Davers could feel the heavy expectation in their words. He smiled and said, "Don't worry about the Syracuse people. What you should worry about is whether we have enough people to manage the lands in southern Greece after defeating the Syracuse people!"

When the elders were stunned, Davers turned his head and looked deep into the hills near the river in Yicheng in the east. He knew that his wife and children must be staring at this side, hoping that he would return victoriously as soon as possible...

"Let's go." He coughed lightly, turned his horse's head, and stepped onto the wooden bridge with his guards.

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Syracuse soldiers burned, killed and looted Crotone overnight. The main ones who suffered heavy disasters were the free people and Gentiles in the port area, and nearly half of the Crotone people who failed to escape into the Acropolis in time.

By noon the next day, most of the Syracuse soldiers were still sleeping in the barracks or in the houses in Crotone to restore the excessive physical energy they had consumed yesterday.

Dionysius got up early in the morning and led his men to start handling military affairs.

The first thing that needs to be solved urgently is the problem of wounded. Although yesterday's battle was brilliant, the losses were also huge. According to preliminary statistics last night, more than 5,000 soldiers were killed and seriously injured in battle, and more than 4,000 soldiers were slightly injured to varying degrees. After this battle, Syracuse lost about 1/8 of its troops. A series of tedious matters such as treating the wounded, replenishing the troops, and reorganizing the troops must be completed as soon as possible.

The most time-consuming and laborious cleaning of the battlefield and burying the corpses is the easiest to complete. Only tens of thousands of Crotone people who have become prisoners need to be used as laborers. How many prisoners cry when they carefully sort out the remains of Crotone soldiers who died in battle inside and outside the city wall! How many prisoners secretly kick and scold the bodies of Syracuse soldiers when they dragged the bodies of Syracuse soldiers to vent their anger!

For Dionysius, this was not something he cared about too much. The second thing he cared about was the acropolis of Crotone. This acropolis is located south of the center of Crotone and is built on a hill. The acropolis has the largest Apollo temple group in Greece, so Crotone Apollo Acropolis is also the largest in the Great Greek city-state.

Although when the city was lost, retreating to the Guards was the ultimate defensive strategy often adopted by Greek city-states, Dionysius should have been guarded, but after breaking the city wall last night, the soldiers of Syracuse were fierce in their fierce fighting during the day and carried out crazy killing and looting in the city. Because it was dark, Dionysius could not effectively command the troops, resulting in the delay of the fighter plane, causing more than half of the Crotones (including many soldiers) to escape into the Acropolis under the organization of Miron and Lucias, which gave the Acropolis sufficient mandate defense.

At the same time, the acropolis is high and surrounded by urban residential buildings. Large siege equipment cannot reach the city wall at all. Unless the surrounding residences and buildings are stripped off and a solid and wide causeway is built to fill the hills, siege towers, siege cars and others can arrive at the city. Otherwise, relying solely on soldiers to attack from bottom to top will not only cause heavy casualties, but also difficult to succeed.

However, such a siege requires a long time to prepare, and what Dionysius lacks the most now is time, because he still has to lead his army to attack Dionyha. He will never allow his biggest enemy to have more breathing opportunities to stabilize the territory and form more armies.

So Dionysius sent an envoy to threaten the lives of the captured Crotone people and soldiers, causing the Crotone people in the Acropolis to surrender.

However, the Crotones hiding in the acropolis were condescending last night and witnessed the various atrocities committed by the Syracuses in the city. They suffered all night by the heart-wrenching wails of their fellow countrymen. They were both afraid and hated the Syracuses, and coupled with the tyranny of the Syracuses in the Silitun, they regarded the Syracuses as a "man-eating beast" and did not believe what the messenger said, "As long as they become the Syracuse allies and send troops to the Syracuse army, Dionysius will release all the Crotone captives and return them to the Crotone city."

Because in order to prevent the Syracuses from robbing the city and protecting the people who were fleeing to the Acropolis, Askamas tried his best to reorganize the defeated soldiers, fought with the enemy on the streets of the city, and eventually died in battle. The Crotones, who had lost the highest military general, urgently elected Miron who saved them as the general of the army, and neither Lucias nor Lucias nor Lucias had opposed it. At this time, the senior Crotones led by Lucias and Milon not only flatly rejected the request of the envoy, but also showed their courage and determination to fight to the death with the Syracuses, they cut off the ears and noses of the envoys and drove him out of the acropolis.

