Mukru hesitated for a moment and said, "...... Commander, would you like to tell the Governor of Sipros? ”

Leotizides said lightly: "It's too far, it's too late, Your Majesty should have put the Sicilian fleet under my command, that would have saved a lot of trouble, you go and carry out the order." ”

Soon, Mirtias's response was not what Muqru expected, he not only rejected Leotizides' offer to let him cruise, but also asked Mukru to take a message, tactfully reminding Leotizides that the Sicilian fleet was not under his command and told him not to worry about naval affairs.

Leotizides had a rare chance of setting fire in the mansion, but there was nothing he could do.

In the afternoon, the scouts returned to Selinus with bad news: they found many Carthaginian soldiers and ships on the shores from Mazara to Lilipa.

The Carthaginian army is landing! Leotizides easily made his judgment.

"Send someone to tell Miltias and let him take care of it." The corners of Leotizides' mouth twitched slightly, and he said mockingly, it seems that the response of Miltias before made him very concerned.

"Gather the Eighth Army and reserves at once, and follow me to attack the shores of Mazara!" Finally, Leotizides gave the order.

"Yes!"

……………………………………

In order to understand and supervise the embarkation of the entire army of soldiers in the ports of Carthage and Utica, Margo entered the port of Liliba almost at the forefront of the last group of ship-taking troops.

As soon as he boarded the dock, he was warmly welcomed by officials of all sizes, including the lord of Lili, Imisore, and the acting commander of the Carthaginian army, Admika, who embraced him into the lord's mansion.

Marco had just sat down, and before he could speak, news came that "tens of thousands of Dionian troops had left the city of Selinus and marched westward."

Most of the people present felt nervous, but Margo resolutely ordered: "Gather troops immediately and go to volley!" ”

Liliba was a military fortress, with several military camps in the city, more than 10,000 Numibian soldiers (formerly Monte Adeno's army) and about 20,000 Iberian soldiers under the command of Hasdruba yesterday, whom Marco ordered his men to assemble quickly, and for the sake of caution, he also brought with him 6,000 Iberian soldiers who had just landed in the city.

Leotizides led his army in the wind and rain, and the normal march became somewhat difficult, so it took nearly three hours to approach the city of Mazara.

At this time, he was rewarded by the scouts: a Carthaginian army of no less than 30,000 men was approaching them from Lilipa.

Since the Battle of Minoa and the capture of Selinus by the Dionian army, Leotizides has tried all kinds of ways to lure the enemies who have been cowering in the cities of Lilipa, Segsta, and Mazara out of the city in order to achieve another success, but he has never succeeded.

Now that the Carthaginian army was finally out of the city, Leotizides hesitated. Although the Battle of Miloa exposed the low morale and low combat effectiveness of the Carthaginian army at that time, this did not make Leotizides arrogant, and through intelligence he knew that the Iberian army that had captured Seldiam was not to be underestimated, and that the Carthaginian army that was now coming from Liliba must also be the main force of the Carthaginian army, and the number of its soldiers far exceeded the number of his troops.

During the time that the Dionian army was stationed in Selinus, since there was no fighting, many of the soldiers of the friendly city-states had returned to their homes to prepare for the upcoming harvest season, and after the arrival of the Second Fleet in Sicily, Miltias protested to Leotizides that the excellent crew of the Dionian Navy had been reorganized into light infantry to serve as an adjunct to the legion in battle (referring to some of the tens of thousands of Sicilian fleet sailors who survived the storm).

He also took the matter to the Ministry of War, and in the end Leotizides had to let the crew go back to the naval base on the Catania plain, so that Leotizides now led an army of just over 20,000 men, and there were more than 3,000 friendly soldiers left in the city of Selinus, which was all he had in western Sicily.

He originally thought that the landing of the Carthaginian army in such bad weather would inevitably cause temporary chaos, but he did not expect the Carthaginians to attack so quickly.

His gaze scanned the heavily armed legionnaires beside him, their rain-soaked faces showing exhaustion. After only a moment's hesitation, Leotizides, who had never been blindly impulsive in battle, dismissed the idea of fighting the arriving Carthaginian army, and ordered the army to stop its march and return to Selinus immediately.

The soldiers who ran in vain and were drenched in soup complained about this.

Leotizides didn't care about this, he cared if the Sicilian fleet would gain something.

