After the 3,000 Praetorian Guards of Anastasia and the dowry procession of Princess Eudosia were slaughtered, their news was never known to the outside world, and two months later, the Kingdom of Vandal did not wait for Princess Eudosia to arrive in Carthage, and King Geserik sent people to inquire about the relevant parties of the Eastern Roman Empire, and Leo I received a note from the Kingdom of Vandal to know that Princess Odosia did not arrive in Carthage as scheduled, and immediately sent someone to investigate the reason.

But the nearly 4,000 people have lost their traces, and the people in charge of tracking down have only found clues to their last appearance in Jerusalem, since they left Jerusalem, they seem to have disappeared from this world, the vast desert, and only a sandstorm is enough to cover up a trace.

Because of this incident, the relationship between the Vandal Kingdom and the Eastern Roman Empire became extremely bad, Geseric thought that this was a farce directed and acted by Leo I, in fact, Leo I did not want to marry Eudosia to his son Henniric, although Leo I wanted to try his best to redeem it, but things were not so simple, King Vandal did not buy it, Leo I was very depressed about this, so he also accelerated the pace of control of the Western Roman Empire.

It wasn't long before he married Eudosita's sister Platicia to his confidant, Antemius, the commander of the Praetorian Guard.

Antemius's ex-wife was the daughter of the Eastern Roman Emperor Marcian, and because of this connection, he held many high-ranking positions in the Eastern Roman Empire, but his ex-wife died after giving birth to several children, and he is now a widower. Leo I chose to make him Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. There are also reasons for this.

After Platicia married Antemius, the identity of Antemius was not simple, and he was not only the son-in-law of the former Eastern Roman Emperor Marcian. He is also the son-in-law of Emperor Valentinian III of the former Western Roman Empire, and the son-in-law of the two Roman Empires in the East and West, this identity is too shocking.

Since Severus of the Western Roman Empire is not dead now, Antemius cannot be in a hurry to take over the throne of the Western Roman Empire, and Leo I is now marrying Pradisia to Antemius in preparation for the future. However, the Great Qin Empire has always paid close attention to this matter, and often sends spies to Ankara on various occasions to inquire about the news.

Taking advantage of the chaos of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire, and the relationship with the Vandal Kingdom was extremely tense. The Great Qin Empire accelerated its conquest of the Germanic barbarians in western Europe.

First, Qin Dong set his sights on the Ostrogoths and Gepids, whom he had long been determined to settle, and who now inhabited the southwestern part of the Pannonian Plain. Backed by the mountains of the Middle Alps, the Great Qin Empire had been attacking these two Germanic tribes in recent years and compressing their living space, so they had to migrate south step by step until they retreated to the foothills of the central Alps.

March 463 A.D. Qin Dong led an army of 100,000 to the south. This time the momentum is even greater than the western expedition two years ago, just from the strength of the troops he brought is twice that of the western expedition two years ago, but this time there are no attached barbarian armies to participate, all of them are the headquarters of the Great Qin Empire.

The news of Qin Dong's southern expedition was soon learned by the Ostrogothic leader Diodoromir and the Gerpid leader Aldarik, who immediately gathered together to discuss countermeasures.

Now the Eastern and Western Roman Empires are too busy to take care of themselves, the Western Roman Empire does not even have a person in charge, Emperor Severus is the master, and Diodormir and Aldaric send envoys to the Western Roman Empire to ask for help to no avail. They decided to continue their migration south as a whole clan.

The Ostrogoths and Epidices, led by Diordemir and Aldarric, crossed the Alps into the territory of the Western Roman Empire and occupied a small part of the Dalmatian provinces.

The Dalmatian governor, Marcelius, of course, could not afford to see his territory encroached upon by the Ostrogoths and Gerpids. Personally led the troops to fight with Diordemir and Aldarric, saying that the combat effectiveness of the Dalmatian army is really not flattering, if the Dalmatian navy is okay now, but the combat effectiveness of the army is really not very good, this is because Marcelius's father, the previous governor of Dalmatia, Marcillin spent much more energy, money and materials in the naval fleet than the army, and most of the taxes in the entire province were used to build warships and build the navy, where is there any extra money to develop the army? It would be nice to have an army in Dalmatia now, basically it can only hold up the scene, and it is not good for the army to go to war at all.

