"I am a human being, and I can understand where human nature belongs." -- Humanistic lines in the play of Terrance in ancient Rome

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The two sides then came into contact with each other like thunder, and the town of Ruspina was the middle line, and a fierce battle began to fight together. The first was cavalry combat, and Caesar's sophisticated Germanic and Gaul forces emerged victorious, capturing hundreds of Numidians.

Caesar ordered them all to be killed, leaving not a single one alive, and then his heads were strung with spears and stood in front of his camp, claiming that this was the price that King Juba would pay for the slaughter of Italian citizens.

In this way, the anger was more and more triggered, and the king of Juba himself ordered that he should fight Caesar again in the coming day, and that all the cavalry and war elephants should be staked. And Scipio's legions, together with the legions of Rabinus from Zeta, also allocated all the cavalry, and swept around Caesar's camp, and their numbers were overwhelmingly superior, and they surrounded Caesar's camp, cutting off internal and external communication, and killing anyone with bows and arrows and pikes as soon as they saw anyone daring to come out to gather herd.

In this way, Caesar's legions were suppressed in a territory less than six Roman miles away, with only a narrow passage on the shore, and it was also connected to the city of Lyptis, and Antony, who was sitting in the city, personally led the cavalry every day to escort the few front-line camps with food, but the consumption was still staggering, because the second wave of troops that crossed the sea, including the Tenth Legion, were still supplied in Brindisi, and were intercepted and attacked by Pompey's fleet on the island of Kirki.

"The soldiers are fishing for seaweed and feeding the horses." Caesar saw this with his own eyes. He asked the whole army to carry forward the spirit of hardship in the city of Kocula. Persist for 10 days to half a month. Wait for the chief of the Executive Yuan to bring over the follow-up supplies and fleet, and then fight the enemy to the death.

"Don't give Caesar a breather, we're in the ascendancy right now, and we're in a quick fight." Scipio and Labinus soon came to an agreement, and they prepared to unite the main forces of King Juba to launch a general attack on Caesar's army, and if Caesar would not come out to fight, then break through his stronghold.

But just as the two generals were about to give the order. But the king of Juba sent an envoy to Scipio to meet him.

Rabinus was immediately very angry, and said that Scipio was the governor of the Roman Republic, and the king of Juba was only the ruler of a vassal state, so why should our governor go to his tent to meet him?

Scipio, however, was very calm, saying that there was no point in dwelling on these things now, and that he was willing to ask King Juba to assist our army in the decisive battle, in a humble and cooperative manner.

Scipio then led several monkeys to the king's lavishly decorated tent. Several servants stopped him and demanded that Scipio replace his purple-rimmed toga robes. "For King Juba does not like to see in his tent the same purple color as his robes and boots, and that would be disrespectful to him."

As a result, Scipio could only change into a pure white robe, and tried to suppress the anger in his heart, and went to meet the king of Juba, who received him very arrogantly, but said, "Tell your Pompey that I will return to my kingdom at once with all my foot riders." ”

"But Caesar is not yet destroyed." Scipio held back his anger and said.

"No, the despicable Caesar has bought Pocus, the prince of Geturia, and he is now raising an army against me, and I am now exhausted from providing aid to you on three fronts, do you want me to win one or two victories over Caesar at the cost of losing my country?" King Juba said angrily.

At this time, General Ma Ge also volunteered to stand up, saying that he was willing to lead 5,000 cavalry as the vanguard and hurry back to Numidia to repel and stop the invasion of Geturia, because their tribal territory was too close to the city of Kirta, and if the light cavalry went out to fight, it might only take less than three days to threaten the capital of His Majesty.

King Juba bowed his head, but Scipio was in a hurry, and he insisted that King Juba stay for the time being, or at least make a decision after meeting with Pompey.

"How can I be in time for this, I'm not your vassal now!" King Juba took the case.

"That's good." Scipio's tone was almost begging, "General Marco will go to stop the Gatulians first, while your majesty will take some of your men to Utica to meet with Dictiono, and then leave some of my men to fight Caesar." ”

King Juba thought for a while, and reluctantly said Okay, I will leave 10,000 cavalry, and bring you thirty war elephants, and I will take the rest of the soldiers and horses to Utica City for the time being, and observe the changes in the shape of shì on the way.

Scipio's eyes lit up at the sight of the war elephants, and he hastened to thank King Juba for his kindness, and said that he would live up to the trust placed in him by treating these large and noble animals well and training them carefully.

"After all, you are the person who serves as the chief executive, how can you be like a lowly animal trainer, and my elephant master can teach the elephants, you don't need to worry about it." King Juba replied curiously and angrily.

Scipio then returned to his camp and told Rabinus about it, and he was very shocked to say what should happen to the general attack. Scipio, however, was so confident that he said that if he had thirty elephants, he would defeat Caesar.

As soon as he saw his great father-in-law talk about animals, Rabinus would see that his eyes were shining, and he was more excited than he was at the sight of mountains of gold and silver treasures, so he instinctively felt that it was unreliable to put the hope of this decisive battle on Scipio, so he paced himself to the map table, and with a graphite hook pen, he drew a circle on his own camp, on Caesar's camp, and then drew a line of battle in the middle, and finally Rabinus slammed a line directly to the city of Lyptis behind, and then shouted, " Ignajus, Ignajus! ”

On the following sunny and windless day, Scipio sat on a circle chair and watched the training of war elephants on the school field directly in front of the camp, "It is said that Caesar also learned that the king of Juba had reinforced us with many brave elephants, and he taught the soldiers how to fight them. Just kidding, this is just wishful thinking, how can he compete with beasts of prey? This also shows that from the beginning to the end of the battle of Africa, animals are the key to determining the victory, so all the generals and officers must observe carefully! Mark my words, people who love animals, can win all the victories. ”

A dozen military tribunions and chief centurions, with bitter faces, stood tremblingly at the edge of the schoolyard, or on the tower, and were forced to watch the drill of the war elephants, for this was the request of the great father-in-law, while Rabinus looked down from afar, shook his head, and went down to lay out the tactical plan whatever Scipio went to do. (To be continued......)