Masias didn't care so much, and led his soldiers to forcibly move into the village, and ordered the villagers to prepare food.

The exhausted soldiers barely filled their stomachs and fell asleep, only Macias tossed and turned, unable to sleep: the news of the riots in Syracuse made him very worried about the situation of the original mercenary villages outside Syracuse, after all, the tragic situation of the mercenary village in Katanai made him secretly vigilant, and hoped that the hundreds of mercenaries who stayed in the village could hold their homeland! By the time he returned to Syracuse with his army to-morrow, the riot had passed for more than a day, and much could have happened in that day-plus period, and if the rebels had taken over the city, they would have been expelled and made homeless. I hope that Lord Felistos can quell the rebellion, and even if he can't, control and hold on to parts of the city, and wait for his reinforcements to arrive!

After worrying about Syracuse, he worried about how to lead the force back to Syracuse safely. On his way to Meyaro, he led his army north along the flat coast, passing through Taunis, detouring Leotini to recruit troops, then passing through Catanay and finally reaching Sikuli, and it is arguably that he drained the defenses of these city-states along the way, giving the rebels the opportunity to cause a large-scale riot.

But now is not the time to regret this, judging from today's situation, Katanai is probably completely occupied by the rioters, otherwise how could he have the spare strength to send troops out of the city to attack them. Even if Sikuli was not completely occupied, the Dioonians were so close to it that it was only a matter of time before it fell. The Leotines were forcibly relocated by Dionysius, and the people who remained were probably resentful of Syracuse, and in such a trend, there was no need for freemen and slaves to rebel, and its citizens would automatically rise up to overthrow the tyrants supported by Dionysius, so Macias was not optimistic that the pro-Syracuse Leotine would be able to resist this revolt.

However, he had some confidence in Taunis and Masias, because Taunis had always been a vassal ally of Syracuse, and had never betrayed, and he was dissatisfied with the tyrants he had fostered in time, and he should not rashly attack Syracuse's army. What's more, the port of Taunis is also anchored in the port of Syracuse, which has retreated from the Gulf of Naxos, and with their help, even if there is a riot in Taunis, the chances of success will not be too great.

Therefore, Macias finally decided: after setting out tomorrow, the party bypassed Catane, avoiding a possible attack by the Leotinis, and then walked by the sea, passing through Taunis and finally reaching Syracuse...... It was a long journey of 100 miles, full of unknown risks, but he had to take this risk in order to get back to Syracuse as soon as possible. Otherwise, for the sake of safety, he could have avoided the coast altogether and made a detour through the almost uninhabited mountains on the west side of Leotinius, where the mountains were not too high, but the roads were rough and difficult to navigate, which would undoubtedly slow down the journey, and food was a big problem......

Macias thought about it a lot, but finally couldn't resist the sleepiness and fell asleep......

…………………………………

The next day, when the sun was rising, but he was still asleep, he was woken up by the guards, only to know that something had happened during the time of his snooze: when he woke up in the morning, the soldiers found that dozens of horses were missing, and the residents of the village were also more than half...... As they followed Dionysius in his conquest of Sicily, some of the most common evils recurred in this village.

This provoked the resentment and anger of a small number of Katana mercenaries in the ranks, as this was a village under their jurisdiction. Clashes broke out between the two sides, and the enraged Cartana mercenaries left the ranks, and the entire army was reduced to 3,000 men.

Faced with such a difficult situation, Masias could not do anything, and even thought that without the Katanai holding them back, they would march faster and consume less food, not to mention other annoying problems. Although they were once compatriots from Campania, they had been comrades-in-arms who had fought side by side until today, and they had a deep friendship, but now that disaster is coming, they can only take care of each other.

Masias ordered his soldiers to plunder all the food in the village and set off at once.

At the urging of Masias, the 3,000-strong team, almost all of former mercenary citizens of Syracuse, set out in haste with the expectation of returning to Syracuse as soon as possible to defend their homeland.

As they marched southeast, they came across a rout, and Macias took the opportunity to take them all into their ranks.

At the same time, the team was also spied on by several scout squads, and Masias urged the soldiers to speed up the march while sending out cavalry to drive them away.

