The mother of Carthage, Tyr, received help from the Carthage messengers, did not neglect it. He quickly contacted other nearby Phoenician city-states, such as Sidon, Aka, Arwaddy, etc., and they finally agreed to aid Carthage. After all, one of the main reasons why the Phoenicians under Persian rule over the years was that they offered a large amount of gold and silver to the Persian royal court every year, and these gold and silver were mainly traded to them by Carthage at a lower price.

Although the Persian Kingdom belongs to the Phoenician city-state and the territory is not large, they own hundreds of warships. Because the Persians are located in the inland and are not good at navigating, their navy is provided by aliens, mainly from the Phoenicians and the Greeks of Asia Minor. Moreover, in recent years, the Persian king was determined to regain Egypt and has been preparing for war. The Phoenicians were the main force of the Persian navy and did not lack training.

But there is an important problem. Under the Persian rule of Persia, their warships were also affiliated with the Persian navy. Of course, it was impossible to leave privately and go to the Western Mediterranean. Therefore, Tel, Sidon... also had to send envoys to the Persian royal court to seek permission from the Persian king Artaxerxes.

Since the signing of the contract of the king, Persia's biggest enemy, the Greek city-states, not only no longer have an enemy with Persia, but instead allowed Persia to serve as arbitration and mediate the conflicts and disputes between the Greek city-states, which was equivalent to expressing surrender to Persia. Artaxerxes consciously achieved great achievements that the great kings had not yet achieved. In addition, the political situation in Persia was stable at this time, and the four barbarians were obeyed. His throne was very stable. Therefore, he was full of ambition and was calm and thoughtful and ordered an attack on Egypt. Although he suffered a small setback, he did not hurt his bones.

Under his orders, the kingdom was preparing for a more complete attack on Egypt.

Thiel's messenger met Artaxerxes and conveyed the Phoenician request to him.

This is not the first time Artaxerxes heard the name "Dionia". Although the two countries are thousands of miles apart, the prosperous maritime trade in the Mediterranean has spread rapidly. The magical story of the rapid rise of the Kingdom of Dionys is also widely circulated in Asia Minor, and naturally it is also circulated in Persia.

The Persian king Artaxerxes began to pay attention to this newly emerging kingdom in the distant West because his intelligence agencies found that Dionia was originally a country established by Greek mercenaries who followed the rebellion of Cyrus. After all, the story of Greek mercenaries fighting thousands of miles in Persia and finally successfully escaped successfully is very popular in Greece and spread in Asia Minor, but it is a shame for Artaxerxes and his Persian army.

After further investigation by the royal intelligence department, Artaxerxes learned more. For example, he knew that the Kingdom of Dionys was more tolerant of the gods and religions of aliens like Persia; he knew that the Kingdom of Dionys was more strict in controlling the conquered land like Persia; he even knew that Dionys and Egypt formed a military alliance not long ago... So in Artaxerxes's heart, the Kingdom of Dionys was the enemy of Persia, but the country was too far apart and its strength was too insignificant (Artaxerxes and many Persian officials thought so), so he didn't take it too seriously in the past.

But since there is something involved in Dionia, Artaxerxes is certainly willing to cause some trouble for it, so he agreed to the matter of "the Phoenicians sent a fleet to aid Carthage" without much consideration, and generously allowed them to take the banner of Persia if necessary.

With the promise of the Persian king, the Eastern Phoenicians quickly sent a fleet of 130 large and small warships, including 90 three-layer oar warships, and 30 cargo ships carrying food supplies. The fleet was traveling west along the coast of Asia Minor under the banner of the Persian Navy. He felt a little nervous when he saw the Greek city-states along the fleet along the way, and they were secretly speculating: What major military actions did the Persians have taken?

The most nervous one was undoubtedly the Athenians, because at this time it was uniting with Thebes to fight Sparta, and the Persian fleet sailed westward at this time, which made them panic: Did Persia want to support Sparta and join the war? If so, the prospects for Athens would be very bad!

The Eastern Phoenician fleet was like a stone falling into a water bottle, causing trouble, but it did not attract too much attention from the Dionians, because Dionians were dealing with several wars with all their might and could not spend their energy to pay attention to the matters in the Eastern Mediterranean. In the minds of the Dionians, it was believed that it was impossible for the Persian fleet to attack the Western Mediterranean, so that they would disrupt the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean as much as possible.

