Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

Chapter 481: A new military unit

Although these foreign merchants, who bought land in Amendolara through auction, had produced and sold their wares and even benefited a lot from some preferential bills enacted by Theonia, except for a few such as Tios and Dicaeapolis, who joined Theonia, the rest were still hesitant and waiting. Especially after the war with Syracuse broke out, the defeat of the South Italian Alliance troops in the battle and the destruction of Amendolara's Economic Development Zone by the Tarantine cavalry had made them look down on the prospect of Theonia. If it were not for the Syracusan and Tarantine fleet blocking the Gulf of Taranto, they would have already fled by ship.

However, the return of Davos, the total annihilation of the Tarantine navy and army in one day, and the defeat of the powerful Syracusan navy, which created a miracle in the midst of the impossible, had made these foreign merchants astounded. Then they were also affected by the fanatical of the Theonians that they began to believe that Hades indeed blessed Theonia. These foreign merchants, who made trades in the Mediterranean and dared to invest in Theonia, do not lack the spirit of adventure and vision. So when they began to have hope for Theonia's prospects in this war, they were surprised to find that if Theonia really won this war, Theonia would rapidly expand as it did after their previous war. They would expand to the southern part of Magna Graecia and the eastern part of Sicily, so what does this mean to anyone doing trade in this area? The Theonia Union would have the most important trade route in the western Mediterranean under their control!

So at the instigation of Dicaeapolis and Tios, the merchants made a bold investment and entrusted Tios to deliver the list of supplies to Davos, the new king of Theonia, whom they believed to be Hades' descendant.

Davos once again carefully read the huge amount of supplies listed in the papyrus. These foreign merchants' sincerity was evident, and Davos certainly knew what they were longing for, so he said, “Tios, go back and tell them that although Theonia would never forget the traitors who stabbed us in the back when we are down! We, even more so, will never forget the friends who helped us in our most difficult times! There is an old saying in the east that says, ‘Repay a drop of water with a fountain of water!’!”

After seeing Tios go, Davos came to the training ground where the freemen recruited by Kapus were training.

Seeing the arrival of Davos, Kapus hurried towards him.

“Have all the soldiers been called?” Davos looked at the field. The training ground that could accommodate more than 30,000 men still looked empty even though a group of freemen occupied it.

“Only 2,570 men have arrived.” Kapus then explained, “The others won't be here until tomorrow morning as they had to go to the Nike Square to donate.”

Davos expressed his understanding, then he looked at the fairly neat queue on the field and asked, “Are they all freemen with more than one year of military training?”

“Your majesty, there are not many freemen in the port who we had trained. Thus I recruited the people from the logistics unit to gather 6,000 men.” Kapus said truthfully.

“Will the next supply transportations have problems?” Davos asked again.

“I left the logistics camps’ management and officers and recruited the freemen from the port to replenish their numbers. Now that we have broken Syracuse's maritime advantage, there should be no more enemies that would land behind us and attack our supply convoys, so they shouldn't have any problem in completing the transportation tasks.” Kapus explained.

“Alas, we need to tear down the east wall to mend the west wall!” Davos sighed as this war has shown him that Theonia's population resources are still short, and he has no better solution in the short time, “Send out the sarissa and have them practice the formation first.”

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

Tapirus was a slave of Cheiristoya's Restaurant, but after more than four years, he was freed of slavery and became a freeman, then the head of a restaurant in the city of Thurii. When Kapus arrived at the logistics camp to draw personnel, he was the one who volunteered to participate as it would take too long to become a citizen of Theonia through the normal method, and the only way to shorten the number of years was to participate in the battle. So despite the risk to his life and his limbs, Tapirus believe that this is a rare opportunity. Furthermore, the risk is worth taking because King Davos has returned, and this unit is what he ordered to form!

And many freemen had the same idea, and so they all joined.

Tapirus, having participated in a year and half of military training and having the ability to count and read(skills he acquired in the restaurant), was appointed as a squad leader because the veterans who should have been drawn from the legions to serve as officers at all ranks of this new unit had been disbanded and gone home, and would not return until tomorrow. Hence they were temporarily replaced by the recruits.

At this time, the city-state's slaves distributed bundles of long spears to every freeman.

