"Archer, prepare!" Seeing that the Greeks entered the firing range, Pulo immediately ordered that the height difference of tens of meters not only extended the range of the archers, but also enhanced the lethality of the arrows, and at the same time shortened the range of the opponent's archers.

But just as the Puchetti drew their bows and arrows, countless black dots roared from the bottom of the mountain and smashed on the poorly equipped Puchetis, causing the archers to scream in pain.

The Greeks had slingers! Tremoni's heart sank.

What made Davers feel sorry for Davers at this moment was that the two corps and two light infantry brigades, Epitenis and Zpit, had about 400 slingers, which were not enough to suppress the enemy for five miles, and could only disrupt the rhythm of his shooting.

The arrows were still raining down, and the soldiers put their shields on top of their heads, one step at a time, and slowly moved forward, the terrain limited them from using the killer weapon of the heavy infantry - charging, and could only endure the arrows pecking at the copper skin of the round shield, making a "bell-bell" noise.

By the time they began to climb the mountain, javelins slammed into the shields, which began to injure some soldiers.

The wounded soldiers fell to the ground, huddled together, shielded with round shields, and waited for the medical team to rescue them.

In the middle of the entire front were the heavy infantry of Igratia, who were stationed at the very point of the Ionian attack, the lowest ground.

"Quick! Fast! ......" Amintas urged the soldiers vigorously, he did not want to lose to the mercenary junior, Matonis, so he defied the rules of the Dionian military law and ran at the forefront of the brigade, which made the soldiers who had been a little tired after a long march scream as if they had been beaten with blood, and followed.

Braving a rain of arrows and rushing to a distance of more than 20 meters from the enemy, the entire brigade suddenly stopped advancing.

"Defense!" Timogolas shouted an order, believing that the enemy was about to start charging.

The soldiers stretched out their bayonets from behind the round shields, forming a formidable array of guns, even if the gentle slope here was only a few meters high, but this height was enough to cost the Greeks dearly!

However, what the Mesapi were waiting for was not the charge of the Greeks, but nearly a thousand javelins that flew in, and under the frightened eyes of the Mesapi, with the sound of whirring wind, they vigorously pierced into the phalanx, setting off a terrible scream.

Timoglas had no idea that the heavy infantry of Dionya could throw javelins, and he was not surprised, and he shouted angrily: "Raise your shield!" Defend with a shield! ……”

Amintas quickly pulled out his second javelin and yelled, "Follow me!" With that, with a shield in his left hand and a gun in his right, he was the first to rush towards the enemy.

The soldiers followed.

Timogolas was surprised to find that when the Greek heavy infantry charged, the formation would disperse, but the enemy on the opposite side could still maintain a rough formation, like a thick iron wall pressing quickly, making him feel suffocated.

"Defense! Defend quickly! He panicked and shouted hoarsely.

However, the javelin blow made the soldiers not recover from the panic, and Amintas's brigade arrived in an instant, stepped on a gentle slope several meters high, took a few big steps, and with the force of the momentum, opened his left arm holding the round shield and pushed forward, "Bang dang! ......" After the continuous sound of metal crashing, the Mesapi soldiers in the front line, who were unable to defend together due to the confusion of the formation, unconsciously retreated to relieve the impact.

This retreat caused the dense Mesapi soldiers to trip over their comrades who had fallen to the ground with javelins, and this one fell in a row. Behind them were panicked and screaming comrades, and in front of them were bayonets stabbing like poisonous snakes, and they continued to retreat in confusion, leaving most of Amintas's brigade standing on the slope.

………………………

As the captain of the 7th Brigade of the 2nd Army, Zpitt had the characteristic that he would pray before every battle.

Not only did he do it himself, but he also asked his subordinates to do it along. He used to pray to Ares, the god of war, and after following Davers, his target was changed to Hades, the protector of Dionia, and after singing Hades, he stood up and said: "Here the slingers continue to fight the enemy, and the archers follow closely behind the heavy infantry, and once they are in range, they will fire arrows at the enemy on the hillside." Follow me! ”

Satyrus, the leader of the light shield squadron, hurriedly persuaded: "Captain, you should be in command, and the brothers will leave it to me to lead the attack." ”

Zpitt's eyes widened: "Now is a good opportunity to prove our light shield soldiers, how can I hide behind!" "In recent months there has been a perception in the army that the Dionian regiment has archers and slingers for long-range attacks, and heavy infantry throwing javelins for short-range fire attacks, and that the role of light shields has become dispensable.

