A week later, the area around Argos was also swept away by Sparta and firmly controlled.

The nobles and citizens of Argos, who were originally high-ranking in the Argos, were captured in a total of 136,000 people, and all of them became black laborers, and they were the lowest kind, lower than the original million black laborers in Sparta; for 20 years, Sparta did not allow them to join the Spartan militia, which means that for 20 years, they will not be able to obtain military exploits, and they will not have the opportunity to be promoted to civilians and get rid of slavery status like the original black laborers.

The slaves who originally belonged to the lowest level of Argos were about 170,000, and their status was also changed to black laborers; However, after careful consideration of the status, there was still a rise, not only to bully the nobles and citizens of the former Argos, but also to get the opportunity to join the Spartan militia, so as to embark on the road of struggle for civilian status.

The capture of the Argos region added more than 300,000 people to Sparta; 25 triremes were captured intact, which made the Spartan naval boss Yuri Biad feel better, and the size of the fleet of 66 warships soared to 91 ships.

What happened in Argos soon spread throughout the Peloponnese, and gradually throughout Greece; Madonios, the commander of the Persian Western Expeditionary Army, who was far away in Thessaly and licking his wounds, also learned the news.

After a bloody struggle for the throne, Xerxes' son, Artaxerxes, had ascended the throne of Emperor of the Persian Empire with the title of Artaxerxes I; This result, across the Aegean Sea, reached the ears of Madonios, who fished every day in the port of Volos, was a sigh of relief, good news!

If other forces ascended the throne of the Persian emperor, there would have been no good ending for the defeated Madonios; But Artaxerxes liked to play behind his uncle, that is, Madonios's buttocks, since he was a child, and he had a good relationship. The news arrived at the same time as the correspondence of Artaxerxes I; Sure enough, the new emperor showed great generosity, and did not deprive the military of power or anything, but comforted him in his letters, and emphasized that he must send troops and horses to support Madonios and continue to conquer Greece.

Conquest of Greece?

Madonhos certainly wanted to, and very much; It's just that Madonhos hasn't come up with a good way yet, and it's really not cost-effective to just use people to pile up.

And now these hateful Greeks are actually fighting themselves!

Meddlesome!

Madonhos was thrilled; Let the Greeks beat themselves, with countless internal frictions, until they are crippled; In that case, with a large Persian army, he could easily conquer the whole of Greece.

As soon as he threw the fishing rod, Madonhos immediately returned to the camp; Don't miss out on this opportunity.

The same news reaches the ears of different people, and the results are completely different.

The two city-states of Geetia and Mantinia immediately announced that they would join Sparta, and it would be better to be protected than to be slaves with their whole families!

Leonidas and the king's army together,

All the nobility of these two regions were incorporated into the Spartan aristocracy in the same way as the Arcadians were absorbed; The Spartan Senate, on the other hand, provided five seats for each of these two districts, allowing them to choose their own people; Of course, the king's and military posts are also wooden. Compared to the Arcadians, the Spartan Senate gave them 3 less councilor positions, and the two city-states of Geetia and Mantinia were not easy to squeak, who made them not as good as the Arcadians.

In the same way as the citizens of Arcadia, the citizens of the two city-states of Geetia and Mantinia were incorporated into the third and fourth classes of Sparta according to their original status; Second-class citizens? None of them are discussed.

The population of these two city-states is not large, about the same as Argos, about 300,000; For Sparta, the benefits were huge, and another 600,000 people came in. The armies of Geetia and Mantinia were professional armies, but they were not large, with only 12,000 men combined, and they were directly integrated into the Spartan Wehrmacht sequence.

The navies of both city-states had lost a small half of the battle of Salami, and had not yet been replenished, but together there were 31 triremes; The Arcadian Navy repaired the only 18 remaining warships, which were also incorporated into the Spartan Navy during this time; Yuri Bister is now smiling from ear to ear, 140 warships are big and small, enough to challenge the Athenian Navy!

In a short period of time, Sparta's power skyrocketed and became a well-deserved Greek overlord.

Other city-states, such as Athens, were quick to mobilize for war; Under the impetus of the Athenians, most of the Greek city-states were closely connected with each other, and the Delian League, which had been planned by Athens for a long time, finally officially operated; And the last two city-states of the Peloponnese, Corinth and Ahamia, under the influence of Athens, openly announced their membership in the Delian League.

