"Your Majesty, the reinforcements of the Western Roman Empire have entered the territory of Dalmatia, less than three hundred miles away from our army, the army of Gepid and men over the age of fourteen have begun to assemble under the order of Aldaric, depending on the situation, they should want to join the reinforcements of the Western Roman Empire, and then look for the main force of our army for a decisive battle!"

Qi Muge's report made Qin Dong fall into deep thought, and the worry in his heart became more and more intense, and Zheli, who was standing on the side, saw this and said: "Your Majesty, the reinforcements of the Western Roman Empire are only 60,000 horses, and the Gepid people are no more than 40,000 capable warriors, and the combined strength is equivalent to the main force of our army, are we still afraid that they will not succeed?" ”

Qin Dong shook his head and said: "Of course we are not afraid of them, nor we can't beat them, most of our army are cavalry, and the infantry is only a minority, while the infantry of the Western Roman Empire and the Gepid people account for the vast majority, and there are very few cavalry, our army has an absolute advantage in terms of mobility, and I am worried that once the battle situation is not smooth, it may be stalemate, which is not conducive to an expeditionary division like our army."

Su He, who was standing next to him, said: "Your Majesty, how can the battle situation be stalemate? They are all infantry, and most of our army is cavalry, and in the event of a decisive battle, our cavalry only needs one charge to crush them! ”

Qin Dong waved his hand and said: "No, no, no, Su He, you think too simply, our cavalry can break one or two infantry phalanxes, can they break five or six, seven or eight heavy infantry phalanxes?" Heavy cavalry horses carrying such heavy armor, and the weight of knights on their bodies, can't rush too far, once the cavalry is caught in the infantry formation and loses speed, you should understand what the result is. As far as I know, the commander of the Western Roman Empire this time was Aegidius, who was extremely skilled in commanding heavy infantry phalanxes. If he is steady and steady, and does not be greedy for merit, we can't do anything about him."

"This ......" Su He and other generals had nothing to say, and they couldn't think of any good way to defeat the large-scale heavy infantry phalanx of the Western Roman Empire, so they could only obediently shut up.

Unable to think of a way, Qin Dong could only plan to take one step at a time, and now he could only compare with Egidius who made the mistake first. The first person to make a mistake has a much better chance of defeat.

At the beginning of October 463, the Qin army finally encountered the allied forces of Gelpid and the Western Romans, and a major battle broke out between the two sides. The Qin army had extremely strong reconnaissance capabilities, so they took advantage of some fighters, and the combined forces of Western Rome and Gepid responded in a hurry and suffered some losses. The losses in the first battle were significant. The Western Roman army suffered more than 10,000 casualties, while the Gepid suffered more than 6,000 casualties, and the Qin army, as the attacking side, suffered very little casualties, only more than 2,000 cavalry casualties.

In order to ensure that the grain route would not be cut off by the Qin cavalry, Aegidius set up a large camp close to the coastline, which frustrated the Qin army's plan to raid the allied army's grain and grass.

Qin Dong was not discouraged. Small groups of cavalry were continuously sent to harass the coalition forces, but under the command of Aegidius. The coalition forces were well guarded, the Qin army did not take the slightest advantage, this situation has been maintained for more than half a month, and the Qin naval fleet has already arrived and was hidden by Qin Dong's order, he is ready to let this army be used as a cavalry, the size of the naval fleet is still too small, and the fleet of the Western Roman Empire is only afraid that the chances of victory are relatively small, whether it is in terms of fleet size or combat experience, the Qin naval fleet is not as good as the Western Roman Empire Navy, Although the navy of the Western Roman Empire was beaten to the ground by the pirate fleet of the Vandal kingdom every time, they were more than enough to deal with the naval fleet of the Qin army.

The battle situation was stalemate, except for the first battle, in the subsequent battles, neither side took any advantage, and it was not so easy for the Qin army to sneak attack and harass the coalition forces.

After the stalemate in the battle, the large camps of the two sides were more than 100 miles apart, but the reconnaissance cavalry of the two sides clashed every day, in order to compete for the right to investigate, and the reconnaissance cavalry died every day, sometimes several, and more than a dozen.

On this day, Qin Dong was anxious about the battle situation entering a state of anxiety in the big tent of the Chinese army, and suddenly there was a noise outside, and he walked to the door of the big tent and asked the guards: "What's the matter?" ”

The guard said: "Your Majesty, I don't know what's going on, the noise is coming from the grain and grass camp behind!" ”

"Let's go over and see what's going on!" Qin Dong walked out of the big tent as he spoke, and the four guards standing guard immediately followed.

When he arrived at the place where the noise came from, Qin Dong found that there were many soldiers standing around, and walked over to take a look, only to see a bull was crashing everywhere, the bull's eyes were red, panting, and sweating, even so, the mad bull was still running wildly and hitting people and things, and the soldiers nearby were frightened by the crazy bull, and an officer was chased by the mad bull and ran around, but after the officer ran away, the mad cow went to chase other officers.

