The most regrettable thing in life is to easily give up what should not be given up, and stubbornly insist on what should not be insisted on. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

- Plato (one of the greatest philosophers and thinkers of Western culture)

The flowers bloomed two on each branch, as early as when Oscar set out with the first landing army, and it was also when Hannibal set out from the province of Baixasian to the kingdom of Cyrenaica; The emissary sent by Oscar himself, Nepos, also boarded a transport ship bound for North Africa.

Nepos, as an outstanding diplomatic talent in the last Balearic War, Oscar has long entrusted him with a heavy responsibility; He was now the chief of all foreign affairs of the House of Augustus. In other words, whether the Augustan family sent envoys to other forces or received envoys from other forces, Nepos was in charge.

For example, the last time Hanno the Younger led a secret mission of the Carthaginian Senate to Sardinia, it was Nepos' diplomats who were in charge of receiving the members of these missions; All other matters concerning these envoys were also entrusted to Nepos and his men.

In fact, since Nepos became the head of the Augustus family's diplomatic department, he himself has rarely been involved in these trivial matters anymore, and he has done more from the perspective of the overall situation. However, this does not hide Nepos' talent for diplomacy; The attitude of the king of Spain towards the family of Augustus, speaks for itself.

Therefore, in order to better fulfill the established strategy of the Augustan family, Oscar decided to let Nepos personally send an envoy to the Mauritania region of North Africa, which is now known as the Kingdom of Mauritania. Although Prince Adheba had a good relationship with the Augustus family, who knows how long this friendly relationship can last after the fundamental interests of each of them are really involved?

In the ensuing decisive battle between the House of Augustus and Hannibal, Oscar must ensure that the Carthage lands do not reinforce Hannibal; In particular, it is vital that the Carthage of Vimini do not reinforce Hannibal!

Even if the anti-Hannibal group represented by Hanno Jr. had made it clear that he would do everything possible to prevent Vimini from leading an army to reinforce Hannibal, it was impossible for Oscar to rest the future of the Augustan family on such illusory promises; What's more, this promise was given by the people of the Kingdom of Carthage.

In view of this, Oscar had to resort to other means to make it impossible for the Carthage army to support Hannibal; Needless to say, the best of all the options would probably be to bring about another war on the North African continent that would contain all the armies of Carthage.

However, after the war in North Africa that has just ended, which other force on the entire North African continent has the strength to challenge the Kingdom of Carthage? The answer is not at all! Originally, the only thing on the North African continent that could challenge the Kingdom of Carthage was the restored and unified Kingdom of Numidia; Unfortunately, Hannibal's first war wiped out the efforts of generations of the Numidian kingdom.

The Numidian nation, which had been forcibly torn apart by the Carthaginian kingdom again, had become four separate kingdoms; The elite army of the original Numidian kingdom was also wiped out with the death of Juguda, which directly led to the extremely weak strength of the four kingdoms after independence.

Coupled with the already weak and civil war of the Kingdom of Cyrenaica, and the Kingdom of the Sahara, which was badly battered in this war, this constituted a force on the North African continent other than the Kingdom of Carthage; To put it bluntly, after this North African war, these six independent small kingdoms together were no match for the Kingdom of Carthage!

But accidents happen in everything, and the same is true on the North African continent; Ever since Prince Adheba of the Kingdom of Numidia failed to compete for the throne, he should have existed as a loser. However, no one expected that Prince Adheba would successfully connect with the Augustus family, and unite the Augustus family to create a joint army of 20,000 people!

In the beginning, no one really took this newly formed Combined Legion to heart; Even the local nobles and wealthy merchants in Mauritania had a contemptuous attitude towards this combined legion, which directly led to Adheba's own heart.

Facts always speak for themselves, though; The Combined Legion under the command of Spartak proved its strength in a contest with Saleh's legion. Later, the Combined Legion engaged in a tentative contest with the armies of the Kingdom of Carthage; As a result, once again Spartak played the prestige of the Combined Legion!

In this way, the combat effectiveness of the Combined Legion can be regarded as formally formed and recognized by the world; With a combined army of 20,000 men, plus the 15,000 Salah army commanded by Salah, and the elite garrison of Mauritania itself, Prince Adheba already has an elite army of more than 40,000 people under his command!

