"Understood!" Mukru responded.

When Ionicus heard this, he wondered: how could the warships attack the army on land?

After a while, he saw a dozen three-oared warships side by side, heading straight for the shore where the Spartan army was located, and in the sea less than a mile from the Spartan army, the warships stopped, because they had reached the bottom, and the crew of the deck immediately threw iron anchors into the sea to secure the ship, and then a piece of equipment was lifted from the cabin to the deck - a ballista.

Some of the gunners were responsible for fixing the base of the ballista, some were responsible for surveying and mapping the target parameters, some were responsible for installing spring sets, and some were responsible for carrying stone projectiles...... Not only this ballista squad performs its own duties and cooperates tacitly, but also other warships.

At the end of the Western Mediterranean War, when the Dionian army besieged the city of Carthage, the naval warships entered the lagoon and placed ballistae on the deck, assisting the army in the siege of the city and achieving great success, so that the use of ballistae on ships became a project of naval military training.

Seeing the Dionian warships rushing straight towards the beach, Dorios thought that they were about to land, and immediately commanded his army, and spread out a loose horizontal formation in the direction from which the dozen or so warships were coming, with the Javelin-armed Helot at the forefront, ready to attack the Dionian soldiers with javelins when they waded ashore.

However, as the ships approached the beach, they stopped and did not move for a while, and Dorios was feeling strange when he suddenly saw small black dots flying out of the ships......

By the time he saw that the little black dots were round stones, they had already fallen from mid-air, some of them landed in the sea in front of him, raising columns of water to the sky, and some of them fell on the beach behind him, splashing sand, although not a single person was killed or injured, but the momentum of the Hetian people caused a commotion in the ranks, especially the black laborers.

Ballista! A word popped into Dorios' mind, and although the use of such weapons had never been seen in warfare in mainland Greece until now, the Spartans, who had always paid attention to the western Mediterranean, were not ignorant of it. Agosilaus once proposed in the Council of Elders to make such a powerful weapon for siege, and the Council of Elders agreed to his proposal, but a city-state that had no other profession than warriors, and was keen on military training but abandoned science, literature, and entertainment, did not have the technical ability to make it.

The Spartans also wanted to secretly ask the Syracuse people for guidance, but unfortunately, after the Battle of Southern Italy, Dionya captured the entire team of engineers in Syracuse and took them for himself, so that Syracuse himself lost this technology, and finally the matter was over.

Dorios never expected that he would witness the rumored ballista on such a special occasion, and for a moment he didn't know how to deal with it.

At this moment, another round of stone projectiles was ejected, and only one of the dozen stone projectiles hit the target on the shore, after all, the warship fluctuates with the waves, and the ballista is not easy to aim. But the effect of this hit stone projectile was very obvious, it smashed the head of one of the black laborers into flowers, and the death was terrifying, and the surrounding black laborers turned and fled.

Dorios hurriedly ordered the Spartan warriors to slaughter the first to flee the Heraus, which frightened the other slaves and kept the array afloat.

Not long after, the sound of military trumpets sounded on the sea, and the hundreds of troop transports that had been stationed behind the warships began to fight against the receding tide, and the landing of the Dionian army began.

Max's troop carrier was heading in the direction of the enemy position on the shore, he himself had landed on the coast of Africa and the coast of Gaul in the mountains, and he was no stranger to landing, but this was the first time he had faced enemy interception during the landing, so he did not follow the practice of the previous two times, and let the soldiers assist the sailors in rowing in order to make the ship reach the coast faster, but let them put on their armor and weapons as soon as possible, and sit quietly on the boat to conserve their strength.

The troop carrier was not fast in the tide, which was actually a good fighter for the Spartan army on the shore, but unfortunately the Dionian army came suddenly, and Sparta did not produce archers of its own, and it was too late to recruit the allies, so it could not fire arrows at the troop carrier.

The troop carrier finally ran aground near the beach, no more than 100 meters away from the Spartan army on the shore, and just as Max urged the soldiers to hurry off the ship, the Spartan warriors on the shore also ordered the javelin-armed black labor to attack the enemy who had not yet landed.

The Blacks waded through the water with trepidation, paying more attention to the stone bullets whizzing through the sky.