"Kill it, kill it!" The officer who was being chased screamed in horror as he ran, but as soon as he finished shouting, he was caught up by a mad bull, and a corner pushed him out of the ground a few meters away and lay on the ground.

Seeing that there was a human life, the officer's comrades-in-arms could not be calm, and several officers ran over together to snatch the top officer back, but the mad cow saw that someone was coming forward, and immediately rushed towards one of the officers.

Just now, because the incident happened suddenly, and no one was injured, the onlookers just thought that the cow was crazy and felt funny, but they didn't expect that there would be a death, so no one thought that they were going to kill the cow, Qin Dong was the most sober, he wanted to let the soldiers shoot the mad cow after he saw the mad cow hit people for the first time, but then he forgot to give the order, because he found that things were very strange, the people chased by the mad cow were all officers, there was no soldier, and when he went to rob the officer who was knocked to the ground just now, there were a few soldiers among those people, Isn't it strange that the mad cow chases only one of the officers?

Tong Guò observed, Qin Dong finally found out why the mad cow only chased officers, because the centurion (company commander) and officers above the centurion rank wore a cloak outside the armor, which was a special treatment for officers, which was specially distributed by logistics, and now that it was late autumn, the weather began to get cooler, and the wind was a little strong, so logistics specially equipped the officers with cloaks.

It is because the officer wears a cloak that the mad cow only chases the officer and not the soldier. In later generations, many people thought that the bull was very sensitive to red, in Spanish bullfighting, the bullfighter held a red cloth and kept teasing the bull, the bull saw the red cloth and attacked angrily, after completing a series of steps and procedures, the bull was already out of breath and his body was down, then the bullfighter stabbed it to death with a sword, is the bull really sensitive to red and attacked the bullfighter? This is a wrong understanding, the cow is actually color blind, in its eyes there are only two colors, black and white, the role of the matador with red cloth is to arouse the passion of the audience, mobilize the audience's feelings, because people are extremely sensitive to red, and it is easy to get excited when they see red.

It is the cloth that really provokes the bull to attack the matador, and the cloth that constantly shakes and shakes is the real reason for the bull's anger, and the bull thinks that the constantly shaking cloth is provoking it, so it will attack, so no matter what color the cloth can achieve this effect.

Qin Dong opened his mouth and ordered the soldiers to shoot the cow with bows, and then turned around and walked towards the Chinese army's tent, because he had found a way to break the enemy.

Returning to the big tent of the Chinese army, General Qin Dong was in charge of logistics and asked: "How many cattle, sheep and horses do our army have now?" ”

Felton didn't know why Qin Dong cared about the number of cattle and sheep, thinking that the food was still very sufficient now, and it should be no problem to support it for a few months, could it be that His Majesty would start to consider the problem of insufficient grain and grass now? Although he couldn't figure it out, he still replied: "Your Majesty, when our army set out, we carried 30,000 cattle, 50,000 sheep, and 30,000 horses, and after such a long period of consumption, there were still 25,000 cattle and 36,000 sheep left, and in order to ensure the food supply of the army, the cows and sheep were left, and the slaughtered were all bulls and rams, and the horses were basically not reduced except for more than 100 sick horses."

Qin Dong nodded after hearing this, and he asked, "Then how many bulls are left among the twenty-five thousand cows?" ”

It turned out that it was just a question about the bull, and Felton muttered in his heart, and replied, "About four thousand eight hundred!" ”

Qin Dong thought for a while and ordered: "Leave eight hundred bulls for breeding, and the remaining four thousand bulls will all be gathered together and fed with good forage for ten days and half a month.

Felton inexplicably agreed: "Yes, Your Majesty!" ”

Now it's okay, bulls are not allowed to be slaughtered, and in the future, there will be less beef in the army, only milk, goat's milk, mutton, mare's milk, steamed buns, steamed buns, and bread.

After this order was issued, many people didn't know at first, of course, the soldiers were not qualified to talk about conditions, and they had to eat whatever the room gave them, but the officers and generals were different, they couldn't eat beef and they were looking for trouble with the logistics room, and the logistics room had no way, and it was inferred that this was an order from above, and those dissatisfied officers and generals immediately found Felton here.

Feltun's rank is very high, not all officers and generals can find trouble with him, and only Su He and Zheli are qualified to talk to him, after being asked why there is no beef to eat, Felton sent them away with a word, "This is His Majesty's will, if you have the ability, you can go and let Your Majesty take back your fate!" ”

When the generals heard this, they were immediately stunned, they didn't have the courage to ask Qin Dong why he was not allowed to kill cattle, so they could only go back and continue to gnaw on the leg of mutton. (To be continued......)