The stratagem of a hundred learned wise men is no match for a goddess of fate.

- Plautus (the most important comedy writer of ancient Rome)

After several days of sea voyages, the outline of the kingdom of Epirus gradually came into view of Tiberius; Looking at the familiar scene in front of him, Tiberius's heart was also full of emotion. The last fiasco is still clearly remembered in Tiberius's heart, and in the blink of an eye, a new round of war is about to begin; I don't know if the result this time is happy or sad!

Tiberius was not the only one who had such feelings, but also the commanders of the regiments such as Gnieus, who also experienced the First Macedonian War, also involuntarily clenched their fists; Last time, they left 30,000 brothers in the kingdom of Epirus, and this time, they swore revenge!

No matter how much the Brutus family felt, the fleet continued to sail to the harbor at the same speed; It was early afternoon, and it was also the time for the fleet of the Kingdom of Epirus to patrol. Although the fleet of the Kingdom of Epirus was destroyed by the fleet of the Brutus family in the last war, Pyrrhus once again formed a fleet of the Kingdom of Epirus after the victory.

It's just that the strength of the Kingdom of Epirus is only reflected in the infantry, and the newly formed fleet is still weak; It is simply a joke that the kingdom's fleet, which has less than ten warships, wants to prop up the coastal defense of a kingdom. If the enemies of this kingdom were the mighty Brutus family, it would be not just a joke, but a tragic joke.

When the fleet of the Kingdom of Epirus discovered the fleet of the Brutus family, they didn't even have the courage to come forward to ask, so they turned the bow of the ship and began to flee; The battleships, which had been cruising on both flanks of the fleet, immediately accelerated and rushed forward. An unexpected naval battle broke out, and the fleet of the Kingdom of Epirus was sunk to the bottom of the sea before it could even counterattack properly.

After clearing the fleet of the Kingdom of Epirus, the warships of the fleets of Sulla and Pompey returned to their escort posts, while the warships of the Brutus family marched in the direction of the port; Tiberius's order to his family's warships was to ensure that there was not a single Epirus ship in the vicinity of the entire harbor before the fleet arrived in the harbor.

In fact, the task of ensuring that there was not a single warship of the Kingdom of Epirus near the entire port was not difficult; After having completely wiped out the patrol fleet of the Epirus Kingdom, the fleet commander of the Brutus family did not think that there were other naval forces of the Epirus Kingdom in the port of Epirus, and this was indeed the case.

The fleet of the Brutus family easily controlled the entire port of Epirus, and the few merchant ships of the Epirus Kingdom merchants near the port were all sunk by the warships of the Brutus family; After the fleet of the Brutus family sent out the rear fleet to completely control the port, the huge fleet began to slowly move towards the port.

Because the port of the Kingdom of Epirus was only a small port of small scale, the number of transports that could be berthed at any one time was extremely limited; It is impossible for the Brutus family to have more than two thousand troops per batch of troops on the port, not counting the unloading of supplies and grain and grass. an army of sixty-six thousand, plus a huge number of equipment and horses that were not easy to unload; It takes at least forty or fifty batches to complete the login.

This is not a simple matter, in order to successfully complete this difficult landing mission, the Brutus family must ensure two necessary prerequisites; First, the first landing army of the Brutus family must control the entire port as quickly as possible, and clear all the troops of the Epirus Kingdom on the port to ensure that the subsequent landing army can land smoothly.

Second, this huge fleet of 140 transport ships must be unloaded and landed in an orderly manner, without the slightest mistake; Otherwise, the slightest mistake could lead to great confusion that would affect the conduct of the entire landing operation. In the former, Tiberius would only need to send a group of his most elite soldiers to land in the port, and they would be able to successfully clear the defenders.

But the latter was not something that Tiberius could control, after all, the huge fleet of transports in front of him was not only forty transports of the Brutus family, but also transports found by Sulla and Pompey; The execution or non-execution of the Brutus family's orders by those transports was nothing more than a matter of thought.

Therefore, in order to complete the landing of the army better and more smoothly, Tiberius decided to personally carry out the landing with forty transports of the Brutus family; The next 100 transports, Tiberius, were completely handed over to Sulla and Pompey, and asked them to direct the 100 transports they had found to start landing after they had landed the first 40 transports.