Max led his soldiers to jump into waist-deep water, and walked to the shore without hurrying, beckoning the soldiers to gather while observing the positions of the other detachments on the left and right ships.

"Forward!" Under his orders, 50 soldiers waded through the water in small phalanxes that were loose but not scattered. Then he saw the Javelinmen of Helot coming from the shore: "Raise your shield!" ”

As soon as he shouted his words, the soldiers had already raised their long shields diagonally and stood in front of them.

Lacking military training, the Black Laborers faced the approaching Dionian soldiers, and the javelins they hurriedly threw were neither accurate nor powerful, and did not pose any danger to the Dionian soldiers at all.

On the contrary, after wading some distance through the water, the Dionian legionnaires also threw their javelins with all their might, which immediately caused many blacks to fall into the water, and frightened the others to retreat in a hurry.

After the immediate threat to the front was eliminated, the soldiers of the detachment led by Max slowed down, and they moved closer to the surrounding detachments, gradually connecting together.

Dorios on the shore originally thought that after jumping into the sea, the Dionian soldiers of this ship would speed up and rush to the shore, and their forces would be dispersed, which would help him concentrate his troops and break them individually, but he did not expect that the Dionian soldiers were so steady and sophisticated, and gradually formed an array in the slow wading advance, and this array was constantly thickening and extending......

Dorios turned his head to look to the sides again, and in the distance on the beach, countless Ionian soldiers had already come ashore and began to circle around them......

Dorios felt nervous, but he only hesitated for a moment, and then resolutely made a decision: "Quick, retreat!" Fall back!! ”

Despite the reluctance of some of the Spartan warriors, Greece was known for their discipline, and as soon as the order was given, all the warriors soon began to retreat, and the blacks scattered in a hurry.

Max and his soldiers were expecting a fierce battle with the Spartan army on the beach, but they didn't expect the enemy in front of them to run away before they could engage the battle! Is this really the Spartan warrior who dominated Greece?!

In order to prevent fraud, the soldiers increased their pace of advance, but still maintained the integrity of the formation, but they began to shout in unison under the command of the officer: "Messenians, you are free!! ……”

…………………………………………

Leoticides set foot on the land of Messenia with a blank expression, but his feelings were a little complicated: he was no stranger to this land, he had received military training here in his youth, he had killed Helot like wild beasts with his companions at the rite of passage, and he had been stationed in Pylos for a while......

He thought those memories had been forgotten, but the moment he stepped on the beach, they kept coming back.

Leoticides led dozens of guards step by step, stepping on the soft mud and sand, and walked forward slowly, but Tisias and Ionicus, who had been following him, had long since disappeared, and they were anxious to pacify and surrender the black laborers.

An officer with a purple cap on his helmet rushed to Leoticides and gave him a military salute.

"Adoris, how did the battle go?" Even in the face of King Davers's adopted son, Leoticides still looked as indifferent as he did to other officers.

Adorys replied with some frustration: "It is said that the Spartans were the bravest warriors of Greece, and I think that is a lie!" They were as timid as rabbits, and they ran before they could fight, and they ran very fast, and before we could form an encirclement, they ran into the mountains to the east...... If only the cavalry could attack! ”

"Ryders told me that their horses had been jolting around the boat for days and were in bad condition and had to recuperate for a few days before they could go into battle, otherwise something would go wrong." Leoticides said lightly: "It seems that this time you have found nothing? ”

"When we pursued to the Spartan barracks, there was a Spartan officer and a few warriors guarding the door—" said Adolphis with a solemn look on his face, "They asked to fight our soldiers alone, and they wounded several of us as a result, and in the end we killed the Spartan soldiers and captured the officer." ”

Leoticides did not care too much about such trifles, but asked, "What is the condition of that Spartan barracks?" ”

Adoris immediately understood what he meant, and replied, "Very intact, undamaged, but not too large to fit a legion." ”

Leoticides looked at the sky, and then looked around: everywhere there were naked black laborers obediently following behind the Dionian soldiers......

He lowered his head and pondered for a while, and then echoed: "Mukru, you go and inform Sekrian at once, just say that the landing battle is over, let him lead all the warships to dock at the beach, set up camp, and I will send the soldiers of the Fourth and Sixth Army Corps to fully assist." ”