Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece Chapter 173: Escape the Golden Cicada

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At the beginning, 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’s impossible for Ifekrates to retreat immediately, because the logistic supply of the Greek coalition 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 establishment. The logistics department took charge, but set up a market near Leprion, where merchants from various city-states could sell grain and other materials. The army of each city-state went to the market to purchase military rations. Just follow it all the time. Only the army of Athens and Thessari were different. Thanks to Persian assistance in Athens, Jason unified the city-states of Thessari, and had sufficient financial and material resources to form a battalion to meet the soldiers' supply of rations. 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 an accident, Iphikratus ordered the nearly 20,000 Athenian soldiers who had assembled to defend themselves, and their camps and belongings were completely taken care of by the squadron.

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 Ellis army and the Arcadian city-state army left the coalition one after another, reducing the number of troops under the command of Iphikratus to less than 30,000, which made the soldiers feel a little uneasy.

Ifekratus has been urging the coalition forces to speed up the march. Even at dusk, he did not stop the troops to rest until night fell and the coalition forces reached the junction of Megalopolis and Tagya. The order to rest was given.

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

When the soldiers after a tiring day soon fell asleep, Iphikratus was still worried in the military tent, because the Greek coalition forces have been very smooth from the retreat to the present, and they have not been harassed by the Dionian army. And the chase, and the sent out sentinel also reported to him: No abnormality was found in the Dionia camp on the northern border of Messenia.

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

On the second day, Ifekrates 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 then march towards Corinth.

This way of marching instead of taking a convenient route and choosing a detour was immediately opposed by the Argos, because the Taigea Plain is next to Argos, and the Argos citizen soldiers have already After going out to fight for more than two months, they originally wanted to take the opportunity of this march to return home by the way, but the result was that Efekratus suddenly changed the marching route but their wish could not be realized, and the Argos immediately refused.

Because the Argos are a strong state in the Greek alliance, the army sent out is 7,000 people, second only to Thessaly and Athens. They have considerable weight in this new alliance, and Iphikratus has to Persuasion, such as "he is worried that the Taigeya area may be intercepted by the Dionian army" and so on, but the Argos have the same stubborn and conservative character as the Spartans. Once a decision is made, they will not I am willing to repent easily, otherwise they would have succumbed to the Spartan dominance over the past century.

Seeing that he could not persuade the Argosians, Ifekratus 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 idea is: Now that the strength of the Greek coalition forces has been greatly weakened, if the Dionian army, which has been very calm before, dared to appear in the Taga area to intercept, it must be a winner. , The Greek coalition forces are in danger of annihilation, it is better to let the Argos go to 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 the main part of the Athenian soldiers, to escape; if not, the Greek coalition forces will not be able to escape. It was a long way around, and everyone was happy in the end.

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

When Patroclus assembled his army to go south in Thessaly, he asked the warships of the First Fleet to convey the news to Klotokataks in Messenia. After discussing with Plintors, Klotokatax thought that the Greek coalition forces would retreat soon, so he 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 found no abnormalities.

Klotokattax 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 to Klotokattax. With this news, so when the Greek coalition troops stationed in the former Dionian camp in Megalopolis, the First and Seventh Legions of Dionian had quietly entered the territory of Taga.

Plintors’ plan is to wait for the Greek Allied Forces to march to Tagia tomorrow, and the first and seventh legions and the newly formed Ragnia Brigade will line up in front of it to intercept them. When preparing for battle without stopping, Commander Klotokatax led the Fourth and Sixth Army and the First Cavalry Army, which had been hidden on the northern border of Lagnia, quickly rushed to the battlefield, flanking back and forth, completely destroying Greece. The coalition forces were wiped out in one fell swoop.

However, what Plintors did not expect was that this elaborate net finally caught the Argos army, a small fish, which also delayed the Dionian army. Most of the day.

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

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 soon learned that "Thessari army was defeated, Dio It was reported that the landing army north of Nia had invaded the Attica area. He did not rest in Corinth, so he was anxious to take the army to Attica to guard Athens.

But at this time, the Greek coalition was split again: Corinth refused to let the citizens of his city-state follow along, because it was also threatened by the Dionian army from the south; citizens of Phokes and Locris The soldiers were worried about the safety of their own city-state. No matter how Ifkrates tried to dissuade them, they insisted on taking the risk of passing through the Piosha Alliance, which had declared war on the Greek Alliance, and returning to their home state.

In this way, the entire Greek coalition is actually only left with more than 10,000 troops from 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 the Piosha region.

Although Oropus belongs to the Piorcia region, it has always been attached to Athens and refused to join the Piorcia alliance. The Thebes have long seen it uncomfortable, but they have been worried about Athens interference. Hands on. Patroclus chose it as the first target and also expressed Dionia's goodwill to Thebes.

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

One day of fierce fighting, although the city failed to conquer the city, it has caused a lot of casualties to the Olopus people. The enemy is strong and they have lost their own support. The desperate Olopus people had to open the city early on the 4th day. surrender.

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

There is a continuous mountain range between the Attica region and the Piosha region in Athens as a natural border dividing line. After learning of the news of "the disastrous defeat of the Thessaly army and the Dionian army going south", Athens carried out emergency military mobilization and quickly formed an army of 10,000 and nearly 8,000 mercenaries from Jason. Hurry to the border for defense.

In the north, Mount Parnitha is used as the defensive center and line of defense, and in the south, West Salong Mountain is used as the defensive center and line of defense. Considering that Platia, controlled by the Bes, is not far from the Sisaron Mountains and has a lot of convenience for offensive, Athens deployed more mercenaries in the southern mountains because of their stronger combat effectiveness.

Patroclus does seem to be ready to make a breakthrough from the southern mountains, because he leads more than half of his army into Platia. But in fact, the north was the center of attack of the Allied forces of Dionia. The Gaul Reserve Group, the Twelfth Army and the Third Army were all placed to the north. Led by Lizaru, they attacked the defense line first.