This made the soldiers speed up again and again. Zantiparis, who was almost 60 years old, felt a little overwhelmed even when riding a horse.

After entering the mountain road, even if it is urgent, Zantiparis had to slow down the speed of the troops to prevent them from being ambushed by the enemy.

And at this moment, the soldiers saw fires soaring into the sky in the distance.

The scouts sent out rushed back and reported: the Kautini people had retreated and burned the entire town of Bapania.

By the time Zantiparis led his army to arrive, the bustling town built in the valley was already covered with blazing flames. On the clearing ground south of the town were placed three headless corpses, and a wooden sign was inserted next to it, with a line of Greek written in human blood: I have 134 Dionians in my hand, and exchange them for the captured Samone warriors, otherwise these corpses would be their fate!

Seeing this tragic phenomenon, the soldiers were all angry and demanded to pursue the enemy and rescue the captured people.

Of course, the elderly Zantiparis would not be as impulsive as the soldiers. He just asked the soldiers to restrain these three corpses and lined up in place, waiting for the reconnaissance to pay back.

Soon, the news returned confirmed his speculation: there seemed to be ambushings on both sides of the mountain road ahead, and there were Kauteni soldiers standing in line at the exit of the road.

Zantiparis led his army back without hesitation. He knew that the long-term peace between Naconia and Dionia had been broken, and the war had come to the northwest border of the kingdom. Not only did he gather the reserve army as soon as possible to defend Enona, but he also had to notify the Ministry of Military Affairs as soon as possible to send more troops or give himself greater leadership power. Otherwise, it would be difficult to deal with the next war with these more than 4,000 new recruits alone.

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Pompeii was originally a small Greek town with a small population, and now most of the residents have become prisoners. Even the old men and women took up weapons and went to the top of the city, it was difficult for Segovani to resist the premeditated attacks of Segovani.

The battle was in the afternoon and the city was broken.

The cheers of the warriors made Segovaniton feel comfortable, but he was still not satisfied and needed more victory to cleanse up the shame he had suffered before.

So he left some soldiers to guard and continued to lead his troops to march north along the coast. At dusk, he arrived at herculaneum, which was only 15 miles away from Pompeii.

Herculaneum is located at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, also a small Greek coastal town, but it is richer than Pompeii because it is close to the Gulf of Naples, thus becoming an affiliated trading port for the prosperous maritime trade in Naples.

But the Herculaneums have their own pride, and they think that the history of their town is longer than that of Naples, because it is a town established by Hercules (as can be seen from his name).

Since the escaped Pompeii informed the enemy of the attack, the Herculanemus were ready to defend themselves.

Seeing this, Segovani did not order another siege, but instead stationed on the spot.

Herculaneum's messenger had arrived in Naples for help, but at this time, Naples was facing the threat of the Samonet coalition rushing from the northeast. He was originally planning to send the Campanian coalition to repel the enemy, but now he heard a large number of enemies coming from the south. The Naples, who were likely to be attacked from both sides, suddenly lost their desire to go to war, and also sent a messenger to Dionia by boat.

(Note: After the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD, not only Pompeii was buried under the ash, but also Herculaneum. Unlike Pompeii, it has been excavated, and 75% of its towns are still buried, most of which are intact.)

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After Dionia won consecutive victories from Askurom and Venosa, the Samones were forced to retreat all to the mountains, and even the mountain reconnaissance team rewarded: there was no trace of the Samones in the hilly areas on the border of the Doni region.

The Samone coalition, which was obviously severely damaged, dispelled the plan to continue harassing the Doni region. Alexis, the commander of the Doni region of the Kingdom of Dionia, did not take advantage of the situation to lead the army to attack the Samone region.

On the one hand, it was because of Davers's solemn reminder, "I have no absolute certainty, don't enter the Samone Mountains to fight against the Samones." More than ten years ago, Alexis led the Third Legion to fight against the Samones in the Lucania Mountains. Although he won a small victory, he also felt the power of the Samone warriors in the mountainous battles. Moreover, it was in Potendia at that time. If he was in the Samone Mountains, his terrain was not familiar with, his transportation was difficult, and he was in the enemy's territory, he would undoubtedly encounter more trouble.

