A wise man speaks because he has something to say, and a fool speaks because he has to say something. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

- Plato (one of the greatest philosophers and thinkers of Western culture)

Just when Oscar was about to speak out to agree with Luquis's suggestion, Vipsani rarely stood up to refute Luquis:

"General Luquis, your suggestion can certainly stabilize our Augustus family's North African strategy, and it can also allow the family's army to respond to the situation in North Africa in a timely manner; However, another crucial factor has not been taken into account: logistics.

The reason why the family wanted to postpone the Second and Sixth Army Corps led by General Quintus for half a year to the North African continent was not only to train those newly replenished battle-damaged soldiers, but also to alleviate the family's already almost unsustainable logistical supply situation.

If General Quintus were to lead the army to the North African continent now, I would not be worried about the combat effectiveness of the army; Although the Second Army was replenished with a considerable number of recruits after the Battle of Zama, the fully equipped Sixth Army Corps was more than enough to compensate for the adverse effects of these recruits, not to mention that the Second Army still had a large number of experienced soldiers for the rest of the war to guide them.

But what do we, the House of Augustus, have to provide for these two legions far away on the North African continent? Before the Chengguan legions, their logistical supplies were all provided by the Numidian Kingdom of Adheba; General Quintus's army, but we're going to come on our own.

Perhaps, general, you don't know it yet; Since the Battle of Balearic, the army of our Augustus family has been consuming our family's stockpiled grain and grass materials at a rapid speed, and when it came to the decisive battle of Zama, we took out all our hole cards.

It is now that we, the House of Augustus, have won the decisive battle of Zama and have taken possession of all of Sicily; However, our family's food and grass supplies are still being consumed at a rapid rate.

In the province of Betica, we, the House of Augustus, have stationed three whole legions; That's an army of 30,000 people, and the amount of food and grass needed to be consumed every month is simply astronomical.

What is even more frustrating is that the supplies consumed by the three legions stationed in the province of Betica cannot be obtained locally, and they must all rely on our logistics department for transportation; This in turn greatly increases the consumption of transportation.

The Balearic Islands and Sardinia, although there are no garrison regiments; However, the Balearic Islands are still in the initial construction period, and not only can they not provide various resources for the family, but they will need a lot of support from the family in the process of implementing the new policy.

As for the newly occupied Sicily, it goes without saying; In order to ensure the stability of our Augustan family's rule and the better construction of Sicily in the future, we have chosen not to commit any crime against all the people of Sicily.

This means that the direct benefit we gain from occupying Sicily is only the official inventory of the three provinces of Sicily; Of course, the countless gold and silver treasures captured by Hannibal's army also belong to us, but after all, they cannot be turned into food and drink at once.

In the rest of the family's recuperation, the development of Sicily requires us to invest a lot of resources in construction; In other words, of the six provinces of our family of Augustus, only the province of Sardinia can produce, and the other five provinces need input.

This account alone was enough for our House of Augustus to go bankrupt within a year; It is impossible to make even the most basic break-even. The logistical supply of the garrison in the province of Betica is already dependent on the stocks of our Augustus family.

In addition to the 30,000 troops of the three legions, the nine legions which we have temporarily assembled in Sicily also have an army of 76,000; These armies also need to consume food and grass every day, which is an astronomical amount.

Our family Augustus wants to feed an army of 106,000 by our own family; Coupled with the consumption necessary to transport it to the province of Betica, that is the consumption of grain and grass for a whole army of 120,000!

Here, I would like to share a sad message with all of you; If our Augustans do not have access to a stable supply of food within three months, then our army will be left with no food available.

The huge inventory of our Augustan family has long been consumed; What is left now is only enough for the family army for three months, and this is the result of the full support of the Maxentius family back then, otherwise we would have run out of food and grass half a year ago.

Do not think that we have taken the Balearic Islands, then the province of Betica, and now the three provinces of Sicily; We're really strong, and until these five provinces can't help our family, they're just a burden!

Yes, it is true that we, the House of Augustus, have seized untold treasures of gold and silver while occupying these five provinces; As long as we are given time to turn these gold and silver treasures into strength, then the overall strength of our Augustan family will definitely rise dramatically.

