Whatever is in line with nature is worth saying and doing. Don't be influenced by reproach or rumors. If you think it's right and well done, then don't belittle yourself. Others have their own way of judging and have their own special tendencies, so don't pay attention to them. Go straight to your own path, according to your own nature, to follow the nature of shared possession. Because there is only one way in common between the two.

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

While Tiberius and his generals were caught up in the void, Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, was discussing his latest military plan with his younger brother Pyros in a military camp less than ten miles from the Roman expeditionary corps; The previous battle of the port, and the twenty-five battles lost in the last twelve days, were all devised by the Pyrrhus brothers, in order to make the Roman expeditionary legions arrogant, so that they could slowly fall into the trap.

In fact, it was not difficult for King Pyrus to defeat the more than 40,000 expeditionary forces of the Roman Republic with 30,000 hoplites and more than 5,000 elite mercenaries and thousands of auxiliary light infantry; Because King Pyrus had already trained the 30,000 heavily armed legions who were the children of the Kingdom of Epirus into a sufficiently good army in half a year, coupled with the superiority of King Epirus' ** team in weapons and equipment, only more than 40,000 Roman recruits were not invincible opponents.

However, King Pyrrhus was not an easily satisfied man, and he was not willing to win a lose-lose victory; Rather than being taken advantage of by the Macedonian kingdom or the Greek city-states after a defeat, it is better to annihilate this Roman expeditionary legion at the lowest cost. At that time, the Kingdom of Epirus will not only not lose its valuable military strength and military strength, but will also make the Roman Republic, the Macedonian Kingdom, the Greek city-states and other countries dare not invade easily; This is the result that King Pyrus wants, and it is the fundamental purpose of this series of plans.

The Roman expeditionary corps that had just landed in the Kingdom of Epirus was cautious and morale-strong, and if the Epirus king's ** team launched a counterattack against the Roman expeditionary corps at that time, it would be really difficult to say who would die; But after the victory at the Battle of the Port and the victory of twenty-five successive battles, the Roman expeditionary legions had won enough victories, but their own army became more and more exhausted. And. To the delight of King Pyrrhus, the complacency of the Roman expeditionary legion grew heavier.

Why did Pyrrhus know that Tiberius's Roman expeditionary corps was becoming more and more complacent? This was due to the fact that the officers of the expeditionary corps were less and less concerned with the attitude of the Kingdom of Epirus to attack the army. Twenty-five successive skirmishes, each time Pyrrhus sent an army of three hundred men; The First Roman Expeditionary Legion sent a full legion to deal with the 300 sneak attack army, and the other legions were also fully armed. What now? Over time. In the last sneak attack, the Roman expeditionary legion only sent a large brigade to meet it; Even the other armies did not even blow the horn of the cordon.

Twenty-five sneak raids, plus the first three thousand defenders of the port, Pyrrhus sent an army of more than 10,000 men; Of these, 6,000 were ordinary slaves who were temporarily released to serve as an army, and 5,000 were elite light infantry under the command of Pyrus, who were also the elite standing army of the Epirus Kingdom. They did not choose to fight to the death on the battlefield with the Roman expeditionary legions. Instead, he chose to be easily captured by the Roman legions; As for why, only Pyrus himself knows.

While King Pyrrhus was standing on the podium in the barracks and watching the drills of the army below, his brother Pyrrhus rode from afar with several horsemen; Looking at Pyrrhus who had arrived in the dust, Pyrus knew that the plan he had arranged could finally be implemented. Soon, the trumpets of assembly sounded in the barracks where the army of the kingdom of Epirus was located; Pyrus, the king of the Kingdom of Epirus, personally led a 30,000-armed army out of the barracks, and Pylos also led more than 5,000 elite mercenaries and nineteen war elephants out of the barracks.

At this time, Tiberius was also discussing military affairs with his legion commanders; With the recent succession of victories, Tiberius has long since thrown the last bit of fear of the kingdom of Epirus into the clouds, and insisted on ordering his army to speed up the march and try to capture the southern town of Turbo in the kingdom of Epirus by tonight. The cautious generals, led by Gnaeus, insisted that the soldiers of the army were exhausted and must rest tonight; Otherwise, even if they arrived at Turbo, they would not be able to launch an attack on Turbo.

The main point of the dispute between Gnaeus and Tiberius was whether the soldiers of the expeditionary corps could take the southern important town of Epirus in the state of Epirus in a state of exhaustion, and whether the soldiers of the expeditionary corps could defeat the army of the kingdom of Epirus at all; Thus. King Pyrrhus's plan was so successful that even the always cautious Gnaeus had already regarded the army of the Kingdom of Epirus as a vulnerable peasant, not to mention Tiberius, the leader of the Brutus family.

In the end, Gnaeus and other generals obeyed Tiberius's orders and chose to order the army to speed up the march and try to reach Tulbo before sunset, and take Tulbo; In order to allow the tired soldiers to speed up the march, Tiberius also made it clear in the order that after taking Turbo, the entire city of Tulbo would be disposed of with the soldiers of the legion. This was already an open permission for the soldiers to burn and plunder Turbo, and when the officers and men of the expeditionary corps heard this order, they were all excited and inexplicably accelerated their march; And the captive King of Epirus secretly clenched their fists.