The second aspect is the issue of food supply. Alexis gathered three legions, a cavalry legion, a total of nearly 30,000 people. The soldiers carried their own rations, and the food provided by the kingdom every day is not a small amount. Now King Davers leads a large army to expedition to the Latinum area, and the short military rations naturally need to be tilted more towards the expeditionary forces.

The Ministry of Military Affairs has made suggestions to Alexis: In view of the severe damage caused by the Samones, the invasion of the Doney area has stopped, and he hopes that he can disband some of the legions to reduce the supply of military rations.

In addition, a few days ago, the Chief Executive of Ozhentum also sent a messenger to Doni and told Alexis that according to the pirates who came to the port to trade stolen goods, Vadalka, the former Pucheti prince who fled to the Adriatic Sea that year, was recruiting Pucheti, Mesapi and Doni who fled to Greece in the Epirus area.

Therefore, Alexis finally decided to let the Ninth, Tenth Legion and Second Cavalry Legion return to their respective areas to disband, but the various barracks still retained a battalion as usual while they had to send another brigade to bring their own rations for four days. The Cavalry Legion sent 200 cavalry to take turns to Askrom City in the Doney area, where Alexis would lead them on duty.

In the military camps in the Doney area, every two brigades of soldiers of the 11th Legion brought their own rations, and they took turns every four days, commanded by Capps.

The Doni military camp is in the north and Askrum is in the south. At the same time, there were 4,000 soldiers and 200 cavalry guarding the entire Doni region's border with Samone in the territory of Doni. It is supplemented by citizens from neighboring towns, which is enough to deal with the small and medium-sized attacks of the Samone people.

Once the remaining enemies who escaped from Apulia landed in other places in the Apulia area, the defenders of other military camps could first resist, and then the citizens who were waiting to fight quickly from the towns to the military camps, form a complete army, and then completely eliminate the enemy. This consumed very little kingdom military rations, and basically ensured the safety of this area.

The reason why Alexis dared to do this is that the Apulia region is a plain and the terrain is basically flat. In addition to the great roads, there are relatively flat roads between the towns. From the city of Lusenia in the north to Ozhentum in the south, it can be reached in just over a day. However, in this way, the soldiers of the Legion were relatively busy and were always in a hurry. However, for the warlike Mesapi and Puchetti people, it was exciting to have battles to fight, achievements to obtain, and land to divide.

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Through many exchanges with King Davers, the Ministry of Military Affairs has established the kingdom's strategy in this war at this stage: attack from the north and defense from the south.

The army led by Davers was attacking and fighting in the Latinum region. The troops led by Alexis had stopped in the Doni region. However, the troops led by Leoticides did not retreat to defend. Instead, they attacked everywhere at the western end of Sicily with Selinus as a base, plundered all villages and towns outside the city-states such as Mazara, Lilibi, and Segesta, and collected supplies to ensure the sufficient food supply of the army, achieve the goal of disrupting the order of Carthage in the Sicily ruling region and creating favorable conditions for future operations.

Leoticids adopts an offensive and defensive combat method.

Just as Davers led his army to land on the coast of Latinum, the drowned body of Franios, the commander of the Third Fleet of Dionia, was found in the reefs on the coast between Minoa and Agrithento. Because the body had been corrupted, Leoticides led all the soldiers and fleet sailors to hold a solemn cremation funeral for him in the city of Selinus.

The audience burst into tears.

However, the traces of Sicily Fleet Commander Secretly have not been found yet. Leotichides once judged that Secretly might have fallen on the coast controlled by the Carthaginians and was captured. When exchanging captives with the Carthaginians, he proposed to exchange more captives for Secretaginians.

The Carthaginians did not respond to this.

Since the order signed by Davers to "Agree to transfer the Fourth Fleet to Sicily" has not yet arrived at the Ministry of Military Affairs, the former squadron leader Stefakas temporarily took on the important task of commanding the entire Sicily fleet (in fact, there are only dozens of warships left in the Sicily fleet today).

The army of Dionians rages on the lands of western Sicily, causing Carthage's allies and colonial cities to complain, and they all asked Lili for help.

The morale of the army in Lilibi was low and the military system was chaotic. Pomirka only wanted to protect himself, so he dared not go out of the city to fight against the Dionian army.
Chapter completed!