"Sortie? Oh, no, wait, be patient, my friend, and let the slingers and Parthian archers slowly wear down, they are so cheap that it takes less than a month to train them, and in fact I have no real military training on them at all. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info"

Outside the camp, the Roman slingers occupying the small high ground were shooting at each other in the dark with the horse archers of the Parthian kingdom, while in the camp, Antony was sitting on a chaise longue, leisurely chewing fig kernels, holding the soft figure of Queen Cleopatra in one hand, obviously Antony had his own plans and plans for the battle in front of him.

And the cheap slingers that Mark Antony refers to are actually tactics specially prepared by the commander of the Eastern Legion for the Parthians. Antony, knowing the tactics of the Parthians, constantly harassed the Roman heavy infantry with the high mobility of the cavalry until the Roman legions surrendered due to exhaustion and exhaustion. Crassus was defeated because of his complete tactical defeat to the Parthians. But this time, in order to deal with the Parthians, Anthony recruited a large number of slingers along the way to Syria, experienced slingers are the best, if not, recruit new soldiers, most of these slingers have not been professionally trained, and the accuracy of the stones thrown is extremely poor, but what Anthony wants is not their accuracy, but quantity.

In order to deal with the rain of Parthian arrows, Antony made each slinger equipped with a simple wooden round shield, because the slinger did not need to use both hands like archers, and only one hand was needed to shake it when throwing, so that the other hand could hold the shield and resist the Parthian arrows. Although it can be a bit tricky to reload the stone projectile, it is also possible to squat down and complete the reloading action under the cover of the shield.

Since the Eastern infantry was not as scarce as the Roman citizen soldiers, they could be recruited as long as they had money. Antony recruited a large number of these inexperienced slingers along the way, plus a small number of Syrian archers, and seized the high ground at all costs before the battle, and then, on the high ground, fired at the Parthian cavalry. The sheer number of slingers rained down waves of bullets on the high ground, and the Parthians were overwhelmed for a moment by such a dense long-range strike. You know, it takes a long time for every horse archer to become a qualified warrior on horseback, and in battle, to be humbly shot down by an inexperienced Roman slinger is a great loss for the Parthians. Even if the battle loss ratio is ten to one, it is not worth it.

The Roman legions set up camp under the protection of a tight shield wall, and Antony had the slingers and archers take turns fighting the Parthian cavalry. The legionary infantry rested in place, and since the javelins could not hit the enemy, they put away and repaired in place, and hid in the camp, waiting for the auxiliary troops and the enemy to run out of strength.

Outside the camp, the dense stone bullets tirelessly attacked in waves, hitting the Parthian rider's face, body, the war horse that was shot in the head and body neighed and fell, the rider kept falling the horse in the wave of bullet rain, some cavalrymen's cheeks were smashed by stone bullets, screaming and falling to the ground, some cavalrymen's bodies were hit by stone bullets, drenched in blood, in the era when the bow and arrow had not yet developed and formed, the existence of the slinger was actually very valuable in actual combat.

Finally, the dark long-range mutual fire came to an end in the night. When both sides can't see the other's position clearly, arrows are undoubtedly more valuable than stones. The Parthians had finally retreated after a long day of suffering.

At dawn the next day, the Parthians sent a large army to fight against Antony's three Roman legions on the plain......

"Remember, don't go out when the cavalry goes into battle, and wait for my orders. The whole army marched slowly in close formation, with heavy infantry covering the slingers and archers, allowing the ranged troops to continue the battle with the Parthians. ”

In the early morning, in a large desert area, rows of infantry on both sides were lined up on standby, Anthony stood in his own pile, making the final tactical arrangements before the battle, explaining every detail that needs to be paid attention to after the battle, you must know that the ancient battlefield is not like later generations, once the war begins, the commander often does not know the situation on the flank and rear of the army, and the limitation of the field of vision makes the commander of the regiment have to arrange tactics in advance and practice all possible situations. Crassus's experience made Antony afraid to attack his cavalry in advance, because he would be drawn into the endless desert by the Parthian cavalry army again.

The slow advance of the tortoiseshell provided a bulwark of cover for the Roman projection troops, which Antony had set up against the Parthians.

As it turned out, this tactic did have a certain restraining effect on the Parthians. After the battle, the leader of the Parthian legions did not let the infantry directly enter the battle, but continued to use the tactics of cavalry attacks, with five cavalry brigades roaring and galloping on the flanks and directly in front of the Roman legions, while maintaining a certain distance from the Roman phalanx, so that the javelins of the Roman light infantry could not hit them. Then, from this throwing distance, the Parthians rained down countless arrows at the Roman legions.

All the Roman legionary infantry according to the tactics arranged by the commander, all lined up in a neat defensive formation, marching in unison, shoulder to shoulder, shield against shield, tightly connected into an impermeable shield wall, blocking most of the Parthians' arrow rain out of the shield wall, and the arrow rain hit the shield wall above, making a continuous sound of blows...... But there was no such thing as an absolutely tight defense, and sporadic Roman infantry fell under the rain of Parthian arrows.

However, the next scene again made the Parthians angry and desperate. The Roman slingers, after dodging the first round of arrows from the Parthians, began to rise and throw stoneballs frantically at the area where the Parthian riders were, under the cover of the shield wall in front of them. They barely took aim, could not see what was in front of them, but threw the stone projectiles with all their might, and what had happened during the day yesterday was repeated again, no matter how much the Parthian riders dodged, no matter how much they rained down on bullets, they still suffered heavy damage.

In desperation, the Parthian cavalry could only retreat temporarily, and at this time, a large number of oriental infantry rolled in like rolling waves on the sea in winter, rolling up yellow storms on the desert in early autumn......