Courage is the best of all talents, and it precedes everything.

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

The nature of human beings is to eat a trench and grow wise, after suffering a loss, the vast majority of people will not suffer the same loss a second time; The same was true of Tiberius. In Tiberius's view, the main reason for the fiasco of the last Battle of Tulbo was that the army of the Brutus family was too careless and aggressive; As long as these mistakes are avoided this time, then the balance of victory will still be tilted in favor of oneself.

Based on this view, Tiberius, as soon as his family army took control of the port, sent the First and Second Legions to march towards the city of Epirus near the port; As long as the First and Second Legions can successfully control the cities near the ports, then these cities and ports will become the foundation of the Brutus family.

In fact, Tiberius's method of warfare, except that the speed of the war would be slower, was very good; At the very least, it is guaranteed that the army of the Brutus family will not suffer the same crushing defeat as last time, and there is no need to worry that the army of the Brutus family will fall into the trap of the army of the Kingdom of Epirus.

However, this is not absolute; After all, what kind of ambush method a character like Pyrrhus could come up with was not something that the Brutus family could think of. It turns out that the Brutus family launched an attack on the Epirus Kingdom at this time, which should be the most correct time to attack; It could even be said that the Brutus family would never have met such a good time again.

It turned out that six days before the Brutus family decided to officially launch an attack on the kingdom of Epirus, a conflict broke out between the kingdom of Epirus and the Greek city-state of Semon, and the armies of both sides had already begun to engage locally in the border area; In order to cope with this change of situation, King Pyrus himself led 30,000 hoplites and 2,000 ironclad cavalry to the border area.

In fact, this so-called border conflict has been brewing for months, and now it is just a coincidence. Since the great victory of Pyrus in the Battle of Tulbo, Pyrrhus has become the hero and god of war of the Greek nation, and countless Greeks who are dissatisfied with their city-states have gone to the kingdom of Epirus to follow Pyrus and pledge their allegiance to Pyrrhus.

As mentioned earlier, Pyrrhus used these men who volunteered allegiance to him to form a Greek legion of twenty men in size; Moreover, the weapons and equipment used by the soldiers of this Greek legion are almost all self-prepared, which is worth pondering. The strength of a city-state or country depends on the size of its population and the number of social backbones.

In this case, the problem is obvious; Do you think that in such an era, the people who can afford to travel from their own city-state to the kingdom of Epirus, and who have the money to bring their own weapons and equipment, can they be ordinary people? Of course not! The vast majority of these men, with the exception of a very small number of nobles, were citizens of the various Greek city-states; In other words, these people are the backbone of each city-state!

The social backbone of the other Greek city-states has gone to the kingdom of Epirus, so how can the other Greek city-states mix? What's more, you, Pyrrhus and the kingdom of Epirus, have accepted all this with confidence, aren't you nakedly digging into the corners of other Greek city-states? This incident, of course, caused discontent, and even hostility among the various other Greek city-states!

Well, such a thing would not have much effect on the vast majority of city-states either; Of course, the least affected is the Spartan city-state, which is undoubtedly the leader of the Greek city-state alliance, and its own strength is strong enough, coupled with the long distance, it is impossible for a citizen of the Spartan city-state to go all the way to join the kingdom of Epirus.

It is even more impossible for an overseas city-state like the city-state of Rhodes, nor is it possible for the city-state of Pergamon to the east; The remaining possible city-states have been independent of the city-states of Athens and the city-state of Semon, which is outside the League of Greek City-States. The Athenian city-states were okay, after all, they weren't too close to the kingdom of Epirus; Not many citizens fled to the kingdom of Epirus.

In the end, the most tragic thing is naturally the Semeng city-state, which is not strong in the first place, and the geographical location has always been suppressed by the Macedonian kingdom and cannot raise its head; It wasn't until the kingdom of Epirus and the king of Pyrus became famous in the battle of Turbo that the citizens of the city-state of Semon began to worship Pyrus, who was also a Greek.

It has even reached the point of madness to the point where someone has proposed the idea of annexing the city-state of Semon to the kingdom of Epirus, which greatly stimulates the nerves of the high-ranking of the city-state of Semon; They immediately attacked the frenzied admirers of Pyrrhus within their city-state, and ordered that citizens should not give speeches in public to worship Pyrrhus, in order to avoid arousing the hostility of the Brutus family and the Macedonian kingdom.

It was good that the high-level leaders of the Semeng city-state did not say this reason, but when they said this reason, it aroused strong opposition within the entire Semeng city-state; The citizens of the city-state of Semon had admired the miraculous victory of Pyrrhus, but they were helpless with the weakness of their own city-state. With the words of the city-state's higher-ups, the citizens of the Semon city-state wanted to join the kingdom of Epirus even stronger; So much so that there was a defection of dragging the family and mouth.

