Are you distracted by external things you encounter? Give time to learn something new and good and stop going around in circles. But you must also avoid being taken to another path. For those who are exhausted by their own activities in life are also wanderers, who have no goal to guide every action, and in short, all their thoughts are purposeless.

- Marcus Aurelius (the only philosopher-emperor in Western history)

Just as Oscar led an expedition to the Balearic Islands, and Hannibal led the Legion of the Holy Order to the Western Front to train his army, the army of 50,000 led by Zuguta himself finally came to the border of Baisasian after a long journey; Looking at the province of Baisasian in Carthage, which was just a stone's throw away, Tulguta felt so close to the position of the overlord of North Africa for the first time. However, the Turguta, who has eaten a trench and grown wise, will no longer lead the chaotic march of the army with blind confidence as he did last time; This time, Thuguta will have to settle the opponent steadily.

It was already afternoon when it approached the province of Baisasian, and the army was already exhausted after more than ten days of continuous marching; At Ahmet's suggestion, Tulguta decided to give his soldiers a rest. More than 30,000 infantry were responsible for setting up camp, and the elite cavalry also began to feed and take care of their horses; The remaining 12,000 light cavalry were divided into four teams by Zuguta, each of which 3,000 cavalry made detailed patrols within ten miles of the barracks, and the four teams of cavalry took turns patrolling until the early morning of the next day.

In addition, in order to get enough knowledge of the defenders of the province of Baisasion in Carthage, Ahmet, with the permission of Zuguta, sent hundreds of scout cavalry from all directions to reconnoiter the situation of the Carthaginian city and the distribution of the defenders within a hundred miles; Ahmed himself was in the tent of Tulguta to negotiate with the generals about the next battle plan.

According to previous intelligence, the famous Carthaginian general Victoria Secret, who attacked the Numidian army in Tripoli last time, is the commander of the Carthaginian army who is responsible for defending Baisasson this time; Moreover, Carthage sent two reinforcements from the province of Africa to Vimina, the exact number of which is unknown, but at least no less than 5,000 people.

plus the 4,000 elites who withdrew from Vimyna's last sneak attack, and the 15,000 new garrisons of Baisasian; Ahmad estimated that the garrison of Baisasian was now more than 25,000 troops, but 30,000 would never reach it. The number of elite troops in the Carthaginian garrison did not exceed 10,000, and the rest were recruits; And correspondingly. The Numidian army had 20,000 elite troops, 20,000 recruits and more than 10,000 javelin cavalry.

The absolute superiority in quantity and quality made Turguta and his generals full of confidence in this battle; However, in view of General Vimyna's perfect sneak attack last time, Zuguta and the others were still very jealous of Vimyna. Of course, it cannot be said that this kind of jealousy is not a good thing; At the very least, this fear can keep the Numidian army in an absolutely dominant position. Still vigilant and cautious.

The cavalry, who were in charge of reconnoitering the situation within a hundred miles from different directions, returned to the barracks before sunset, and brought back exactly the same information: all the local Carthaginian defenders had withdrawn to Tapsus, the capital of Baisasian, and the central city of Qusel a few days earlier, and all the crops that were about to ripen were concentrated in Tapsus; Even the vast majority of the Carthaginian people south of Tapsus were moved north of Tapsus.

As for the exact distribution of the military divisions, the cavalry did not obtain any definite information, but some information was obtained from some merchants and other people: the total strength of this Baisassion was about twenty-five thousand men, and the bulk of the army was under the personal command of the Vimini in the capital of Tapsus; An army of about 5,000 men or more was stationed in the central city of Qusel.

The information that the cavalry brought back was not very clear. But the generals, including King Zunguta, were satisfied; After all, it is impossible for these cavalrymen to really go to Tapsus and Qusel to have a look, and it is not easy to get this information. After complimenting the cavalrymen, Tulguta began to formally discuss with the generals the specific battle plan for the current form.

Since Gaia and the other three generals have worked hard to improve themselves, every military meeting has been deliberately asked by Zunguta and Ahmed to let them discuss first, so as to cultivate their thinking skills and overall view, and this time is no exception. At Ahmed's suggestion, Gaia, who has always been favored by Ahmed, first stood up and analyzed:

"Your Majesty, General Ahmed; I think there are two main ideas behind Victoria's pre-war preparations. First, he wanted to collect all the grain and grass that we could get on the spot by clearing the wilderness, and then by transferring the people of Carthage, so that we could not get enough military rations in Baisasion.

But. I don't think this approach has had a big impact on us; After we take Tripoli, the grain and grass in Tripoli will be used for us. Although Tripoli is not a short distance from our front line in Baisasian, it has saved two-thirds of the time it takes to transport grain and grass from Numidia proper; So, even if we can't get it locally south of Baisasian, we can still get a lot of it from Tripoli.

The second is the move of Victoria's detachment to garrison Qusel, which I think is another strategy prepared by Vimini for future sneak attacks. Quser is an important military town in the middle of Baisasian Province that is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and we only need 5,000 elites to defend Qusir, and it is impossible for us to take Qusel in a short time; When it comes time for us to attack Tapsus, the defenders of the city of Qusel will be ready to attack us from the flanks at any time. Such an arrangement is enough to disrupt the military deployment of our army.

