Anyone, including cowards, can start a war, but to end it is with the consent of the victors.

- Gaius Salestius Crispus (famous Roman historian)

At this time, the fleet of the House of Brutus, after discovering the fleet of the House of Augustus that had counterattacked, did not immediately move closer to their ally Scipio fleet, nor did they have any intention of supporting the Scipio fleet. And the commander of the fleet of the Scipio family, even when the strength of the enemy and his own side was not too different, did not immediately ask for help from the quiet Brutus family.

In fact, the alliance between the Brutus and Scipio was nothing more than a helpless move for both sides to have no choice for the time being; Whether it's Scipio or Brutus, they both have a deep-seated attachment to each other. Not to mention the joint efforts of Marius and Scipio to suppress the Brutus family this time, even in the past, these two families were also typical of open and secret fighting.

In light of this, how could the fleets of Scipio and Brutus really work together against Augustus? As far as Scipio was concerned, how could they take the initiative to ask for help from the Brutus family unless they had to do so? As for the Brutus family, they obviously hate the Scipio family more than they have other feelings, and they are unlikely to take the initiative to help.

Of course, this could not be a reason for the fleet of the Brutus family to die against the fleet of the Scipio family; No matter how many shady feuds there are between these two families, they still need to maintain a relatively harmonious alliance on the surface. The fleet of the Brutus family, although it did not directly support the fleet of the Scipio family, also took the initiative to meet the Gatsi fleet that followed behind.

While the fleet of the Brutus family and the fleet of the Gatesi were slowly approaching, the fleet of Roberts and Kidd was already engaged in battle with the fleet of the Scipio family. Because of the direction of the wind, Roberts and Kidd's fleet was far inferior in speed to the rampaging Scipio fleet; This also greatly limited the strength of the Roberts fleet and the Kidd fleet.

Even though the fleets of the two were extremely good at long-range strikes and hand-to-hand combat, in the most direct battleship collisions, the fleets of the two were more than a little weaker than the fleet of the Scipio family; Roberts and Kidd also know this. Therefore, the two did not intend to fight against the Scipio family, but wanted to bypass the Scipio family's fleet from the two wings.

Unfortunately, not everything is as simple as the two imagined; The commander of the fleet of the House of Scipio was not a fool either, and the previous encounters with the patrol fleet were enough to prove the superiority of the fleet of the House of Augustus in terms of fire. Moreover, his biggest advantage at this time is to accelerate downwind, and it is naturally impossible for him to waste such a good opportunity.

Just as Roberts and Kidd were each leading their fleets to bypass the two flanks of the Scipio family fleet, the Scipio family fleet also suddenly turned sideways and split in two, rushing towards the two of them. Among them, it was the main fleet led by the commander of the fleet of the Scipio family who rushed to Kidd, and the remaining five double ships rushed to Roberts's fleet.

It is clear that the intention of the commander of the Scipio family fleet was to concentrate superior forces on Kidd's fleet and at the same time use a small number of warships to pin down Roberts's fleet; Attack them one by one against the Augustus fleet, which has the advantage in the number of ships. Once used, this method worked quite well.

Scipio's fleet, which had been divided in two, rushed head-on towards Roberts and Kidd's fleet with unusual speed under the force of the wind; It is impossible for Roberts and Kidd to change course at this time, otherwise it will only plunge their own fleet into even greater chaos. Therefore, they also ordered all the fighters on the battleship to be ready for hand-to-hand combat, ready to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy at any time!

You must know that the vast majority of naval engagements in this era relied on the ramming and hand-to-hand combat of warships on both sides to win; There are not many examples of defeating the enemy with only long-range strikes, and they are not very feasible. The reason why Roberts and Kidd did not use special arrows to attack enemy ships at this time was also very simple, that is, they were afraid of setting fire to their bodies.

Judging by the current situation, the ships of Scipio's fleet, which had the advantage in speed, would crash into their own fleet anyway; If Scipio's ships were set on fire at this time, the Augustus ships would also be at risk of being affected by the fire, and Roberts and Kidd would not have risked using special arrows.

The menacing Scipio main fleet finally stormed Kidd's fleet a few minutes later; It was the three triremes of the Scipio family fleet that took the lead, and the two triremes and two twin warships of the Kidd fleet, which bore the brunt of the attack, were even more backwards due to their impact.

At the same time, the commander of Scipio's fleet immediately ordered the remaining ten twin ships on his own flagship to carry out a concentrated attack on the four ships in front of the Kidd fleet; Kidd was naturally unwilling to let the four warships of his fleet be besieged like this. As a result, Kidd also personally led his remaining six twin battleships to rush towards the enemy's battleships.

