Suspicious friends are more scary than identified enemies. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

- Aesop (Greek fabler, Phrygian)

In addition to sending Abydos and Gisken to the south, Himika's 15,000-strong army was also sent by Tahiti to the southwest of Baisasian province to engage in a military confrontation with Saleh's 20,000-strong army left in the northeastern region of Gaturia.

In order to ensure that any unexpected situation at the front line would not affect the stable rule of the Hanno family in Baisasian Province, the 30,000 elite private troops of the Hanno family were also mobilized; Although all of these 30,000 troops were temporarily left in the city of Tapsus by Tahiti, they could quickly go to any battlefield when they needed reinforcements.

Before the Hanno family was fully mobilized, Tahiti personally discussed with Hanno the Younger about sending troops; Five years have not changed little Hanno's timidity, he is still the little Hanno who was afraid of war five years ago.

However, after Tahiti added fuel to the threat to the Hannos after the Numidian Kingdom occupied the Tripoli region, Hanno the Younger was determined to use the Hannoan army to stop the unbridled expansion of the Numidian army; After giving such an order, little Hanno also participated in several military meetings of the Hanno family to dispatch troops for the first time.

As it turned out, little Hanno was not the material to be a qualified family leader, and at the Hanno family's military meetings, little Hanno either yawned boringly or slept sleepy; However, Tahiti handled all aspects of things in an orderly manner, and all the generals who attended the meeting also knew that Little Hanno was here to brush up his sense of existence, and he did not report any situation to Little Hanno at all.

After attending several boring military meetings in a row, little Hanno still felt that the banquets of the noble ladies in the city of Tapsus were more suitable for him; As a result, all the military and political power of the Hanno family was handed over to Tahiti by Hanno the Younger, and he himself returned to his original life of drunkenness.

In fact, the current Hanno family is no longer the Hanno family of five years ago; Five years ago, the Hanno family, perhaps Tahiti still needed the authorization of the little Hanno to be able to justifiably exercise the military and political power of the Hanno family, and now the Hanno family, whether there is a little Hanno authorization or not is a matter of irrelevance to Tahiti.

Are there any people in the Hanno family who still care about little Hanno's orders? Except for those who flattered little Hanno, who did not know that Tahiti was the real ruler of the Hanno family, except for those who flattered little Hanno; No matter how the nobles smiled at little Hanno on the surface, everyone behind the scenes knew who was the real master of the Hanno family and the province of Baisasian.

The most important thing is that the 30,000 private troops of the most elite of the Hanno family and the 50,000 elite garrisons of the province of Baisasion, these 80,000 troops do not know who little Hanno is, nor what the Hanno family is, they only know that they swear allegiance to Tahiti; Of course, the pledge of allegiance to Tahiti is only superficial, and the allegiance of these armies is not actually to Tahiti himself.

Among the 30,000 private troops of the Hanno family, all the centurions and captains were served by graduates of the Augustan Military Academy secretly sent by the Augustan Empire; Even more than half of the centurions and captains of the 50,000 garrisons in the province of Baissasien were graduates of the Augustan Military Academy, but they entered these armies under the name of the Hanno family.

The ordinary soldiers in the army always obeyed the orders of their centurions and captains, so these armies were nominally controlled by the Hanno family, but in fact they were all loyal to the Augustan Empire and Oscar; As for allegiance to Tahiti, it was just another cover-up.

The 35,000 elite army of the Hanno family marched south from the border between Baixasian province and the Tripoli region, and soon encountered the main force of Salah's army in the western part of the Tripoli region; Salah had long expected that the Kingdom of Carthage would not sit idly by in the affairs of the Kingdom of Libya, but he did not expect that the Kingdom of Carthage would send troops so quickly.

And Abydos, who was in charge of commanding the 35,000 troops of the Hanno family, was also shocked by the speed of the army of the Kingdom of Numidia, and in only half a month, the tens of thousands of troops of the Kingdom of Libya were wiped out; Whether it is the army of the Kingdom of Numidia that is too strong in combat or the army of the Kingdom of Libya is too poor, then no one really knows.

However, Abydos and Giesken still believe in the latter; After all, in the previous five years, they had also led their own armies to have several skirmishes with the border garrison of the Numidian Kingdom, and the combat effectiveness of the Numidian Kingdom's army was just like that, and it was definitely not a real invincible army, at least it was not necessarily the opponent of the private army of the 30,000 Hanno family.

The legion of Abydos consisted of 10,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, while the legion of Gisken consisted of 10,000 cavalry and 5,000 infantry; Among the 35,000 troops of the two, the number of cavalry is as high as 20,000, and they are all elite long-shield cavalry with strong combat effectiveness, and their combat effectiveness is definitely not comparable to ordinary cavalry.

