Unexpectedly, while running away, I ran into the defeated soldiers who fled back from the West City, and then I realized that the West City Wall had been lost. Everyone was panicked and didn't know where to go. Some people even cried: "It's over...Syracuse is over..."

Suddenly someone shouted, "We can go to Ortigia Island!"

These words reminded the panicked MPs: Yes, we still have Otigia Island!

As the birthplace of Syracuse and the acropolis of Syracuse, Otigia was built into a solid fortress during the reign of Dionysius, and a palace was also built on the island. After Dionysius was overthrown, Gloris allowed the indigenous residents of Otigia who were forcibly driven out by Dionysius to return to live on the island.

Someone in the Council once proposed to demolish the walls of Otikia to prevent it from becoming a place where ambitious politicians gather to occupy them again.

But it was opposed by many people, because: As the acropolis of Syracuse, Ortigia should have a strong defense. When Syracuse is in danger, it will be a refuge for the people.

Now this is fulfilled!

At the beginning, there was a riot in Syracuse, and Dionysius retreated to Ortigia. Gerolis had an absolute advantage, but he had no choice but to deceive Ortigia. In the end, relying on the Spartans, he deceived him out of Ortigia. Therefore, the defense on the island is absolutely trustworthy, and most of the people on the island are descendants of the founders of Syracuse, and their loyalty to this city-state is also trustworthy. Therefore, Ortigia Island is an ideal refuge.

The MPs were calm and gathered the defeated soldiers and retreated to Ortigia Island (many soldiers refused to go to Ortigia because they were worried about their families), while sending people to inform Falekus and Teagenis, hoping that they could hold on for a while so that the people in the city could have a buffer time to retreat to Ortigia Island. Especially the port area is very close to the isthmus, and once the enemy breaks through the inner wall, it may cut off the isthmus.

The defense line of the inner wall was already shaking, but Falekus was indeed trying his best to support it. However, after learning that the southern section of the west wall was lost, Teagenis did not continue to defend at the top of the city, but instead fled directly to Ortigia Island with a few civilians willing to follow him.

The defenders on the East City Wall also saw the fire in the city, and their reaction was almost the same as those of the defenders on the West City.

The Dionian coalition finally broke through the defense of the East City Wall. Zantiparis, as the commander, finally breathed a sigh of relief. You should know that compared with the main force of Dionian on the Western Front, the troops attacking the East City Wall were all citizens of allied states. Of course, they could not obey orders, obey commands, and take care of casualties like the soldiers of the Dionian Legion. Just to convince the generals of these Allied armies to lead their respective troops to attack continuously, Zantiparis suffered a lot of verbal talk. Therefore, the battle on the Eastern Front was not fierce, but in any case, it dragged down thousands of defenders, creating conditions for the Dionian army to break through in other directions.

At dusk, the troops from the east and west lines successfully met in Apollo Square in Syracuse.

………………………………………………

The main force led by Davers always held Minoa and the army led by Lizaru and Epigenis also stayed in Enna and strengthened the city defense every day.

Under such circumstances, Ma Ge had no choice but to do anything. Even if he wanted to attack one side, the shortage of food gave him the idea. After Minoa confronted him for five or six days, he finally led his army to retreat westward to Segesta.

After receiving the news of the "Third Fleet's victory", Davers became even more determined to implement his strategy of "land defense and sea offense".

These days, newly built warships have been added to the Sicilian fleet sequence. The total number of warships has reached 320, and their main force has moved forward to the port of Selinus.

Every morning, Secrean would lead a fleet to leave the port, sail to the west, sweep the entire western coast of Sicily, and not return until dusk. Because he recently received information from King Davers: Recently, a large number of ships were gathering in the ports of Carthage and its surrounding Phoenician Allies, and the city was also stepping up the raising of food, and it is likely that food would be transported to Sicily.

In the early morning of that day, it was drizzling in the western waters of Sicily, and the sky was a little dark. Although there was a breeze, the wind and waves were not heavy.

Seclian, who was re-elected as commander of the Sicily fleet, learned from the last lesson. He specially hired several old sailors who had lived here for decades as consultants to provide him with analysis of the sea conditions and climate in this area. They all made a positive judgment at once: there are unlikely to be great storms in the western waters today.

Therefore, although Secrean hesitated, he still let the Sicilian fleet sail out of the port as before and headed west along the coast.

