Mukru hesitated for a moment and said, "... Commander, do you want to tell Governor Sipoulos?"

Leotitzides said lightly: "It's too far, and it's too late to go. Your Majesty should have assigned the Sicilian fleet to my command. That would have been a lot of trouble. Go and execute the orders quickly."

Soon, Mirtias responded not to Mukru's expectations. He not only rejected Leotizides' proposal to let him cruise, but also asked Mukru to bring a message, tactfully reminding Leotizides: The Sicilian fleet is not under his command, so he should not worry about the affairs of the navy.

Leotizides had a rare fire in his mansion, but there was nothing he could do.

When the time came, the scouts returned to Selinus and brought bad news: they found many Carthage soldiers and ships gathered on many beaches on the beaches.

The Carthage army was landing! Leotizides made a judgment easily.

"Send someone to tell Miltias and let him do whatever he wants." Leotizides said with a sarcastic look on his lips. It seemed that Miltias's previous response made him very worried.

"Gather the Eighth Legion and the Preparatory Force immediately and follow me to attack the coast of Mazara!" Finally, Leotizides gave the order.

"yes!"

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In order to facilitate understanding and supervise the boarding of the entire army soldiers at the ports of Carthage and Utica, Mago was almost at the forefront of the last shipboard troops and entered the port of Liliba.

As soon as he boarded the dock, he was warmly welcomed by officials from all over the world, led by the city lord Emisere of Lilibi, and the acting commander of the Carthage army, Ademika, and others. Everyone hugged him into the city lord's mansion like stars.

Ma Ge had just sat down and before he could speak, news came that "the army of tens of thousands of Dionians left the city of Selinus and marched westward."

Most of the people present were nervous, but Ma Ge resolutely ordered: "Gather the troops immediately and go to intercept!"

Lilibi is a military fortress. There are several military camps in the city. There were more than 10,000 Numibian soldiers stationed (formerly the army led by Monte Adno). Yesterday, about 20,000 Iberian soldiers led by Hasdruba were stationed. Ma Ge ordered his men to gather them quickly. To be cautious, he also brought 6,000 Iberian soldiers who had just landed in the city.

Leotizides led his army to fight against the wind and rain, and normal marching became a bit difficult, so it took nearly three hours to approach Mazara City.

At this time, he received the reward of the scout: a Carthage army was coming from Leli, with a number of no less than 30,000 people.

Since Minoa's battle and the Dionian army captured Selinus, Leotizides has thought of various ways to lure the enemies in Lilibi, Segesta, Mazara and other cities out of the city to fight in order to achieve another success, but has not been successful.

Now that the Carthage army finally left the city, Leothis hesitated. Although the battle of Miloa exposed the low morale and low combat effectiveness of the Carthage army at that time, this did not make Leothis become arrogant. Through intelligence, he knew that the Iberian army that once captured Seldieum should not be underestimated. The Carthage army that was rushing from Leligy must also be the main force, and the number of soldiers was far greater than the number of teams he led.

During the period when the Dionian army was stationed in Selinus, many friendly city-state soldiers had returned to their homes to prepare for the upcoming harvest season. After the Second Fleet arrived in Sicily, Mirtias protested to Leotizides: Adapting the excellent crew of the Dionian Navy into light infantry without authorization to act as an auxiliary to the legion during combat (referring to part of the tens of thousands of Sicilian fleet crews who survived the storm).

He also sued the Ministry of Military Affairs. In the end, Leotizides had to let these crew members return to the naval base in the Catanian plains, so Leotizides's army is only more than 20,000, and there are more than 3,000 AIA soldiers left in the city of Selinnus. This is all the troops he now has in western Sicily.

He originally thought that landing in such bad weather would inevitably cause temporary chaos, but he did not expect the Carthaginians to attack so quickly.

His eyes glanced at the fully armed legion soldiers beside him, and their faces were full of rain showed fatigue. After only a moment of hesitation, Leotizides, who had never been blind and impulsive in fighting, gave up his idea of ​​fighting with the Carthaginian army, ordered the army to stop moving forward, and immediately return to Selinus.

The soldiers who were soaked in vain that they complained about this.

Leotizides didn't care about this, he cared about whether the Sicilian fleet could gain something.

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After receiving reminder from his adjutant Mukru, Mirtias did not fully believe Mukru's words because of his poor relationship with Leotizides, so he did not immediately lead the fleet to sea, but sent the Clippers to patrol the western waters.

