Something valuable is only meaningful to those who understand.

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

As for why the famous pirate prince Bellamy and the Brotherhood of the Red Beard would be loyal to Sulla and Pompey, this is understandable; With the full-scale war between the Roman Republic and the Carthaginian kingdom in recent years, the maritime trade in the entire western Mediterranean has been almost destroyed, and the fleets that can continue trading in such a war situation are not something that pirates can offend.

Like Sulla and Pompey, their family's maritime trade never stopped; No matter how fierce the battle between the Roman Republic and the Carthaginian Kingdom was, and no matter how wreaking havoc piracy in the Mediterranean, it never affected the maritime trade between the two families. The reason is simple, the trade fleets of both families are escorted by the fleets of their respective families, and the pirates simply cannot afford to mess with them.

As for why the fleets belonging to the Kingdom of Carthage also turned a blind eye to the fleets of Sulla and Pompey, there are deeper reasons; In addition to the reason for the decline of the Carthaginian navy, Sulla and Pompey were always able to buy the senators of the Carthaginian kingdom and the commander of the Carthaginian naval fleet with money, and Roman luxury goods were also sought after by the Carthaginian aristocracy.

For these reasons, the merchant fleets of Sulla and Pompeii became a special presence in the Mediterranean; They were not afraid of the attacks of the pirates or the navy of the Kingdom of Carthage, and they made a great deal of money through maritime trade. Later, the pirates couldn't survive; Naturally, some well-known pirates have pinned their futures on seeking refuge from the great powers.

Needless to say, Sulla and Pompey must have been one of those great powers; At the time, Kidd and Roberts were bent on defecting to the Augustan family, while Bellamy and the Redbeard brothers chose to negotiate with Sulla and Pompey. As it turned out, Kidd and Roberts made the right choice; But Bellamy and the Redbeard brothers' choice is not a bad choice, at least they are also commanders.

When Sulla and Pompey returned to the port of Tarentum with their large fleets and convoys, they did not continue to sail at the same speed; Not only was the sheer number of transports delaying the voyage, but Sulla and Pompey were reluctant to show Tiberius and Brutus too much too much of their prowess too soon.

If he hurried back to the port of Tarentum now, he would have completed the agreement between the two of them and Tiberius about four days in advance; Although this is not a bad thing, it will also make the Tiberius and Brutus families aware of the true strength of their two families, which will outweigh the losses.

After all, Tiberius and the people of the Brutus family were not fools, and it was extremely unreasonable for Tiberius and the others to bring back an extremely large fleet of ships after six days at sea, because he and the others had prepared more than 1,500 war horses; Waiting for ten days to go back is at least logically appropriate.

Sulla and Pompey sailed the sea with their huge fleet for five days before they began to speed up their voyage; After two days at full speed, on the evening of the tenth day of Sulla and Pompey, the fleet finally saw the outline of the port of Tarentum again.

However, the sheer size of the fleet and the number of warships that surpassed those of the Brutus family still alarmed the Brutus family's naval fleet; As soon as they discovered this sudden fleet and a large escort fleet, they began to make preparations for battle, and constantly used flags to ask for the identity of the fleet.

Although Sulla and Pompey immediately ordered the flag-bearers on their ships to show their identities to the Brutus fleet, this did not gain the full trust of the Brutus fleet; After they urgently reported to His Excellency, the head of the family in the port, they sent people to board the ships of Sulla and Pompey, and only after confirming the identities of Sulla and Pompey did they lift the guard and release the fleet into the port.

Of course, all they had put was the hundred convoys of the convoy and the ships of Sura Pompey, and the other huge groups of warships were not put into the harbor by them, but were ordered to anchor outside the harbor; This is not an excessive request, after all, no family will allow an unknown fleet to enter their own family's port.

But the crux of the matter is that if this order is issued by a strong person, it will be a matter of course; The weak can only choose to accept it. However, the strength of the current fleet of the Brutus family is not as strong as the combined fleet brought by Sulla and Pompey; Doesn't it seem funny that the weak give orders to the strong?

Thankfully, this strong man did not come to bully the weak, but was ordered to cooperate; Under the orders of Sulla and Pompey, Bellamy and the Redbeard brothers ordered their respective warships to anchor on the spot without complaint, while Sulla and Pompey slowly sailed to the port with a hundred transports.

