Standing in front of the familiar and unfamiliar city of Larissa, Shilos inevitably sighed: more than 30 years ago, he lost his land and lived in poverty, and in order to survive, he had to accept the employment of the Spartans who came to recruit soldiers to go out to fight. When he left, his mood was gloomy, for the stories he had heard of the Thessalian mercenaries gave him a hunch that he would probably die in battle, as most of them did, and never return to his homeland...... He really didn't expect that he would return to his homeland as a conqueror.

Shilos rode his war horse and stood in a daze, most of the officials behind him already knew that Larissa was the hometown of the kingdom's important minister, so no one stepped forward to disturb him. But Shilos quickly broke away from this stunned mood, took a deep breath, turned back to the officials, and said, "Let's go, let's go into the city." ”

When the officer in charge of guarding the city gate saw the arrival of Shiros and his party, he immediately stepped forward and saluted, saying, "Lord Shiros, I salute you!" Commander Matonis and Commander Lizaru are waiting for you at the Lord's Mansion! ”

With that, he turned and led the way.

Shiros rode his horse slowly into the city, looking around: the streets were clean and tidy, apparently after some careful cleaning, but occasionally blood stains could be seen on the ground; There were no pedestrians in sight on the road, only legionnaires standing upright on the side of the road, heavily armed; But through the cracks in the doors and windows of the houses on both sides of the street, you can see a pair of eyes that are mixed with anger and fear......

The lord's mansion was near the square in the middle of the city, and the building had been in existence since Shilos left, and it was the residence of the tyrant at that time, and he could no longer remember the name of the tyrant because of the age.

"Captain, I've finally waited for you!" Seeing Shilos walking into the courtyard, Matonis took the initiative to greet him with a smile on his face, and his voice was as loud as a bell: "Yesterday, Lizalu and I led our brothers to run for more than 100 miles almost without stopping, and then launched an attack on Larissa, and when we captured this city, the brothers were almost exhausted and lay down!" How about it, with your instructions to strictly enforce military law with Lizaru, and not a single incident of looting or harming the people of Larissa has occurred since my brothers entered the city. Are you satisfied?! ”

Although Matonis used his former name among mercenaries to show his closeness to Shilos, Shilos still said without hesitation: "What's the use of satisfying me, the key is whether you can satisfy Your Majesty and the Kingdom!" The expedition to Thessaly is an important decision made by His Majesty and the Ministry of War, and whether we can completely conquer Thessaly and thus further control Greece depends on whether you can strictly implement the strategy formulated by the Ministry of War! ”

At this, his eyebrows furrowed: "Commander Lizaru, Commander Matonis, congratulations! From the landing to the present, you have led the army to successfully achieve the original intended goal, and made a good start for the next battle! ”

As he spoke, he solemnly clenched his right hand into a fist, pressed it to his left chest, bowed his head vigorously, and gave a military salute to Matonis and Lizaru.

Matonis and Lizaru hurriedly and respectfully returned the salute, not only Matonis, but Lizaru had also been under Shilos, and he had more respect for the old chief, otherwise he would not have waited here with Matonis to wait for his arrival.

After Shilos finished the military salute, he said solemnly: "But I still have to remind you that time is of the essence in the landing and raid operations, although we have achieved some advantages, you should not be satisfied and stay here to continue repairing, but should seize the time to lead your army to continue the attack, do not give the enemy a chance to breathe, occupy the entire territory of Thessaly as soon as possible, and initially achieve the strategic goals set by the Ministry of Military Affairs!" ”

Mattonis explained with some disbelief: "It's not that we don't want to hurry up and continue the attack, but the brothers fought continuously yesterday, and their physical exertion was extremely high, and they need enough rest to be able to continue fighting, and I have decided after discussing with Lizaru that we will gather our troops tomorrow morning and march towards Philae." ”

Lizalu then said: "Matonis is right, many soldiers have not woken up from sleep, they are indeed quite tired, we have sent a baggage battalion to buy cattle and sheep in Larissa, and are ready to give the soldiers a good meal, so that they can recover their strength as soon as possible......"

"Of course, we have solemnly reminded the baggage officer that we must not force the buyer to sell, and will follow the seller's wishes and trade according to the market price." Martonis hastened to add.