Such a thing directly caused the strong dissatisfaction of the Semon city-state against the Epirus Kingdom, but the great strength of the Epirus Kingdom was not something that the Semon city-state could provoke; After deliberation, the top brass of the Semon city-states finally decided to hire 2,000 Cretan archers from Crete as well, and another 2,000 Rhodes slingers.

With the addition of these 4,000 mercenaries, the military strength of the city-state of Semon has reached 11,000; You know, the original city-state of Semon had only 3,000 Greek infantry and 4,000 javelinmen. However, the top brass of the Semon city-state was not satisfied with this, and they recruited 3,000 Greek heavy infantry from within the Semon city-state to strengthen the military strength of the Semon city-state.

After months of training, the military strength of the city-state of Semon was completely different from what it had been; Although it is not yet comparable to the powerful kingdom of Epirus, it is not the Semon city-state it once was. With this 14,000-strong army as a foundation, it is of course impossible for the high-ranking leaders of the Semon city-state to continue to sit idly by and watch the citizens of their city-state defect to the kingdom of Epirus.

Therefore, in addition to leaving 4,000 javelinmen to guard Semon, the high-ranking members of the Semon city-state formed a powerful Semon army and drove to the border between the Semon city-state and the kingdom of Epirus; The citizens of the Semon city-state who originally wanted to cross the border to the kingdom of Epirus were naturally all intercepted by the Semon Legion, and some violence inevitably occurred.

When the army of the Kingdom of Epirus stationed on the other side found out about the atrocities of the Legion of Semon, they immediately issued a warning to the Legion of Semon and declared that those citizens were citizens of the Kingdom of Epirus! In fact, in the final analysis, this matter is not kind to the Epirus Kingdom, and whoever is the commander of the Semon Legion can't stand such a warning.

The scolding between the two armies is a matter of course, and the daily scolding will soon escalate to the stage of physical conflict; As the first heavy infantry of the Kingdom of Epirus, who could not bear it, drew his short sword, the war between the city-state of Semon and the Kingdom of Epirus broke out. The army in the border area of the Kingdom of Epirus is only more than 2,000 people, how can it defeat the 10,000 army of the Semon army.

Coupled with the fact that the two kilograms of litre archers and the two thousand Rhodes Island slingers in the Semon Legion were indeed good in combat, the two thousand defenders of the Kingdom of Epirus were able to escape back less than 500 in the end, while the casualties paid by the Semon Legion were only less than 300. In this sudden conflict, the two-kilogram lit archers made an extraordinary achievement.

But, in any case, the war between the city-state of Semon and the kingdom of Epirus did break out; King Pyrrhus, who received the request for help from the soldiers on the front line, was naturally shocked by this. Of course, it is also undeniable that the front-line army of the Kingdom of Epirus has added fuel to the situation in the border areas; The eventual revelation greatly angered King Pyrrhus.

The kingdom of Epirus had previously defeated an elite Roman army of 30,000 on the battlefield, but how could it lose to the tiny city-state of Semon? Despite the dissuasion of his brother Pylos, King Pyrus set out with his best 30,000 hoplites and 2,000 ironclad cavalry towards the border between the kingdom of Epirus and the city-state of Semon.

Pylos, who opposed this expedition, was left by Pyrus in the capital city of Apollonia, responsible for defending the mainland; Also left behind were 20,000 Greek legions and two-kilogram lit archers, as well as the last remaining nine war elephants. When Pyrus arrived at the border with a large army, he did not attack the Sermon legion directly, but fell into a standoff.

Just as the army of Pyrus and the army of Semon were in a standoff, the army of the Brutus family officially landed in the port of Epirus; Because the defenders of the port of the Kingdom of Epirus were annihilated, the city near the port where the few people who escaped was hiding was captured by the First and Second Legions, which means that the information of the Brutus family's attack on the Kingdom of Epirus has not yet been transmitted.

The generals of Tiberius and Brutus went into action as soon as the whole army had landed; The huge force of the six legions and 10,000 archers slowly marched towards the occupied city sent by the first and second legions. At the same time, Sulla and Pompey also received some secret information about the recent kingdom of Epirus and the city-state of Semon!

Why did Sulla and Pompey get such classified information as soon as they landed in the kingdom of Epirus? The credit for this goes to the true 'patriots' of the kingdom of Epirus, who, having received the promise of Tiberius through Sulla and Pompey, began to prepare to receive the army of the Brutus family; (To be continued.) )