Guided by the excited Essions, the army of the king of Cyrenaica, who had stopped and stopped, arrived ten days later at the border of the kingdom of Garamantheus, a crimson mountain range of about hundreds of stadias, the passes of which had all been fortified.

The first thing Li Bida and his entourage saw was the fierce flames spewing out between the sand and the valley, row by row, forming a wall of fire one hundred or twenty feet high, which made many soldiers feel very surprised and fearful.

"It's a surface oil fire, with gas or something, and now it's all ignited." Of course, Li Bida knew in his heart, he really couldn't figure out what relative shortcuts there were to capture this barbarian kingdom, so he could only secretly rejoice that most of the Vibichina cavalry had suffered from heat stroke before, otherwise he might be blocked in front of this pass and the whole army would be annihilated, which would be equivalent to breaking an arm.

Subsequently, the chief centurion of the Thirteenth Legion, Hebrida, came to inquire about the establishment of the camp, and Li Bida immediately said that there were pillars of fire in front and back here, and there was no clean water source within a radius of dozens of Rome, so what kind of camp should be set up? Your thousand-man brigade serves as the main force, and gives me a blast to seize the small fortress in the mountain pass, and only by breaking through can I win life.

The chief brigade immediately put down their equipment, sat down at the pass and began to eat, and after drinking the goat's milk and eating the bread (they had not eaten fresh vegetables for a long time), they began to march in formation, which frightened the Garamatans in the mountain pass fortress, which was to say that they would fight and fight, and they did not even come to say hello, so they began to throw all kinds of weapons, bricks and torches, at the Roman soldiers who formed the tortoiseshell formation below. And javelins. Smashed. But it still can't stop the other party's progress.

When they got closer, Hebrida was pleased to find that the Chariot Warfare skills of the Garamanian Thesees were first-rate, but the civil engineering was basically inaccessible compared to that of the Romans, and their fortress consisted of a simple mud slab wall with a leaden wooden door in the middle. Probably due to the natural environment of lack of timber, and it is so backward that there is no urn city behind the city gate. Li Bida, who got the information, immediately asked the archer brigade and the small bellows cannon to run up, and it turned out that he was indeed prescient in engaging in this miniaturization, otherwise it would not have been possible to rely on the big black bellows cannon in such a narrow terrain.

The tortoiseshell formation was now spread out into a horizontal formation, which was the cover formation of the Roman legionnaires, under the cover of the front and diagonal shields, the siege equipment could calmly approach the local fortress, and the bellows gunners carrying oval shields on their backs dragged the small round canisters. Braving the pouring stones and bricks, he leaned against the lead-clad door of Garamantheus with difficulty. They couldn't help but shout at the damn thing, for what the hell this thing was only fifteen to twenty Roman feet away!

Because the guards were too small, and the Garamain people thought that if they were engaged in hand-to-hand combat, they were destined not to be the opponents of this thousand-man team, so when the four small bellows guns were lined up, they were not counterattacked and counterattacked, and several "water dragons" quickly flew towards the lead-clad door, which was full of white flowers and slimy mysterious liquid, and then Alp in the rear blew the bone whistle, and the Medejie archers shot arrows wrapped in linen strips and burning asphalt like red raindrops, and the fire quickly burst open. The nearby Roman soldiers could not stand the heat and retreated, and even the gunners threw away the small round jars in horror and fled backwards.

Several waves of fire rose in succession, and the entire pass was burning, not only the enemy was running away with a scream of flames, but the Romans themselves were the same, some soldiers and artillery men could not dodge and were burned alive, Li Bida saw this churning red lotus fire, and was also surprised and regretted, it seems that he thought about the use of firearms too simply, these things often hurt his own personnel more.

Either way, after two moments, the lead-clad wooden gate at the pass was completely burned, and the wall was pitch black, twisted and collapsed, and the charred corpses of both sides were strewn in the ruins. The vanguard of 100 led by Polo quickly crossed the pass with the team mark, and there was a vast field of wheat fields below, and sure enough, this mountain range was a natural barrier for the Garamatane people, blocking the hot wind in the desert, and the temperature in the inner kingdom was pleasant (compared to the desert, of course), and there were simple canals in between, dotted with rows of date palm trees, swaying in the wind.

Because of the decisive battle of the Romans, they only lost less than fifty men, and then broke through the pass, and when about fifty Garamantheus chariots, with two or three thousand infantry, came to a distance of three furlongs from the army of Libida, the chieftain of the other side observed a little, and then turned away with the convoy, while the infantry seemed to be scattered and withdrawn, probably to garrison the nearest fortress, and to contain the Romans from advancing further!

Then came the locust tactics: the Romans razed a village in the middle of a wheat field and opened a canal to drain the water, digging separate channels to bring fresh water into the camp to prevent the Garamatanes from poisoning it. Then Li Bida ordered to erect three barracks arranged in a "zigzag" pattern, stipulating that the soldiers should be built in strict accordance with the method of a solid winter camp, each camp was stationed with a standing infantry brigade and an auxiliary archery brigade, and then the river transport guard and the tomb guard, with the baggage personnel stationed in the lower left barracks, the Serapis legion and the four thirteenth legion infantry brigades under the leadership of Serha in the lower right barracks, the chief thousand-man brigade and the five strongest infantry brigades, plus the attached cavalry brigade, were stationed in the front barracks, For this reason, side gates were opened in this camp for cavalry sorties.

Li Bida demanded that in the front of the barracks, two brigades (one when the thousand-man brigade was on duty) should be drawn out in turn every day, and under the protection of an auxiliary archer brigade, they would go around the camp as the axis to plunder and harvest winter wheat and horse feed.

Every time the autumn wind was struck, either the commander-in-chief Li Bida or the adjutant general Petronius himself led the team, because they were very afraid of being attacked by the chariot of the Garamantheus, the soldiers present lined up in a square hollow quadrangle, surrounded the wheat field in the middle, stretched out their shields and weapons, and the archers brigade went in with bows and sickles on their backs to harvest, and after the end they had to send a herald to the barracks, until three hundred Vibichinas rode to meet them, they changed to a marching column and returned to the camp with the harvest.

This kind of task, Li Bida is not at ease to hand over to the Nubian blacks to complete, and only the most disciplined Thirteenth Army Corps can do it.

On the other hand, the Garamathees lacked the courage to attack the strong fortresses, relying too much on their chariots to trust the infantry who were good at attacking cities, so they could only harvest all their wheat fields on the other side of the line, burn the villages, fill in the cisterns, clear the walls, and retreat to the farther grounds. (To be continued......)