Subsequently, King Juba and Pompey also mobilized tens of thousands of foot riders in the entire Numidian Kingdom, and behind Ma Ge, they deliberately delayed for a day, and then Pompey sent three token officials one after another, riding fast horses in the direction of Utica City.

Two of them stormed into Utica, but one got lost in front of Curio's camp and was captured by the centurion of the famous Masi and sent to Curio.

"You're saying that Pompey has won reinforcements from King Juba?" Curio's sharp eyes stared at the man up and down, and then asked.

"Yes, King Juba will soon have a full 40,000 elite soldiers here, and your four legions alone will not be able to compete with our side at all!" "It is better to return to the old camp of Cornelius by boat," said the officer proudly, or go straight down the headland to the camp of the chief of the cavalry at Leptis. ”

Curio sneered, and then he said to the servant and the herald, this is the first time I have seen such a much-talking token officer, after saying that, he pulled out the dagger, cut the bottom of the captured token officer's clothes, and took out a piece of papyrus from the faceless opponent, saying that this is the truth of the facts, let me see what is said in it.

"So that's the case, the Getulians have already started a rebellion against the king of Juba at the instigation of the Roman knights, and there are quite a few Phoenicians involved" Curio put the dagger on the table, and read it by the way, of course he understood, because he had instigated a lot of wind and fire, and then he was proud that he had seen through the enemy's strategy, "Fellows, Pompey is out of line. King Juba's army will not come in large. I estimate that there are only a few thousand of them. Therefore, we have to take the city of Utica as much as we can, and then confront the two legions led by Pompey himself, the two veteran legions are his elite, and the two in Turas are just a meal before drinking. ”

Then, Curio was very good at seizing the opportunity to mobilize all the soldiers, placing the 14th Legion in a prominent position in the camp, and under the leadership of Quintus, he monitored the movements of the enemy who came to help; The 22nd Army Corps is a new unit. So he was responsible for staying in the camp; And the two Masi legions, under the personal command of Curio, continued to stay behind the blockade wall, and installed siege equipment on it, ready for battle.

About four days later, Quintus urgently sent a token officer to tell Sù Curio that King Juba's cavalry had arrived!

Because it was difficult to find out the exact number of cavalry, Curio did not dare to hold it up, so he hurriedly took all the cavalry with him. Came to the position of Quintus, and then stayed in the camp of the Fourteenth Legion. And sent some capable centurions to the sentinel to reconnoitre.

In the evening, the centurions returned safely, and told Sù Curio excitedly that the Numidian cavalry was no more than two or three thousand men, and that the camp was in a low-lying area with no security protection, and that the vigilance was lax, and that they were still about ten romans from the city of Utica, and that they were afraid that they would have to make contact tomorrow.

"Sure enough, as I expected, King Juba can only send so many men, and they are by no means elite troops, so we will attack tonight, completely defeat them, and then bypass their camp and completely trap Utika."

That's right, the other party led the team is General Ma Ge, he did it completely under the instruction of Li Bida, willing to risk his military career to suffer disgrace, only with the guards at the edge of the camp, and then at the second sentry, Curio's cavalry really shouted, and then poured into Ma Ge's camp, Ma Ge had already prepared, and ran away with the guards, because he did not give strict instructions in advance, so the three thousand cavalry under his command were still in accordance with the habits of the nomads, Tents were erected indiscriminately in the east and west, and there was no way to organize a defense under the scattered, and as a result, hundreds of people were killed by Curio's cavalry, and many were taken prisoner.

When the captives were brought to Curio in the back, he personally interrogated them, and the captives said in unison that behind their camp there were a large number of reinforcements from Pompey and His Majesty.

"How many?" Curio asked with a sneer.

The captives said that the whole kingdom was mobilized, and there were hundreds of terrifying war elephants.

Curio smiled and said nothing, and the idea in his heart became stronger and stronger, and he immediately ordered Rufus and Quintus to select five brigades from the Fourteenth Legion to serve as the answering and guarding duties at the edge of their camp, while he and Rybruce took the rest of the Fourteenth Legion, and called all the Eighteenth Legions of the Marcy people to come over, "Directly follow the traces of the enemy's defeated army, interspersed with the west of the city of Utica, where we will build a new blockade, so that the city of Utica can be completely encircled, I will create a more brilliant victory than Lipida in the city of Marcelia. After saying that, they were not afraid of hardship, with the brigade of infantry as the main lineup, chasing Ma Ge's defeated troops in the established direction.

Gradually, the sun rose in the desert, but there were still many tributaries of the Bagrada River, and some of Curio's men and horses advanced, while others stopped to draw water. Ma Ge's cavalry fled in front of them in twos and threes, and there were scorching sand and sunshine everywhere, and slowly, Curio's army, with the support of enthusiasm, actually pursued on foot for half a day, and penetrated into the twelve romans west of Utica, a wasteland full of hills, which looked to have been the farmsteads of the city of Carthage, and there were still some traces of ditches, but the canals had been destroyed and annihilated.

"This location is also fine, immediately let the soldiers dig a ditch to draw water from the other side of the river, and I will take everyone to set up camp here, and then cut off the internal and external traffic of Utica." Curio licked his somewhat dry lips, he fell into the saddle a little tired, and gave the order to reorganize the army, the young general had been too lucky in the battle before, and he continued to win victories at the wing and brigade level, especially the battle to defeat Turas, which especially made him more confident, the goddess of luck and victory was on my side, Curio's belief was very deep.

And Ma Ge galloped forward for six miles, and at the foot of a hillside, he saw a large group of men and horses of His Majesty the King of Juba coming all over the mountains, covering the entire direction as far as the eye could see, most of them were barefoot light cavalry and light infantry carrying pike darts and short swords, but in the middle of the camp was the place where the guard of honor of King Juba was, and he carried a majestic lion-headed crown, sitting on the shoulders of thirty-six servants, surrounded by two thousand Spanish warriors with fine armor and sharp swords, plus a thousand heavily armed Gallic cavalry, and countless flags and totemic idols.

"Brother Ma, you incompetent bastard, but that's fine, now I'll hand over all my Praetorian Guards to you and Tharp, go fight with Curio and drag him down, and divide the cavalry to occupy the hills and streets here, I'll lead the main force to press up behind, remember not to leave Pompey alive, kill them all!" King Juba saw Ma Ge, who had lost his armor and came over, and said. (To be continued......)