Sekrian shook his head lightly and said with a calm expression: "The reason why Your Majesty let us take great risks and travel a long way to come here, the capture of Cyprus is only a secondary purpose, and the most important thing is to destroy the Persian fleet and control the dominance of the Near East Seas...... Now more than 4,000 heavy infantry have landed, which has created a great threat to Cyprus and has already disrupted the attempts of the Persian fleet to intercept us at sea. In such a situation, it is very likely that they will choose to temporarily retreat in the face of the threat of our powerful fleet of Dionia, and instead send reinforcements and supplies to the island's towns such as Nicosia, so that they cannot be easily conquered by our army.

After all, our fleet has traveled a long way, and the supplies it carries cannot cover the material consumption of our fleet's huge crew, and if the land forces cannot quickly capture Nicosia and other towns, our fleet will have to retreat first, and when the time comes...... Hmph, the Persian fleet can easily cut off the sea supply lines of the landing army, and then the army will be in big trouble-"

Speaking of this, Sekerian's face became very serious: "The army's bad luck is still secondary, the key is that this time Your Majesty personally led the army, wanting to obtain the great honor of conquering Persia, our navy was given the important task of destroying the Persian fleet and gaining maritime dominance in the eastern Mediterranean, if the mission of luring the enemy failed because of passive avoidance of war, and even led to the defeat of the first battle, affecting the entire war of conquest of Persia, I would be ashamed of Your Majesty's trust, and even speechless to meet those army generals I had mocked!" ”

"It's not that serious...... "The flagship captain muttered.

Sekrian glared at him dissatisfied, and said in a deep voice: "I am the commander of this operation, and I must seize every possible opportunity to ensure that the operation can be carried out smoothly, so we must stay here and not leave!" What could be more appealing to the Persian fleet than to annihilate a Diorian fleet far outnumbered them, while completely besieging thousands of Theorian armies on the island! ”

"My lord, after all, we have too few ships, and I am worried about the Persian fleet...... Eat us like a delicacy—"

The captain stammered halfway through his sentence when he was interrupted by Sekerian: "Even if the number of Persian warships is two or three times that of ours, the fleet led by my Sekrian will definitely be a hard stone, and it will break the teeth of the Persian fleet!" What's more, I believe in Midorades, who is not only experienced in naval warfare, but also has good intuition, and will definitely lead other warships to join us in time and annihilate the Persian fleet together! ”

After Sekrion made up his mind, the captain of the flagship did not dare to persuade again, but conveyed the order of the captain of the fleet to all the warships: all the Raven warships were loaded on the drawbridge and ready for battle!

More than an hour had passed, and no trace of the enemy ships had been found, but a small number of Cypriot cavalry had appeared on the island, and they had spied on the Ionian legionnaires from afar to build a camp near the beach, but they did not dare to approach, and it seemed that the Cypriots had no intention of gathering their army and fighting a decisive battle with the landing Dionian army.

Of course, the landed Dionian Legion also had no intention of doing so, and all they had to do now was to hold on to the landing place and facilitate the arrival of the successor troops.

"A yellow flag has been raised on the clipper ship to the south!" The lookout on the flagship's mast suddenly shouted loudly.

Sekrian, who was waiting anxiously, did not feel excited, but muttered to himself with some confusion: "There are fewer Persian warships coming than us?" ”

Seeing Sekerian's dissatisfied, the captain of the flagship let out a light sigh and asked, "My lord, do you want to inform the warships to prepare for battle?" ”

Sekrian paced back and forth on the deck, pondering for a moment, then muttered, "Wait a little longer! Divide all the clippers into two parts, one to bypass the Persian ships and continue to explore to the south, and one to the north. ”

The captain of the flagship ship moved in his heart: "My lord, do you suspect that the Persian fleet has divided its forces?" ”

Sekrian calmly replied: "I don't think the Persians are so bold as to lead a small number of warships to attack us. What's more, I am convinced that our fleet can easily defeat all this number of enemy ships without much preparation! ”

While the crews of the southernmost ships of the Dionian fleet could see the silhouette of the enemy ship in the distance, the Dionian clippers, heading south, relayed the message back to the fleet by changing the flags on their masts.

"Two yellow flags!" The watchman's shout made Sekrian still silent, but the captain of the flagship heard another report from the lookout, and nervously clenched his fists: "The Persian warship is less than four miles away from us!" ”

He looked at Sekerian sitting on the deck like a clay sculpture, and he wanted to speak several times.