Shilos nodded, remembering what he was going to do next, and said, "Mattnes, since you will only leave tomorrow, lend me your armor to wear for half a day." ”

"Why are you wearing my armor?" Mattonis was a little confused, he looked at Shilos and suddenly understood: "Oh...... You're going to meet your old friends and let them know that you're now a big man in the kingdom of Dionia! ”

"It is to let them know that my status is now valuable, so that they will be willing to cooperate with us and stabilize the order of Larissa faster!" Shilos said with a straight face.

It was not that he was unaware that he had withdrawn from the army, and that it seemed a little inappropriate to wear the armor of a regimental commander again, but as the senator of the senate, the pure white and black-embroidered Bolton he wore was a symbol of dignity in the eyes of the Dionian people, but in the eyes of the Larissa it may have only been of good texture and nothing special, and the armor of the general was a direct indication of his status, which could save a lot of tongue, for which he also borrowed a team of guards from Matonis.

Mattonis didn't say a word, he complied one by one, but when Shilos was about to leave the mansion, he finally couldn't help but ask: "Captain, when Your Majesty gave us the order to raid Thessaly, he did not give us any special instructions for Peleus...... I wonder if he has any instructions for you about Peleus? ”

Shilos stopped and replied without hesitation: "Yes!" …… His Majesty instructed me not to take any special care of the city of Peleus, and to govern it in the same way as other towns of Thessaly. ”

Speaking of this, he sighed lightly: "However, I quietly sent someone to inquire yesterday...... In that year, the Macedonians raided His Majesty's village, killed all the villagers, and burned them, and the bodies of his parents were burned to the point of indistinguishable like the other corpses, and finally buried in a hurry...... Now it's a wasteland, overgrown with weeds, and no one remembers the exact location of the burial ground......"

"Damn Macedonians!" Matonis roared indignantly.

Dressed in the armor of Matonis and armed with his guards, Shilos made his way to the civilian quarters of Larissa, where he quickly found some of his former neighbors and friends.

They were all surprised to learn that Shiros, who had been away from Larissa for more than 30 years, had become an important minister of the Kingdom of Dionia.

The young Shilos had a reputation in the civilian area for his helpfulness and injustice, so although he returned to his hometown as an invader, he did not arouse the disgust of his former friends, but believed in what he said about "some of the policies that Dionia would carry out against the occupied towns of Thessaly", and was willing to promote it for him.

When Dioonia conquered Rome more than 10 years ago, in order to win the trust of Roman civilians, he also specially selected Roman slaves and entrusted them with important tasks, which gradually dispelled the doubts of Roman civilians. And now that Shiros was originally a Larissa and had a lot of fame in the place, it would naturally be twice the result with half the effort to stabilize and govern Larissa in a similar way.

……………………………………………………

Early in the morning of the third day, Matonis and Lizaru left behind 2,000 soldiers to assist Shiros in stabilizing order in the city of Larissa, and led the main force out of the city and marched eastward, where they encountered the anxious Thessalian army on the way.

At first, Polyflon was excited because he didn't have to rush to Larissa to defeat the main force of the Dionian army, but then he saw the black helmets and black armor of the enemy in the distance constantly pouring up, causing the Dionian army to continue to extend to both flanks...... It dawned on him that the Dionian soldiers probably numbered far more than 20,000 men, and that they were quickly deployed, apparently well-trained.

Polyflon was a little panicked, although he has always fought bravely, but he is under the command of his eldest brother Iason, and has never had the experience of independently commanding such a large-scale battle, at this moment he can only continue to eliminate the heralds, urging the generals to line up the military formation as soon as possible according to his deployment, and even he is anxious to ride a horse and gallop behind the military formation, hysterically constantly shouting, "Let the soldiers speed up the formation, if anyone is slow to execute, it will be punished heavily after the battle!" ”

Just as the makeshift patchwork of the Cessalian city-states was unfolding its array, Dionia's formation changed, and it suddenly broke off from the center, spacing wider and wider, and even split into two parts, corresponding to the left and right flanks of the Thessalian army......

The reason why the Dionian army did this was because Matonis and Lizaru were commanders of the same rank, and for the convenience of command and to avoid contradictions, they each commanded their own armies to fight; Second, in order to disrupt the enemy's deployment, the two forces were deliberately combined at the beginning.

The sudden change in the Dionian military formation really confused the inexperienced Polyflon, and for a moment he did not know how to respond, and at that moment the Dionian army launched an attack.

Not long after the battle began, the two flanks of the Thessaly army were routed, and then quickly spread to the whole army.

Polyflon's rapid defeat was not only due to his lack of experience and poor command, but also to the bitterness of the Thessalian citizens and soldiers due to his perverse behavior.