When the messenger covered his bloody wound and cried to Dionysius, he did not show much anger, but just sneered deeply: "Silly Crotone, do you think I can't do anything to you if I hide on that hill?! Hideing in tens of thousands of people in that small acropolis can indeed improve defense, but can I defend against hunger and thirst!"

Indeed, the food consumption of tens of thousands of people is a huge amount. People who went up the mountain in a hurry could not carry a large amount of food. Even if Miron prepares in advance, it will not be guaranteed for a few days. What made Crotone even more worried is that there is no water source on the hill. Usually, the water used by the temple priests comes from the water storage pool in the temple. Because of the heavy rains a few days ago, the water storage pool was full, but for the demand of tens of thousands of people, it was just a drop in the bucket.

Therefore, Dionysius ordered: send a small number of troops to surround the Acropolis of Crotone.

He believed that when the Crotones were short of water and food, they would not last a few days before they would go down the mountain to surrender.

He originally wanted to order the crossbows to fire stone bombs at the Acropolis to increase the fear of the Crotones and force him to surrender as soon as possible. But then he thought that there was an Apollo temple in the Acropolis. If he intentionally destroyed it, it would probably affect the morale of the soldiers. Moreover, the sudden heavy rain last time also made him, who had always been arrogant, feel sad. At this critical moment, he did not want any more accidents.

Dionysius knew in his heart that the Crotones hid in the Acropolis and survived, and that he was hoping for the rescue of the Dionys. Dionys was the target of the Syracuse army's upcoming attack. However, the soldiers who had just experienced the fierce siege war needed to rest, so he could only continue to send mercenaries to the north to reconnaise the enemy's situation.

The insatiable Numibians and Celtics actually vented their dissatisfaction because they were unable to participate in the robbery in the city last night.

Dionysius did not get angry and even gave these aliens a lot of spoils. Because Phoebidas once said: These alien cavalry are a weapon to deal with the Dionys in the wild.

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A fast ship sailed into the port of Crotone.

"General, Dionia's fleet is here!" The captain hurriedly reported to Leptines, who was inspecting the military port and commanding the warships.

The Syracuse Navy had just moved into the Crotone military port this morning. Compared with Silit, the Crotone military port is much larger, able to accommodate more warships, and is located closer to the territory of Dionia, which makes it easier for the Syracuse Navy to understand the movements of the Dionian fleet faster and cooperate with the land forces better.

But I didn't expect that the fleet had just arrived and the sailors had not completely disembarked, and the fleet of Syracuse came. Leptines was now heartbroken, and on the surface he was still calm: "How many warships have come?"

It is much harder to judge the number of ships at sea than to detect the number of people on land, because a fleet of hundreds of warships often occupies a range of five or six nautical miles when sailing on the sea surface. After all, people's sight is limited, and there is no place for the endless sea surface to hide in secret, so it needs to be close to observe, which requires a great risk.

"Well... it feels like the same number as the last battle." The captain could only say a little bit.

Then he emphasized: "There are suspension bridges hanging on the foremasts of those Deonian warships!"

When Leptines heard this, he felt a little nervous, and the crushing defeat a few days ago appeared before him again.

Should he face it or not? He couldn't make a decision for a moment, but instead ran to the city to ask Dionysius for instructions.

When Dionysius learned that the Dionysian fleet was coming, he pondered for a moment and resolutely issued an order: To fight!

He had several considerations about this.

First of all, since the reconnaissance situation was that the number of the Dionian fleet was not much different from the last time and they were equipped with the so-called suspension bridge, it means that the previous analysis was correct. Due to the number of sailors and the difficulty of modifying warships, the Dionians also used the original warships. In terms of the number of three-layer slurry warships, the Syracuse Navy still had a slight advantage.

Secondly, as a commander, Dionysius knew how much morale had on the combat effectiveness of soldiers. The Syracuse Navy was defeated not long ago. If you did not make up for it with victory in time and choose to give in, it would undoubtedly be "destroying one's mightyness and increasing the enemy's aura". Then, in the future, the Syracuse Navy would undoubtedly be dwarfs in fighting spirit.

Furthermore, Syracuse's army was concentrated in Crotone. Yesterday, after another day of hard fighting, it was resting. If the Dionysian fleet was allowed to cross the sea in Crotone and sail to the rear of empty troops, such as Silitine or the coast near the city-states such as Kaurenia, which was not sincerely surrendered, it would lead to a great passiveness of the Syracuse's army, so Dionysius would never allow such a situation.

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Although this was the second time that Secreyan led a fleet to fight, in his heart, this was the real first independent team. Without King Davers by his side, he would no longer feel restrained.
Chapter completed!