Agrippa's propaganda campaign had left Agrippa with the intention of having more time to train the Numidian auxiliaries so that they could work perfectly with the regular Roman legions. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info But now it seems that Apis does not give such time.

More and more commoners were joining the Roman army that had crossed the sea from Spain, and even some nobles had taken refuge in Appis. In the current situation, if Agrippa does not attack again, and there is no need to fight, the whole of Afria and Carthage will fall into the pocket of Appis.

In three days, Agrippa arrived at the area where the Legion of Appis was stationed with his newly formed "African Army", and a battle that would determine the fate of Africa was about to break out.

On Appis' side, there were two corps of regular troops, the Seventh and Eighth Legions of Gaul and the Spanish Confederates, as well as a small number of Germanic troops. The number of legionary infantry reached twelve thousand, and the remaining eight thousand were made up of these Roman allies and northern barbarians.

On Agrippa's side, the Roman heavy infantry had just over 5,000 men. The rest consisted of Numidians. About 10,000 Numidian infantry and 3,000 Numidian cavalry formed the main source of Agrippa's troops. In addition, there are twelve armoured war elephants.

The situation was much more serious for Agrippa than it had been in northern Italy. At that time, Apis had only three heavy infantry legions at his disposal, and he won against Agrippa's five Roman heavy infantry legions. This time, Agrippa only had a Roman regular army corps in his hands, and the rest were all temporarily recruited "peasant army", and Agrippa was completely uncertain about whether he could win or not.

After making an appointment on the location of the decisive battle, in the early morning of the next day, tens of thousands of troops began to deploy in the Great Plains region near the coast of Africa. At this time, North Africa will not be as arid and hot as it was more than 2,000 years later. In many places, there are even green trees and shrubs. For example, in this battlefield, the vast Mediterranean Sea is not far away, but the battlefield is composed of mud and woods.

Rockets, stone throws or drumming? Before the battle, Apis pondered the biggest question of the battle. It is not that the quality of the soldiers in one's own army is not good, nor is it a problem of insufficient quantity or morale, but a problem of how to deal with the opponent's war elephants.

Before the battle, the detectives had already learned that there were twelve armored war elephants in the Agrippa military camp. On Appis's side, before the war, the soldiers had only been trained for a short period of two weeks, and as little Crassus once said, hunting a lone elephant in the barracks and confronting the elephant herd head-on on the battlefield were two different things.

For this reason, Apis came up with many ideas, in general, the beasts were afraid of fire, and they were all real war elephants, and when they were on the battlefield, they were extremely fast, and the average range of archers in this era was probably only enough to shoot one round of rockets, and the enemy war elephants rushed in front of them. And whether this round of rockets can scare the elephants, no one dares to guarantee.

Counting on the heavy infantry to fight against the elephant is undoubtedly looking for abuse.

If, as Scipio the Great had done before, the soldiers had to be well trained to run with light infantry against the Carthaginian war elephants, but this was clearly not the case with the soldiers of Apis.

Moreover, if the method used by Caesar against Pompey's remnants was to disturb the war elephants with drums and music, so that they were frightened and fled in all directions, this method would obviously not work, because Caesar's soldiers fought from Italy to Greece and from Greece to the East, and they had a wealth of experience, which was not comparable to the soldiers of the Seventh Legion today. The only one that could compete with Caesar's legions at that time was probably the Thirteenth Legion led by Labinus, but now, the old general and the Thirteenth Legion are gone. It is obviously unrealistic to expect the soldiers to be able to disturb the mad war elephants by beating drums and music. It's a blessing not to be scared.

After thinking of countless methods to no avail, Apis could only hope that these Roman light infantry, who had been briefly trained before the war, could hunt the war elephants halfway when they rushed at them.

……

The majestic trumpet finally sounded.

Ten thousand Numidian desert infantry, javelinmen, and slingers rolled in from the horizon. Behind them were five thousand heavily armed Roman legionary hoplites. Agrippa rode on a tall white warhorse and gazed at the vast expanse of the land.

The Numidian cavalry ran rapidly on the flanks of the legions, and the ground was dusty, but in the light of the morning sun, it was like dusk.

On the other side, the Roman regular army of Apis had already set up a defensive line, dozens of war machines such as scorpion cannons and wild donkey cannons had been assembled, and the engineers piled up the artillery stones and heavy javelins next to the equipment with a serious face, waiting for the commander's throwing order.

The auxiliary archers in the back row were already in place, and the military slaves dug a long trench in front of the firing position, which was filled with asphalt fuel. Before the battle began, the asphalt in this trench would be ignited to serve as a source of fire for the archers. Unlike in the past, this battle, the fire attack will become the most important part of Appis's combat deployment.

"Brothers, do not be afraid, do not be afraid, when the war elephants of the enemy rush at you. The spears in your hands are the best weapons against these beasts. Throw it and stab it into the elephant's body, just as you do to conquer women, proud, with your head held high! ”

As the war was about to break out, Crassus the Younger took the place of Appis and gave a routine speech in front of the whole army. There was no fear of the enemy in his tone, and he made the legionnaires laugh incessantly. Then, little Crassus changed his words and said in a serious and low voice-

"Mars, the god of war, is with us, and after today, this continent will be conquered by us. Tens of thousands of houses and thousands of bazaars in the city of Durga (Carthage) will become our property! ”

"For Appis!"

The centurions of the Seventh Legion were the first to take the lead and shouted. The morale of the whole army is boiling. is like a group of enthusiastic young people, waiting for their achievements, waiting for a young age to have thousands of wealth.

And Agrippa, on the other hand, also began to let the large forces attack.

However, to Appis's surprise, the African war elephants did not attack at the first time, and Agrippa first sent Numidian cavalry to harass him. Since the number of Numidian desert cavalry was nearly twice as large as the number of cavalry of Appis's legion, before the battle, Agrippa only used two cavalry to stabilize the flank, and then sent scattered cavalry to harass Appis's position.

The scattered Numidian javelinmen scurried through the positions of the Seventh Legion in a strange language, and they were so fast that they dropped scattered javelins from time to time, and although they could not inflict substantial damage on the heavy infantry line, they were very annoying. It's like a swarm of flies buzzing in front of you, but you can't slap them to death.

In a predicament, Crassus Jr. had to order the archers in the backfield to fight back with a rain of arrows......