For the incessant tossing and turning of Athens, the royal army did not care, and Leonidas did not take the Delian League seriously; Leonidas had lately been brainwashed with the soldiers of the Royal Guard, saying that he had to strategically defy the enemy; Wang Jun said that he was very innocent about this, Leonidas was obviously a little proud, and used some knowledge learned from Wang Jun as a shield, in fact, this thing was only half-understood.

The Spartans did not pay attention to cultural education, which gave Wang Jun a headache, he was uneducated, and sometimes it was very scary!

Leonidas began to be proud because he did have the capital of pride.

Administratively, present-day Sparta had five administrative districts: Lacnia, Messenia, Arcadia, Argos, and Ellis (formed by the merger of the two city-states of Geetia and Mantinia); In terms of population, the total population of Sparta exceeded the 3 million mark, which is an increase of 100%. In addition, Sparta also obtained many natural harbors, such as the Bay of Argolis and the Gulf of Ionia, which allowed Sparta to get rid of the dilemma of having only one bay of Laconia; The old nest of the Athenian navy, the entire western coast of Salami Bay and a number of nearby islands, fell into the hands of Sparta.

These exploits alone were enough for Leonida to become the greatest king in the history of Sparta, and it is indeed not an exaggeration to have a little pride; Besides, Sparta's current military strength has also been greatly improved, which makes Leonidas even more beautiful.

After being incorporated into the two city-states again, Sparta did not choose to continue to expand, but spent some time reorganizing its army; At the same time, there were also modifications or crafting of various ordnance.

In the Army, the total number reached 92,000.

10,000 Spartan Royal Guards;

36,000 Spartan Wehrmacht, which included the Arcadians, Gityans, and Mantinians;

40,000 Spartan militia;

30 large trebuchets, matched by 3,000 trebuchet troops, made up entirely of black laborers who became civilians;

3,000 longbowmen, the longbows are all imitations of the special longbows in the hands of the king's army.

As for the navy, the total number reached more than 40,000 people.

50 large 101-class warships;

90 triremes of the 201 class.

However, none of the warships purchased for the navy were launched; Don't look at it as a wooden battleship, because even if it is a triremma battleship, this size is not small, and it takes a long time to build; Because he was in a hurry to prepare for the war of conquest, Wang Jun simply suspended the construction of new warships, and put all the craftsmen and technicians into the transformation of the old warships, and completed the surprise transformation in a hurry.

A professional army of 132,000 men is an absolute force of terror for Greece; And it is not easy to feed such an army, or rather, it is very difficult, not counting the need to requisition many black laborers to provide services in wartime! If it weren't for the fact that the total population of Sparta had rapidly increased to more than 3 million, and more than half of the population was black laborers who consumed very few resources, Wang Jun really couldn't handle this matter.

No one knew that the black hand of the Persians had quietly reached into the cloudy Greece.

The secret envoy sent by Madonios has already connected with the Athenian boss Timistocles.

If you were to ask Madonios which Greek city-state he hated the most, he would have chosen Athens; The first expedition to Greece was defeated at the plain of Marathon against the Athenian army; In the second expedition to Greece, the emperor died at the hands of the Spartans, but the military defeat was in the northern suburbs of Athens and the Gulf of Salami, which were still closely related to the Athenians; Of course, the second thing that attracted the hatred of Madonhos was Sparta.

For the sake of the empire, in order to pacify Greece, Madonios must let go of the hatred in his heart and choose to support the Athenians he hates the most; As long as Athens can fight with Sparta and make a lose-lose situation, Madonios can agree to anything.

History has come to this point, and there has been a change in the surname of the drama.

Originally, the Spartans gave up their position, pulled in with the Persians, and finally succeeded in dominating Greece; And now, the Persians are actually eye-to-eye with the Athenians, is this because the plug-in thinks that the royal army is too nourishing?

Themistocles hated the Persians very much, but now he was short of money!

The Persian envoy brought with him a large amount of gold coins, as well as a "friendly" agreement of non-aggression between the two sides.