By this time, the four besieged battleships of the Kidd fleet had already engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat with the fighters on the enemy's three triremes; The three tri-ships of Scipio had six hundred warriors fully manned, while the four ships of Kidd's fleet had only three hundred warriors, and the remaining three hundred were archers who were extremely unfit for hand-to-hand combat.

Of course, this was not enough to give the ships of the Scipio family an immediate advantage; Because two of the three triremes of the Scipio family collided with the triremes of the Kidd fleet, the remaining third triremes also collided with the two twin warships of the Kidd fleet.

In this way, Kidd had a hundred warriors on the ships and a hundred archers against the two hundred warriors of Scipio; Coupled with the high investment of the Augustus family in the battleship soldiers, the situation did not turn one-sided. Although the 200 soldiers on Scipio's battleship were more than the soldiers on Kidd's battleship, the difference between the two sides in terms of weaponry and training was more than a star and a half.

Moreover, it is also difficult to give full play to the numerical advantage in the melee on the battleship; The only people on both sides who were able to fight together at the first time were only thirty or forty fighters. In addition, the archers on the Kidd battleship also occupy the commanding heights of their own warships, and from time to time they use their bows and arrows alone to fight the enemy, and the battle is in a state of anxiety.

Immediately afterwards, the six twin warships led by Kidd himself and the ten follow-up twin warships of the Scipio family also joined the battle group, and the full-scale battle between the two fleets was also unusually tragic. At the same time that Kidd and Scipio's main fleet were in a fierce battle, Roberts's fleet was also entangled with Scipio's five twin ships.

As it turned out, Scipio also had a very large number of people who dared to die; The Scipio warriors on these five twin ships drove their respective warships into the five twin ships of Roberts' fleet respectively, and then carried out a rather fierce attack on the Roberts battleships.

Perhaps, for such ordinary Scipio soldiers, the fleet of House Augustus is a fleet that invades their homeland, and it is also an evil fleet, and they are fighting to defend their homeland and their families from the flames of war! After the five twin ships of Roberts' fleet were entangled in enemy ships, Roberts had to join the battle group with three triways and the remaining three twin ships.

With the three triremes and eight twin ships of Roberts's fleet, it was natural to form an absolute advantage over the five twin ships of Scipio's fleet, but naval battles were always carried out relatively slowly and fiercely; Roberts could not have put too much effort into a mere battleship, and the battle between the two sides could only be fought at a tragic and unusually slow pace.

Just as Roberts' fleet and Kidd's fleet were locked in battle with Scipio's fleet, Gatsi's fleet and Brutus' fleet began to confront each other; Yes, it's a confrontation, not a battle! Truth be told, the Brutus family doesn't have a good opinion of the rest of Rome right now.

Among them, especially the Scipio family and Marius forces, who were allies of the Brutus family; In the eyes of the Brutus family, neither of these forces is a good thing, and they are both bastards who suppress the Brutus family. Relatively speaking, the Augustus family overseas and the Julius family in the north did not have too many grievances with the Brutus family, and the two sides would not draw their swords against each other.

As for the reason why the Brutus family sent a fleet to support the Scipio family, it was not something for these fleet members to consider; However, before the fleet departed, Tiberius also told the commander of his family's fleet, asking him to only cooperate with the fleet of the Scipio family to patrol the sea, and not to engage the Augustus fleet head-on.

Based on this premise of cooperation, the commander of the fleet of the House of Brutus was not willing to fight the fleet of the House of Augustus at all, and even more unwilling to support the fleet of the House of Scipio; Therefore, after he led his fleet to intercept the fleet of the Augustus family, he no longer took the initiative, but only stabilized the current situation.

For the commander of the Brutus fleet, will the fleet of the Scipio family pay heavy casualties at a disadvantage, and what does it have to do with the Brutus family? He led the fleet to stop the third fleet of the House of Augustus, and left the rest to the Scipio family to solve it themselves; What's more, the Scipio family did not send a signal for help to themselves, and they would not take the initiative to reconcile.

And for Gatsi, it's good that the Brutus fleet is confronted with him like this; The strength of the Roberts fleet and the Kidd fleet was superior to that of the Scipio family. Even if his own fleet is unable to participate in the war, as long as the fleet of the Brutus family does not support the fleet of the Scipio family, Gatesi is sure that he will be able to defeat the fleet of the Scipio family completely! (To be continued.) )