Wisdom is not only found in knowledge, but also in the ability to apply it. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

- Aristotle (one of the great philosophers, scientists, and educators in the ancient history of the world)

The enemy in front had already disrupted the sharp offensive formation, and the commander of the rear gave the order to counterattack, and the hoplites of the 4th and 9th regiments had to muster up their courage and launch a counterattack charge against the enemy's pikemen!

At this time, there were about 5,000 pikemen of the Mainz tribe, but there were less than 4,000 axe men and elite axe men on the left and right wings; Compared with the Mainz tribe soldiers with less than 10,000 soldiers, the Julius family also has more than 8,000 hoplites and nearly 3,000 auxiliary regiment soldiers.

The archers of the auxiliary legions, as soon as their own light infantry broke into the phalanx of the enemy pikemen, immediately turned their attacks into the elite archers behind the enemy pikemen; The battle between the two archer troops, naturally, the elite archers of the Mainz tribe have an absolute advantage, but the archer troops of the Julius family are extremely strong in the attack against casualties!

Of course, this is not that the archers of the House of Julius are not overwhelmed, but that they are trading their lives for the opportunity to attack the hoplites; Now that the enemy pikemen's phalanx has been broken and the attention of elite archers has been drawn, are the most elite hoplites of the House of Julius still unable to make a mark?

It turned out that the performance of the officers and men of the auxiliary legion in this battle was extremely outstanding, and it was also extremely embarrassing to the hoplites of the main legion who usually looked down on the auxiliary legion; Even Flavis himself couldn't help but applaud the performance of the soldiers of the auxiliary legion in his heart, they were indeed true warriors!

Compared to the outstanding officers of the auxiliary legion, the hoplites, known as the elite troops of the Julius family, performed in this battle in a mess; The poor will to fight made Flavies very disappointed with them.

Do you think why the two captains, Farius and Julius, killed the retreating captain and centurion on the spot, isn't it because Flavis let his personal guards bring a word to the two captains? Flavis's exact words are like this: In the future, should our main battle legion and auxiliary legion of the Julius family switch positions?

For an army, honor is the existence that prevails over everything; In particular, these legions, which were composed of pure Romans, have always had a great sense of honor, and when the legionnaires of each legion are together, they also compare the honors obtained by their respective legions.

And Flavies's words were undoubtedly the most cruel slap in the face for a Roman general who regarded honor as his life; However, Farius and Julius could not resent their allegiance to their leader, because the hoplites under their command were so poor!

Even the archers of the auxiliary legions and the light infantry from the Gallic barbarians were able to fight the enemy's archer troops without fear of death, seizing the opportunity to launch a counterattack against the enemy; The hoplites, who had always been known for their elite divisions and main forces, could only retreat under the enemy's attack, and the two army commanders felt ashamed to think about it.

The two regiment commanders, who were determined to make up their minds, gave the most ferocious battlefield orders, and without hesitation, they killed four captains who were still retreating and seven centurions who did not obey orders; With those examples of being killed on the spot, the other centurions and captains immediately gave up their retreat and began to force their soldiers to charge forward and fight back against the enemies of the Mainz tribe.

The two captains of the legions forced the captains of their respective legions to the death, and the captains could only use short swords to force the centurion, and they would kill whoever they did not want to advance; The helpless centurions had to lead their soldiers to launch a counterattack, otherwise they would be the first to be killed on the spot.

The hoplites who had relaunched the counterattack were once again met with the desperate fighting of the Mainz tribesmen, but this time it was only a hand-to-hand exchange of the enemy's troops, and there was no longer any fear of the spear forest formed by the enemy's pikemen phalanx; The centurions of the House of Julius took the lead and led the hoplites around them to kill the enemy, and the soldiers who followed were also inspired to kill the enemy.

The pikemen of the Germanic barbarians were definitely a weapon against cavalry and infantry, and once these pikemen formed a battle formation to form a gun formation, whether the enemy was infantry or cavalry, it would take a very heavy price to break through; And after such a battle formation was broken, the pikemen with spears in their hands were tragic.

The meaning of the existence of the pikemen is to allow the pikemen to form a battle formation and resist the enemy two to three meters behind; And when they lose the cooperation of the battle formation and fall into hand-to-hand combat, the pikemen's spears are useless, but become a burden.

In fact, the six thousand pikemen of the Mainz tribe had inflicted nearly two thousand casualties on the hoplites of the House of Julius; That's a terrifying number, two thousand well-armed hoplites, not light infantry.

