The soldiers handed out shields and spears to the returning freedmen and slaves, and a small group of ten people, led by a citizen soldier, re-slaughtered the Dionian camp. If someone refused to fight or flee, the soldiers would catch them and execute them summarily to deter those who were greedy for life and feared death.

In front of these improvised formations were nearly 20,000 Syracuse soldiers and moving siege equipment. They were arranged in an extremely loose formation, carrying ladders ten meters long, pushing heavy siege equipment, and walking on the mud that had just been leveled by the freemen and slaves. Since many of them had lost their armor and shields in previous battles, each of them was now poorly equipped, almost like the freedmen in the rear, and the arrows that they had not been worried about were now the most troublesome ranged weapons. Fortunately, the rain of arrows was mostly blocked by towers, arrow blockers, and siege engines at the front of the queue.

Seeing that the stone projectiles were whizzing and falling from time to time, and the mud and sand were splashing everywhere, the soldiers of Syracuse were not as panicked as the freedmen, after all, they had seen too many ballistae attacking them, but everyone prayed "Apollo bless you, don't be the unlucky ones who are directly hit by the stone bullets." ”

"Bang!" With a loud bang, an arrow blocking cart was hit by a stone bullet, and it disintegrated immediately, and the broken wood chips also caused several slaves in the cart to be injured, which frightened the soldiers behind them subconsciously moved away from the siege equipment, and they were most worried about the ballista attack.

The Dionian light infantry heard a "rumbling" sound in front of them on the wooden wall, and the sound became louder and louder, as if a spring thunder was about to release lightning, and they all felt nervous, and the speed of bending their bows and arrows increased, and every time they heard a scream, their hearts were soothed.

Soon, there were more faint objects and figures in the white fog ahead, and when more than a dozen towers, taller than the wooden walls of the camp, emerged in front of the trenches, the Dionian soldiers were nervous because of these behemoths.

"Defense!" The heavy infantry quickly raised their long shields above their heads, forming a shield array.

A continuous crunch of "bells and ......" was heard, which was the sound of javelins thrown from the tower colliding with the central metal angle of the long shield, and a few javelins pierced the long shield, causing damage to the legionnaires. Apparently, the Syracuse knew that the archers posed little threat to the heavy infantry of Dionia, and therefore the top of the tower was full of javelinmen.

The light infantry, who had been hiding behind the Dionian heavy infantry, also immediately returned arrows and javelins to the tower eight or nine meters outside the wooden wall.

The Syracuse at the top of the tower was protected by a wooden fence, and even if an arrow fell, new light infantry would soon enter through the entrance at the rear of the tower and climb to the top by a wooden ladder to replace them.

Relying on the suppression of the tower's long-range fire, the Syracuse soldiers braved the arrows and javelins they fired to rush to the trench and put a ladder more than ten meters long on the wooden wall.

Due to the rigor of the Dionian legionnaires in building the camp, the trench they dug was four meters wide and three meters deep, and the ditch was full of sharp wooden piles. The Syracuse soldiers could not stand under the wooden walls at all, so they could only stand directly opposite the trench and carry out the ant-attached siege through the extended ladder.

The increased length of the ladder is less inclined after the wooden wall is built, which not only makes the body of the besieging soldier more exposed to the enemy's attack, but also makes the ladder easier to swing, and it is easy to fall into the trench and be pierced by the pointed wooden stake. But the Syracuse soldiers were undaunted, and they set up wooden ladders and climbed one after another to the wall.

While towers and ladders attracted the attention of the Dionian defenders, hundreds of freedmen, carrying sacks full of earth, rushed to the trench in front of the camp gate. Along the way, some people were hit by arrows and fell, but many more managed to throw sacks into the trenches.

Garrisoned by the Dionian Central Army camp were the 4th and 7th Legions of Dionia, a total of 11,000 men, all of whom rushed to the wooden wall to the east for defense. Since the walkway inside the wooden wall was not wide, the archers retreated under the wooden wall or on the watchtower, and continued to snipe at the towers outside the camp, as well as concentrate on long-range attacks on the arriving Syracuse soldiers.

On the wooden walls, heavy infantry and javelinmen were mixed forces that threw javelins at the enemy in front of the trench or on the ladder, and used shield spears to knock out the trench against the enemy who tried to climb the wall, while also protecting the javelin attacks on the towers.

When the fog gradually cleared and the sun rose in the sky, the offensive and defensive battle of the Dionian Chinese army camp entered a white heat......

