"No, don't send any more troops!" Falekus, who had been standing by before, spoke: "The terrain in the fortress of Yurialus is narrow, and no matter how many troops there are, it is impossible to spread out, not to mention that from the current situation, the number of people who have captured the fortress by the Dioonians should not be large, as long as Stasikos can lead the team to arrive in time, there is every chance to recapture it." And I'm worried now about whether the Dionian army will take advantage of this opportunity to attack us again. ”

When everyone heard this, their hearts were shocked.

"What's going on?!" The last Syracuse general, Hiktas, also arrived.

"You're always the last!" Kuchias knew that the Hiktas family lived in the port and was the farthest away from the council, but he couldn't help but complain: "If something happens to Syracuse, what can you, the general, help!" ”

It stands to reason that Hiktath had long been accustomed to his colleagues talking to him in such a tone, but when he heard these unpleasant words these days, he always felt something strange in his heart, as if his face had become a little unsightly at the moment.

The sympathetic Teagenis hurriedly said, "The fortress of Juliarus has been captured by the Dionians, and we are discussing his recapture. ”

"Ahh Hiktas's face was astonished, and he didn't say anything more, but his heart was turbulent.

At this time, the sound of a military horn came in faintly outside the door.

The crowd was shocked again.

Kuchias shouted in a slightly panicked voice, "It's our trumpet!" There is an enemy! He walked out the door at a rapid pace.

After a while, he returned to the hall and said anxiously: "The sentinels of the West City have reported that they have found that the Dionian soldiers are massively assembling outside their camp, and it seems that they are preparing to attack us!" ”

Everyone was nervous.

"I'll go to Xicheng now and lead the soldiers in the barracks to organize the defense." Theagenis immediately responded: "Parnisus, you will organize the mobilized citizen soldiers as soon as possible, and seize the time to reinforce the western city." ”

"Okay!" Parnisus followed Theagenis out of the hall.

"I think the Ionians today will attack from the east at the same time! Kuchias, you hurry up and gather all the citizens responsible for the defense of the east and rush to the east wall to defend it. Falekus also said eagerly.

Kuchias was ordered to go.

"Siktath, you lead the citizen soldiers of the port to sit here, and in case of an unexpected situation, rush to support immediately!" Falekus continued to give orders.

Most of the people in the port of Syracuse mainly served as crew members of the fleet, but 4,000 men were also sent to participate in the defense of the city, and since most of them lived in poverty, they were more of light infantry, and were not taken seriously.

Hearing this order, Hiktath thought more in his heart for a while and did not respond in time.

Falekus couldn't help but be a little dissatisfied: "Hiktas, did you hear me?!" ”

"I see." Hiktath replied coldly.

Falekus glanced at him, and did not have time to think about it, and instructed another general to organize another 3,000 citizen soldiers to go to the north to support first, and at the same time he also decided to personally organize the people in the city to go to the north to urgently build a defensive line, in case it is impossible to recapture the fortress of Yurialus, or at least to prevent the enemy from easily moving south.

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The fortress of Yurialus is a small square fortress enclosed by stone walls, which contains dwellings, warehouses, cisterns, etc., and can accommodate at least 300 soldiers for a long time. Moreover, the wall of Yurialus Peak is also a wall that constitutes the fortress, and once there is an enemy situation, the soldiers in the fortress can quickly go up to the top of the city and block the enemy. However, the calm and precipitous terrain of many days also made the soldiers of Syracuse, who had been in peace and tranquility for a long time, relax their vigilance, and they were successfully attacked by the soldiers of the Dionian Ridge Reconnaissance Brigade.

After leading his soldiers to capture the fortress of Yurialus, Terrantus did not continue to attack the city of Syracuse, but held firmly in the fortress and actively received reinforcements.

Originally, the west side of the peak was a somewhat gentle and wooded mountain, but Dionysius led the people to spend a long time trying to change the terrain and burn the trees and weeds under the city, so that the sentinels of the city could see the movements of the enemy under the city at a glance.

It's a pity that after the death of Dionysius, Syracuse has been in turmoil, coupled with the relatively safe external environment, no one pays attention to the problem of city defense, and the walls of Yuriarus Peak are overgrown with weeds and trees again, which provides help for the soldiers of the Mountain Reconnaissance Brigade to lurk under the city, but the narrow terrain here also determines that it is impossible for too many soldiers to get close to the city at one time, so more soldiers of the Mountain Reconnaissance Brigade and two heavy infantry brigades and one light infantry brigade of the Eighth Army are hiding in the dense forest under the mountain, to avoid being spotted by the sentries at the head of the city.

