Chapter 203: Before the War

Chapter 203: Before the War

On the morning of the next day, the reinforcements from Scylletium and Terina has arrived, and Crotone also received information from Thurii that about 4,000 reinforcements from Amendolara have arrived in Thurii, and the Theonian citizens from the Sybaris plans has entered and gathered in the Victory Square. According to the amount of people, there are about 8,000 and they then moved into the military camp in the northern part of the city of Thurii. Afterwards, there is no longer any movement, it seems that Theonia is still waiting for the reinforcements from Nerulum and Laos.

This information had prompted Milo to take immediate action. Under his active urging, the council has passed an order to attack Thurii. Milo, the polemarchos, is the commander of the army and another strategos, Philederus, served as his adjutant. He led about 27,000 soldiers, with 20,000 of them being hoplites, and 6,500 being light infantry. Of the 6,500 light infantry, 4,000 of them were soldiers wearing light armor, leather shields and spears, but they were not capable of spear throwing(they are not a peltast unit). and they also have 800 cavalries. In addition to the regular army, they also have a large number of slaves and freemen to transport the supplies, which makes the actual number of the whole army as high as 40,000.

For this reason, Crotone has organized a large fleet in their port, and had taken them nearly three hours to load the supplies and get the soldiers on board. It wasn’t until noon that the convoy, under the escort of the fleet of Crotone, sailed northward. After passing through Krimisa, another 500 soldiers joined in, bringing the total number of combat troops to 27,500.

Because the whole process of boarding at the port of Crotone was cumbersome, protracted and chaotic, Milo became even worried that the situation would be even worse when they disembark. He and Philederus were also quite concerned about the intelligence of Teratus regarding “The shoreline of Theonia is being watched by their cavalries.”, for the sake of safety, they did not dare to land on the coast north of Roscianum, and had instead, after passing through the marsh, they immediately stopped at the place where Timasion and the mercenaries had landed a few days ago.

Milo had first let the cavalry to disembark the ship in order to expand the range of their surveillance to 1 kilometer, and then start to disembark on a large scale after confirming that there was no enemy. Countless soldiers with weapons and equipment, some have even led horses, have jumped off the transport ship and stepped into the sea and arrived at the shore, because there was no dock, the slaves and the freemen had to carry the food, tents and other materials to the shore.

The whole beach was filled with a dense number of people, and it was messy and noisy with the shouting and the neighing of the horses, and even the officers were in a hurry; The disorderly arrangement of the supplies had even affected the formation of the soldiers, so Philederus has to beat and scold the slaves…which had taken a long time to rectify all this trouble, and after all this matter, it was already dusk and everyone was dead tired.

After confirming the campsite, Milo issued an order with strict requirements: Each team must build a solid camp and arrange sentries, negligence is not allowed!

The defeat of Melanseus is a lesson that they have learned. This time, Crotone has the absolute advantage and even the opportunity to move first, and they only need to advance steadily and victory is just around the corner.

Capture Roscianum tomorrow and make it a forward base for the army and fleet of Crotone…Milo has already conceived the next military action plan in his mind, and gradually fell asleep.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

In the main tent of the camp in Thurii, Davos, the chief military officer-Philesius, the legatus of the first legion-Kapus, the legatus of the second legion-Drakos, the captain of the cavalry-Ledes were analysing the situation of the enemy.

On the wooden table was a two-meter square smooth wooden board, on which a detailed map of Magna Graecia was drawn. Philesius, who was holding a stick, pointed to the map on the board and said, “Everyone, we just received a report from our scouts, the Crotonians have sent about 30,000 soldiers and they have landed here on the coast south of Roscianum. I estimate that by tomorrow, they will attack Roscianum!”

“30,000 men?!” The cavalry captain, Ledes, took a deep breath, “I am afraid that Crotone has sent out all their citizens to deal with us!”

“30,000 men is nothing!” Exclaimed Drakos then said, “If the third legion can arrive in time, plus the freemen that we have recruited, then we will have more than 30,000 men! And even if we don’t have the 30,000 men, Crotone is not our match!”

“But the soldiers of Crotone are all citizens!” Kapus looked at Davos with a slightly worried look, “Milord, do we really not wait for the third legion to arrive and just go straight to Roscianum?”

Davos then said calmly, “We don’t have the time. This time, Crotone is determined to destroy Theonia, this is why they have prepared so much and have marched so fast! If we wait, it means that we will give up Roscianum. This will not only undermine the reputation that Theonia has just established, but it will also allow the enemy to enter the Sybaris plain, which is a violation of our previous promises! And if we were to fight the Crotonians on the plain, it is not guaranteed that we will win, and if we were to use the defense of the city wall, the war will then last longer, which is not good for us!” Davos took the stick from Philesius then pointed to the curved marked on the map of the Trionto river, and said, “So we must make full use of the river!”

