Although Xenophon did not agree with Agsilous's approach to protecting the stupid general who was selfish and attempting to rob Athens, this was Agsilous, a king who valued friendship very much, so he had to comfort him again and said: "Now Cleombrotus (another Spartan king) led the Allies in Central Greece for several months and has not made great progress. If the situation of the war is always stalemate, it will not be good for Sparta. Some city-states that were originally dissatisfied with Sparta will probably join the alliance of Athens-Thebes to strengthen the forces that resist Sparta. By then, the Spartans may think of you again."

Agsilous did not respond to Xenophon's words. On the one hand, he did not want to see Sparta fall into such a predicament, and on the other hand, he did not want to judge the performance of another Spartan king in Central Greece, thus making him narrow-minded. So he changed the topic, half joking, and half serious: "Xenophon, you are an Athenian, do you want Athens to be defeated?"

Xenophon said seriously: "I neither want Athens to be defeated nor Sparta to be defeated. Athens and Sparta each have their own strengths and complement each other. They should not be enemies. If two city-states unite, then the entire Greece can unite and we can compete with other powerful forces in the Mediterranean."

"…Great idea." Agsilous looked at Senofin and finally said.

After seeing Xenophon off, he returned to the house and saw the book on the table. Agsilous was stunned for a while. Regarding the "Sparta support for the fugitives to counterattack Apulia", he did not tell the truth to Xenophon because he did not object to the elders' council.

"More than 500 warships, 100,000 troops!" Agsilous murmured in a low voice, still a little bit of shock in his tone. At first, he heard the troops he had invested after the war broke out in the Kingdom of Dionia (the same was true for Carthage). This really scared him. He had carefully estimated that even if the city-states of Peloponnese, Central Greece, and Northern Greece could probably barely make up this huge number, but Dionia could do it more easily

It made him feel scared because he knew very well that although Sparta was still an alliance with the Kingdom of Dionia, because the two sides were too close and were ambitious, they would inevitably have a war due to conflicts of interest one day. Therefore, he hoped that Carthage would win this war. Although it was a foreign race, Persia was also a foreign race. Isn’t it very good to cooperate now? After all, the current situation in the Western Mediterranean is different from the time when Dionysius dominated Sicily.

Thinking of this, Agsilous felt the urgency of time again: but as Xenophon said, Cliombrotus led his army to fight in Central Greece for so long, and there has been no major progress so far. If this continues, it is very unfavorable to Sparta. Should he take some action?!

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Due to the plundering of the Spartan generals and their subsequent acquittal, Athens began to war with Sparta and formed an alliance with Thebes. Soon, the city-states of Tajis, Byzantium, Rhodes, and Eubia... The city-states of the city-states joined this new alliance, and this new alliance was named the Second Athens Alliance (after all, the establishment of the alliance was mainly Athens, and most of the city-states that joined the alliance were allied with Athens over the years). In order to distinguish it from the Deluxe League established by Athens during the Peloponnese War, the alliance claimed that the purpose of its alliance was to protect the independence of the Greek states and resist Spartan oppression.

In order to convene and hire more soldiers to fight against Sparta, the Athenian Citizens' Congress also passed a resolution to resume the collection of property taxes. In order to collect taxes more quickly and easily, the Athenian government also reformed the collection method.

The newly built Thebesian government focused all its energy on military affairs, and they relied on their strong city defense to resist the first wave of attacks from the Spartan coalition.

With the arrival of autumn, the soldiers of the Spartan coalition returned to their respective city-states to prepare for the autumn harvest. The Spartan King Cliombrotus had less than 3,000 Spartan soldiers left. He was unwilling to waste the precious Spartan soldiers in the siege, so he temporarily led his troops to retreat to Platia.

The Thebes government seized this precious truce, mobilized the people of the whole city to dig trenches around the city of Thebes, build barriers... and took all measures that could strengthen the city defense to defend against the next attack of the Spartan coalition. At the same time, they also actively joined forces with the neighboring states of Piosha, which had been independent, and actively assisted them in strengthening their defenses in order to block Sparta from the territory of Thebes.

