Chapter 20 Memories of Maple's Past (1)

Two races with the same ancestry because of this river have an unresolvable hatred, when the Pucherti, under the leadership of King Tremoni, put aside their previous prejudices and formed an alliance with the Mesapis. , the strength of the Puchetti people is growing rapidly, they quickly regained the previously lost Canusian city (), and they also crossed the Ofanto River several times and invaded the land on the north bank.

When the Downeys were worried about the increasingly powerful opponents in the south, six years ago, amazing news came from the south: Puchetti, the century-old enemy, was defeated by a kingdom called Dionia, and King Tremonis died in battle! After a few more years, the territory of the Puchetti people of Nuoda completely changed their owners.

Although the Dawneys had previously known that Dionia was a powerful kingdom and that the whole of southern Italy was its domain, they had always taken it in stride, and even some Dawneys considered the Dionias their friends because Dionia had fought the Puchetti many times in the past, even defeating the Maple coalition seven years ago. But the Downeys finally panicked when the Dionysians conquered Puchetti and extended their territory to the south bank of the Ovanto River.

When the Dawny messenger trembled into the grand hall of Turii, King Dionia received him warmly, and readily agreed to sign a two-year friendly peace agreement with Dawny.

The Downeys put down their worries and spent two years easily. When they proposed to renew the contract again, this time the Dionysian Senate made a request-let Downey transfer the north bank of the Ovanto River. The coastal lands were assigned to Dionia. Their reason is that the Puchetti people have always insisted that these lands belonged to them originally, but were later seized by the Dauni people, and now the Puchetti people have become a member of the people of the Kingdom of Dionia, Dio Nia has reason to seek justice for her own citizens.

Of course the Downeys couldn't agree to this request, so the contract failed, the negotiations broke down, and the war started.

………………………………

As a Pucherti, Ellems has experienced and witnessed the turbulence and changes in the past few years that his peaceful first half of his life is far incomparable:

More than ten years ago, King Tremonis launched the largest attack on the Daunis, which ended in a disastrous defeat and lost the important town of Canusian on the south bank of the Ovanto River. During that time, Ellems experienced In the most difficult period, not only was there a lack of food and food, but he was also worried about the further invasion of the Downey people. Fortunately, Tremoni recognized the reality, and took the initiative to submit Successive setbacks.

Just when Ellems and his comrades thought their day was coming, Dionia's army appeared. In the battle of the Anlern Hills, Ellems and his comrades were forcibly defeated by the Dionysians while occupying the land. Although the loss was not large, it gave them self-proclaimed bravery a chance against Dionia. Fear, forcing the Maple coalition to sign a truce with Tarantum,

Only then did the Dionysians leave the Apulia region, and both the Puchetti and the Mesapis were relieved.

In the following years, with the help of Meshapi and the nourishment of Brindisi's maritime trade, Puchetti gradually recovered his strength. Thon also took up arms and went to battle... This time they were victorious, recapturing the city of Canusian and driving the Dawny back to the north bank of the Ovanto River.

Just as Tremonis was about to lead his army to continue to attack the northern shore of Ovanto, the Messapies sent messengers to invite their king to join forces to attack Tarantum. It turned out that Tarantum had foolishly tore up the covenant with Dionia, and even sent troops to attack Dionia. As a result, he suffered a disastrous defeat, and almost all the soldiers who went on the expedition could not escape. Moreover, the Dionians were attacked by another force stronger than it, and it was difficult to say whether they could win. Even ordinary people like them thought this was a great opportunity, and of course King Tremony readily agreed with the Mesapi people's suggestion. When the news came out, Ellems and the rest of the country cheered. After all, the Tarantums were much better and richer than the Downeys.

Ellems went out with the army again. The Maple Coalition Army really easily occupied a large area of ​​Tarantum's land and pressed into the city of Tarantum. Although sieging the city is a headache, but they have an army of 40,000 people, but there are not many Tarantum soldiers in the city. Elems saw with his own eyes that there were even old men and young men on the city head as soldiers to defend them from attacking. city. After seeing this situation, Ellems and his comrades in arms all had confidence in the final capture of Tarantum City, but after more than ten consecutive days of attack, Tarantum City remained standing. Especially afterward, a strange phenomenon appeared. Every time they attacked until dusk, they felt that the Tarantum people were almost unstoppable. The defenders at the head of Tiancheng seemed to have changed again, full of fighting spirit and strength.

