Xenophon walked over and saw his Spartan warriors greeting him: "Xenophon, you are here again!"
"Don't worry, old man, with us guarding here, the Dionysians can't go ashore at all. You old people over 60 can rest assured at home."
"I said Xenophon, the reason why you come here every day is not because you are afraid that we won't be able to keep the coast, but because you are afraid that we will capture a lot of Dionysian prisoners, but you won't share them."
"Hahaha… "
Hearing the joking words of the soldiers, Xenophon was not annoyed, and said with a smile, "Do I need you to send me prisoners? I will catch them myself."
"No, you don't have a chance." A Spartan soldier joked: "The council of elders has stipulated that the elderly over 60 can only stay at home. As a final preparation, I think you should go back to the city to listen. Good news for us!"
The soldiers laughed again.
Xenophon liked this atmosphere. He felt the confidence of the soldiers in defeating a powerful enemy, so he patted his chest and said loudly: "Although I am in my 60s, I am no worse than you young people! If you don't believe me, come out with me. Let's try!" With that, he lifted his clothes and put on a wrestling stance.
The soldiers booed for a while, you pushed me, I pushed you, but no one wanted to stand up and compete with him, and they all felt ashamed to compete with the old man.
At this moment, a high-pitched trumpet sounded suddenly in the camp.
"There is an enemy situation!!" The soldiers reminded each other loudly, and each quickly ran back to their tent. Soon they put on their armor, picked up their shields and spears, and formed a team of 10 in front of the tent. Under the leadership of the team officer, they ran out of the camp and ran to the beach.
In just a quarter of an hour, Xenophon's surroundings became empty, and he couldn't help but sigh: If only the Spartan army defending the coast were all such warriors!
It is a pity that there are only more than 300 well-trained, young and strong Spartans here, although there are more than 500 50-60-year-old Spartans who are not weak in combat, but they are assigned to the camp Officers of the Piriasians and Helots.
So as Xenophon went on, he saw the chaotic scene of the old warriors yelling, while the Piriasian soldiers and the Heros scrambled about in disarray.
He frowned, quickened his pace, passed through the camp, stood at a higher place, and looked ahead: under the sunlight, the sea was still at high tide, and except for the flying seabirds, it looked very calm. There seems to be nothing out of the ordinary.
But Xenophon did not take it lightly. The Spartans built several 5-meter-high sentry buildings by the sea, and the sentries on the top of the buildings would naturally discover the enemy's situation earlier than him.
Sure enough, after a while, some small black dots appeared in the farthest part of the field of vision, and it didn't take long for the black dots to turn into sails, then warships, and then quickly covered The sea in front of you, heading straight towards the bay where you are...
In the process, a group of Spartan soldiers ran to the beach one after another. Under the command of the team officers, they arranged in an arc-shaped array along the flat coast.
… … … … … … … … … … …
Dionysian's ships came to a stop less than a mile from the shore, lined up, lowered their sails, dropped their anchors, and tried to stay where they were...
This scene is not much different from yesterday. Could it be another feint by the Dionysian fleet? … Xenophon was thinking suspiciously, and then saw a lot of sailless boats sailing between these tall Dionysian three-tier oars, carrying many soldiers, taking advantage of the highest tide. At that time, with the push of the tide and the shallow draft of the boat, it was able to cross the underwater blocking pile and continue to sail towards the coast...
The Dionians are really going to land this time! Xenophon was startled.
The Spartan commander by the sea obviously sensed the enemy's intentions, and the bugle sounded again.
Hundreds of Piriasian sailors flocked to the dozen or so small and medium warships moored on the beach, pushing them into the sea.
Sparta suffered a crushing defeat in the naval battle with Athens last year, and more than 20 warships were left in the Gulf of Laconia. As a result, after the arrival of the Dionysian fleet, in order to prevent it from being completely destroyed, it had to be completely destroyed. Push ashore.
In order to prevent the Dionian warship from docking, the Spartans set up a large number of wooden stakes to stop the ship, and specially left a gap in the sea area of more than 100 meters near the shore to ensure that their warships can also participate in the defense. In the last landing operation against Dionia, the Spartan warships did play a big role, and this time it was a repeat of the old trick.
The Spartans were pushed off the coast and, under the vigorous oars of the sailors, prepared to meet the Dionian boats that were heading for the coast.
