In the early spring, a huge team arrived at the northern foot of the Alps, the natural barrier of Italy, and the leader took off the thick cloak covering his body, revealing a pair of frostwolf-like cunning eyes, looking at the towering and endless snow-capped mountains in front of him, took a deep breath, and then let out a lone wolf-like roar, ordering the plainly dressed Roman army behind him to continue to advance. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

"Are you sure you want to do this, Aphes? It's too late to turn back. Gaul may still have the ability to fight Octavian for a long time. More and more civilians are moving to our side. ”

Beside Appis, Levius asked anxiously with a stubble on his face. Behind him were 20,000 Roman legionnaires who were heavily armed but dressed as civilians. Two weeks earlier, they had set out from Lugdunum, the capital of Gaul, and had made their way through the camp for the sake of their commander, Appis Gneeus. They are loyal soldiers, loyal to their generals, loyal to the oaths they have taken. And Appis, this is what he wanted, to take this group of veterans of the Germanic war, to climb the highest mountain in Europe in front of him, repeating what Hannibal of Carthaginian did a hundred years ago, but with a slight difference. The tactical arrangements and plans had been drafted in Apis' mind.

"If a hunter wants to kill his prey, he must first learn to sacrifice and learn to take risks. Dare to bet to win. Can Gaul win over Italy and Spain? Yes, that's fine, maybe a hundred years, but we don't live that long, friend. If we want to defeat Octavian in a passive situation, we have to take risks. Let the nobles of Rome tremble at the feet of my legions, and let Octavian's wrath roar throughout the halls of the Senate, but there is no one to take charge of the legions for him. Rome is mine, ours, my brother, Livius. ”

Appis turned his head, smiled knowingly, and continued to stride forward.

Behind them, three elite Roman legions lined up in three thin lines and stepped into this deep mountain, which even a bird could not cross......

……

"Appis was bound to storm Marseille and cut off Italy from Spain before it sent troops."

In the magnificent synagogue of Julius in Rome, Gaius Octavian, the young heir to the Roman Republic, stood in the center of the hall, analyzing the current situation with his military assistants. Everyone stared intently at the huge map of the Roman world behind the young heir. Marseille, like a dazzling jewel on the west coast of the Mediterranean, stands between Italy and Spain. Almost everyone believes that this war will break out from there. In fact, long before the end of winter, Octavian sent the 9th and 11th legions there. As a bridgehead for the Second Civil War.

"That was inevitable, and Marseille, as an important strategic location, not only connected Spain and Rome, but also could continuously transport the material resources of the western coast of the inland sea to the hands of the legions (by sea). It can be said that it is an important city that is both offensive and defensive. We can rely on Marseille and attack Lugdunum together when the Spanish legions enter Gaul, and the capital of Gaul, which Apis has painstakingly managed for many years, will surely be besieged by our Grand Legion. ”

At the military conference, the young interior official and foreign minister Masinas swore to the point. And almost all of them bowed their heads and agreed.

"Yes, two months ago I ordered Agrippa to reorganize the Spanish legions, and to enter Gaul with them when the snow melted in the spring. The gateway to Gaul, Aguitania, was nothing more than a barbarian tribe that had seen the wind and rudder, and in a few days we could hear the news of Agrippa's victory over the barbarians and advance into the heart of Gaul. ”

Octavian pointed with a gold-rimmed stick at the entrance to the province of Gaul in northern Spain on the map.

Everyone present showed delightful eyes. In everyone's opinion, Appis himself was weak, and with the defeat of the last brazen invasion of Spain, it can be said that the current strength is less than half that of Octavian, and the outcome of this war was almost clear before the war.

"But is it possible that Apis abandoned Marseille and crossed the Alps directly from the northern mountains into Italy? Perhaps, everyone expected him to attack from Marseille and ignored this route? ”

Immediately, just when everyone was swearing and fighting high, Agrippa's subordinate Kodinarius suddenly offered the opposite opinion. And this opinion quickly caused the others present to burst into laughter.

"Over the Alps? Leave the Marseille line alone and step into Italy from that wild mountain range? You know, it's not an ordinary mountain, and does Apis want to emulate Hannibal a hundred years ago? So, how to solve his material supply, personnel supply? Don't tell me that his baggage and logistical supplies will also come from that mountain range all day long. Then, when you arrive in Italy, there is not much food supply left. ”

Recaldes, the commander of the legions of the Roman city, immediately counterattacked. The young officers present burst into laughter.

Octavian also raised the corners of his mouth slightly, obviously, although the young Octavian was not talented in military affairs, but he still understood such a simple truth.

"I'm worried about the sea. Commodus, the pirate leader of the Eastern Seas, had sailed his wrecked ships to Brindisi and Sicily since the beginning of the spring, and had already plundered more than a dozen Roman merchant ships, and if they were not contained, by the time I joined Appis and I, Commodus had plundered the grain convoy in the rear, and its impact on the war could not be ignored. ”

Octavian gestured to the officers in the hall to be quiet, and then spoke of the subject. Rome, as a large maritime trading power, can be said that the Mediterranean has never really been calm, piracy has never stopped, and the lucrative profits have made some penniless vagrants and debtors take risks, and this industry has almost never disappeared. In addition to the generalissimo of the Republic, Gnaeus Pompey, who sent regular troops to suppress the problem of piracy for a while, pirates also reappeared in various shipping lanes in the Mediterranean in the following years.

Octavian even suspected that the pirate Commodus, who had been hiding on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, was actually a pawn of Mark Antony, and there were some things that were inconvenient for the ruler of the eastern Mediterranean to do, and it was inconvenient for him to interfere, so he let the pirate leader do it for him, which could save a lot of trouble, after all, what pirates could do, many times the regular army could not do......