Greek coalition is actually only left with more than 10,000 troops of Athens and its maritime allies, and the Greek coalition forces have existed in name only.

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After the army led by Patroclus merged with the Thebes, the first target of the attack was not any town in Athens, but Oropus, the easternmost city-state in Piosha.

Although Oropus belonged to the Piosha area, it has always been attached to Athens and refused to join the Piosha alliance. The Thebes have long seen it uncomfortable, but they have not acted on it because they are worried about Athens' interference.Patroclus chose it as the first target and also expressed Dionia's goodwill to Thebes.

More than 40,000 Dionian forces quickly surrounded Oropus. The reinforcements of Athens did not even show up. Thousands of Thebes soldiers launched a storming attack on Oropus.

One day of fierce fighting, although they failed to conquer the city, they had already caused a lot of casualties to the Olopus people. The enemy was strong and they lost their own support. The desperate Olopus people had to surrender early on the fourth day.

The morale of the Dionian coalition turned towards the border with Athens.

Between the Attica region of Athens and the Piosha region, there are continuous mountains as a natural border dividing line.After learning of the news of the "Cesali army defeated and the Dionian army going south", Athens carried out emergency military mobilization and quickly formed an army of 10,000 people and nearly 8,000 mercenaries from Jason. Hurry to the border for defense.

To the north, Mount Parnitha is used as the center of defense and line of defense, and to the south is Mount West Salon as the center of defense and line of defense.Considering that Platia, controlled by the Bes, is not far from the Sisalon Mountains and has a lot of convenience for attacking, Athens has deployed more mercenaries in the southern mountains because of their stronger combat effectiveness.

It seems that Patroclus is indeed preparing to make a breakthrough from the southern mountains, because he leads more than half of his troops into Platia.But in fact, the north is the center of attack of the Allied forces of Dionia. The Gaul Reserve Group, the Twelfth Army and the Third Army are all arranged to the north, led by Lizaru, first attacked the defense line.