His premonition came true. Soon a force of seven or eight hundred men arrived from the northeast, unarmoured, armed with bows and arrows, and javelins, and moved quickly to attack Macias's team at a distance.

Masias was almost certain that the enemy was coming from Katanai, and he hurriedly ordered his soldiers to attack.

But when the Syracuse soldiers formed up and began to attack, the light infantry from Qatanai retreated. But when the Syracuse soldiers resumed their formation and continued their march, they reappeared.

After repeating this several times, Masias understood that the Qatanay rebels were only trying to attack him, not really to fight head-on.

But Masias could not ignore it, otherwise the javelins and arrows would continue to take the lives of the soldiers and destroy their low morale, so he placed the remaining more than 50 cavalry and nearly 500 light infantry at the back of the line to be able to resist the enemy's attack. However, he did not allow the soldiers to pursue excessively, because this would not only consume physical strength, but also break away from the large army and be easily ambushed, and now the whole army had only one goal - to return home.

The Syracuse army came to a halt and in the afternoon came out of the Catania plain, where the terrain began to narrow, with the sea to the east, the mountains to the west, and a flat seaside corridor less than five miles wide in the middle.

Masias was worried about the presence of the Leotini rebels, but thankfully they didn't, and probably because the narrowness of the terrain limited the mobility of the Katana rebels, so they didn't continue to harass behind the ranks, which allowed the Syracuse soldiers to finally breathe a sigh of relief.

The army of Syracuse hastened its march because the city of Tonis, ten miles away.

When the city of Tounis came into view, the defeated soldiers of Syracuse, who thought they had escaped the catastrophe, saw that not far from the north of the city of Tounis, there was a neat phalanx of four or five thousand troops in front of them, blocking this seaside corridor, and the all-black armor of most of the soldiers made the mood that they had just been excited suddenly fall to the bottom: it was the Dionians! It's Deoria's legion!! How did they get ahead of us?!! ……

…………………………………

Yesterday's bitter battle ended with the defeat of the Syracuse army.

While the First Dionian Army was in pursuit, Anton Ríos finally met with the messenger sent by Antrapolis, and after learning the news that "Catana had been captured and the Syracuse rebellion had been successful", Antonios was finally relieved: the First Legion had paid the price and had finally gained a foothold in Sicily.

But in addition to rejoicing, he could not rest easy, because Antrapolis hoped that the First Army would be able to intercept the army in Syracuse, so as to prevent them from returning to Syracuse, which would bring great variables to the riots in Syracuse.

To tell the truth, Antonios really didn't want to listen to the advice of this secret agent, although in this battle, the First Army finally won, but nearly a thousand people were killed and wounded, several senior officers died, even his close comrade-in-arms Zpitt was unconscious, the First Army from the 8,000 people (excluding auxiliary forces) before the outbreak of the war has been fighting, there are only nearly 4,000 people left, the number has been sharply reduced by more than half, and it has paid huge sacrifices. And the danger has not completely passed, and the effort is now short of this last step.

Antonios, of course, did not want the First Legion's expedition to be ruined by this rout and fled back to Syracuse, and the habit of "the Dionian Legion, after its victory, always pursued it to the end" made him reluctantly agree to Anterapolis's suggestion: to act in conjunction with Cataneh and completely wipe out the Syracuse army on the way back!

Sending off the messengers, Antonios rushed to the harbor after some contemplation, and the sailors of the Dionian fleet were dropping off the families of the exiles from their ships.

Antonios soon met with Flarios, who had commanded the fleet in place of Seklian, and after discussion, Flarios agreed: the fleet would not return to Ligem, but would spend the night in Meyaro in order to participate in the military operation earlier the next day.

The port of Meyaro had no military port and no dry dock to moor ships, which meant that the ships of the Dionian fleet had to be pushed onto the beach, which required a lot of risk. One of the main reasons why the Athenian fleet was completely annihilated by Lysander in the Battle of the Sheep River was that the Athenian warships were all parked on the beach, and there was no time to go to sea when they were raided......

To this end, Flarios led the sailors, with the help of the exile population, to tow the warships one by one to the beach, and then set up a strict sentry, and asked the lighthouse sentries to keep a close eye on the sea, and arranged for all the clippers to patrol the bay in turn throughout the night......