Now, with the two tigers locked in a fierce struggle, the outcome remains uncertain. It would be unwise for our army to prematurely choose sides.
To be on the safe side, it is better to wait and see. Once you see clearly, it is not too late to take action.
Although doing so does smack of betrayal.
However, in troubled times, strength is respected.
As long as the 1.5 million troops at my disposal are still there, no side would dare to do anything to me after this tragic victory!
"How dare you! Drag this guy who is disrupting the morale of the army out and chop him up!" Thinking of this, Ptolemy gave a loud order.
Since he had no intention of falling out with Agamemnon for the time being, it would be better if as few people knew about his secret agreement with King Stobi as possible.
This messenger clearly showed his dissatisfaction with his decision, and keeping him would be a disaster.
It would be more appropriate to just eliminate the person physically and destroy the direct evidence.
What if King Stoby wins a tragic victory?
At worst, I can just go and mediate in person, right?
"You are such a tyrant! You are betraying our Egyptian soldiers and putting them in dire straits! I really misjudged you..."
As the guards dragged him away, the messenger cursed loudly all the way until he was beheaded.
Although the Egyptian soldiers in the camp did not understand what exactly had happened, they could understand the messenger's emotions.
Everyone felt the same way, knowing that their king might have made a wrong choice.
After waiting for a long time, Agamemnon was quite surprised that Ptolemy did not come, and only the messenger he sent returned alone.
When asked, the messenger replied that the king of Egypt said that his soldiers were in very poor condition and were not suitable for participating in such a brutal battle and needed to be recuperated.
Was the war brutal?
Not suitable to participate?
Hearing this bizarre reason, Agamemnon became furious.
The battle was indeed more brutal than expected. However, you can't let all my soldiers fight just because it was so brutal!
Are we still allies?
You know, it was actually my Peloponnesian League who was watching the fight from afar at the beginning!
When we join the battle, we are actually helping you fight!
And now what!
Instead, you feel relaxed and can just watch the show from the sidelines!
If I don't teach you a lesson, do you think I, Agamemnon, am easy to fool?
Thinking of this, Agamemnon didn't even want to launch a frontal attack. He wanted to send 500,000 people to turn their guns and teach Ptolemy a lesson.
However, with the persuasion of his subordinates, he finally managed to suppress the anger in his heart.
A mere Egyptian king who fled here is not a cause for concern at all.
At worst, we can report to the Spartan King Leonidas and ask him to send more troops to deal with it.
The real important thing now is to take the opportunity to kill King Stobi!
Otherwise, once he successfully returned to the Great North, he would mobilize hundreds of people to respond. Not only himself, but even the Spartan King Leonidas would be in big trouble!
"Forget it. It doesn't matter if their rubbish troops don't come. At least, our army has reinforcements, which will put psychological pressure on King Stobi. We should rely on ourselves!" Agamemnon said hatefully after thinking about it.
At this point, Agamemnon also found that the Egyptians were unreliable.
There are plenty of ways to deal with the Egyptians later. For now, the most important thing is to keep them stable and prevent them from being stabbed in the back.
To be on the safe side, Agamemnon sent out 100,000 troops to defend between himself and the Egyptians to prevent being attacked from behind.
At the same time, orders were given to the entire army on the front battlefield to launch a second offensive.
Instead of waiting for the Egyptians to take action, they faced another round of enemy attacks. Xia Zhe, Antigonus and others all scolded Ptolemy for being unfaithful.
But no matter how much you curse, you still have to defend yourself.
After another day of fierce fighting, the Cretan militia retreated to the third line of defense. Unsurprisingly, Agamemnon's army lost over 100,000 men.
At night, Antigonus urgently summoned the main generals for a meeting. Xia Zhe, the supreme leader, was also present.
After two days of bloody fighting, Agamemnon lost more than 200,000 people, and Antigonus's losses were even greater.
Although the Cretan militia used bows and arrows, not many people were directly attacked.
However, watching the enemy soldiers charging at him like devils under a hail of arrows was a terrifying feeling of mental oppression.
After two days, four or five hundred thousand of the Cretan militia were so frightened that they fled.
In addition to the 60,000 regular troops at the front, there were also more than 10,000 casualties.
Now Antigonus could no longer gather three million men.
What's more troublesome is that the huge amount of arrows that have been painstakingly produced over the past few days are about to run out.
Once the suppression of arrows was lost, the Cretan militia would collapse in an instant if those elite troops got close to them!
There was another thing which Antigonus did not dare to mention during the meeting.
That is the ambiguous attitude of the Egyptian Legion.
It is true that they did not participate in the battle, but they also did not put pressure on Agamemnon's army from the rear as promised.
The generals did not understand the reason and were glad that the enemy did not deploy all its forces "at once".
Only Xia Zhe, Antigonus and Minos knew that this was not a good thing, but a bad thing.
If their own side could no longer hold out and Agamemnon's army achieved a breakthrough, the Egyptians would likely turn against them and immediately choose sides, joining Agamemnon's army and abandoning the Cretans.
"I have a proposal. Our army can hold out for one more day at most! If nothing significant happens tomorrow, we will withdraw from the battle and surrender Knossos to Agamemnon. This battle was my mistake, and I accept the responsibility. What do you think, my king?"
After listening to the generals' assessment of the situation and thinking for a while, Antigonus apologetically proposed a new plan.
In fact, it was not Antigonus' fault that the Egyptians were treacherous.
However, he did underestimate the two main arms of the Peloponnesian League in the early stages.
The deployment was expected to be able to repel 700,000 to 800,000 enemy troops, but now it seems that it has already exceeded the expected level by only consuming half of the 500,000 enemies.
However, Antigonus understood in his heart.
The Battle of Crete was just a small battlefield in the grand strategy of fighting for the entire world.
Since he had lost miserably here, as long as he could follow King Stoby, he would still have plenty of opportunities to rise.
Therefore, in order to satisfy King Stobi, Antigonus decisively chose to take the responsibility himself.
In this way, Antigonus believed that King Stobi would not pursue him much, but would be very satisfied with him.
"Okay, let's do as Antigonus says first. Let's hold on a little longer, maybe new changes will happen. If it is really necessary, our army will have time to retreat calmly, it's no big deal. Don't feel pressured!" Xia Zhe nodded in agreement.
The motion to withdraw troops was originally my own idea.
Now that Antigonus had put it forward as his own proposal, he saved himself a lot of trouble.
He had no intention of gaining a foothold in Crete. The idea that fleeing was the best option when absolutely necessary never left Xia Zhe's sight.
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