Davos’s thoughts wandered as his ship, instead of following the fleet toward the northwest, sailed straight ahead, passing through the second water gate and heading toward the true port of Taranto.

Although it was wartime, the port of Taranto was still extremely busy, even more so than usual. The continuation of the war had increased the city’s demand for various materials. Therefore, despite the full assistance of the port personnel, it still took Davos’s ship a relatively long time to dock at the pier.

Davos was not in a hurry. He carefully observed this port, comparing its differences with the port of Thurii…

After going ashore, Davos and his party—especially the fully armed guard led by Martius—attracted the attention of many Tarantines. They stopped their work and looked on curiously. Those who knew the inside story guessed that this might be the Theonian reinforcements, but not a single person expressed welcome, let alone the cheers common at the port of Thurii. They just watched indifferently, and some even had sadness in their eyes. Davos noticed many women wearing black cloth over their heads; the shadow of defeat in war had already enveloped the people of Taranto.

Out of the reserve of an old power, the members of the Taranto Senate did not go to the port to welcome them but waited at the city gate.

“They’re coming!” With this shout, everyone roused their spirits and looked forward.

Walking toward them was a young man. His expression was calm, his steps steady, and his whole body exuded a staidness far different from ordinary young people. But as the Archon of a city-state alliance, he was indeed too young.

Eumachus nudged Diomilas, who was still deep in thought, preparing to remind him.

Diomilas understood his meaning and spoke first, “Don’t say it, I understand. Who asked us to be the ones asking for help?”

With that, he strode forward to welcome him. “Welcome, young Archon of Theonia. Like parched fields longing for rain, we await the arrival of the reinforcements from our close ally Theonia. Thank the gods, you have finally come!”

Eumachus frowned, worried that Davos would be unhappy hearing these words.

Unexpectedly, Davos immediately said with an apologetic face, “I am truly very sorry! I believe you also know that the Theonian League has been established for less than two years. This is the first time we have dispatched reinforcements of nearly twenty thousand men—almost two-thirds of the number of Thurii citizens. Moreover, it is the season approaching the autumn harvest, and it is our first time transporting so many soldiers across the sea. The affairs were too complicated, and we lacked experience, so we only arrived today. I hope we haven’t delayed important matters.”

“Not late! Not late! You came just in time!” Eumachus hurriedly interjected. “I really didn’t expect Theonia to send such a massive force. This really helps us a lot! Lord Davos, we Tarantines are very grateful for your generous rescue!”

Only then did Polydorus have the opportunity to interject and introduce, “Lord Davos, this is our Taranto Archon, Eumachus.”

Judging solely from his speech just now, this Archon had at least some goodwill toward Theonia. Davos bowed seriously.

“This is the Taranto Archon, Diomilas,” Polydorus continued to introduce.

And this one… Davos glanced at him: narrow eyes, thin nose bridge, thin lips, serious expression, a mean appearance. He obviously had prejudice against Theonia. According to Aristelas’s intelligence, there were quite a few people like this in the Taranto Senate. But Davos still bowed and greeted him seriously.

Next, he greeted the Senators of Taranto in turn. The Taranto Senate originated from the Spartan Gerousia, but compared to the Spartan Gerousia which had only 30 seats, Taranto had many more Senators. Moreover, the seats in the Taranto Senate, like the Archons, were elected by all citizens every year.

“This is—” Before Polydorus could finish speaking, the old man in front of him raised his eyebrows and glared, pointing at Davos and cursing, “You still have the face to come to Taranto! Back then, you swore to promote our school in Amendolara, so we sent apprentices to Amendolara to help you. Who knew that not only did you make them betray the school, but you also let them use money to tempt more apprentices to leave Taranto! To think my son regarded you as a friend! Is this how you repay the Pythagorean school’s selfless help to Theonia?! I tell you, Taranto does not welcome you!”

Davos hadn’t expected to meet someone from the Pythagorean school here and was quite embarrassed. he hurriedly turned to look at Polydorus. “This is?”

“Achilita’s father—Histiaeus,” Polydorus replied.

Davos was moved. He took a step forward, disregarding the old man’s displeasure, and bowed respectfully. “Achilita was my good friend. I will definitely avenge him, repel the Messapians, and bring back his remains. I hope you, Uncle, can restrain your grief!”

“We don’t need Theonia’s help! We Tarantines can also defeat the Messapians and take back my son’s remains!” Histiaeus had tears in his eyes but still spoke stubbornly.