The "friendship" agreement can allow Athens to put aside its worries, and can gather the members of the Delian League to let go of their hands and feet and fight Sparta; A large amount of gold coins that can speed up the expansion of the Athenian army and navy.

War, even if it is a war in the era of cold weapons, is still fighting for resources, and sometimes, fighting for money; Timistocles did not have much choice and accepted Madonhos's "good intentions".

Because the Spartans were consolidating armaments and training armies, this gave the Delian League a lot of time, and Themistocles desperately expanded its armaments and integrated the resources of the alliance's city-states; Of course, Themistocles did not put his hopes in the army, he was born in the navy, especially after tasting the sweetness of the Battle of Salami, Timistocles put all his hopes in the navy.

The Spartans abducted many craftsmen and technicians, and also robbed the navy of the spoils, 50 large warships; However, Themistocles did not think that such a Persian ship could be of much help to the Spartans; In addition, the Spartans wanted to build new warships, and the time was not ordinarily long.

Time passed in the process of intense preparations for war between the two sides, and before you knew it, the calendar had turned to March 3, 479 BC.

140 Spartan warships, through the heavy morning mist, appeared on the sea west of the city of Patras, the northernmost city in the Peloponnese.

Patras, the capital of Ahamia, borders the Gulf of Patras, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Gulf of Corinth to the east.

Ahamia became the first person to move after Sparta completed the whole army.

As early as February, 2,000 Spartan Royal Guards, 7,000 Spartan Wehrmacht, 8,000 Spartan militia, 3,000 slingers, 3,000 longbowmen, a total of 23,000 Spartan Army, quietly assembled at the junction of the administrative district of Ellis and Ahamia;

Leonidas, with 30,000 troops, sat in the city of Argos to prevent the Delian League from launching a surprise attack from Corinth; The rest of the army, which was distributed in the key cities and port areas of other administrative districts of Sparta, served as guards.

Yuri Biad went to Patras Bay with all the warships to cooperate in the battle, strictly speaking, this is definitely a knife to kill chickens; The royal army preferred that certain ports be invaded by the fleets of the Delian League, rather than that the Spartan navy would be crushed by the Delian League due to the dispersion of its forces. The original port is very simple, and if it is destroyed, it will be destroyed, and reconstruction is not a big deal; In addition, a powerful army was on the coast, and the troops of the Delian League simply did not dare to land easily.

The Spartan army and navy of the northern expedition to Ahamia arrived on the outskirts of the city of Patras almost at the same time.

Yuri Biard, who plans to show his strength, is very irritable, because since Mao became strong from the Spartan navy, it is so difficult for him to want to fight?

Ahamia's navy was very vigilant, and even if the Spartan fleet came through the fog, they still discovered it early; Ahamia's naval construction is impressive, with 36 triremes, which can also rank in the top 5 in the whole of Greece; However, seeing that the Spartan fleet was far superior to itself, the Ahamia fleet immediately left the harbor and fled along the strait into the Gulf of Corinth.

Without the orders of the king's army, Yuribiade was not allowed to pursue, and had to sullenly drain the waters of the bay of Patras; Anyway, the Gulf of Corinth is equal to a dead end, and if the Ahamia fleet wants to come out, it must pass through here.

23,000 Spartan troops, all lined up south of the city of Patras; The left end is against the coastline, and the right end is next to the high mountain peaks; The city of Patras is accessible by land in one direction, to the south.

Astinos stood at the head of the longbowmen, his head held up proudly, and looked at the distant walls; Since he was pulled out of the Wehrmacht by the royal army, the handsome blonde man has become the boss of 2,999 longbowmen, and the youngest general in the history of Sparta. The soldiers in this team come from a variety of sources, some from the Wehrmacht and some from the militia; They have one trait in common, they are all tall.

Longbow, Astinos has seen Wang Jun's miraculous long-range precision shooting, and 300 meters away can also pierce the round shield of Spartan warriors; It can be said that the royal army subverted the values of all royal guard warriors about bows and arrows, and who said that bows and arrows are useless?

Including Astino, 3,000 longbowmen practiced all night in order to be able to catch up with the battle to conquer Ahamia, so that the opponents who chose to be the enemy of Sparta could experience the furious arrows.