However, the Dionysian boat, which was running at the front, stopped when it was about 200 meters away from the coast, and the fleet infantry with leather shields, leather helmets, and short swords jumped off the boat one after another. The depth of the sea here has exceeded two meters, but the soldiers do not need to spend physical strength treading water all the time. Instead, the dense wooden stakes that block the boat have become their assistance. They only need to be gently supported and they can stay in place and rest.
The Periasian crew were surprised to find that the Dionian soldiers remained where they were after jumping into the sea, while the boats began to return. If they wanted to attack the Dionian soldiers floating on the sea, they had to pass through the dense piles of ship blocking stakes, which was undoubtedly difficult.
Just when they hesitated, they suddenly saw dozens of small black dots flying from the Dionysian warship in the distance.
"It's the Dionian ballista! Hurry up!" Some crew members exclaimed.
"Don't worry too much, the distance is too far, they can't hit us at all." A crew member comforted that the last time the Dionians landed, they used ballistas, but they hardly caused any damage to the Spartan warships. any loss, so most of the crew are not too worried.
Who would have guessed that dozens of stone bullets roared, concentrated on the top of the two frontmost Spartan warships, and while smashing a water column, eight or nine stone bullets accurately hit the hull.
In the sound of "Boom! Boom!", some stone bullets hit the mast, some smashed through the deck, saw shavings fly, and the exclamations and screams of the crew were intertwined.
Just when the two ships were in a panic, dozens of stone bullets flew in, more accurately smashing around the two almost stationary warships, and soon the masts were broken and the hulls were broken. Start to capsize.
After learning from the previous experience, and after the brainstorming of the squadron commanders, Cykrian specially selected today as the attack day when the wind and waves were calmer, and the 40 ballistas borrowed from the land army were no longer scattered. In the 40 warships, the five Raven warships closest to the central position of the coast were forced to cross each other and moved closer to each other, and they were connected to each other by the Raven suspension bridge to form a whole, and the 40 ballistas were concentrated on the decks of these ships. On the top, unified command, use the smallest type of stone bullets (which can increase the range), and focus on one target instead of fighting separately as last time, which greatly improves the hit rate.
The first two rounds of launches hit the enemy ships, which greatly increased the confidence of the soldiers of the Dionian Ballista Team, and then under the command of the team officer, they carried out concentrated bombardment one by one on the dispersing Spartan warships. .
The commander who defended the Spartan territory was Udamidas, the brother of Phoebe Das, a general with outstanding military exploits. At this moment, he was standing on the shore, paying close attention to the enemy on the sea. He did not think of Dionysus. The Asian soldiers will go into the sea so far from the coast, and stay in the sea area where the ship is blocked, and join the soldiers on the small boats that are constantly coming behind. Whether it is the warship or the archers on the shore tower, they are temporarily unable to fight. They attack.
He didn't even think that the ballistas on the Dionysian warship would shoot the stone bullets so accurately today. The Spartan warship had left the beach for less than half an hour, and seven or eight warships had already been sunk. , that is, it is destroyed so that it cannot be used.
He had to order the few remaining warships to run aground on the beach.
Unexpectedly, he immediately saw Dionia's ballista shooting stone bullets again. The target was no longer the warship, but the Spartan soldiers on the shore roared.
He hurriedly shouted: "Get out of the way! Get out of the way!..."
After all, they experienced it during the last defensive landing. The soldiers behaved fairly calmly. They looked at the direction of the incoming stone bullet and quickly dispersed to avoid it.
The loud stone bombs fell one after another, and the sand splashed, but no casualties were caused.
But when Dionysian's ballistas turned to attack other troops on the coast, a riot ensued, resulting in casualties.
Under such circumstances, Udamidas had to order: "All troops retreat to the ballista's range!"
In this way, there was a distance of about a hundred meters between the front of the Spartan army and the beach.
Udamidas made up his mind: as soon as he found that the enemy was about to go ashore, he would lead the army to quickly push up and fight against the enemy with an uneven formation. The two sides were close together, and the ballista would naturally be unable to function.
Just when he felt some headaches about the new landing tactics of the Dionysian army, he received two bad news one after another: the Lagunda Pass fortress was attacked by thousands of Dionysian soldiers from the west. violent attack. At the same time, there were also many Dionian soldiers on the seaside path on the western headland of Laconia Bay, trying to capture the fortress south of Port Ision.
Since Agesilaus led the main force northwards and Messenia has been relatively calm, there were only a hundred soldiers left in these two important defensive positions, and most of the soldiers were Periasis.