As for the plan of Davos, all of them here are already clear. Philesius finally opened his mouth and asked a question, “Lord Davos, will the Crotonians rush to cross the Trionto river with their troops?! I heard that their commander, Milo, is someone with rich combat experience.”

Davos laughed and said with seriousness, “There is no guarantee that any plan can work, but Milo is now misguided with the false information that I have sent. Seeing that he is so eager to gather the troops, means that he wants to reach the city before we finish our assembly, which means that he is very likely to be caught in our trap. Naturally, if he doesn’t fall for it, then we can just go back to Thurii and fight a long defensive battle with the Crotonians!”

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“He will be tricked!” Drakos spoke of the expectations of all the officers that are present, because all of them do not want the Crotonians to set foot on the land of Theonia.

“How many cavalries do they have?” Ledes asked an important question.

“About 800.” Replied Philesius.

Ledes clenched his first, because his cavalry did not have the upper hand in terms of number or experience. So the only thing he can do is to see whether the wonderful tactics of Davos would work.

“Brothers!” Davos looked at these officers who were eager to give it a go. He knew that there was no need for him to rile them up because their morale was bound to go high. So he just calmly said, “It is already getting late. You all should go back to your respective teams and follow the previous plan! Hades will bless us and tomorrow it will all go well!”

“Roger!”

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

That night, the camp of Crotone was safe.

In the early morning of the next day, the sky was clear and rainless. Milo woke up and felt that he was relaxed and energetic, and the intelligence from Thurii was delivered in time: ‘The reinforcements from Laos and Nerulum have yet to arrive and in the afternoon, 3,000 soldiers from Thurii have rushed to Roscianum.’

The confidential report should have been sent out last night, and at the same time, the warship of Crotone have cruised the coast of Thurii in the morning and have not found any trace of large-scale military operations on the road of Thurii-Roscianum….Milo thought that the Theonians should have found out about the arrival of the army of Crotone, but they were still in the process of war mobilization, so they can only send 3,000 reinforcements. But they want to keep Roscianum  with only these 3,000 soldiers?! According to his understanding, Roscianum has only more than 4,000 soldiers, and the city-wall of the small Roscianum is less than four meters high, it is without a doubt that they will not be able to stop the army of Crotone from crossing the Trionto river and taking Roscianum. Milo even hopes that Roscianum would send all their army to stop them from crossing the river so that he can inflict the greatest damage on them in the wild and easily capture Roscianum. The weather and the situation of the enemy is favourable for Crotone, this is the blessing of Apollo! Crotone must seize this opportunity while Theonia has not yet completed their war mobilization and their army has not yet been assembled and arrived. He must quickly cross the Trionto river, take Roscianum as soon as possible, and then fight with the army of Theonia!

Milo immediately discussed it with Philederus and made a plan for crossing the river.

Under the further urging of Milo, the army was then quickly re-arranged, of which 22,000 soldiers were led by Milo and marched northwest: The other 4,500 soldiers and 500 cavalries, led by Philederus, will march north.

There are two ideal walking places for the Trionto river: The first one is located in the middle reaches of the river, it is not only shallow and flat, but the length you can traverse is more than a kilometer, this was the place where Davos crossed when he attacked Melanseus. The other is located downstream, and it is just west of Roscianum, with short reaches but has deep depth.

The plan of Crotone to cross the river is for the five thousand men led by Philederus to contain and attract the enemy, but they will not cross the river immediately. Instead, the army led by Milo will be crossing the wider section of the river first.

The army of Crotone led by Milo formed a column of eight with a length of 2 kilometers.

The ears of Milo, who was in the center, is filled with the sound of noisy footsteps and armor collision….however, he felt it extremely pleasant, because the huge army gave him sufficient confidence and have even given him a leisure time to think about something: Both the cities of Roscianum and Krimisa were built on the north bank of the river, this is because they were the child city-states of Sybaris and so they were closer to Sybaris and were on guard against Crotone. ‘After this war, we should force them to move their city to the southern bank! As for Thurii…if everything goes well, I don’t mind destroying it for the fourth time!’

“Reporting, our scouts that have crossed the river were surrounded by the enemies’ cavalry, four have died and only two have managed to escape and return back.”

“Have they discovered anything?”

“They saw thousands of enemies marching along the north bank.”

‘Thousands? Are they following us?’ Milo thought for a moment and said, “Has Philederus reached their destination?”

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