At the same time, Leotizides had his soldiers place the corpses of thousands of Lusitanian warriors in front of the city of Palermos, and at the same time had people shout under the city in Phoenician, threatening the Palermos to surrender or face the same fate.

After all, when Dionysius led an army of 100,000 to conquer western Sicily more than 20 years ago, they had surrendered once, and they were also Greeks, so if they could surrender Dionysius, why couldn't they surrender Dionys?

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While the people of Palermos were anxious about their fate, Midorades was determined to lead the fleet south.

The port of departure of the Third Fleet was not in Seeudium or Messina, but in Salos, on the island of Sardinia. The day before yesterday, after consulting with Secrean and having completed his task of escorting the fleet, he led the fleet directly to Sardinia, where he docked at the outer harbor of Saros, where he was warmly welcomed by the commander of the Ninth Army, Tegtinos.

At this time, the administrator of Salos had already taken office, he was the old senator from Amendolara Stromboli, originally he had no intention of going to serve in other places, but the five rotating chairmen of the Senate discussed for a long time, and finally agreed that among these senators who were idle in Turiyi, he was the most suitable candidate, so Cornerus personally came to persuade him as an old friend.

In order to ensure the kingdom's final victory in this war, Strompori finally accepted the appointment, and he was accompanied by 3,000 reserve soldiers from the regions of Turiy and Buruti on his way to Saros.

Reinforcements were made at the suggestion of the new Governor of Saros, Tegtinos, who quickly led his army north to capture St. Ibnia with ease, this time the Ninth Legion did not go on a killing spree, but did its best to capture the people of St. Ibinia, while also trying not to destroy the various facilities inside and outside the city.

By the time Midorades arrived in Saros, Stromboli was putting order in order within the city of Saros, while trying to convince the captive Santa Ibiñas to continue collecting and smelting precious metal ores in the service of the kingdom. Tegtinos, on the other hand, was reorganizing his army and preparing for the next attack on the surrounding Phoenician towns.

After adequate preparations in the outer harbor of Saros, the Third Fleet departed early on the morning of the third day and sailed quickly south, aiming for the Phoenician city-state of Agilgili on the coast of Africa.

Compared with Sicily, the southern tip of Sardinia is a little closer to the African mainland, but it does not directly face Carthage, so it is not as important as Sicily in terms of strategic position, but because it is close to Africa and at the same time far from Carthage, this creates favorable conditions for the surprise attack of the Third Fleet.

The burning of Hadru Mentum did cause alarm for Carthage and its allies, but it was mainly on the side near Sicily, and the center of gravity of the Carthaginian fleet for patrol and defense was also on this side, after all, both fleets of Dionya had already appeared in the Sicilian sea.

As a result, the Third Fleet's raid was successful, as it not only burned a Phoenician city-state off the coast of Africa again, but also captured some of the Phoenician populaces, and returned with a full load, as Strompori had told Midorades that St. Ibiña was in dire need of labor.

The news of the burning of Ogirgilli soon spread throughout the land of Africa, and the repeated attacks on the Phoenician city-states made the Phoenicians very panicked, and the emissaries of the city-states rushed to the Carthaginian Senate, urging Carthage to fulfill their duties as the leader of the alliance and give their city-states the safety and protection.

The people of Carthage rallied and protested to the Senate once again, hoping that they would take action to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

The Carthaginian senators were under great pressure, and after a fierce debate, the Hannonite opinion was adopted, and the senate finally made two decisions: first, to order the commander of the navy, Morbar, to strictly order him not to lead the fleet to the Sicilian sea for the time being, but to patrol the Aphilica coast every day to ensure the safety of Carthage and its allies; Second, send messengers to Sicily to pressure the military commander Marco to conquer Selinus as soon as possible, otherwise Carthage would have to negotiate peace with Dionia.

………………………………………

In the city of Selinus, the battle between the defenders of Dionya and the Carthaginian army was going on.

However, the Dionian defenders used ballistas and bellied bows to carry out constant long-range attacks, and occasionally sent troops out of the city to surprise and kill the soldiers of Carthage who built the walls. However, while defending against the attacks of the Ionian defenders, Marco urged the soldiers to speed up the construction of the inner wall, and due to the large number of Carthaginian troops, the inner wall of the Carthaginian camp was completed despite the best efforts of the Dionian defenders.