………………………………

At the same time, the gates of the city leading to the main city of Syracuse on the island of Ortigia in Sicily opened, and the carriage in which Hipparinus rode and his entourage flowed out.

The island of Ortigea was originally the earliest colonial settlement of the Syracuse people, and it was not until Dillon became a tyrant that the people of the surrounding city-states were relocated to Syracuse on a large scale, reclaiming the inland areas connected to the island of Ortigia, and at the same time vigorously developing maritime trade. Since then, Syracuse has gradually become the most powerful of the Greek city-states of Sicily. By the time Dionysius became tyrant, he not only moved more of the Greek population to Syracuse, but also nearly endangered his life because of two rebellions that nearly overthrew him, and in order to protect his own life, he forcibly moved out of the original inhabitants of Ortigia and made the peninsula a residence and fortress for his family, supporters, and mercenaries loyal to him. The people of Syracuse privately jokingly called "the island of Ortigui the acropolis of Dionysius".

Felistos and Hipparinus, as loyal subordinates of Dionysius, of course also lived on the island of Ortigia, but the town hall of the entire city-state was outside the island, next to the square south of the temple of Apollo, so every day if there were no special circumstances, Felistus would rush to the city hall very early to deal with government affairs, and then return to the palace on Ortigia in the afternoon to report to Dionysius.

Hyparinus was the head of intelligence, and although he had his place in the town hall, he usually worked in his own mansion on the island of Ortigia, because it was more secretive. It was only during the time that Dionysius left Syracuse, in order to understand the situation in the city more conveniently and quickly, and to monitor these officials in the city hall nearby, he went to the city hall every day to work.

Hyparinus and his retinue had to cross an isthmus 500 meters long and 300 meters wide to enter the wide inner city of Syracuse. In the middle of this isthmus, there is a small fortress with hundreds of mercenaries, and the walls of the blockade of Ortigia are horns of each other, Dionysius can be said to have tried everything for his own safety, but the existence of this fortress also makes this not too wide passage even narrower.

The carriage in which Hipparinus was riding suddenly stopped at the exit of the isthmus, and a noise from outside reached his ears, and he hurriedly poked his head out and looked out: he saw dozens of men fighting at the mouth of the gorge, and many people were watching the excitement and even cheering, blocking the front.

"Go see what's going on?" Hipparinus said busily.

Soon his subordinates rushed back to report: "My lord, I heard that it is because today we are going to gather citizens in the square and form reinforcements from Great Greece, some citizens here have responded to the mobilization of the city-state and are about to go to the square, while others think that they will only make ...... Let this war go on without an end, so they are hindered from going, and as a result, both sides are ......"

Hyparinus looked at the dusty front in an irritated mood and scolded, "What the hell Felistus is doing?!" Send a patrol to get these people away! ”

………………………………

Felistos usually went to the town hall early in the morning to work, and today it was even earlier, because gathering citizens in the market and forming an army was a major event for the city-state, especially Syracuse was now in a special period, and it was even more important to maintain order in the city and ensure that this matter could be completed smoothly, so he had to check the preparations in detail before the citizens gathered in the square to avoid mistakes.

To the delight of Felistus, on the way to the town hall, he saw many citizens marching towards the square one after another, and it seemed that the mobilization work of Jerolis in the past two days had been fruitful, and the request of Lord Dionysius should be successfully completed!

Just as he arrives at the town hall with gratitude to Jerolis, he gets the bad news: "What did you say?!" Herrolis was beaten on the way to the town hall?! ”

"Yes, sir. I heard that several citizens were afraid to go out and resented Lord Herrolis for going around persuading the citizens to participate in this mobilization for the Plaza War, so they attacked him. ”

"Where are the others? How's the injury now?! Felistoschi asked hurriedly.

"I heard that he was hit the head, fainted to the ground, and was carried back to his house by his family, and the patrol has rushed to arrest the perpetrators."

When Felistos heard this, he couldn't sit still. In his opinion, he himself was responsible for the injury of Herolis, and if it were not for the difficult task he assigned to Herolis, which he did with all his might, Herolis would not have been resented by these citizens who were dissatisfied with Dionysius. Moreover, the task of forming an army to march in the square today is very important and risky, and it would have been much easier if Herrolis had been able to help.

Therefore, he had to visit both publicly and privately.

So, taking advantage of the fact that it was still early, he quickly arranged some simple affairs for his subordinates to complete, and then took 20 guards and hurried to the mansion of Herolis.