The great army led by Marcelius quickly collapsed after the war with the Ostrogoths and Gepids, who had been suppressed in the mountainous areas by the Great Qin Empire in recent years and had basically adapted to life and combat in the mountains, while Marcelius's army was extremely poor in combat and was not an opponent at all.

Diodemir and Aldaric then led their armies to take advantage of the situation, but Marcelius was defeated, losing more than half of his army, and had to flee with the few remaining troops.

In just one month, most of the Dalmatian province had fallen, and Marcelius saw that the Ostrogoths and Epidics were strong and his army could not resist, so in order to save his life and keep his army, he took the rest of the army aboard the naval fleet, fled Dalmatia and settled in southern Italy, leaving all the territory to the Ostrogoths and Epides.

Not satisfied with the fact that the Epides and Ostrogoths had acquired all the territory of the province of Dalmatia, they continued their offensive along the coastline to the southeast.

To the south-east of Dalmatia is the province of Illyria, which is in the northwestern part of the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, including the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea and its interior, roughly corresponding to present-day Slovenia, Croatia, and parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

When they learned that the barbaric Ostrogoths and Topids had been killed from the northwest, the entire province of Illyria, from the governors to the commoners and slaves, began to prepare to flee.

They prepared a large number of ships on the seashore, packed all the belongings and carried them to the sea, the Ostrogoths and the Epidics had not yet killed, they had already taken their families and belongings on the ships to Italy, and when the Ostrogoths and Epidics came to kill, the entire province of Illyria was basically empty, only the slaves and some civilians who had no property did not escape, and because they did not have ships, they could not escape if they wanted to, in fact, the slaves and civilians really hoped that the Ostrogoths and the Epidics would be killed as soon as possible, They believed that living under the Ostrogoths and Epidics was not necessarily worse than living under the Romans, and in this way, the Ostrogoths and Epidics took the province of Illyria without much effort.

After successively occupying the provinces of Dalmatia and Illyria, the Ostrogoths and Epides began to divide their territories, and finally after deliberation, the Epidics gained all the territory of the Dalmatian provinces, and they began a new life in Dalmatia, while the Ostrogoths gained the province of Illyria.

After this war, the greatest loss was of course the Western Roman Empire, which lost two provinces in a row, although these two provinces were actually no longer under the control of the central power, but they were really weakened by the overall strength of the Western Roman Empire.

The loss of Dalmatia and Illyria is also equivalent to cutting off the border and connection between the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire on land territory, and since then the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire have been separated in the territory, and the only connection is the sea route, at least the shipping lanes in the northern Mediterranean are still in the hands of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire, but this sea route is often unsafe, because the Vandals always come out to rob at sea every once in a while.

After the Ostrogoths and Gepids gave up their original territories and crossed the mountains to the south, the 100,000-strong army led by Qin Dong gained the territory north of the central Alps without a single soldier.

This southern expedition was beyond Qin Dong's imagination, without fighting a battle, a single soldier was given a large area of land without being injured, and until now, the Great Qin Empire had occupied all the regions north of the Alps, only a step away from the Mediterranean coast.

Qin Dong was unwilling to go back without a battle, he stationed troops at the foot of the northern Alps, and sent people everywhere to find a way to cross the Alps, in this era it is not easy to cross the Alps, even if the weather is hot in June, most of the peaks in the Alps are covered with snow all year round, if you can't find a road to the south and go directly over the mountains and mountains, it is likely to bring disaster to the army.

After two months of reconnaissance and searching for information about the local primitive natives living in the Alps, Qin Dong decided to open a road from Upper Mercia to the south.

Upper Mesiah is the later Serbia and part of the western part of Romania, there is Upper Mexia, of course, there is Lower Mexia, and Lower Mesia is the border between Romania and Bulgaria, the lower Danube River basin.

The entry into Illyria from Upper Mercia was fraught with natural hazards and passes, which were built during the Roman Empire, and were still in the hands of the abandoned Western Roman garrisons because the Ostrogoths and Gerpides had not been able to conquer them for a short time.

Qin Dong thought that even if he led a large army to attack these passes garrisoned by the Western Roman army, it would be much stronger than risking to cross the Alps, after all, the casualties of the war could be controlled by the commander, and the risk of crossing the Alps was too great. (To be continued......)