At the same time, the Spartan government also gathered the citizens of the city and conducted military training every day. The person in charge was Ipaminunda. His outstanding performance in the previous battles won the recognition and respect of the people of the whole city. Everyone actively participated in the training plan he formulated, and no one questioned the plan.

Ipaminunda was not satisfied with just defending the city of Thebes. He realized that only by defeating the Spartans in the battle could it be possible to completely eliminate the threat of Sparta to Thebes and make Thebes usher in a real rise. Therefore, while he was training the citizens, he also put forward a new suggestion to Pelopidas and others - that is, to establish an elite heavy infantry company to compete with the King's Guards of Sparta, which is to compete with Sparta's famous Greek King's Guard. He even proposed that the unit was better composed of homosexual couples based on the characteristics of the more homosexual citizens of Thebes. He believed that it was precisely because these couples had close relationships that they could inspire each other, assist each other, and go to life and death together in battle.

Although homosexuality is highly respected in Greece, an army specially formed by homosexuality has never appeared in the Greek states before. If this proposal appeared in other Greek city-states, even Athens might have been questioned by many people. However, the emerging Thebes government was composed of radicals led by Pelopidas. They were young, energetic, passionate, dared to take risks and innovate. Therefore, they realized that Ipaminunda's plan would help greatly improve the combat effectiveness of Thebesian militias, and they were immediately approved and implemented immediately.

Pelopidas and Ipaminonda personally went to the city to select citizens, and soon formed a heavy infantry company of 300 people (150 couples). These soldiers were about 20 years old, all born in Thebes nobles, and basically had long-term training in wrestling schools. They were all tall and strong, and agile.

Ipaminunda began to conduct more stringent heavy infantry training on them.

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In Sicily, the Carthage army officially began its attack on the territory of Dionia.

Hasdruba led 30,000 soldiers straight from Jera to attack Hena.

At the same time, Mago personally led more than 50,000 soldiers from the Kamanlina territory to enter Syracuse, and set up camp in the northwest of his territory. His target of attack was Paragonia, not far from the camp.

Syracuse also summoned more than 10,000 soldiers, led by General Falekus, and passed through the Ixa Gate and attacked Taunis not far north of it.

The southern border of the Dionysian Sicily territory was attacked by three armies, but the cities and allies of Dionysian Sicily, who had already prepared, were not panicked. They defended in an orderly manner according to their prior deployment.

After Hasdruba led his army to trek and arrived at Hena, he was a little troubled because Hena was not only built on the hills, but also two large lakes on the north and south sides of it, which made it difficult for the Carthaginian army to surround it. The army could not fully unfold during the attack, and the advantage of the large population was not fully utilized.

Moreover, at the beginning of the war, Chief Executive Krelu mobilized the people at the suggestion of Leothides and used these two lakes to dig a wider moat under the hills, which further set up obstacles for the siege equipment of the Carthaginian army to approach the city.

In addition, Leotizidez sent 3,000 Eighth Legion soldiers to Hena, and the civilians in Hena, the city had more than 5,000 troops.

After several days of careful preparation, Hasdruba began to attack the city with all his strength. As a result, he fought fiercely for a day and did not even attack the city. The attack in the next few days also suffered failures. Since there were many casualties among the soldiers, Hasdruba had to stop the attack and rest.

Mago's army also encountered difficulties. For several months, the Dionian soldiers who stayed in Paragonia had been building defense facilities with the help of the people of Katanai. They arranged trap areas outside the village, built sentinel towers outside the traps, dug trenches outside the sentinel towers, and arranged traps outside the trenches... These stretched one by one, stretched several miles southward, guarding the only flat area between the mountains leading to the Catania Plain on the south coast.

In order to open up this road, Ma Ge's army suffered from traps and attacks from archers on the whistle tower. After several days, less than one-third of the roadblocks were cleared, but the morale of the soldiers was depressed.

After two days of rest, Mago finally decided to change the offensive route, cross the mountains and head to Leotini.

On the east coast, Syracuse's army had already arrived at the city of Taunis, but it took them five days to build the camp. After the first siege failed, they stayed in the camp without any movement.

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Chapter completed!