Before the messenger of Crotone arrived, Myron had already received the news from the warships patrolling along the coast of Crimissa: the Diónia had invaded the Croton Plain!
Myron was shocked and thought to himself, 'I've been tricked by the Diónia. No wonder they never attacked the city. It turns out that they were just trying to attract my attention. The Diónia in the southern camp have already gone south!'
However, he was a little hesitant to attack the southern camp of Diónia. After all, the Diónia army was just below the city. Once he mobilized the army, they could see it clearly from the high platform. If he took the opportunity to attack and lost Crimissa, it would be even more troublesome!
… …
The siege of Asprustom was in full swing. Fagris did not expect the Diónia to attack so fiercely and fearlessly.
The ladder was knocked over by the push pole and was quickly put up again. The soldiers climbed up the ladder one by one. When the first one was smashed down, the second one did not hesitate to speed up. The light infantry brigade approached the city. Unafraid of arrows, they also threw javelins and arrows at the defenders on the city wall …
The fierce offensive of the Diónia quickly achieved results. The defense of the city wall was breached many times. When the Diónia soldiers went up to the top of the city wall, the defenders found that these Diónia soldiers in Greek-style armor were tall and strong, with long hair draped over their shoulders and a strange roar. They were obviously not Greeks. They fought fiercely and had great strength. To kill or drive away one of them, the defenders had to sacrifice the lives of several soldiers.
Fagris had to send reserves many times to help the frontline defenders drive the enemies down the city wall, especially the rightmost section of the city wall, where the Diónia attacked the most fiercely.
General Fagris, who had some experience in defending a city, knew that the Diónia could not maintain such a fierce offensive momentum all the time. As long as they could hold on for a while, the Diónia would be powerless. Therefore, he sent all the reserves up while shouting at the soldiers to encourage them to fight bravely.
However, he did not know that at the most critical moment of the battle, Hieronymus, the commander of the Third Army, gave an order. His personal guards lined up in a row and collectively waved their round shields at the left side of the city wall.
The leftmost garrison on the city wall was focused on defending against the enemy's attack. Suddenly, a loud shout came from behind, "Attack!!!"
The "Crotone people" that they saw as comrades stabbed at them with their swords and spears, easily taking care of the defenders. Before the Legio III soldiers could come up, the dozens of scouts immediately attacked the defenders nearby …
When Fagris, who was still commanding the battle on the right side of the city wall, received the news, the Diónia soldiers had already captured the left side of the city wall. A large number of soldiers quickly climbed the battlements, jumped into the walkway, and aggressively charged toward the middle section …
The morale of the Crotone soldiers was low to begin with. They immediately threw down their shields and spears and ran for their lives into the city.
This run immediately triggered a domino effect. Under the fierce attack of the Diónia soldiers in front and on the sides, the defenders finally collapsed. They scrambled to escape from the city wall, but the walkway to the lower city was blocked. The panicked defenders jumped directly from the seven-meter-high city wall into the city, breaking their legs and heads. All of them lay on the ground and wailed.
The people in the city were equally terrified. They shouted in horror, "The enemy is attacking the city! The enemy is attacking!! … "
They carried the old and the young, hurriedly trying to escape from the south gate and escape to Crotone.
Halfway through the journey, the Crotone reinforcements happened to run into the people who were fleeing in a hurry. When they learned that the city of Asprostum had fallen, they were shocked and did not dare to move forward. They immediately turned around and ran back.
… …
The Crotone messengers rushed to Crimissa and brought the order to attack from the council.
Myron, who was no longer the chief general but a sinner, finally ended his hesitation. He sent 7,000 soldiers, including more than 2,000 heavy infantry, to attack the Diónia camp on the south bank of the Umbria River.
The Devers who observed the enemy's movements from the high platform immediately ordered the First Battalion Commander of the Second Legion, Adrianx, to lead 2,000 heavy infantry and 500 light infantry across the river to reinforce the Third Legion. The First Legion Commander, Martonis, who was stationed at the South Camp, led the 2,000 soldiers. With a strong camp and the North Camp ready to reinforce, Martonis was confident that he could repel the invading enemy.
However, the Crotone attack was loud but small. After suffering some losses from traps such as "spikes" and "meat hooks" in front of the camp, they immediately retreated back to the city. Of course, Myron would not use the only fighting force of the Crotone to attack the heavily guarded camp of Diónia. The soldiers also lacked the courage to attack. As soon as they found out that the camp was heavily guarded, he blew the bugle to retreat.