Marco then sent troops to garrison the inner walls, while learning from the Dionian defenders, and brought the ballistas to the city to fight the defenders, thus changing the previous relatively passive situation.

Amintas stood at the head of the city, looking solemnly ahead: countless Carthaginian hoplites lined up in a long line, rushing out of the newly built inner wall, they did not carry weapons or shields, but each of them carried a wooden frame, the wooden frame was filled with earth, and they placed the wooden frame tightly in turn in the open space between the inner wall of the Carthaginian camp and the wall of Selinus, and then returned to the inner wall in turn, and so on...... It didn't take long for a "wooden hill" with a wide base and a height of almost three meters to be erected.

During the busy time of the Carthaginians, the ballistas on the walls of Selinus never stopped firing, and the stone shells could easily break the wooden frame, but the wooden frame shattered, and the scattered earth invaded the gaps between the wooden frames, which only made the "hill" under construction stronger.

There were also ballistae that aimed their attacks at the Carthaginians, but they were too close to the city walls (about sixty or seventy meters), and the ballistae on the walls had to raise the elevation angle in order to attack them, so that the stone projectiles fell almost vertically, which seemed to be impressive, but in fact the lethality was limited and easy to avoid.

The arrows fired by the Dionian light infantry were not too threatening to the Carthaginian heavy infantry to inflict lethal damage on them. Under the pressure of the officers, the Carthaginian heavy infantry had to face the incoming arrows and complete the task of building a frame of earth and mountains out of wooden frames.

The belly bow was a greater threat to them, but the Carthaginians had launched dozens of arrow-blocking carts early in the morning, overlapping in front of them, blocking the front and back of the long dragon, and the powerful iron arrows might be able to penetrate one or two thick planks, but it could hardly really threaten the lives of the Carthaginians.

"Commander, do you want to send soldiers out of the city for a raid?" Adjutant Aristonos reminded from the side.

Amintas shook his head, he could see a Carthaginian army behind the archery wagons, and the walls of the opposing side were also full of light infantry on standby, the Dionian defenders did not have a defensive advantage, and if the soldiers attacked, they would only form a fierce battle with the other side. Although Amintas fought bravely, he knew in his heart that the Carthaginians had four or five times as many troops as him, and it would be against him to fight hard and wear them down. What's more, Carthage still had a large number of cavalry that could rush out of the other openings in the inner wall at any time, quickly circling behind their own soldiers to form an encirclement.

"Bring in the slingers and let them deal with these Carthaginians!" Amintas's words made the eyes of the adjutant Aristonus light up: Of all the legions of Dionia, only the Light Infantry Brigade of the First Regiment had more than 400 slingers, and these soldiers from Rhodes threw lead pellets at a distance of 100 meters so hard and accurate that they could inflict blunt damage on heavy infantry.

"How do you distribute these slingers?" Aristonos asked again, because it was not only outside the north gate that built the earth mountain, but also outside the city wall on the east and west sides.

"Let's focus on the enemies here!" Amintas pointed ahead and said in a firm tone.

"Commander Amintas, I have a suggestion." Calcidis, who was next to him, suddenly spoke.

"Oh, Calcides, you say." Amintas looked at the general of the Selinus garrison. The tone became polite. During this time, Calcides did his best to assist him, and indeed helped him a lot and won his respect.

Calcides pondered and said, "...... The Carthaginians relied on the large number of people and desperately built the earth mountain, and the most we can do now is to slow down their progress, just like the wall they built, and eventually they will build the earth mountain. And the purpose of their construction of the earth mountain is probably to allow their ballistae and light infantry to condescendingly attack the soldiers at the head of our city, and assist their soldiers in attacking the city. We can also raise the walls so that the Carthaginians cannot achieve their intentions. ”

Raise the walls? Amintas was surprised.

Calcides gestured with his hand to the walkway at the head of the city and continued to explain: "The stone wall built by the Selinus is very strong, and the walkway is wide and flat, we can build the wooden wall with wood on the walkway of the city head opposite the earthen mountain, and at least increase the height of the 7-meter-high wall by 5 to 6 meters......"

Amintas's eyes lit up when he heard this.

At this time, the adjutant Aristonus objected: "But the Carthaginians had ballistas, and the wooden walls could not withstand the attack of stone bullets, and when the time came, the construction did not work, but increased the casualties of the soldiers!" ”