At this time, there was also a message in the camp that "The Dionysians have completely defeated their enemies", and some people saw Dionysian messengers enter the central tent of the Maple coalition. Ellems later learned that the messenger had come to give an ultimatum to withdraw their troops immediately, because Tarantum had become the "free city" of Dionia.

Elems still didn’t understand what a “free city” was, but he knew that King Tremoney and the consuls of Mesapi must be very unwilling, so he launched the largest scale the next day. The siege of the city, but the number of defenders at the head of Tarantum almost doubled, and the final result of course ended in failure. The actions of the Maple coalition apparently angered the Dionians, and the next day came bad news "their combined fleet was attacked by the Dionian navy in the Gulf of Taranto, and only five warships fled. battlefield."

The Tremonians and the Meshapi finally decided to retreat before the Dionian army returned to Turii. When the news came, Ellems and his comrades breathed a sigh of relief. They were tired of constantly climbing the city wall but unable to fight face to face with the enemy, and from the bottom of their hearts, they were unwilling to fight with the terrible. The Dionians fight.

For the next few years, Ellems lived a very peaceful life, save for the occasional trip across the river with the tribal leader to invade the Daoli people. But he knew that King Tremoni and those big men were not comfortable. Although Dionysus had always maintained no offense to Puchetti, but he also repeatedly rejected Puchetti and the messengers of Messapi." Form an alliance with Dionia or sign a friendly agreement". Ellems clearly felt the unease of the tribal leaders. They not only called the tribe more often for military training, but even forced a tribe like him who was over 35 years old and whose physical strength began to decline to participate.

The judgment of the king and the chiefs was correct. Four years after the siege of Tarantum, Dionia declared war on Puchetti and Messapi. The reason for declaring war was "to tear up the armistice for these two races. Agreement and a joint attack on Tarantum to get justice."

Every time Ellems thought about it, he was amused. Didn't Tarantum also tear up the covenant and attack Dionia? Did Dionia want justice for Tarantum? ! However, considering that Tarantum has become the city of the Kingdom of Dionia, of course, the Dionysians can only aim their revenge on the independent Puchetti and Messapi.

Elems, who is almost 40 years old, like his former comrades in arms, under the inspiration of the slogan of "defend the homeland", picked up the shield and spear again and went to the front line.

After a period of preparation, rendezvous, marching, reconnaissance, small-scale battles..., the Maple coalition finally decided to fight the Dionysians in the Brindisi territory.

Ellems will never forget that day. The Maple Coalition Army has indeed made careful preparations in recent years. The number of soldiers is as high as 60,000. This is a huge army that Elems has never seen in his life. The soldiers are lined up from north to south, endless... …And the number of Dionia soldiers on the opposite side is larger, and they are all uniform armor and weapons, standing there quietly, like a hard black reef by the sea, which is daunting...

Puchetti and Mesapi warriors have never been good at defense, so as soon as the horn sounded, everyone roared and charged forward...

Then the bows and arrows that covered the sky and the sun shot wave after wave from the opposite side, seemingly endless...

Then came the more powerful rain of javelins...

Elems watched helplessly as his comrades beside him kept falling to the ground with arrows. The originally thick army formations were shot out one by one, like the bark of the tree that was bitten by insects and ants.

Then he heard the enemy roar in unison and began to charge, like a dark cloud before a storm pressing down on them, making him so nervous that his breath was about to stop, and his palms were sweaty.

The two armies collided in a bloody fight. With their blood and courage, the young and vigorous warriors in the front row of the Puchetti Army continued to attack the steel formation built by the Dionian soldiers. However, like the raging tide and anger reefs, it was in vain in the end.

After more than half an hour, the Dionysian army remained motionless, and they were slowly retreating. Ellems, who was in the back, could hear most of the screams coming from the Puchetti warriors from the noisy killing sound, so he was terrified.

When he heard a soldier shouting in panic, "The enemy is coming from the flank!", he turned around and fled without hesitation. The comrades beside him are all the same as him, making the same choice.