Carthage's mother state Tyre received a request for help from Carthaginian emissaries, and did not slack off, and quickly contacted other nearby Phoenician city-states, such as Sidon, Acre, Awady, etc., and they finally agreed to help Carthage, after all, one of the main reasons why the Phoenicians under Persian rule over the years were able to live more comfortably was that they offered a large amount of gold and silver to the Persian court every year, and these gold and silver were mainly traded to them by Carthage at a lower price.

Don't look at the Phoenician city-states to which the Persian Kingdom belongs are not many, and the territory is not large, but they have hundreds of warships, because the Persians are located inland and are not good at navigation, so its navy is provided by foreign people, mainly from Phoenicians and Greeks in Asia Minor, and in recent years, the Persian king has the intention of recapturing Egypt and has been rearming for war, and the Phoenicians are the main force of the Persian navy and are not lacking in training.

But there is an important problem, the Phoenician city-states in the eastern Mediterranean were under Persian rule, and their warships were also subordinate to the Persian navy, so of course it was impossible to leave without permission and go to the western Mediterranean, so Tyre, Sidon ...... An envoy must also be sent to the court of Persia to obtain permission from Artaxerxes, king of Persia.

Since the signing of the Great King's Treaty, the Greek city-states, Persia's greatest enemies, not only ceased to be enemies of Persia, but instead allowed Persia to act as an arbiter to mediate the conflicts and disputes of the Greek city-states, which was equivalent to submitting to Persia. Artaxerxes felt that he had achieved great feats that none of the great kings had achieved, and that the political situation in Persia was stable at this time, and that his throne was very secure, so he was so complacent that he ordered an attack on Egypt, and although he suffered a small setback, it did not break his bones.

Under his orders, preparations were under way for an attack on Egypt in the kingdom.

Artaxerxes' emissaries from Tyre met Artaxerxes and conveyed the Phoenician's request to him.

This was not the first time Artaxerxes had heard the name "Dionia", although the two countries were thousands of miles apart, the prosperous maritime trade in the Mediterranean also made the news spread quickly, and the magical story of the rapid rise of the Dioonic kingdom was also widely spread in Asia Minor, and naturally in Persia.

Artaxerxes, the king of Persia, began to pay attention to this newly rising kingdom in the far west because his intelligence department discovered that Dionysia was originally a state founded by Greek mercenaries who had rebelled with Cyrus the Younger, after all, the story of the Greek mercenaries who had fought thousands of miles in Persia and finally escaped was very popular in Greece itself, and it also spread in Asia Minor, but it was a shame for Artaxerxes and his Persian army.

Under further investigation by the royal intelligence, Artaxerxes learned more, such as knowing that the Kingdom of Dionia, like Persia, was more tolerant of foreign gods and religions; He knew that the Kingdom of Dionia, like Persia, exercised tighter control over the conquered lands; He even knew that Dioonia and Egypt had formed a military alliance not long ago...... So in Artaxerxes's mind, the kingdom of Dionya was the enemy of Persia, but the country was too far away and too insignificant in strength (Artaxerxes and many Persian officials thought so), so he didn't take it too seriously in the past.

But since Dionya was now involved, Artaxerxes was of course willing to give it some trouble, so without much thought, he agreed to the Phoenicians sending a fleet to Carthage, and generously allowed them to use the Persian banner if necessary.

With the promise of the king of Persia, the Phoenicians soon sent a fleet of 130 large and small warships, including 90 three-sculled warships, and 30 cargo ships carrying food supplies.

The most nervous were undoubtedly the Athenians, because at this time it was uniting with Thebes against Sparta, and the Persian fleet was sailing westward at this time, and they could not help but panic: did Persia want to support Sparta and join the war? If so, the prospects for Athens will be very bad!

The Eastern Phoenician fleet was like a stone falling into a water bottle, stirring up waves, but it did not attract much attention from the Dionicians, because Dionya was dealing with several wars with all its might, and could not pay attention to the affairs of the Eastern Mediterranean for the time being, and in the hearts of the Dionians, it was impossible for the Persian fleet to attack the Western Mediterranean, and let them stir up the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean as much as possible.