After it was confirmed, he hurriedly led the fleet out of the port. After a while, the fleet sailed against the wind. By the time he bypassed the cape and arrived at the waters near Mazara, it was already dusk. The ships were already full of ships, and the lively sea surface had basically returned to peace. The landing of the Carthage army had ended, and most of the transportation of supplies and horses was completed.

The Carthage Clippers, who had been observing the movement of the Dionian fleet, quickly notified the ships that were still on the way, and some immediately returned to Carthage, and some rushed into the beaches and ports of Sicily. Therefore, the Dionian fleet searched around this sea area for a while, and only sank and captured more than a dozen cargo ships. Although they often looked at the many Carthage ships docked on the beach, they did not dare to approach the attack, because there were many Carthage soldiers on these beaches. It was obviously stupid for the Navy to give up its own advantages to fight land wars. Moreover, because the sky was dark and the wind and waves were heavy, the two warships accidentally sank.

Therefore, Miltias had to order his return, and he was always depressed on the way: He was responsible for the successful landing of the Carthage army in Sicily, neither His Majesty Davers nor the Ministry of Military Affairs would turn a blind eye to this...

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In the next few days, the battle situation in western Sicily showed a strange calm.

On Carthage, Mago was busy reorganizing the chaotic army after landing and transporting the materials scattered on the coast back to Lilibi. At the same time, he also took time to meet with officials from the sub-Carthage and envoys from allies to learn more about Sicily. He even summoned Arconis, the leader of Sikele, who was neglected by Monte Adno.

On the Dionia side, Leottizides no longer sent troops to destroy opponents' fields and villages, but ordered the soldiers to strengthen the city defense.

In fact, he has been doing this since he occupied Selinus because he knew very well that Minoa's battle was not enough to cause Carthage to get rid of his muscles and bones, and would instead attract Carthage's more violent counterattack. As the main offensive route of the Carthaginian army, Selinus, located at the starting point of this route, is very important. As long as he holds it, it can create a great obstacle for the Carthaginian army to further attack the friendly city-states of the Dionian on the south coast, and help achieve the strategic goals entrusted by King Davers.

At the same time, Leottizides also sent a messenger back to Catanai and informed Sipros of the new war situation. He also sought reinforcements from friendly city-states such as Minoa, Agrigento, and Jera again to enhance Selinus' defensive power.

Leothis hoped that the later the battle would take, but Mago could no longer wait. After all, he made a promise in the Senate to drive the Dionians out of Sicily within one year. So three days later, the mighty Carthage army surrounded Selinus.

Ma Ge ordered the army to start building the camp, and at the same time asked engineers and carpenters to build siege equipment.

After the camp began to take shape, he began to send thousands of light infantry formed by the Sicily allies to gradually clear the traps and obstacles outside the city of Selinus.

Of course, Leotizides would not allow the enemy to approach the trench so easily. Therefore, he not only ordered the defenders at the city to carry out fierce long-range attacks on any enemy that entered the attack range under the city, but also organized hundreds or thousands of light-armored soldiers from time to time to take advantage of their unpreparedness and raid out of the city to raid enemies who were busy clearing obstacles.

Leotizides' active defensive tactics gave considerable damage to Carthage soldiers who were clearing obstacles under the city, but in a few days, Carthage's encirclement of Selinus was still gradually narrowing.

For Mago, who has an army of about 120,000, some casualties were simply scratching his head and did not affect him. With his strong military strength as a backing, the Carthaginians' cleaning of the city of Selinus has never been interrupted.

As the Carthage army advanced under the city in an orderly manner and strengthened its prevention of raids against defenders, the Dionian army also reduced the number of raids out of the city after suffering one or two small losses.

Soon, the Carthaginians set up dozens of crossbows in front of the city and continuously bombarded the walls of Selinus with stone bombs.

Since the Dionian Legion had city wall offensive and defense training in normal military training, they also had their own research on how to prevent siege weapon - the crossbow cannon. In addition to allowing the crossbow cannons arranged on the city wall and inside the city to accurately strike the enemy's crossbows, Leotizides also asked the soldiers to collect large quantities of fishermen's fishermen's fishermen's fishermen's fishing nets from the city, dangling them from the top of the city, covering the walls to buffer the impact of the stone bombs.
Chapter completed!