‘This is the weapon we are going to use?!’ Tapirus looked at the spear in his hand in surprise because this spear was much longer than the one used for training.

After getting their own weapons, the freemen became so excited that some even waved them and struck the sarissa of those around them or the butt of the sarissa hitting their comrades next to them. For a time, the formation was chaotic and noisy.

Then a sharp salpinx immediately sounded throughout the training ground, causing the freemen to immediately stand straight. Although there were still sarissa colliding with each other, only a few made loud noises as the people, who had experienced military training, knew that if they didn't obey the order, the officers would pull out the offenders and cane them in public with their pants down, which is too degrading to their dignity.

“All of you pay attention!” Several instructors shouted in front of the queue, “Hold it like this when standing…”

Tapirus followed the instructor's posture and placed the sarissa against his left side with the sarissa's butt touching the ground, his left hand gripping the bottom shaft and his right hand across his left hand, holding the upper shaft.

After the freemen followed, the sarissa no longer collided with each other. Soon, they stood straight up like a neat and dense forest.

Davos was satisfied that the freemen could quickly master the essentials of holding the sarissa. He then happily said, “It seems that their more than a year of military training isn't wasted!”

Then the salpinx sounded again, and the flag bearer of each platoon immediately pointed the black flag in front of them.

“Forward!” Tapirus shouted. And as the drummer beat their drums rhythmically, the soldiers began moving forward with their sarissa.

But as they marched, the original neat formation became more and more uneven, resulting in the formation becoming somewhat scattered. And due to their body’s movement, the spearhead swung left and right, hitting each other and making a clattering sound.

Seeing the frowning Davos, Kapus explained, “Your majesty, there is a lot of difference in the control of the whole team because the veterans who serve as officers have all gone home. That’s why the maintenance of the formation and the execution of the orders were much worse.”

“I understand.” Davos said as he kept staring at the freemen's performance.

The salpinx sound changed again.

“Defence!” Tapirus shouted.

The advancing platoon soldiers stopped and began to gather in the centre: After the first row of soldiers thrust their sarissa straight, the next few rows of soldiers close to the front held their sarissa obliquely forward in turn until the sarissa of the sixth row could still pass through the shoulders of the first row of soldiers and form a part of the spear wall. At this time, the originally scattered formation became a dense and thick spear formation.

Davos kept frowning as he turned to Kapus and said, “Do you know why I made the freemen use this kind of long spear?”

“Because of the need to deal with Syracuse's cavalries.” Kapus said without hesitation. It is apparent that he had carefully thought about it,

“That's right! Our cavalry isn't a match against those Numidians and Celts who grew up riding horses, so I have made this sarissa to deal with the mercenary cavalries hired by Syracuse. However, what I want is not to ward off the cavalry with this rigid and stiff defensive formation but to crush the enemy cavalry with an attack!” Davos eyes gleamed as he gazed at Kapus.

Kapus was somewhat surprised as he said, “Have them attack Syracuse's cavalries with a four-metre-long spear?!”

“Yes.” Davos nodded and said, “And they are required to maintain a dense formation as much as possible while charging at the enemy. Thus they won't be equipped with armour, allowing them to be lighter and more flexible when marching and running with their sarissa in both hands.”

The long spear formation conceived by Davos wasn't the Macedonian Phalanx in his previous life as he doesn't like such clunky formation. Furthermore, Theonia already has its own heavy infantry phalanx, and its combat effectiveness is no worse than that of the Macedonian Phalanx. So what he wants to copy is the famous Reisläufer (Swiss mercenaries) in western Europe in the middle ages; These fierce mountain people could even hold a 4-meter-long spear and halberd while launching a group charge against the heavy armoured medieval heavy cavalry and even defeat the French heavy cavalry many times. Thus became famous in western Europe, becoming an important means for the medieval Swiss to make a living that even the French Royal Family and the Holy See hired them as palace guards.

“Your majesty, if you don't equip them with armour-” As the one responsible to lead them, Kapus had to remind, “I'm afraid their casualties will be great under the rain of arrows and javelins!”

“They are to protect the flanks of the whole formation and will not be arranged in the front. Besides, it's too late to make protective armour specifically for them.” Davos replied.