In addition, autumn was approaching, and the farmland in Dionya was about to be harvested, and the merchants of the kingdom no longer bought grain from the eastern Mediterranean, but instead drew a lot of manpower and flocked to the Latin region of central Italy, trying to gain new business opportunities and more profits in the newly conquered land of this kingdom.

Later, the westbound Eastern Phoenician fleet docked at the port of Kydonia in Crete, which made the Athenians even more nervous, as the Cretan city-states were allies of Sparta, with Kedonia being closer to the Greek mainland.

But a few days later, the Athenians were puzzled by the news that "the Persian fleet had disappeared from Crete", but then no one saw the fleet on the coast of mainland Greece.

In fact, after resting in Kedonia, the East Phoenician fleet quietly sailed southwest one day when a strong north wind blew on the sea, avoiding the usual routes of Greek merchant ships, to Cyrenaica, a sub-state of Sparta, and then along the Afrigian coast, continuing westward to Leptis, the easternmost colonial city of the Phoenician colonies in Africa.

After arriving here and being warmly welcomed by the townspeople, the crew of the Phoenician fleet relaxed. The fleet continued westward, eventually reaching Hadrumetum.

The Phoenician city-state attached to Carthage was just south of the city of Carthage, but few foreign merchant ships frequented it, and the Phoenician fleet stopped in the harbor but no longer headed west, because the shrewd Eastern Phoenicians, after talking to their compatriots along the way, realized that the Dionian navy they were about to fight against was strong, so they refused to enter the city of Carthage, so as not to be forced to confront the Carthaginian navy because they could not escape the pleas of the Carthaginians, but wanted to choose the time to attack.

Of course, there is another reason that although the Eastern Phoenicians had close trade with Carthage, the two sides have rarely had high-level political and military contacts for decades, on the one hand, because of Persia, and on the other hand, because the Eastern Phoenicians (especially the Tyrian nobility) have always been wary of Carthage, which had taken away all their colonial trade points in the Western Mediterranean, and did not want to enter Carthage, a city known as the "center of the West Phoenicians".

Later, the Eastern Phoenician fleet in Hadrumetum refused to escort the Carthaginian army to Sicily, because that would inevitably mean that they would withstand the frenzied attack of the Dionian navy.

It was not until after the Carthaginian army ventured to land in Sicily, and the attention of the Dionian navy was focused on western Sicily, that the Carthaginian Senate, at the suggestion of the Carthaginian commander Margo, consulted with the Eastern Phoenician fleet before they finally agreed to Margo's plan.

The fleet quietly left Hadru Metum and sailed north, barely stationing in Kossyra.

Sura is a small island belonging to Carthage, with a Carthaginian town of about 2,000 people and a small port on the south side of the island. The island is located between Sicily and Carthage, facing the city of Selinus to the north.

The Eastern Phoenician fleet crowded the island of Horsula, and after a few days, the clippers sent out to investigate brought back the news that, as Marco expected, the Dionian ships were leaving the harbor full of soldiers!

How could the Eastern Phoenician fleet let go of this great opportunity to destroy the enemy, so the warships left the harbor, hoisted their sails, and sailed north with the faint south wind, and finally caught up with the Dionian fleet in time.

The Eastern Phoenician ships lowered their sails and began to speed up, and the whole fleet gradually spread out to the sides as they advanced, but they did not practice any special tactics, and the state of the Dionian fleet in front was not worth their time in arranging tactics, they just increased the number of ships in the front as much as possible, and tried to sink enough enemy ships in the first attack.

The Dionian clippers, which are now in the outer patrol position, have raised two yellow flags one by one from west to east, and the rough information about the enemy situation has spread throughout the team, and the warships close to the flagship of Miltias have begun to retreat towards the coast, but the easternmost warships have just received the signal of "moving closer to the flagship", the whole fleet is disorganized, unable to coordinate, and the warships are almost incapacitated, which makes the crew feel panicked and demoralized.

…………………………………………

At this moment, Seklian, who already knew that there was an enemy, commanded the clipper on which he was riding to catch up with a three-sculled ship that was returning, and then he anxiously ordered the clipper to come over immediately.

Then, standing at the bow of the ship, he shouted: "I'm Seklian, who is the captain of this ship?!" ”

As soon as he finished speaking, a noisy exclamation sounded in the cabin of the opposite warship: "Did you hear that? It's the voice of Lord Secrean! ”