At this moment, the voice of the lookout rang out again: "Three yellow flags!" The clipper boat to the south raised three yellow flags! Nothing has changed in the north yet! ”

Sekrian suddenly jumped up: "Three yellow flags!" The fact that the Persian warships outnumbered us meant that their main force was coming, and the Persians took the bait! ”

Sekrian danced excitedly, and immediately said the battle plan he had already thought of: "Blow the trumpet, let all the warships line up in a circle, and carry out defensive battles!" ”

"Circle?!" The flagship captain was slightly stunned.

"What? Thought I could only attack, not defend?! Sekrian said with a smirk.

"I'll deliver it right away!" The flagship's fears were alleviated, and it was clear that his esteemed fleet commander had not lost his cool at the arrival of the warplanes.

"By the way, line up all the iron ships at the forefront of the circle, right in the direction of the Persian fleet!"

"Yes!"

………………………………………………………………

This Persian fleet, led by Phoenicia and Cyprus, had nearly 1,000 ships stationed in various military ports in the east of Cyprus, and after receiving the order from the Aritaka, the Cypriot sailors acted most actively, they boarded their ships as fast as they could, rushed out of the military port, and then set out along the coast of the island of Cyprus towards the west without waiting for the ships behind to line up together.

When Alitaka's flagship sailed out of the port, he found that many of the warships had left the harbor without stopping, and were heading westward like a swarm of bees.

As the commander of the fleet, Aritaka stomped his feet in anger, but there was nothing he could do about it, but he could only secretly curse the Cypriots for being stupid, and hoped that when the whole fleet reached the waters off the west coast of the island, the Dionian fleet had not yet arrived, and he still had time to regroup.

The Persian fleet had already formed a long column after leaving the port, and in the process of sailing, due to the different degrees of participation of the crews belonging to the various regions of Persia, this long column gradually began to disconnect, with the Cypriot ships in the front, the Phoenicians in the center, and the Syrian and other ships in the last...... The Cypriot warships at the front were similarly disjointed, with ships coming out of the military port of Larnaca, far west, at the forefront......

After more than three hours of sailing, the Cypriot ships bypassed the westernmost promontory of the island from the south, and with the help of the southerly winds, the speed increased again, and after only 20 minutes, the lookouts on the Cypriot ships saw the Ionian fleet in the bay, the numerous Ionian cargo ships docked on the beach, and the Ionian soldiers who were constantly moving from the cargo ships to the beach (in fact, the Ionian soldiers were carrying supplies back and forth on the cargo ships, due to the distance and psychological effects, gave the Cypriot lookouts a delusion).

The Diorians are landing! …… The news made all the Cypriot sailors nervous, and the belief in defending their homeland made them forget about fatigue and the urgency of the situation. According to the military order, they were to stop their advance after discovering the Dionian fleet, and after joining up with the other ships, they should follow the orders of the fleet commander to attack.

But at this moment, under the command of the Cypriot admiral, they only slowed down a little in the process of changing formation, and after completing it, they continued to accelerate, and launched a charge against the Dionian fleet in a double column formation.

During the Greco-Persian Wars, the warships of the city-states in the Near East were known for their large and heavy hulls and large crews, but they were defeated by the small and agile Greek coalition ships in the Battle of Salamis, and then lost to the Athenian navy many times in the process of Athens' expansion into the eastern Mediterranean, forcing the city-states in the Near East to abandon the large and inappropriate warships and rebuild the fleet with three-layer oars as the main body, even the Phoenician city-states. The five-layer oars were only used by Carthage in the western Mediterranean, and the composition of the Persian fleet, with the city-states of the Near East as the main naval force, was completely identical to that of the Athenian fleet.

At this time, although the sails of the Cypriot warship had been lowered, but the sailors rowed hard, the speed of the warship was accelerating, and soon the Dionian warship was close at hand, and the Cypriot crew on the deck was even curiously looking at the crow drawbridge erected high and shaking on the enemy ship in front of them in the nervous manoeuvre, although they had not fought with the Dionian fleet before, but they had also heard of the strange warship of the Dionian navy, and they were somewhat wary.

Since the Ionian ships were almost exclusively spinning in place, the ships of both sides were always bow to bow, and the Cypriot ships did not want to die with each other, so the helmsman turned the rudder slightly, and the captain shouted to the bilge: "Close!" ”