Davers had no doubts about Sipros' ability, so he only mentioned something, then looked away, looked ahead, and said in a heavy tone: "Ladies and gentlemen, before we march on the Carthaginian army, we and all the soldiers who are about to fight the enemy have an important thing to do to go to Palagonia, to pay tribute and pay tribute to all the soldiers of the First Brigade of the Seventh Legion and the two reserve brigades of Catane, who stubbornly held the city of Palagonian and finally died heroically!" ”

………………………………………

After the military meeting, Davos left Sipros and Leotizides alone to express his sincere gratitude to the two of them, thanking them for shouldering the heavy responsibility of defense alone when the main force of Theonia could not reinforce Sicily, not only successfully resisting the invasion of the Carthaginian army and ensuring the integrity of the Sicilian territory, but also giving the Carthaginians a lot of casualties, which greatly exceeded Davers's expectations.

In the face of Davers's unhesitating praise, Sipros showed modesty: "We in Sicily were finally able to hold out until Your Majesty led your troops, and Lord Prosous contributed the most, if it wasn't for his decisive attack, defeating the Carthaginians at Minoa, and capturing Selinus, disturbing the entire west"

Leotizides interjected: "Without the full support and guarantee of Lord Sipros, I would not dare to lead the army to attack, especially when the Carthaginian army invaded the Catanian plain, and it was only up to Lord Sipros to understand and pacify the people in the city, so that I could hold on to Cataneh to this day......"

Davers looked at them with a smile and said, "They all say that Prosous is difficult to approach and difficult to deal with, but I think you cooperate very well!" ”

Sipros looked at Leotizides and defended him: "Your Majesty, there may be a misunderstanding about this, Lord Prosous is not very sociable, but he devotes all his energy to military research. ”

"Of course I do." Davers smiled, then took the opportunity to turn the conversation to the next battle: "What do you think about attacking Syracuse?" ”

After staying in Katanai for so many years, Leotizides certainly pondered how to attack this close neighbor who had many disputes with Katanai in his spare time, and even went south several times in disguise to secretly survey the city defenses of Syracuse, and after being appointed by Davers just now, he had already conceived a preliminary attack plan in his mind, so he immediately said: "Your Majesty, according to previous intelligence, Syracuse can organize an army of at least 20,000 men, and if it is to defend the city, the number of soldiers will only be more. However, the citizens of Syracuse lacked sufficient military training, and they had hardly experienced major wars for more than a decade, and lacked sufficient combat experience, so they categorically did not dare to go out of the city to engage us, but only defended the city. Although the walls of Syracuse are tall and strong, I am confident that I will take them."

At this point, Leotizides turned back to his adjutant Tagru who was waiting outside the door and shouted, "Go and bring me the map of the city of Syracuse in my room!" ”

Leotizides' sudden shouting in front of Davos was extremely rude, but Davos didn't care, he even stopped Hennipolis from reprimanding him, and listened carefully to the young commander who was already immersed in thought.

"Since Your Majesty will lead your army to the west to fight the Carthaginians, there is no Carthaginian threat on the eastern side for the time being, and now that it is the agricultural season, we can gather more men from the fleeing populations such as Naxos, Sikuli, Catanay, Leotini, Taunis, Sikkelis, and even Agrigento and Gera, and participate in the siege of Syracuse nearby......"

While Leotizides was gushing on and on about his thoughts, Tagru had already brought the plank map, and he immediately placed it on the table, pointed to it, and said, "Your Majesty, look! Syracuse is a large city, the city area is very large, and its walls are not small, but most of them are built on the coast and in the hills, and there are two main sections that are really suitable for a large army to attack the city. One section is the eastern wall, mainly the Hexa Gate and its vicinity not far from Tounis, which is about a mile long; The other section is on the western side of the wall, which runs south from Puska Gate to the main port of Syracuse, which is about four miles long......

The siege plan I envisioned was...... The main forces of the 7th and 8th Army Corps were encamped here," Leotizides' hand pointed to the flat area west of the city of Syracuse and the Alappus River on the map.