When the time comes to three o'clock in the afternoon. The sun had not yet set, and the mountains were still hanging high in the sky; But at this time, it was only about three hours before the nightfall. However, this time was enough for the Roman expeditionary legion; After seeing Tiberius and others riding horses outside the range of bows and arrows on the city wall to watch the defense of Tulbo, he ordered more than 40,000 Roman legionary soldiers to start preparing for battle on the spot. Out of contempt for King Epirus' ** army and confidence in their own combat effectiveness, Ganeus and other generals not only did not send enough scout cavalry around the army. Even the siege weapons were just some random ladders.

Judging by the walls of Tulbo, the entire city defense force of Tulbo definitely did not exceed three thousand people; And they were all lightly armed infantrymen with poor weapons and equipment. However, Tiberius's decision to rush to the top was firmly opposed by Ganeus and other generals; In desperation, Tiberius could only send Gnaeus's Eighth Army for a tentative attack. Naturally, as the commander of the legion, Ganeus himself would not go into battle in person, and under his order, the adjutant general of the Eighth Legion took the soldiers of the first brigade and the remaining five brigades to carry the ladder to Turbo.

The sound of majestic trumpets and war drums sounded in the center of the Roman army. Half of the officers and men of the Eighth Legion, led by the adjutant general of the Legion, marched at a neat pace towards Turbo; Half of the Eighth Army, including the First Brigade, had a total of six brigades and thirty-nine hundred-man regiments. They carried a full thirty-nine ladders. Each ladder was carried by twenty soldiers, while the remaining sixty soldiers were responsible for shielding them and quickly ascending the wall after the ladder had been erected.

In the Roman concept, the range of an archer was only a hundred meters; Even for elite archers, their range is only about one hundred and twenty meters. More critically. Archers are not very lethal to hoplites, as their armor and shields are sufficient to defend against most archers' bow strikes. Therefore, at a distance of one hundred and twenty meters from Tulbo, the men of half the army were only advancing in a neat and dense formation; At this time, they were only two hundred meters away from Tulbo.

In the city of Tulbo, it was none other than Pyros, the younger brother of King Pyrrhus, who was in charge of garrisoning Tulbo; He was stationed on the walls of Tulbo with two thousand elite Cretan archers and five hundred elite Rhodesan slingers. Three thousand ironclad cavalry and nineteen war elephants were also ready to go inside the city gates. Why were Cretan archers and Rhodesan slingers among the most elite archers and slingers? Because the effective range of an ordinary archer is a hundred meters, and that of a slinger is eighty meters; And the effective range of the Cretan archers was one hundred and seventy meters, and the Rhodes slingers were one hundred and twenty meters!

Don't underestimate the difference of tens of meters, it will be a fatal distance on the battlefield. As the more than 3,000 men of the Eighth Legion slowly advanced to within two hundred meters of Tulbo, Pylos decisively ordered the two-kilogram lit archers to begin a projectile attack; Because of the height of the walls, Cretan archers standing on the walls could easily shoot arrows at enemy troops up to 200 meters away and maintain great lethality. The sudden rain of arrows caused heavy casualties to the neatly arranged and dense Roman legion soldiers, and the shields that were originally held in their hands were also held high above their heads.

The experienced lieutenant of the legion immediately ordered the remaining soldiers to form a tortoiseshell formation and continue to advance, and in the process of forming a tortoiseshell formation, the Cretan archers on the city wall fired four more rounds of arrows; Five rounds of arrows from a two-kilogram Ritter archer shot a total of 10,000 arrows. With the exception of the first round, which yielded great results, the other four rounds were not much under the shield of the Roman legions. Even so, there were less than 1,000 Roman legions of more than 3,000 soldiers; But they were already less than a hundred meters away from the walls of Turbo under the protection of the tortoiseshell formation.

If it weren't for the amazing results of the first strike of the Cretan archers (nearly a thousand casualties for the Roman legions), coupled with the inexperience of the Roman legions in the process of forming the tortoiseshell formation; At the moment, Türbo will face an even more dire situation. Even so, the situation in Tulbo is not encouraging; After seeing the heavy casualties of the Eighth Legion, Tiberius not only did not notice the difference in the defenders of Tulbo, but instead blamed the soldiers of the Eighth Legion for being too rigid.

In Tiberius's opinion, as long as the soldiers set out with their tortoiseshells arrayed before attacking, wouldn't they have to fear the archers? With this in mind, Tiberius sent the most elite of the Third Eagle Banner Legion as the remaining Eighth Legion slowly approached Turbo; This time, the lieutenant general of the 3rd Eagle Banner Regiment personally led the entire legion to line up the tortoiseshell formation, and only after arranging the tortoiseshell formation did he begin to carry the ladder to Turbo. At this time. Under the double blow of archers and slingers; There were less than a thousand soldiers of the Eighth Legion, and they were only fifty meters from Turbo.

The rumbling drums of war and the sound of the trumpets once again aroused the blood and glory of the Roman legions, who mustered up the courage to continue their march towards Turbo; The archers and slingers on the walls continued to shoot arrows and stones mechanically for their own fate. In a small valley five kilometers away from the battlefield, Pyrus led a regiment of 30,000 heavily armed and waited for Pylos' signal; And the soldiers of the Kingdom of Epirus who were imprisoned in the prisoner camp looked at the Roman legions who were attacking Turbo in front of them. (To be continued.) )