Epitenis and Tspit, who were born as light shields, of course, strongly disagreed with this view, and have always expressed their views to Davers: the light shield soldiers must not be replaced, they are irreplaceable!

Now is the time to prove the worth of the Light Shields.

Nearly 500 light shield soldiers, led by Epitenis and Zpit, scattered in pairs and threes through the gaps in the "fish-scale formation" of the heavy infantry.

Leotizides' detachment was at the forefront of the line, and he himself was in the middle of the first column of the detachment's phalanx. On that day, he was locked up for half a day for beating his comrades, and was supposed to be beaten with a military stick, but the military judge, considering that the war was about to start, postponed this punishment until after the war and allowed him to make meritorious service for the crime.

At this time, Leotizides had already begun to climb, although he was not wearing a helmet, he was carrying more than forty pounds of equipment, climbing upwards, and carrying weapons in both hands, it was not easy to stabilize his body. Fortunately, it was already early autumn at this time, warm and dry, the hillside was overgrown with wild grass, there had been no rain for more than ten days, the soil was soft, and it was a small pit when you stepped on it.

And the Mesapi people's attack on them was also more violent, more than 30 meters of condescending javelin directly thrown, with a strong force on the round shield, most of them can pierce the copper skin, and the remaining force hit Leotizides was also forced to fall back, he quickly plunged the end of the bayonet into the dirt, only to stabilize his body.

In the aftermath of his vision, he saw that some of the soldiers had become unsteady from the impact, slipped and fell, and took down their comrades behind them. Fortunately, Dionia's peculiar offensive formation was like a zigzag, not continuous or dense, so it did not affect the orderly progress of the entire front.

From the moment Leotizides entered the boot camp, he became interested in Dionia's unique formation, which he found to be more complex than the traditional Greek phalanx, but very effective in working and suitable for all kinds of terrain, which he privately analyzed and considered more ingenious than the Spartan left-hand tactics he had trained as a child. Later, after he knew that it was the consul Davers who invented this unique formation alone, he also had the impulse to talk to Davers about some of his opinions and opinions on this formation, but unfortunately this was just an illusion, because Davers was the highest power in Dionia, but his current identity was not the crown prince of Sparta, but just a free citizen of Dionia, so he could only watch Davers speak on the platform of the training ground from a distance in the new barracks.

At this time, the javelins of the Puchetti struck again.

Leotizides put aside distractions, lowered his body and steadied his foot, while keeping his eyes open to see the direction of the javelin's flight, tilting the shield slightly, and the tip of the javelin drew a string of sparks on the shield, but most of the momentum was removed, reducing the impact on him.

As soon as Leotizides breathed a sigh of relief, he heard a "oops" cry from his comrade on the right, and his body shook and he was about to fall backwards. He quickly let go of his spear, and with lightning reached out his right hand, grabbing the man's arm.

The man was none other than Hete Barus, and after a moment's hesitation, he immediately exclaimed sincerely: "Thank you, Prosous!" ”

Leotizides nodded vigorously at him. Despite the contradictions between the two, the battlefield is the crucible of forged friendship.

At this moment, he looked up and saw someone running to the front of the array.

It's a light shieldman! Leotizides blinked, he knew the class. During the Peloponnesian War, Sparta repeatedly hired Thracian light shields as a supplement to the heavy infantry. However, in the battle sequence of the Dionian Legion, the light shield is regarded as an important force, and its status is not inferior to that of heavy infantry.

Armed with leather shields in their left hands and long-handled hunting knives in their right hands, and wearing thin cloth robes, these light shield soldiers quickly approached the enemy on the hill in the form of stragglers, and most of the Puchetti javelins were deftly avoided by them.

Why can they be so fast and agile? Because they are armed with a long-handled counter-bladed knife, this strange weapon with a blade roughly half a circle pierced into the earth, which can easily provide a strong help for them to climb.

Tspitt soon approached the enemy, and five or six spears stabbed at him at once.

Calm and calm, Zpitt squatted down sharply, his soft leather armor allowing him to follow the slope almost to the ground, his leather shield upwards to protect his head from the spear.

The Puchetti, who were standing at the top of the hill, found it a little difficult for them to stab the enemy who was almost attached to the ground at such a low angle, because the terrain was so steep that they could not stand on their feet and roll down the hill when they exerted force, so they had to move forward.

It was too late, but it was too fast, and Tspite kicked his legs back, and the whole person bumped into it, and quickly stretched out the counterblade knife to hook one of the feet of the Puchetti warrior, and pulled it down hard.