With these 40,000 troops, if they were to go head-to-head with the native army of the Kingdom of Carthage, it would be basically impossible to have any chance of winning; Even if Prince Adheba has a general like Spartak under his command, General Vermina of the Kingdom of Carthage is not so simple.

Since it would not work to directly confront the Kingdom of Carthage, and it was certainly impossible for Prince Adheba to accept; Then, the Augustians had only one other way to stir up the situation in North Africa and drag down the native army of the Carthaginian kingdom.

This method was to promote Prince Adheba to take the initiative to lead the army to start a new war for the unification of the Numidian Kingdom; With the current strength under Prince Adheba's command, there is no problem in defeating Ahmet's New Numidic Kingdom and Bahano's Gaturian Kingdom.

Coupled with Prince Adheba's special status, as long as he successfully takes the provinces of Numidia and Gaturia, he can quickly integrate these two provinces with his own Mauritanian province into a new kingdom of Numidia!

In this way, this new Numidian kingdom would be completely bordered by the Carthaginian lands and pose a sufficient military threat to the Carthaginian kingdom; In this situation, it would be impossible for the native army of the Carthaginian kingdom to go to Sicily to reinforce Hannibal at the risk of being taken advantage of by others!

Of course, it is also possible that when Prince Adheba led his army to reunite the kingdom of Numidia, the Kingdom of Carthage would take the initiative to intervene; Such a result would have been the best for the Augustus. As long as the war has begun, it is not so easy to end it easily; The native army of the Kingdom of Carthage was still held back.

All of the above possibilities are extremely beneficial to the House of Augustus, but there is the last possibility that is extremely unfavorable to the House of Augustus; That is, Prince Adheba is not willing to send troops to reunite the Numidian kingdom at all!

The probability of this kind of thing happening is still very low, and Adheba is not a person without ambition; Otherwise, he would not have competed with Jugurdah for the throne in the past, let alone fled to Mauritania after losing the battle for the throne, and recruited troops to protect himself.

However, in order to cope with the possibility of such a situation, Oscar himself gave Nepos another important task; That is, after landing in Mauritania, send a special person to the barracks of the Combined Legion to meet Spartacus.

If, after Nepos failed to persuade Prince Adheba, Spartak would have to launch an attack on the other kingdoms in the border area on the tenth day after receiving the secret order, dragging the North African continent back into the flames of war!

With the Augustus' control of the Combined Legion, Oscar believed that Spartak could easily accomplish his mission; So, from the beginning to the end, Oscar didn't worry too much about things in North Africa. Because Oscar believed in Nepos' ability, and even more in Spartak's ability and Prince Adheba's ambition!

After receiving a series of orders, Nepos took several days on a transport ship before finally reaching the port of Mauritania; Because this mission was not a fanfare, the Mauritanian side did not even know about this matter, so naturally no one would welcome Nepos and his party.

As soon as all the members of the mission had landed in the harbor, Nepos rode his diplomats with his diplomats to the capital of Prince Adheba; After leaving the port, three of Nepos' team broke away on horseback and headed for the Combine Legion station.

The mission of these three people is naturally to convey Oscar's secret order to Spartak; Nepos, on the other hand, took the main members of the mission to the capital of Prince Adheba. After all, Nepos's main task is to try every means to persuade Prince Adheba to take the initiative to send troops, which is the best way to solve the problem!

After a day and a night of galloping, Nepos and his party finally arrived at Tangier, the capital of Mauritania, at noon on the third day; At this time, the city of Tangier is the busiest time of the day, the streets and alleys are full of small vendors and pedestrians coming and going, and Nepos and others cannot control the gallop of war horses.

In order not to lose time, Nepos had to reveal himself and others to the defenders near the gates of Tangier, and to tell them that he had something important to meet Prince Adheba immediately; After learning the identities of Nepos and the others, the defenders of the city gate could neither confirm their identities nor dare to delay these seemingly extraordinary visitors.

Therefore, the defenders at the city gate had to immediately send someone to the palace of Prince Adheba to inform them of the situation, and invited Nepos and others into a restaurant near the city gate, waiting for Prince Adheba's reply. In less than ten minutes, the guards of Prince Adheba's mansion rushed to the city gate and escorted Nepos and the others to Prince Adheba's mansion immediately! (To be continued.) )