Xenophon walked over, and saw his Spartan warriors greeting him: "Xenophon, here you are again!" ”

"Don't worry, old man, with us guarding here, the Dioonians can't go ashore at all, so you people over 60 years old can rest at home."

"I said Xenophon that you come here every day not because you are afraid that we will not be able to hold the coast, but because we are afraid that we have captured a lot of Ionian captives, but we will not give them to you."

"Hahaha......"

Hearing the joking words of the soldiers, Xenophon was not annoyed, and said with a smile: "Do I need you to send me to the prisoner, I will capture it myself." ”

"No, you don't have a chance." One of the Spartan warriors quipped, "The Council of Elders has stipulated that people over the age of 60 can only stay at home, and as a final preparation, I think you should go back to the city and listen to our good news!" ”

The warriors laughed again.

Xenophon liked the atmosphere, and he sensed the confidence of his warriors in defeating a powerful enemy, so he patted his chest and exclaimed, "Although I am over 60 years old, I am no worse than you young people!" If you don't believe me, come out and try with me! With that, he lifted his clothes and put on a wrestling stance.

The soldiers booed, you push me, I push you, but no one wants to stand up and compete with him, and they all feel ashamed to compete with the old man.

At this moment, a high-pitched trumpet suddenly sounded in the camp.

"There is an enemy situation!!" The warriors shouted to each other, and each of them quickly ran back to his tent, and soon they put on their armor, took up their shields and spears, formed a group of 10 people in front of the tent, and then, under the leadership of the team officer, ran out of the camp and ran to the sea.

In just a quarter of an hour, Xenophon's surroundings became empty, and he could not help but sigh: if only the Spartan army defending the coast were all such warriors!

It is a pity that there are only about 300 well-trained, young and strong Spartan warriors like this, and although there are more than 500 Spartan veterans aged 50-60 who are not weak in combat, they are assigned to serve as officers among the Periasi and Helot in the camp.

So as Xenophon walked on, he saw the old warriors yelling and shouting, and the Bereassi soldiers and the black laborers scurrying around in disheveled armor.

He frowned, quickened his pace, and walked through the camp, and stood on a higher place, looking ahead: in the sun, the sea was still sparkling at high tide, and except for the soaring seabirds, it seemed very calm, and nothing unusual seemed to happen.

But Xenophon did not take it lightly, and the Spartans built several 5-meter-high watchtowers by the sea, and the sentries on the top of the towers naturally detected the enemy before him.

Sure enough, after only a few moments, some small black dots appeared in the farthest part of the field of vision, and it didn't take long for the black dots to turn into sails, then into warships, and then quickly spread out the sea in front of them, heading straight for the bay where they were......

In the process, groups of Spartan soldiers ran to the sea one after another, and under the command of the officers, they arranged in an arc-shaped array along the flat coast.

……………………………………………………………………

The Dionian ships stopped moving less than a mile from the coast, lined up, lowered their sails, dropped anchors, and did their best to remain where they were......

Such a scene is not much different from yesterday, is it another feint attack by the Dionian fleet? …… Xenophon was thinking in confusion, and then he saw a number of sailless boats sailing out between these tall Ionian three-sculled warships, carrying many soldiers, taking advantage of the height of the tide, and by the impetus of the tide, and by the shallow draft of the boats, they could pass over the underwater ship-blocking stake and continue to sail towards the shore......

The Dioonians are really going to land this time! Xenophon was shocked.

The commander of Sparta by the sea apparently also sensed the enemy's intentions, and the trumpet sounded again.

Hundreds of Periassi crews flocked to more than a dozen small and medium-sized warships moored on the beach, pushing them into the sea.

Sparta suffered a crushing defeat in the naval battle with Athens last year, and with more than 20 ships remaining in the Gulf of Laconia, the Dionian fleet arrived and had to be pushed ashore to prevent it from being completely destroyed.

In order to prevent the Ionian warships from docking, the Spartans set up a large number of wooden stakes to block the ships, and specially left a blank space in the sea area of more than 100 meters near the shore to ensure that their own warships could also participate in the defense. The Spartan ships did play a significant role in the last landing against Dionia, and this time it was a repeat of the old trick.

The Spartan ships were pushed off the coast and, with the sailors' hard rowing, ready to meet the Ionian boats heading for the shore.