But do we have time now? The kingdoms of Carthage and Numidia have been locked in a military standoff, and it is impossible for us to obtain sufficient food and grass from North Africa; Rome itself, not to mention.

Not to mention that we are at odds with Marius, who occupies Rome proper, even if we are friendly with Marius's forces, it is useless; After all, Rome itself is also a region lacking grain and grass materials, and their own grain and grass materials are transported from outside, how can they give it to us?!

The Kingdom of Spain on the Iberian Peninsula, since we acquired the province of Betica and won the decisive battle of Zama; Our relationship has reached rock bottom, and with their wariness of us, it is impossible for us to get food and grass from them.

In this way, there is simply no force in the entire Western Mediterranean that can provide us with sufficient food and grass; The closest external power to the western Mediterranean was the alliance of Greek city-states spread across the Greek peninsula and the Aegean Sea.

But the reality is that with the successful annexation of the ancient city state of Syra, which is a union of Greek city-states, there is no possibility of peaceful coexistence between us and the Greek city-state alliance; After all, the ancient city-state of Syra was a subsidiary city-state of Sparta.

I think all of you here know something about the Spartans; If it weren't for the fact that we are separated from the Spartan city-states by the sea, and for the recent tensions on the Greek peninsula, the Spartan city-states would have been at war with us.

Therefore, it is simply impossible for us to obtain sufficient food and grass materials nearby; We can only send fleets farther east, so that we can hope to obtain enough food and grass from the rich kingdom of Egypt.

However, obtaining food and grass from the distant kingdom of Egypt meant that we had more consumption and longer transportation time. At the end of the day, we still lack time and can't resolve the time conflict.

If we really grit our teeth and send two legions under General Quintus to the North African continent now; Then, the consumption of food and grass materials of these two legions will be further increased, and the inventory use period of our Augustus family will be reduced by two and a half months!

It takes at least twenty days to sail from Sicily, the island of our Augustus, to the prosperous Alexandria of the Kingdom of Egypt, and more than forty days for a round trip; Combined with the time required to purchase food and grass supplies, it will take at least two months.

This is still the time from the time when the voyage back and forth to the purchase of grain and grass materials has been unusually smooth; If any of these surprises had happened, it would have taken even longer. And the crux of the matter is, do we Augustus have time?

Once General Quintus's two corps landed on the North African continent, and our grain convoy went wrong again; Then, in two and a half months, all the armies of our Augustus family will be in the predicament of running out of food.

I don't know how loyal the soldiers of the family are to the family and to the leader, but I know that no one can last more than three days without eating or drinking; When that time comes, what will we do as the House Augustus?

Do we really need to use the same method of occupying Calaris in Sicily to obtain the resources to sustain the Augustus family? In that case, where is the value of maintaining the stability of Sicily now? ”

When Vipsani, who was a former general under Luquis, stood up to refute Luquis; All the generals in the conference room were surprised, even Oscar was extremely shocked.

You must know that Luquis is not only the former boss of Vipsani, but also has a deeper friendship with Vepsani and other generals who came out of the Wolf Legion; Why did Vipsani stand up against Luquis?

What's more, Luquis's suggestion is still very reasonable and worthy of recognition in Oscar's opinion, and it is even more beneficial to the Augustus family's North African strategy; Vipsani's opposition made Oscar a little unhappy.

But, little by little, as Vipsani spoke, questioned, and explained; Oscar sighed helplessly in his heart, and the family members in the conference room also fell into helpless contemplation in Vipsani's rebuttal.

In fact, everyone knew that what Vipsani was talking about was the truth of the House of Augustus; The current Augustan family, which looks beautiful on the surface, is actually on the edge of an extremely dangerous cliff.

If the Augustan family can grit their teeth and survive this difficulty, then the Augustan family will usher in a period of rapid development and quickly become strong; At that time, the Augustan family was naturally truly powerful and beautiful.

However, if the House of Augustus had been too militant to survive this sorrow; Then, at worst, the Augustan family took a bloody way to obtain enough food and grass materials in Sicily to make all the previous deployments go to waste, and at worst, the Augustus family may even collapse into its own internal inevitability. (To be continued.) )