………………………………………

After being reminded by his adjutant Mukru, Miltias did not fully believe Mukru's words due to his bad relationship with Leotizides, so he did not immediately lead the fleet to sea, but sent a clipper ship to the western seas to inspect it.

After receiving the confirmation, he hurriedly led the fleet out of the port. By the time the flank had rounded the cape and rushed to the waters near Mazara, it was already dusk, and the sea was largely calm and the Carthaginian army had landed, and the transport of the baggage and horses that followed was mostly complete.

The Carthaginian clippers, who had been observing the movements of the Dionian fleet, quickly informed the ships that were still on the way, some of them immediately returned to Carthage, and some of them rushed into the beaches and ports of Sicily, so the Dionian fleet searched around this sea area for a while, and only sank and captured a dozen cargo ships, although they also saw many Carthaginian ships docked on the beach from time to time, but they did not dare to approach the attack, because there were many Carthaginian soldiers on these beaches, It was obviously foolish for the navy to give up its superiority to fight a land war, and because of the dark sky and strong wind and waves, two warships accidentally ran aground and sank.

As a result, Mirthias had to give the order to return home, and he was depressed all the way: he was very responsible for the successful landing of the Carthaginian army in Sicily, and neither His Majesty Davers nor the War Ministry would turn a blind eye to it......

………………………………………

Over the next few days, the battle in western Sicily took on an eerie calm.

On the Carthaginian side, Marco was busy reorganizing the disorganized army that had fallen after the landing, transporting supplies scattered along the coast back to Lilipa, while he also found time to meet with officials of the Carthaginian states and emissaries of the allies to learn more about the situation in Sicily, and he even summoned the chief of Siquel, Aconis, who had been snubbed by Monte Adno.

On the Dionian side, Leotizides no longer sent troops to destroy the fields and villages of his opponents, but ordered his soldiers to fortify the city.

In fact, he has been doing this since the capture of Selinus, because he knows very well that the battle of Minoa is not enough to break Carthage's bones, but will lead to a more violent Carthaginian counterattack, and the south coast of Sicily is the main offensive route of the Carthaginian army, and Selinus at the beginning of this route is very important, as long as it is held, it can create a great obstacle for the Carthaginian army to further attack the territory of the friendly city-states of Dioonia on the south coast, Contribute to the fulfillment of the strategic objectives given by King Davers.

At the same time, Leotizides sent messengers back to Cataneh to inform Sipros of the new war, and he also sought reinforcements from friendly city-states such as Minoa, Agrigento, and Gera to strengthen Selinus's defenses.

Leotizides hoped that the battle would take place as late as possible, but Marco could not wait, after all, he had made a promise in the Senate to drive the Dioonians out of Sicily within a year. Three days later, the mighty Carthaginian army surrounded Selinus.

Margo ordered the army to begin building a camp while engineers and carpenters built siege engines.

After the camp began to take shape, he began to send thousands of light infantry formed by the Sicilian allies to gradually clear the traps and obstacles on the outskirts of Selinus.

Leotizides, of course, would not allow the enemy to approach the trench so easily, so he not only ordered the defenders at the head of the city to carry out fierce long-range attacks on any enemy who came into the range of the attack below, but also organized hundreds or thousands of light armoured soldiers from time to time to take advantage of the unpreparedness of the enemy who was busy clearing the obstacles.

Leotizides' proactive defensive tactics inflicted a lot of casualties on the Carthaginian soldiers who were clearing the obstacles under the city, but over the course of several days, the Carthaginian encirclement of Selinus was still gradually shrinking.

For Margo, who had an army of about 120,000 men, a few casualties were a scratch in his boot and had no effect on him, but with the support of a strong army, the Carthaginians had never stopped cleaning up the city of Selinus.

As the Carthaginian army advanced methodically under the city and strengthened its preparedness against the surprise attacks of the defenders, the Dionian army also reduced the number of assaults out of the city after suffering one or two small losses.

Soon, the Carthaginians placed dozens of ballistae in front of the city and bombarded the walls of Selinus with stone bullets.

Since the Dionian Legion had training in the attack and defense of the city wall in their military training in peacetime, they certainly had their own research on how to defend against the siege weapon - ballistae. In addition to having the ballistae on and inside the city accurately strike at the enemy's ballistas, Leotizides had his soldiers collect a large number of the fishing nets of the harbor fishermen, hang them from the city, and cover the walls to cushion the impact of the stone bullets.