"There's the Lucimerae Marsh around there! It's easy to get the soldiers sick! Sipros, who also looked at the map closely, changed his face and reminded loudly: "You must know that in the past, the Carthaginian army attacked the city of Syracuse twice, but because of the plague, it eventually led to a crushing defeat. ”

"Of course I know the dangers of the swamps of the Lucimelet." Leotizides confidently explains: "It's almost November, the weather is starting to get cooler, and the mosquitoes have decreased. Moreover, in recent years, the civilians of Syracuse have continued to develop the swamp, and its area has become much smaller than 10 years ago. What's more, our legionnaires have a special camp training in their daily military training on how to deal with this harsh terrain, and I don't think it will cause any problems for the garrison of the army! ……”

When Davers heard this, he remembered the report of the Samonai war he had received when he was in Rome: Alexis led his army into the mountains, and he was also stationed near the swamp, and there were no major problems.

Therefore, he said approvingly: "As long as you are well prepared, I think it should not be a problem for the army to be stationed here, you go on." ”

"Another army, composed of some reserve soldiers of our Sicilian territory, and soldiers of allies and friends, is stationed near Tonis, according to the covenant, such a mixed force must be commanded by a Dionian general, and the current senior generals are basically appointed, in order to ensure that the offensive east of Syracuse can be carried out well, I think ......" Leotizides hesitated for a rare moment: "Can Breru be temporarily appointed to this position?" ”

When he said this, both Davers and Cipros were surprised.

Davers looked at him meaningfully, and thought to himself: It is said that Prosous is indifferent, but I didn't expect him to be quite humane, and he wants to use this opportunity to make Breroux meritorious and reduce the people's accusations against him, so that the punishment can be reduced after the war is over.

Being watched by Davers like this, Leotizides was a little unnatural, and the reason why he made this suggestion was on the one hand for the needs of the next battle, and more importantly, to make up for the guilt in his heart, because in this military meeting, he suddenly realized that in the case of the Carthaginian army, whoever was in the position of Breyru would face the same dilemma, and Breru led the Seventh Army to help, which happened to hold this vat for him.

Davers coughed dryly, "I can understand how you want to help Brem. But if he is allowed to lead the army, it will confuse everyone, then the previous punishment will not make sense, so I can't agree with it. The commander of the army to the east could be Zantiparis, who had led mixed armies in Campania several times to conquer the town of Samonai, and should have had a lot of experience with this. During the assault on Syracuse, you temporarily served as the commander of the Seventh Legion for him. ”

"Yes." Leotizides replied with an unchanged expression, and continued: "I have heard that when Your Majesty led his army to land in Katanai, there was also an engineering team of several hundred people composed of engineers and skilled craftsmen, and I hope that Your Majesty will allow this team to assist us in making all kinds of siege equipment to make it easier for the soldiers to attack the city, so as to put more pressure on the Syracuse people." ”

"Of course it's fine." Davos nodded in agreement, and then asked, "The focus of your attack is on these two wall segments, but I'm afraid you won't ignore the other wall sections of Syracuse City, right?" ”

He is worthy of being a famous player who has won all battles, and he feels quite keen! Leotizides thought for a moment, and then said: "Except for the wall on the coast, the other sections of the wall are built on high ground, and it is relatively difficult to attack, but I will also send soldiers to attack, disperse the forces of the Syracuses, and confuse them......"

On the map, the eastern and western sections of the walls of Syracuse stretch diagonally to the north along the edge of the Epipolis Heights, and finally converge to look like a top hat, and Leotizides' hand is pointing to the place where the walls meet at the two ends, and he says in a deep voice: "It is said that it was the siege of Syracuse by Athens that year, and the people of Syracuse realized that the enemy must not be allowed to occupy the commanding heights of the city, the Epipolis Heights, so after Dionysius became a tyrant, he mobilized the people of Syracuse, The entire Epipolis plateau is surrounded by walls and becomes part of the city, the highest point of which is on the west side of the peak of the Euriarus mountain.

Dionysius called it the 'key' to Epipolis and the entire city of Syracuse, so he built a fortress here in the first place. But the area of Epipolis is already sparsely populated, and it is even more uninhabited, because it is 5 or 6 miles away from the main city of Syracuse, and the traffic is very inconvenient, although Dionysius considers its location to be important, but it has never been attacked by the enemy over the years, and the people of Syracuse do not seem to pay much attention to it.

I have carefully explored this place several times, and the walls on the west side of the Yurialus Mountains have been in disrepair for many years, and the number of sentries in the city has never exceeded 10, and most of these sentries stay in the fortress, and rarely patrol the entire section of the wall regularly, and it seems that they are confident in the defense of the walls in this area. But in fact the height of the western side of Yurialus is no more than 200 meters, and it is not difficult to climb"