Suddenly, Agosilaus's body shook a few times and he almost fell, but the servant hurriedly held him up.

In order to boost his morale and observe the enemy's situation, he stood for a long time, and his aging body was no longer able to support it, so he could only sit helplessly on the wooden chair that had been prepared.

……………………………………………………

The commander of the Dionian army, Crotocatatx, was equally nervous, and faced a battle of this magnitude in the first command battle, against the Greek overlord Sparta.

Looking at the dazzling wall of light that stretched infinitely on both sides in the distance, Klotocatax felt an invisible pressure, and he knew that his order would decide the life and death of thousands of Dionian soldiers, so he hesitated.

"Your Highness, the soldiers' door is almost rested, and they can give the order to attack." Printors stepped forward and reminded softly.

"Uh...... Do you want to wait any longer? Klotocatax said with some weakness.

Printors deliberately looked up at the sky, and then said: "Wait any longer, I'm afraid today's battle will have to be canceled." If we miss this opportunity, we don't know when we will be able to seize the Spartan army for a battle next time, but the situation will become more and more unfavorable for us......"

Printors' words made Klotocatax's face change, he was silent for a moment, and then gritted his teeth and said: "Then attack!" ”

"Woo! …… Woo! ......" The majestic and high-pitched sound of military trumpets echoed on the western side of the Tigeya Plain.

The military flags of all levels, which were originally set high in the array, pointed to the east together at the same time as the military horn sounded.

"Forward!" Like the other officers, Max gave orders to the soldiers of his detachment.

The soldiers of the detachment shouted excitedly, pulled out the long shield inserted in the dirt, and carried it on their backs (in order to save the soldiers' strength and facilitate the march, the arms merchants, in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Military Affairs, added an extra strip of cloth to the inside of the long shield, with which the soldiers could carry the long shield on their shoulders), armed with bayonets and javelins, and moved forward steadily with the soldiers of the other detachments.

The battle was about to begin, and Max was a little excited, but not as excited as the Greek soldiers under his command, he knew that it was because they were eager to defeat the Spartan warriors who had dominated Greece for decades, to prove that the Greek citizens of the Kingdom of Dioonia were the strongest warriors in the Greek world, so Max had no need to worry about the fighting spirit of the soldiers.

"The Ionians are on the offensive." Agosilaus heard the sound of the trumpet from the opposite side, and unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, facing the mercenary generals who came to ask for instructions, he still said unhurriedly: "Don't be in a hurry to blow the trumpet of the attack, let the Dionians advance a little longer, so that when we engage, the city of Tegea will be behind their flank." ”

As the Ionian soldiers slowly advanced, rows of wheat seedlings fell one after another, and the Ionian formation, which was originally a straight line, had gradually become more layered: the light infantry with brisk steps had passed through the checkerboard array of the heavy infantry and walked ahead; The second was the cavalry at both ends, although they had not yet let the horses run in order to save horsepower, but they still moved faster than the heavy infantry.

The Dionian light infantry, with its loose formation, was at the forefront of the left, center, and right lines, and when they were about two miles from the Spartan formation, Agosilaus, who had received the news, finally gave the order to attack.

On the left flank are Spartan warriors dressed in red vasers, the middle is mainly mercenaries, and on the right flank are mercenary soldiers who have just been withdrawn from the siege, except for the thickness of the right flank is 10 columns, the thickness of the middle and left flank arrays has been increased to 20 columns, and the Macedonian cavalry is at both ends...... It seems that Agesilaus had set up a most traditional Greek phalanx to engage the Dionian army in the most formal battle of Greek heavy infantry, the only difference being that the numerous light infantry had passed through the gaps in the array, also in loose formation.

Agosilaus knew something about the Dionian army, and he knew that the Dionian army was good at using light infantry to attack first in battles to disrupt the opponent's array, so he specially asked the generals who recruited mercenaries to recruit more light infantry, just to be able to confront and weaken the Dionian light infantry in battle.

"What do you say? There are a lot of slingers on the other side! Crotokataks was surprised when he heard the scout's report.

"Yes, Your Highness. The enemy threw a large number of flying stones at our light infantry from a distance, which wounded a number of soldiers. ”

"I think the Spartans may have recruited some Rhodes slingers." While the staff officer Mukru speculated, he also sighed regretfully: "It's a pity that the original slingers in our First Legion have all retired!" ”

"Damn! I should have asked my father to send some Barialis!" Crotokatáques regretted it at this point.