Compared to the large cavalry clusters of the Hanno family, the number of cavalry in Salah's army was not very large; When the battle is full, Salah has only 15,000 cavalry out of his 50,000 army, and 5,000 Numidian javelin cavalry have been left in the Gaturian region by Salah, and now Salah has only 10,000 shield cavalry in his 30,000 army.

In fact, at this time, there were no more than 30,000 troops under Salah's command, and there were no immortals in battle; Even if the combat effectiveness of the army of the Kingdom of Libya is very poor, it is an army of tens of thousands of people, not tens of thousands of pigs without the power to resist.

In the annihilation of the forces of the Kingdom of Libya and the occupation of the Tripoli region, Salah's army of 30,000 also paid the price of more than 3,000 killed and more than 5,000 wounded; Naturally, there are not many soldiers who have been killed, and many of the wounded soldiers are not immediately able to restore their combat effectiveness and enter the battle, in fact, the number of troops that Salah can now put into battle is only more than 23,000.

Even among the 23,000 troops, the number of long shield cavalry was reduced to less than 7,000; The Carthaginian army they had to face had a full 35,000 men, including 20,000 elite shield cavalry, which was not an enemy that Salah's army could handle.

More crucially, Salah not only did not have the strength to go head-to-head with the Carthaginian army, but he also did not even have the ability to escape; Tripoli is the most central region of the North African continent, bordered to the east by the Libyan region of the Kingdom of Libya, to the north by the Baisassian region of the Carthaginian Kingdom, and to the west by the Gaturia and Sahara regions of the Numidian Kingdom.

The 35,000-strong army of the Carthaginian kingdom was in the western part of the Tripoli region at this time, while Salah's army was in the central part of the Tripoli region; In other words, the army of the Kingdom of Carthage completely cut off the connection between Salah's army and the Numidian Kingdom proper, and Salah must lead his army to break through the interception army of the Carthaginian Kingdom in order to return to the Numidian Kingdom proper.

Otherwise, Salah's army will be pressed by the army of the Kingdom of Carthage and eventually fall into the death of the army of the Kingdom of Carthage; Salah has never been a retreating general, he is a brave and skilled general in the Kingdom of Numidia, so naturally he will not easily give up the hope of his army's survival.

Just when Salah was preparing to lead his army to fight to the death against the Carthaginian army that cut off the back of his army, King Adheba of the Numidian Kingdom also began to send troops in order to save Salah and his main army; The most elite Guards of the Kingdom of Numidia was sent by Adheba to the Gaturia region to join forces with the 20,000 troops left behind by Saleh.

Adheba's order to the 40,000-strong army was to attack the province of Baisasine in the Kingdom of Carthage from the northeastern part of the province of Caturia as soon as the two armies were united; Once the province of Baisasian, controlled by the Hannos, was attacked by the army of the Numidian Kingdom, the army sent by the Hannos to the Tripoli region would naturally return to help, and Salah and his army could be successfully withdrawn.

With the Salah legions at war with the garrison of the province of Baisasion of the Kingdom of Carthage, the war between the Kingdom of Numidian and the Kingdom of Carthage has begun again; In addition to sending 20,000 of the most elite guards to rescue Salah and his main army, Adheba also ordered Ahmet's 50,000 troops to prepare for battle, and the main army of the Carthaginian kingdom is likely to choose to go to war.

At this time, the Senate of the Carthaginian Kingdom was in the midst of a fierce dispute, and the Hanno family's full control of the military and political power of the province of Baisasion was something that all the Carthaginian senators did not want to see, but they were also powerless to change; Now that the Hanno family is at war with the Kingdom of Numidia again, should the main army of the Kingdom of Carthage join the war?

According to the opinion of the vast majority of the senators, everyone agreed with the main army of the Carthaginian kingdom to start a war against the kingdom of Numidia and take the initiative to attack; After all, the Hanno family is also a part of the Carthaginian kingdom, and the army controlled by the Hanno family is also the army of the Carthaginian kingdom, and their war with the Numidian kingdom is basically a war between the Carthaginian kingdom and the Numidian kingdom.

If the Senate of the Kingdom of Carthage sat back and watched the Hanno family fight alone, if the Hanno family and all the armies under its control were wiped out by the Kingdom of Numidia, the Kingdom of Carthage would be threatened with annihilation under its own power; If the Hanno family and the army under their control won the war, they would become heroes of the entire Carthaginian kingdom, and then the prestige of the Senate would be affected.

Therefore, most of the patriarchs were in favor of the main army of the Carthaginian Kingdom taking the initiative to attack the Numidian Kingdom itself to relieve the pressure of the Hanno family's war in the south; Of course, behind their support, it is also related to the large amount of money invested by the Hanno family every year. (To be continued.) )