As for the first troops to land, it was none other than the first and second legions of the Brutus family and the first brigade of the third legion; The total strength of the three most powerful First Brigades was 2,160 men, which was the limit of what the port of Epirus could accommodate. With them in charge of the first landings, Tiberius could be sure that they would be able to take control of the entire port.

But the reality is not so smooth, after the lessons of the last war, Pyrus and Pyrrhus also know that when the Brutus family attacks the kingdom of Epirus again, they will not easily fall into their trap again; Therefore, they also changed their strategy, and placed a considerable number of elite troops to guard the port located in the first line of defense.

Moreover, in order to deal with the hoplites of the Brutus family and the landing army of the Brutus family at long range, Pyrrhus also arranged a considerable number of Rhodes slingers in the garrison of the port; After these arrangements, the fleet of the Kingdom of Epirus became irrelevant, and the real defense of the port became a thousand hoplites and five hundred Rhodes slingers on the port.

The transport, which was full of three soldiers of the First Brigade, was struck by five hundred elite slingers when it was still fifty meters from the port mooring; The whistling stones slammed into the Roman legions that lined up neatly on the deck of the transport. However, there were no casualties on the soldiers who were about to land, only thunder and rain.

This is not to say that the attacks of the slingers are not effective, but the three first brigades that have been prepared for the landing have long been ready to be attacked; Although the soldiers of the Roman legions were already standing on the deck of the transport, their weapons and equipment were also fully dressed, and their shields were tightly held in their hands.

The stone rain of the slingers was fierce, but it was impossible to penetrate the shields of the Roman legions; What's more, it's still a shield layered on top of each other! Since the attack of the slingers had no effect at all, the heavy infantry in the harbor began to come to the mooring platform and prepare themselves for the attack at any time; As soon as the soldiers of the Roman legions landed, the fighting began.

After the four transports docked one after another, before the ships could be stopped, the Roman hoplites on board jumped from the deck with shields in their left hand and short swords in their right hand into the enemy troops on the mooring platform and began to fight; In order to fight the first battle of the landing, the weapons and equipment of the three first brigades were strengthened, and they used sharper short swords and heavier armor and shields.

Such an arrangement soon proved to be worthy, and the hoplites of the Kingdom of Epirus could not resist the combined attack of the three First Brigades; Their weapons could not break through the shields of the Roman hoplites, or even the armor of the Roman hoplites, and their own armor and shields could be easily torn apart by the short swords of the Roman hoplites.

The 1,000 hoplites of the Kingdom of Epirus were already less numerically than the three first brigades of the Roman legions, but it was impossible for all the soldiers of the Roman legions to board the mooring platform at once; As a result, the strength of the two sides was actually about the same, and to some extent the hoplites of the Kingdom of Epirus still had a certain numerical advantage.

However, the Roman hoplites fully compensated for their numerical inferiority, and as the Roman hoplites defeated the defenders of the Kingdom of Epirus, more and more Roman hoplites began to board the moorings from transport ships to participate in the attack on the defenders of the Kingdom of Epirus in front of them.

Only twenty minutes later, the 1,000 hoplites and 500 slingers of the Kingdom of Epirus who were in charge of guarding the harbor were all killed in the harbor, while the hoplites of the Roman legions paid less than 500 casualties; The victorious Roman legionnaires did not waste time, but immediately searched the harbor to ensure absolute control of the port by the Brutus family.

At the same time as there was a fierce battle in the harbor, the first four transports to land also withdrew from the harbor after all the officers and men had left the ship, followed by the second batch of transports that landed; Tiberius himself landed in the harbor with his own commanders after two legions had already landed on the harbor.

By this time, the 1st and 2nd Corps had all landed in port, and it was the 3rd Corps that was landing; Because the equipment of the eight legions was placed at the last to land, the first and second legions were all on the port. In order to gain the initiative before Pyrrhus' counterattack, Tiberius began to give orders as soon as he landed in port.

Gnaeus and Nero, who boarded the harbor with Tiberius, left the port with their respective legions under Tiberius' orders; Tiberius gave them the order to lead their respective legions and march to take several cities near the port before the army of Pyrrhus could react.

This war against the Kingdom of Epirus was destined to be a steady war from the beginning; It was impossible for the generals of Tiberius and Brutus to make the same mistakes as last time, so slowly conquering cities became the standard way of attacking. According to Tiberius's idea, this attack was to take a city and advance one step forward; Don't act rashly! (To be continued.) )