Furthermore, as autumn approaches, the farmland in Dionia is about to be harvested. The merchants of the kingdom no longer buy food from the Eastern Mediterranean. Instead, they draw a lot of people to flock to the Latinum region in central Italy, in an attempt to gain new business opportunities and gain more profits on the new conquest of this kingdom. Naturally, the merchant ships traveling through the Eastern Mediterranean trade routes have decreased significantly, which has also caused the Ministry of Military Affairs to obtain little information about this Persian fleet.

Later, the east Phoenician fleet heading west was docked at the port of kydonia on Crete, which made the Athenians even more nervous because the Cretan states were allies of Sparta, and Kaidonia was closer to the Greek mainland side.

But a few days later, the Athenians received the news that "this Persian fleet disappeared in Crete", which puzzled them, but no one saw the traces of the fleet on the coast of Greece.

In fact, after the Eastern Phoenician fleet rested in Kaidonia, one day the sea surface was blowing strong north wind, and quietly sailed southwest, avoiding the common routes of frequent Greek merchant ships, reaching Zibon Cyrenega in Sparta, and then along the coast of Afilica, continuing westward to Leptis, the Phoenician colonial city that is the eastmost colonial city of the Afilica colony.

After arriving here and being warmly welcomed by the towns, the crew of the Phoenician fleet relaxed. The fleet continued to travel westward and finally arrived at Hadrumetum.

This Phoenician city-state affiliated to Carthage is just south of Carthage, but few foreign merchant ships are visiting. After the Phoenician fleet stayed at the port, it no longer went west. Because the shrewd East Phoenicians realized that the Dionian Navy, which they were about to fight, was strong, so they refused to enter Carthage to avoid being forced to confront the Carthage Navy because they could not refuse the Carthage's plea, but wanted to choose the opportunity to attack independently.

Of course, there is another reason to be said. Although the Eastern Phoenicians had close trade with Carthage, they rarely had high-level political and military exchanges for decades. On the one hand, it was because of Persian reasons, and on the other hand, the Eastern Phoenicians (especially the Tel nobles) had always been concerned about Carthage, which had once taken away all their colonial trade points in the Western Mediterranean and did not want to enter Carthage, a city called "the center of the Siphoenicians."

Later, the Eastern Phoenician fleet, who was staying in Hadrummetum, refused to provide escorts for the Carthage army to land in Sicily, because it would inevitably mean that they would withstand the crazy attack of the Dionian Navy.

It was not until the Carthaginian army ventured to land in Sicily that the Dionian Navy focused on the western part of Sicily. At the suggestion of Carthaginian commander Mago, the Carthaginian Senate discussed with the Eastern Phoenician fleet that they finally agreed to Mago's plan.

The fleet quietly left Hadrummetum, sailed northward, and barely entered Kossyra.

Cosulla is a small island affiliated to Carthage. It has a Carthage town of about 2,000 people and a small port located to the south of the island. The island is located between Sicily and Carthage, facing the city of Selinus to the north.

The Eastern Phoenician fleet was crowded on Cosula Island. After staying for a few days, the Clippers sent out to investigate brought back the news. As expected, as Marco expected, the warships of Dionia were loading with soldiers leaving the port!

How could the Eastern Phoenician fleet miss this great opportunity to annihilate the enemy? So the warship left the port, raised sails, and sailed northwards with the weak south wind, and finally caught up with the Dionian fleet in time.

The Eastern Phoenician warships lowered the sails and began to speed up the slurry. The entire fleet gradually spread to both sides as they advanced, but they did not implement any special tactics. The situation of the Dionian fleet ahead was not worth their waste of time to arrange tactics. They just increased the front-line warships as much as possible, and tried to hit and sink enough enemy ships during the first attack.

The Dionia Clippers, now in the outer patrol position, have raised two yellow flags one by one from west to east. The rough information about the enemy situation has spread throughout the team. The warships near the Mirtias flagship have begun to retreat to the coast. The warships in the east have just received the signal of "get closer to the flagship". The entire fleet organization is chaotic and unable to coordinate. Moreover, the warships have almost lost their combat capabilities, which makes the crew panic and their morale depressed.

…………………………………………

At this moment, Seclian, who knew there was an enemy situation, commanded the Clippers to catch up with a three-layer oar warship that was returning, and then he ordered anxiously: the Clippers immediately leaned over.

Then, he stood at the bow and shouted: "I am Secrean, who is the captain of this ship?!"
Chapter completed!