However, the Dionian boat, which was running at the front, stopped its advance when it was still about 200 meters from the coast, and the fleet infantry, with leather shields and helmets and short swords, jumped out of the boat. The sea depth here is more than two meters, but the soldiers do not need to spend physical strength to tread water all the time, and the dense wooden stakes that stop the ship have become their help, and they only need to hold on lightly to stay where they are and rest.

The crew of Piriasi were surprised to find that the Dionian soldiers had jumped into the sea and remained where they were, while the boats began to return. If they wanted to attack the Ionian soldiers floating on the sea, they had to pass through the dense stakes to block the ship, which was undoubtedly difficult.

Just as they hesitated, they suddenly saw dozens of small black dots flying up from the Ionian warship in the distance.

"It's the Dionian ballista! Hide! A crew member exclaimed.

"Don't worry too much, it's too far away for them to hit us." One crew member comforted that most of the crew were not too worried because they had used ballistae during the last Ionian landing, but had done almost no damage to the Spartan ships.

Unbeknownst to him, dozens of stone bullets roared and fell above the two Spartan warships in the front, smashing up a column of water, and at the same time, eight or nine stone bullets accurately hit the hull.

In the "Boom! Rumble! Some of the stone projectiles hit the mast, some smashed through the deck, sawdust flew everywhere, and the exclamations and screams of the crew were intertwined.

Just when the two ships were in a panic, dozens of stone bullets flew in a whistling manner, smashing more accurately around the two almost stationary warships, and soon saw the mast break and the hull began to capsize.

After learning the lessons of the last time, and after the brainstorming of the commanders of the detachment, Sekerian specially selected today, when the wind and waves were relatively calm, as the day of the attack, and instead of scattering the 40 ballistae borrowed from the land army among the 40 warships, the five Raven warships closest to the center of the coast were horizontally and close to each other, and they were connected to each other with the Raven Drawbridge, forming a whole, and the 40 ballistae were concentrated on the decks of these ships for unified command. Using the smallest type of stone bullet (which increases the range) and concentrating on one target instead of fighting separately like last time will greatly improve the accuracy of hits.

The first two rounds of firing hit the enemy ships, which gave the soldiers of the Dionian ballista a great deal of confidence, and under the command of the officer, they continued to bombard the scattered Spartan ships one by one.

The commander of the defense of Sparta's territory was Eudamidas, the brother of Phoebidas, a highly successful general, who was standing on the shore at the moment, keeping a close eye on the enemy on the sea, he did not expect that the Dionian soldiers would go to sea so far from the coast, and stay in the sea where the ships were blocking the stakes, and join the soldiers in the small boats that were constantly coming behind, neither the warships nor the archers on the watchtowers on the shore could not attack them for the time being.

He didn't expect that the stone bullets fired from the ballistae on the Dionian ships would be so accurate today, and that within half an hour of the Spartan ships leaving the beach, seven or eight ships had either been sunk or destroyed to the point that they could not be used.

He had to give the order to let the few remaining warships run aground on the beach.

He immediately saw Dionia's ballista shoot stone projectiles again, and the target was no longer the warship, but the Spartan warriors on the shore.

He shouted urgently, "Get out of the way!" Get out of the way! ……”

After all, the last time they defended the landing, the soldiers behaved quite calmly, they looked at the direction of the stone projectile, and quickly dispersed to avoid it.

Loud stone bullets fell one after another, splashing mud and sand, but there were no casualties.

But when Dionia's ballistae turned to attack other forces on the coast, there was immediately a riot, which led to casualties.

Under such circumstances, Yodamedas had to order: "All troops should be withdrawn beyond the range of the ballistas!" ”

As a result, there was a distance of about 100 meters between the front of the Spartan army and the beach.

Yodamedas made up his mind: once he found that the enemy was about to come ashore, he led his army to quickly press forward and fight the enemy in an irregular formation, and the two sides were so close that the ballista naturally could not be effective.

Just as he was having some headaches with the new landing tactics of the Dionian army, he received two more pieces of bad news: the fortress of the Lagonda Pass was under heavy attack by thousands of Dionian soldiers from the west. At the same time, a number of Dionian soldiers appeared on the seaside path on the western headland of the Gulf of Laconia, trying to capture the fortress south of the port of Isión.

Since Agosilaus led the main force northward, and Messenia had been relatively calm, there were no more than a hundred soldiers left in these two important defensive positions, and most of the soldiers were Periasians.