However, I think there are other ways to solve this; We can divide the army into two lines, and the main army will attack Tapsus under the command of His Majesty the King and General Ahmet. The partial division was commanded by a general who was responsible for the attack on Qusel, and in turn broke the Vimina arrangement. So that the defenders of Qusayr could not go out of the city to attack our army. ”

Gaia's analysis was reasonable and thoughtful, and both Zuguta and Ahmed nodded approvingly at Gaia's analysis; Even Juguda, who had a calm expression, glanced at Gaia in surprise. Gaia, on the other hand, smiled humbly and stood back in her place; Then it was Niptasan's turn to speak.

Niptasan straightened his armor, strode out of his position, stood in the center of the tent, and clenched his fists at Tsuguta and Ahmed and said, "Your Majesty, General Ahmet; Regarding the first point that General Gaia said. My thoughts are in line with those of General Gaia, and I also think that Vimy's move is to delay our food supply as much as possible.

Because even if we transport food and grass from Tripoli to the front, it will take a lot of time, which will also allow Victoria Milage to take a breather while defending; Both sides on the battlefield are on the front line, and our delay is not long. But it was enough to give Vimina and his army a few more respites during the battle.

Therefore, I think that Vimyna's move is not completely useless, at least it delays the pace of our offensive and leaves him more room to prepare. As for the matter of Victoria's detachment of troops to garrison Quselle. I think that Victoria's intention may not have been to prepare for a sneak attack on us at all; Rather, it was used to disperse our forces in the first place! ”

Niptasan's idea was beyond everyone's expectations, and even Tulguta looked at Niptassan in bewilderment; Ahmed, on the other hand, glanced thoughtfully at Niptasang, and then said encouragingly, "Niptasan, your idea is good; Tell all your ideas and evidence for everyone to refer to, maybe your idea is correct. ”

After hearing Ahmed's encouragement. Niptassan glanced at Ahmet gratefully; Then he continued to analyze: "According to our intelligence on the strength of Vimyna's command, the total number of troops under his command is about 25,000; With this less than half the strength of our army, and the fact that the combat effectiveness of the troops under his command is generally inferior to ours, Vimyna's division is certainly not for a sneak attack on our army.

It seems to me that Vimini must have known that his 25,000-strong army was powerless to stop the full force of our 50,000-strong army; As he pleased, he resorted to the method of dividing our forces by dividing Qusser. For it is impossible for us to ignore the five thousand garrisons of Qusayr and concentrate all our forces on Tapsus; In this way, the division of our forces is inevitable.

If we want to capture Qusayr in one battle and do our best, with Kusayr's easy-to-defend position and the defense of important military towns; If we want to annihilate these 5,000 defenders, we may have to pay at least several times as much as the defenders. Even if we count by the least, we have completely annihilated these five thousand defenders with the loss of ten thousand troops; We have less than 40,000 troops left.

The result was that the Tapsus defenders completely ignored our attack on Qusel. Our army completely annihilated the defenders of Qusayr with minimal losses; Although all of our recruits have been trained by the war after this battle, our absolute superiority over Vermina is not so obvious.

Of course, you may say that our army has decreased in numbers, but our army has also become more elite; However, if we were to attack Qusel with new recruits, the casualties would probably be much heavier, and we may not even have 35,000 troops left. Therefore, we can neither completely ignore Qusel, nor can we really launch an all-out attack on Qusel's battlefield.

We can only choose to send a partial division to confront the defenders outside the city of Qusser, plus we have no idea the composition and elite level of troops inside the city of Qusel; The number of partial divisions we sent out must not be less than 5,000. Recruits cannot be used either. In this case, Victoria's Secret used the unidentified 5,000 defenders in exchange for our elite divisions of at least 5,000 or more, which could not be used to attack Tapsus for the time being; Whatever he really thinks, at least we won't be able to attack Tapsurus with all our might. ”

Niptasan's words not only caused Gaia and Egklos, who were also new generals, to fall into deep thought, but Zuguta and Ahmed also began to seriously consider the possibility that Niptasan was talking about; The atmosphere inside the tent was also dull because of everyone's own thoughts. After much deliberation. Ahmed found out that it was really what Niptassan had said; This division of forces in Vermina, whatever it may be, will certainly lead to the division of the Numidian army.

However, the division of troops is the division of troops, and how to divide the troops must also be carefully discussed by the generals; Ahmed could never be the commander of a partial division. Because Ahmet was the most capable general under the command of Thuguta, and the only general who could command a large army to fight with ease; So. The Tapsus attack, which is the main battlefield, must be commanded by Ahmet himself. Gaia and the other three generals are also unsuitable as partial commanders, not because Zuguta does not trust them; It's that they are capable enough to lead a large army in battle on their own.

Now the advantage of the Numidian army over the large army under the command of Vimina is also extremely limited; If anything happens to this deviant division, then the advantage of the Numidian army is likely to be lost. In the opinion of Tulguta and Ahmed. If the Numidian army is unable to settle the garrison of Vimini and his Baisasian garrison in a quick manner; When the Carthaginian Senate brought back Hannibal and his elite, the war would become a protracted war.

At this time, news of Hannibal's return was also blocked in the Carthaginian army; Naturally, it was impossible for the Numidian army to know that Hannibal had already returned to Carthage, and it was inevitable that Zuguta and others would not consider the changes brought about by Hannibal when formulating military plans. Based on this consideration, Tulguta finally decided in his mind that he thought it was the most suitable candidate, and that was to send General Jugurdah and his 5,000 elite men to fight in Qusayr. (To be continued.) )