Just then, a cavalryman galloped over, shouting repeatedly all the way: “The fleet is back! The fleet is back! …”

Hearing the news, the Senators said nothing more, immediately leaving Davos and his party behind and running toward the port one after another.

Polydorus hurriedly explained to him. After listening, Davos expressed understanding and proposed to go see the situation together.

Standing on the high ground outside the port, looking down at the beach: at the central pier of Taranto port, where the crowd was most dense, warships were lining up and entering slowly…

Polydorus widened his eyes and counted the number of ships. The more he counted, the more panic-stricken he became. In the end, his voice was trembling: “Only… only 19 warships, 25 passenger ships…”

If Davos hadn’t supported him in time, he probably would have collapsed on the ground.

Davos also frowned. According to Polydorus, when the Taranto fleet left the port, it had 80 warships and 100 transport ships carrying 4,000 soldiers. Now only one-fourth of the ships returned. Taranto’s loss could be described as enormous—not only warships and soldiers but also sailors. A trireme needed nearly two hundred sailors when fully manned. One could imagine how much loss this caused to the manpower of Taranto port…

This also gave Davos a warning: Before obtaining absolute command of the sea, one must be extremely cautious when transporting soldiers across the sea for combat!

Everyone in the port was plunged into immense grief. Even from this distance, Davos could hear the deafening cries, moving even him, who was accustomed to life and death.

Polydorus was still stretching his neck to look forward, hoping that there were lagging warships that hadn’t entered the port in time. In the end, he finally gave up, tightly grasping Davos’s hands and saying repeatedly, “Lord Davos, Taranto really needs Theonia’s full help!”

Davos nodded, thinking to himself: Counting this naval battle, the war between Taranto and Messapia has likely caused casualties of up to ten thousand Taranto soldiers. It has truly hurt them to the bone.

Because the Taranto Senate was busy dealing with the aftermath, the joint military conference that was about to be held could only be postponed.

Davos didn’t mind; it just happened that he could go back and build the camp with the soldiers.

***

The failure of a major naval battle would have impacts in all aspects. Compensating the casualties was only the most basic; there were also repairing the remaining warships, accelerating the reconstruction of a new fleet, appeasing the merchants in the port, confirming that the maritime trade routes were not cut off by the enemy… etc. These complicated aftermath affairs could not be solved in a day or two, but the urgent war situation forced Taranto to temporarily put them aside on the second day. A joint military conference needed to be held immediately to launch a land counterattack against the Messapian-Peucetian coalition as soon as possible, reducing the enemy’s threat to the city of Taranto.

Considering that the Theonian Archon had been neglected yesterday due to the emergency, Eumachus decided to invite him personally.

Eumachus rode to the northwest corner of the bay, and the scene before him startled him. A huge military camp stood before him—trenches, palisades, camp gates, watchtowers, tents… everything was there. It had only been a day, yet the Theonians had built a “city” in this relatively sparsely populated area. This efficiency was simply too high!

Eumachus naturally didn’t know that because Theonia attached importance to camp construction during operations, under Davos’s initiative, military engineers had standardized some camp facilities after research and repeated trials. For example, the materials needed for camp gates and watchtowers were prefabricated in Thurii, transported by ship with the baggage battalion, and then assembled according to the actual situation after arriving at the destination. This saved time and effort and could be taken away when breaking camp. Of course, the prerequisite was to have strong logistical transport capabilities and relatively good road conditions.

While Eumachus was astonished, he heard someone calling him. Looking carefully, it turned out to be Timias, a theater owner in Taranto city. He asked somewhat strangely, “What are you doing here?”

“Doing business, of course.” Timias pointed to the several gaudily dressed women beside him and said helplessly, “With the defeat in the war against Messapia, how could the citizens have the mood to watch plays or play with girls? I haven’t had any income for two months now. I heard that nearly twenty thousand Theonian reinforcements came, so I came specifically to see if there were any opportunities to make money. But the guards here actually won’t let us in!”

Hearing this, Eumachus felt slightly embarrassed. Timias’s theater mainly made money by performing some vulgar and obscene plays to attract the populace, while also moonlighting to provide prostitutes and male prostitutes for the rich. Because they were mostly actors, their quality was high and they were more popular. But he hadn’t expected him to pimp all the way to the Theonian camp. Thus, he advised, “A battle is about to be fought soon. Don’t disturb the Theonians’ rest here.”