Due to the rain, the sea was covered with mist, resulting in poor visibility. To prevent accidents, all warships slowed down, and the entire fleet of 280 warships maintained a dense formation (the other 40 warships were moored in the simple port of Minoa to ensure the needs of the main force led by Davers).

Therefore, it usually took only one hour to sail, but now it took two hours before the fleet reached the sea near Mazara and began to sail northwest.

At this time, the drizzle had stopped, the sky was getting brighter, the fog gradually dissipated, the blue sky was as clear as blue, the sea water was endless, and the breeze blew on the face, making people feel relaxed and happy.

Seclian was relieved and said to the two consultant sailors with a smile: "Your judgment is very accurate! You are worthy of being called 'being favored by the sea god'!"

These two old sailors from Selinus hurriedly and modestly responded that as Greek sailors, they had a low status in Selinus and relied on fishing and transporting goods for a living. They had never had the opportunity to have an equal dialogue with the kingdom general who was of great status and led hundreds of warships.

Seeing their nodding and bowing, Secrean frowned, but said nothing, turned his head and gave an order to the captain of the ship: "Notify the fleet to resume normal speed, send the fast ships to carefully search for the targets at sea."

Not long after, the speed of the entire fleet increased, and more than 10 fast ships also left the large army and quickly advanced.

After a few dozen minutes, the clutch running in the front had approached the sea of ​​Lilibi. The lookout hand on the mast moved its already numb hands and feet, lowered its head and shouted to the bottom: "Captain!"

When the captain of the Clippers heard this, he immediately asked excitedly: "Is there any enemy situation?"

The lookout hand wanted to say, "Is the time for rotation time? You should let the next one replace him." But the captain's question made him subconsciously look at the sea in front of him again, then he was stunned, blinked his eyes, enlarged his eyes again, staring ahead. After a moment, he also shouted excitedly: "There are enemy ships! One, two, three... so many Carthage ships!"

"Mr. Commander, the warship in front has raised a white flag!" The lookout hand on the main mast of the flagship saw the flag words conveyed by the squadron flagship in front of him, and shouted excitedly: "It's two white flags! It's an ordinary fleet with the same number of warships as ours!"

Secrean immediately understood what the rest contained, and he was also excited: when encountering an ordinary fleet in this sea area, it could only come from Carthage. It seems that the information given by His Majesty is correct. The Carthages are indeed here to transport military rations!

He issued an order without hesitation: "Tell Stefakas, lead his squadron and sank all these Carthage cargo ships for me! If one ship is released, he will accept military punishment!"

After receiving this order, the squadron leader Stefakas immediately took out his spirit and ordered the squadron warships commanded by him to unfold in a word and move quickly in the direction of discovering the enemy situation.

…………………………………………………

These more than 200 Carthage merchant ships were lined up in two columns, moving towards Lelibi. On the leading merchant ship, a sailor was standing on the top of the mast and looking forward nervously. Suddenly he shouted anxiously: "Old man, the Dionyan warship... the Dionyan warship is here!"

After saying that, he quickly slid off the mast.

Merchant ships are not like warships. They usually have only one mast and are located at the end of the bed, so they usually do not stand on the top of the mast to look out. On the one hand, merchant ships rely on the push of sails and are afraid of trampling on the mast; on the other hand, people standing on the mast for a long time can easily destroy the balance of the whole body and lead to accidents. However, today's situation is special, and they need to know the movements of the Dionian fleet early.

"I think I'm so crazy. I'll agree to Morbar and drive a merchant ship to face the warship." The old captain with white hair didn't seem nervous, but sighed instead.

Next to him was a wrinkled helmsman comforting: "We are pretty good. Like Barricos, they even had to control merchant ships and break into the Dionia's ship formation. That was really crazy!"

The old captain sighed again: "Who told us that we were all old subordinates of Morbar. We have followed him for so many years and received a lot of help from him... Besides, the mother country is in a difficult situation now, and we, the old people who are about to be buried, can play a role and provide some help to it. I believe that even if we die, it will be a kind of honor for us!"

The old helmsman nodded in agreement.

"Old man, don't miss the past! The Dionian warship is coming soon. According to the plan, sail the ship to the designated place. It is too far from the coast. If the ship is sunk, we may not be able to swim to the shore!" The young sailor who was looking at the mast just now urged.
Chapter completed!