After the southern region of Iberia was incorporated into the Kingdom of Dionia, the Baleari Islands naturally submitted to Dionia. Davers allowed them self-government, and generously promised to solve their food shortages, but also made a demand: Barali must provide no less than 2,000 slingers should the war call for it.

"Your Highness, don't worry." Printors was relieved: "The Spartan light infantry is a makeshift patchwork, not as well trained as our soldiers, but they have taken advantage of the advantage of distance, and I think soon our light infantry will make them suffer." ”

Klotocatax was skeptical, at least a little relaxed.

Soon after the battle between the light infantry of the two sides, the cavalry of both sides also began to speed up, although the overly high wheat seedlings hindered the running of the war horses to a certain extent, but the cavalry at this time did not have time to think too much, and soon the cavalry of both sides rushed together.

At both ends of the array were 1,000 Ionian cavalry vs 750 Macedonian cavalry, although the Ionian cavalry had an advantage in numbers, the Macedonian cavalry, as an advantageous class of troops on the same level as the Thessalian cavalry in Greece, was not weak in horsemanship, fighting spirit, or combat effectiveness.

Although the First Cavalry Regiment is "First" in name, unlike the Infantry Legion, its combat effectiveness cannot be crowned with other legions, and even the newly built Fifth Cavalry Legion, Sixth Cavalry Legion and Seventh Cavalry Legion in recent years are stronger than it, because the Fifth Cavalry Legion is located in Iberia, and the main soldiers come from the conquered Lusitanian cavalry; The 6th Cavalry Regiment was based in the Po region and consisted entirely of Gallic cavalry; As for the 7th Cavalry Regiment, it was located in Hadru Mentum, but it did not have a fixed personnel in peacetime, but asked the Sinumipian tribes to provide 3,000-4,000 cavalry when needed, and it was the only light cavalry regiment in the kingdom, and it was also the largest cavalry regiment in number.

Therefore, the commander of the regiment, Kuchius, who had taken office the year before, felt the pressure and increased the intensity of his cavalry training (Leders chose to retire because he was too old and injured to ride horses for a long time).

At this time, in a short period of time, the cavalry contest could not distinguish the winner from the loser.

The news was transmitted back to the command center in the rear of the Dionian army, and in order to prevent Crotokatas from worrying again, Printors took the initiative to say: "The reason why Your Majesty did not send too many cavalry at the beginning was that considering that the Peloponnese has many mountains and few plains, and the cavalry does not have much room to play, and the army is on an expedition across the sea, the original consumption of military food is very large, and the consumption of food by cavalry is even greater, and the Greek cavalry is not strong, so only one cavalry corps was sent, and it is not the main force for us to win the victory." ”

"The main force for victory is our infantry corps!" Klotocatax looked ahead expectantly, and as the entire army continued to move forward, the dust and fog had begun to fill, making the vision a little blurred, but the screams kept coming, becoming clearer and clearer.

Having suffered some minor losses, the Dionian light infantry increased their speed and shortened the distance between them and the enemy, and then the archers attacked the enemy with the superb marksmanship they had cultivated over many years, and the Cretan archers could only be able to match them.

The javelinmen took the opportunity to advance and close the distance to within 30 meters, throwing javelins, but they were counterattacked by the outnumbered Thracian light shields.

Compared with the total number of only 3,000 Ionian light infantry (the light infantry brigade of the Seventh Legion remained in the camp), the number of Spartan coalition troops engaged in light infantry battles was more than twice as large, although the ability of a single arm is not weak, but temporary patchwork, not only lack of tacit understanding in coordination, from time to time to cause mutual obstacles, and they lack large-scale experience in front of the battle of light infantry, so the small number of Dionian light infantry rely on flexible movement and skilled tactical coordination, occupy the initiative.

As the two armies drew closer and closer, the Spartan light infantry, fearing that they would be squeezed in the formation, hurriedly withdrew from the front of the formation. The Dionian light infantry remained fearless and switched to long-range attacks on the Spartan hoplites who were slowly advancing.

The arrows that fell from the sky didn't hurt them much, but they were able to slow them down and disrupt their array, but the flying heavy javelins threatened their lives.

The mercenary heavy infantry in front of the array was forced to run before they could get within the distance of the charge, making the already curved line even more uneven.

The Dionian light infantry quickly withdrew from the gap in the checkerboard array in the rear, and the small phalanxes quickly closed to form a unified array, and then the shouts of the officers rang out: "Javelin ready!" ”

At this time, most of the soldiers of the Spartan coalition army had already rushed to a distance of 40 meters, not too early or too late, and the time was just right, which was the result of the long and arduous training of the Dionian Legion.