The messengers of the Crotone were angry at the easy retreat of the troops and forced Myron to continue the attack. Otherwise, they would threaten to dismiss Myron from his position as commander. However, the soldiers expressed their support for Myron. The messengers were alone and had no choice but to leave Crimissa and return to the Crotone Council to complain.
However, the Crotone Council was in a mess at this time. The shocking news of "Diónia had seized Asplustom" was like a bolt from the blue, and all the council members were stunned. Outside the council hall, the people gathered in the square, clamoring for the council to quickly come up with a solution to the crisis.
This time, the call for peace talks was far louder than before. Some even said that they could accept Diónia's conditions, as long as peace was restored to the northern plains of Crotone.
While the council was still debating about the peace talks, two consecutive events finally made them come to a decision. First, when the 500 soldiers of the Diónia Legio III crossed the Tachinati River and entered the core area of the Crotone Plains, they once approached Ciudad Crotone, although they soon retreated to the city of Asplustom. However, this shocking scene still shocked the guards and people in the city. Just when the whole city was in panic, a passenger ship from Corunna entered the port of Crotone, and the messengers of Corunna disembarked from the ship brought an even worse news: Rockley had declared war on Corunna! Their army was already marching towards Corunna, and the messengers were here to ask for help from Crotone.
The thing that the council of Crotone was most worried about had finally happened: their mortal enemy, Rockley, took advantage of the fact that Crotone was in a quagmire of war to attack Crotone's allies. As the leader of the alliance, Crotone was duty-bound to send reinforcements. However, at this moment, the people of Crotone were already unable to deal with Diónia's attack, and they did not have any extra troops to help Corunna. Without the support of Crotone, Corunna would not be able to stop the attack of Rockley's allies. This meant that Crotone would face the worst situation of war, where they would be attacked from both sides, and Crotone would be in danger of being destroyed!
All the members of the council immediately stopped quarreling and quickly reached a consensus: to reach peace talks with Diónia as soon as possible!
Lucias had no choice but to set off to the north again. In order to prevent his attitude from being too forceful and causing the negotiations to fail, he was accompanied by another messenger, the member of the council, Sisprotis. (He was the one who said that no matter what condition Diónia proposed, as long as it could restore peace to the Crotone Plains, they should agree to it.)
… …
At this moment, in the main tent of Diónia's camp, there was a joyous atmosphere. The news that "Legio III has captured Asprostom" excited every general.
"Lord Commander, we should take advantage of the fact that Asprostom and Crotone are in a panic to launch an attack on Crimissa. We will definitely be able to take it down smoothly!" Drax said eagerly. As the commander of the Second Legion, his army's achievements could not fall behind Legio III's.
"Asprostom is already ours. There's not much meaning for Crotone to hold on to Crimissa anymore. I'm afraid they will soon give up on Crimissa. We can easily take it, there's no need to sacrifice the lives of our soldiers to attack it, "Capus said cautiously.
"But letting these ten thousand Crotone retreat will only make it more difficult for us to attack Ciudad Crotone!" Drax retorted loudly.
Capus was speechless for a moment. Indeed, Crotone was a big city. Not only was the city vast, but it also had a large population. The city walls were ten meters high and the moat was six meters wide. According to the conventional strategy, it was destined to be a long siege battle. However, the sea was not under Diónia's control. They could not completely seal off Crotone, so they could only attack. But against such a strong city, how many lives would they have to sacrifice? Could they take it down? Almost all the generals' hearts were beating like drums. If the forces defending the city were strengthened, then the chances of winning would be even slimmer.
Daves, on the other hand, looked calm. He turned his head and asked, "Lord Avinogees, what do you think we should do next?"
After entering the military tent, other than congratulating the Devers on their victory again, Avinogees, who had been observing silently, faced the gazes of Dracos and Capus. He did not refuse and said directly, "Why must we attack Ciudad Crotone? Since we have such a big advantage now, why can't we force the Crotone to negotiate with us? "
"The Crotone are already dying. Wouldn't it be too easy for them to negotiate with them!" Drax immediately objected.
Capus fell into deep thought.
A smile appeared on the Devers' lips. The perspective of a consul was still different from a simple general!
Just as he was about to speak, the guard captain, Martius, entered and brought two letters.
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