But after losing the advantage of the battle formation and falling into hand-to-hand combat, the casualties of these pikemen rose rapidly; When the hoplites of the Julius family were among these pikemen, the cost of one hoplite could even be exchanged for the death of three pikemen, while the axe warriors could only fight desperately on both flanks, and could not intervene in frontal battles at all.

After the destruction of his own pikeman phalanx, Odovaka did not immediately send the remaining 5,000 soldiers in his hands to reinforce the frontal battlefield, but continued to observe the situation on the battlefield; It wasn't until the pikemen's casualties rose rapidly that Odovaka ordered the 3,000 Germanic fanatics around him to attack, and let them replace the pikemen who had suffered heavy casualties.

Three thousand fanatics quickly entered the battle and succeeded in taking over the pikemen, while the 6,000 pikemen eventually retreated to Odovaka's side, with less than 4,000 remaining dead in battle.

After resting the pikemen on the spot, ready to regroup in battle again, Odovaka personally led the last 2,000 recuperated Germanic axe men to attack the enemy army besieging his noble cavalry!

With two thousand Germanic axe soldiers, he dared to attack the Eighth Legion of Clyde, which still had 5,000 men, and it has to be said that Odovaka's move was indeed a brave move; However, as the commander of the army of the Mainz tribe, he actually gave up the central command and personally led the troops to charge and kill, which made Flavis have to lament that the barbarians do not understand military affairs.

Perhaps, the leaders of the barbarian tribes have not experienced special military studies, and they do not know how to become a qualified commander; But you have to admit that the barbarian leaders' actions of personally leading the army to rush and kill can really greatly stimulate the morale of the barbarian warriors and the will to fight to the death.

The noble cavalry of the Mainz tribe, which had already been beaten to only more than 1,000 people, was even on the verge of collapse for a time; But after the two thousand axe soldiers led by Odovaka himself joined the battle, their morale was immediately greatly boosted, not only did they not reveal the collapse of the whole army, but they also launched a counterattack with Odovaka's attack for a time!

Odovaka himself, armed with two huge battle axes, slaughtered the hoplites of the Eighth Legion; Between the two giant axes flying up and down, the hoplites of the Eighth Legion were slashed and flesh flying, completely unstoppable.

The ordinary hoplites could not stop it, and the centurions rushed forward with their short swords alof, but they were not at all the enemies of Odovaka; Even the captain who went to the battlefield in person could not escape the fate of being killed by Odovaka with an axe.

The soldiers of the Eighth Legion, who were terrified by Odovaca's bravery, did not dare to approach Odovaca's side at all, and finally, under the personal leadership of the chief captain of the Eighth Legion, six centurions who plucked up courage and cooperated with the chief captain to launch a siege on Odohuaka; More than a dozen nearby hoplites were also involved in the siege.

Unfortunately, Odovaka's bravery was beyond their imagination; Under the attack of being stabbed in the back by the short swords of the three centurions, he used the giant axe in his left hand to block the attack of the other three centurions, and the giant axe in his right hand used all his strength to split the chief captain of the Eighth Legion who rushed forward in half from top to bottom!

A living man was split in half, and the blood that flew made Odovaka a bloody man; When it was too late, the three centurions who seized the opportunity stabbed their short swords into Odovaka's back, but Odovaka slashed off all the heads of the three centurions with the giant axe in his right hand as if he were nothing!

The remaining three centurions did not escape, and they were all killed on the spot under the horizontal and vertical slashing of Odovaka, even the dozen or so hoplites who cooperated with the attack; Covered in blood, Odovaka was like a demon god on the battlefield, ignoring the injuries on his body and the battle of his own warriors, and devoted himself to the fight against the enemy.

The hoplites of the Eighth Legion watched as Odovaka single-handedly killed so many people in the siege, and the worst death was the chief captain of the Eighth Legion, which undoubtedly greatly damaged the morale of the entire Eighth Legion; The more than 5,000 infantry of the Eighth Legion was so stubbornly suppressed by the 2,000 Germanic warriors of Odovaka.

Odovaka's invincible posture like a demon god naturally looked at Flavis's eyes, but Flavis had no solution at all; The Julius family did not have a brave man like Eudovaca, and Flavies had to pin his hopes on Clyde, hoping that he could command the soldiers of the Eighth Legion and stabilize the battle. (To be continued.) )