The port of Tarentum was also a large harbor with ten moorings, and in addition to the moorings for the ships of Sulla and Pompey, the remaining nine moorings were used for transports to unload their horses; However, Tiberius, who had already arrived at the port to meet Sulla and Pompey in person, refused to let the transports unload their horses.

It turned out that during the ten days that Sulla and Pompey had gone to sea, Tiberius had arrived at the port of Tarentum with all eight legions ready to go on the expedition; The heavy and slow equipment was dragged to the harbor by the cavalry's horses. In other words, the Brutus family was fully prepared for the expedition, just waiting for the return of Sulla and Pompey's fleet.

Therefore, Tiberius told Sulla and Pompey not to unload their horses; Otherwise, it will have to be reloaded onto the transport ship soon. The loading and unloading of war horses is already troublesome, and if you toss up and down like this, you can only delay the boarding time of the army; It's better to unload them all at once after landing in the Kingdom of Epirus, so it's more convenient.

After disembarking, Sulla and Pompey heard Tiberius say this, and thought that it was true; As a result, the unloading of the war horse was directly canceled. The transports loaded with the horses began to slowly withdraw from the mooring platform, allowing the empty transports to enter the mooring platform; Night was coming soon, and it was impossible to get the fleet to set off tonight, so the empty transports began to load the supplies first.

Eight heavy legions plus ten auxiliary legions for a total of 66,000 troops, the materials needed for its battle are even more astronomical; The supplies were piled up like a hill in the harbor, a full fifteen hills. These huge quantities alone require at least forty transport ships to be loaded, and it is naturally impossible to load them all on the transport ships overnight.

Moreover, when one hundred and forty transports (the Brutus' own forty transports) were filled with sixty-six thousand troops, there were at most less than ten transports left to carry supplies; It is impossible to send such a large number of materials to the Epirus Kingdom at once, and it must be shipped in two batches.

Tiberius had already arranged this, and the first landing army was all the troops and the supplies they needed for ten days; Most of the remaining supplies needed to be secured after the landing army took the port before it could be delivered to the port of Epirus in the second batch.

By this time, night had slowly fallen; There was no one else in the harbor except the busy porters. Tiberius had already taken Sulla and Pompey to rest in the barracks outside the port, and this time Sulla and Pompey helped the Brutus family so much for free, Tiberius needed to be polite no matter what he said.

In addition, the army will board the ship tomorrow, and after boarding, it will be a few days of drifting at sea, and during this period, there may be a considerable number of soldiers who have not been to sea will be seasick; After arriving at the port of the Kingdom of Epirus, the landing army may have a fierce battle with the defenders of the Kingdom of Epirus, and there will even be heavy casualties.

From the day they landed on the kingdom of Epirus, it was impossible for the army of the House of Brutus to have the opportunity to stop and recuperate until the conquest of the kingdom of Epirus had been completed; Therefore, tonight, the last night before the expedition, naturally became a carnival night for the army of the Brutus family, and all the soldiers and soldiers, regardless of the legion, drank and sang together.

No matter how drunk you are tonight, and whether you have a rest tonight, you can lie down and rest tomorrow when you get on the transport; And you can rest for a few days. More importantly, every soldier in the barracks knew that the war between the family and the kingdom of Epirus was destined to be a brutal and bloody battle; We don't know if we can win the final victory, but we know that no matter whether we win or lose, the family will definitely pay a heavy price.

This so-called heavy price is that of the nearly 70,000 soldiers in the barracks, it would be good if half of them survived in the end; That is still the premise that victory can be won in the end. If the family is unable to achieve the final victory, then the fate of the group may be the same as that of the three heavy legions and the three auxiliary legions that set out in the past.

Perhaps, for the leaders of the clan and the generals of the legions, these ordinary soldiers are just bargaining chips for victory and numbers on battle reports; However, each of them is a flesh-and-blood person, they also have their own family, relatives and friends, they also have their own ideals and ambitions, and they also want to live well all the time.

Unfortunately, many people's fate is not in their own hands, and so are they; They can only choose to work harder in training, so that they can get away with saving their lives when they are on the battlefield. However, there will always be casualties in war; Some people will survive, while others will die. In the face of the unknown future, everyone can only have a drinking carnival today and drunk today!

Early the next morning, the soldiers of the eight legions and the archers of the auxiliary legions began to board the ship in an orderly manner; Tiberius and his legionnaires boarded the ships of Sulla and Pompey. After a whole morning of boarding, facing the midday sun, the huge fleet began to slowly march in the direction of the Kingdom of Epirus again! (To be continued.) )