It was not until the raiding soldiers climbed up the city, seized the torches in the hands of the sentries, waved them according to the pre-regulations, and transmitted the signal to the bottom of the mountain, that the soldiers of the mountain reconnaissance brigade, the light infantry of the legion, and the heavy infantry accelerated their climb towards the mountain in turn.

At the forefront of the rush is the mountain reconnaissance brigade, these soldiers who have been specially trained all year round are still very fast even if they are climbing the mountain, and few people fall down or fall behind, they do not rest for a moment when they reach the city, but grab the ropes that the soldiers who have gone up the city before hanging down from the city and climb up quickly.

After entering the city, they removed the leather shields and daggers they carried from their backs and stormed into the fortress where the slaughter was rampant.

Follow-up reinforcements arrived one after another, and finally defeated the soldiers of the Syracuse defenders who were still resisting.

While defending the fortress and its walls, and waiting for reinforcements, Terrentius also carefully examined the situation inside the fortress, and the result was that the fortress had two openings in the stone wall facing the south side of the city, but there were no wooden doors or anything else to open and close them.

It turned out that when Dionysius built this fortress, he deliberately designed it this way, so that the fortress could only be defended from the outside and not from the inside. It can be said that Dionysius had a very thoughtful idea, but he did not expect that the later sentinels specially made two large wooden planks for comfort, covering the entrance of the cave at night and not affecting sleep (because the terrain here is high, sometimes the mountain wind blows, and the wind blows through the cave at night, which is not only cold, but also makes a "whirring" sound, which seriously affects the rest).

Terrentius found the two large planks at the entrance of the cave, and then asked the soldiers to find a lot of wood and stones from the storehouse and block the planks at the mouth of the cave.

But he was still not at ease, and in a hurry, he came up with another solution.

When the soldiers of the light infantry brigade also entered the fortress one after another, Terrantus breathed a sigh of relief.

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In order to make the population of the new city sufficient, he actively recruited as many mercenaries as possible to become new citizens of Syracuse, and at the same time forcibly relocated the people of the conquered neighboring city-states to Syracuse, such as Leotini and Catanay.

However, after the Southern Italian War, the mercenaries were expelled, and most of the people of the other city-states who were forcibly relocated also returned to their home states, coupled with years of political turmoil, the population of Syracuse has now decreased by more than half compared with the beginning, and as a result, the vast Epipolé Heights have become sparsely populated, and almost become a wasteland for the people of Syracuse to graze their cattle and sheep, so the rout troops who escaped from the fortress of Yuriarus could not find any help nearby, and they could only run south to the main city, Inform the members of the General's Executive Committee who are on duty of the emergency military situation, and then he will send his troops to retake the fort.

The defects of the large size and lack of manpower of the city of Syracuse were exposed at this time, and the fortress of Yurialus was far from the main city, and it was late at night, and the incident happened suddenly, when Stasikos led 2,000 soldiers to the fortress of Yuriarus, it was already nearly an hour away from its fall, and the well-planned and prepared Dionian raid troops, especially the two heavy infantry brigades, had also entered the fortress of Yurialus one after another.

In the light of the fire, Stasikors saw that the fortress was covered with Ionian soldiers, many of them wearing dazzling armor, and to his surprise, the two entrances were also blocked by wooden doors, because he had hastily led his troops and did not carry any siege equipment.

Stacikos felt a headache, because according to the design of Dionysius, the fortress of Juliarus was the center of the defense of the northern end of the city wall, and the sentinels could only go up to the city through the fortress, so the sentinels in the nearby city were sent by the fortress, and the stone staircase of the upper city closest to the fortress was only available in the middle of the east and west city walls.

Dionysius may have designed this for safety reasons, but now it was a dilemma for Stacikos: if he led his army back now and went up the stone stairs to the city, it would give the current enemy too much respite.

Staceikos immediately ordered his soldiers to quickly charge the fortress, rush under the stone wall as soon as possible, and crash through the stone cave. At the same time, he told the heralds to immediately rush back to the main city and report the situation here to the Military Executive Committee.

The fortress of Yurialus was located on such high ground that the Syracuse soldiers had to defend themselves with shields over their heads and attack forward.

The Ionian infantry on the fortress did not need to fire arrows at all, but lifted the stones and logs they had picked up from the warehouse and threw them down, and the stones and logs bounced and rolled down the terrain, which could smash several people at a time, making the attacking Syracuse soldiers cry out and be scattered in a short time.

Staceidas had to regroup his soldiers and charge forward himself, and finally led them to rush under the wall, and was immediately attacked by the Ionian soldiers on the wall, javelins, arrows, stones, and wood fell like raindrops, and many of the Syracuse soldiers were wounded, and even Staceikos was shot in the arm by sharp arrows.