The degree to which a person is respected depends on the amount of money he has.

- Jade Waina (Roman satirical poet)

After the arrival of the fleet of the Julius family, the last sea passage of Marseille was completely blocked; This meant that the city of Marseille was completely surrounded by Calabes, and the hundreds of thousands of people in the city had lost their last source of food. The situation surrounded on all sides was not the most critical, and even more irritating was the lack of food in the city of Marseille.

The strongest army in the world, too, could not hold out for three days without food; Even if they can hold out for three days without food, after three days, the army will lose all its combat effectiveness and become a lamb to the slaughter of the enemy. These profound truths may have been understood by the rulers of the Maasai tribes, but the importance of food was understood by them.

Although the city of Marseille at this time had not yet reached the point of exhaustion, the remaining food was enough for the defending army to hold on half-starved for half a month; However, such an insistence no longer has any practical significance. For there is no food left in the city of Marseille for the civilians of Marseille other than these last grains.

Is it possible to exchange the lives of all the people of the entire Maasai tribe for half a month's persistence of the defending army? What is the value of such an exchange? Without the Maasai tribes, is it true that the defending army is only defending an empty and corpse-strewn city of Marseille? More importantly, will the defenders be indifferent to watch their families and villagers starve to death?

All the previous deliberations of the Marseille chieftain and the four elders, and the premise of sending a request for help from the other Gallic tribes, were based on the premise that the Maasai tribes could hold out in the city of Marseille; In other words, when they were discussing the strategy of defending and calling for help, they did not expect that the enemy who came by land this time would use the fleet to blockade the city of Marseille from the sea!

However, this is the case, and the city of Marseille, completely besieged, has lost the right to resist; Now, apart from lowering their resistance and surrendering, the Maasai tribes are left with the only way to take the initiative. Only by breaking the blockade of the enemy can the Maasai tribe solve the current crisis and obtain the most precious food to survive.

But how easy is it to take the initiative? Not to mention the thousands of cavalry under the command of Calabes, even the infantry units of Calabes, which were far superior to the armies of the Maasai tribes in terms of quantity and quality; Under such an absolute disadvantage, it is not easy for the army of the Maasai tribe to fight for the last hope of survival by taking the initiative!

Of course, even the most difficult choices need to be decided; Otherwise, for each additional day of delay, the number of people dying of hunger in the city of Marseille will increase a little. The leaders and elders of the Maasai tribes were fiercely debated about this, with opponents insisting on waiting for reinforcements from other tribes and favorers skeptical that the Maasai tribes would be able to hold out until reinforcements arrived.

Neither of them could convince anyone of the arguments on both sides, so they had to waste their time in vain; While these superiors were arguing, unrest began to arise among the defenders of Marseille. The cause of the unrest was naturally caused by the shortage of food, but it was not the army's food supply that was wrong, but the general shortage of food in the city that affected the army.

The remaining armies of the Maasai tribe at this time were either the Gallic infantry, who had been at the lowest level of the Maasai army, or the newly recruited army; The status of his family members is not high among the Maasai tribes, or at all the lowest class. This means that these are the first Maasai tribes to be threatened by hunger and suffer the greatest casualties in food shortages.

If it is said that the death of the Maasai people in their old age for the survival of the tribe is a fact that is difficult for all to accept but have to accept; The death of teenagers and children and women from starvation is unacceptable to their families. Especially the soldiers who defended the city, when they learned that such a situation had happened to their families, their hearts were extremely indignant.

In their eyes, they are warriors who stand up for the survival of the tribe in times of crisis and fight against strong enemies for the survival of the tribe; However, his parents, wife, and children fell behind him because of the most helpless hunger, which is a reality that all the soldiers defending the city cannot accept, and it is also the key to shaking their military hearts.

You know, the reason why they are willing to stand on the walls and be ready to die for the tribe is not because they care about the glory of the Maasai tribe, nor how loyal they are to the rulers of those tribes; Rather, their families are behind them, and they will fight to the death for their families. If that belief is lost, who wants to hold on?

So, when the serious problem of famine in the city could no longer be hidden, the soldiers defending the city were furious when they learned that their families had starved to death at home; They were angry and needed an answer, they needed to know why the tribe was treating them and their families like this, they needed to know what they were standing on the walls for, was it just to surround the few tribal nobles?

In the face of life and death, all human beings will abandon the rules and order that they once adhered to; The so-called nobility and commoners will also lose the class boundary between the two. The disgruntled defenders finally vented their anger by not only arresting all the nobles in the army, but even organizing a team of thousands to surround the tribal leader's mansion!

In the face of the menacing defenders, the rulers of the Maasai tribe had to reassure them with kind words on the one hand, and distribute all the rations to the people who had been out of food for several days; In this way, the crisis of army turmoil was temporarily resolved, but the food that could have been consumed by more than 30,000 troops was all consumed in one day!

Naturally, it was impossible to hide the movements in the city of Marseille from Calabes, who had been closely observing its situation; However, Calabes did not intend to take advantage of the situation to attack the city of Marseille. In Carabes's view, although the city of Marseille has begun to unrest due to food shortages, it has definitely not reached the most critical juncture; It's still too early to start, and we still need to wait for the right time!

Otherwise, even if Calabes immediately took advantage of the chaos to launch a siege war against the city of Marseille, it would be difficult not to pay a heavy price; After all, at this time, the grain and grass in Marseille City have not been exhausted, and the tens of thousands of troops guarding Marseille still have the strength to fight. Supported by the belief of defending his homeland and country, Karabes still believed that these armies would burst out with extraordinary combat effectiveness.

Therefore, Calabes decided to continue to encircle and blockade Marseille until the city of Marseille ran out of food and grass and surrendered voluntarily! As for whether Marseille will choose to fight to the death, Carabes doesn't really care about it; Even if the Maasai tribe wants to take the initiative in a desperate way, they don't have the strength to fight against the elite army under their command anymore, and they can only lose even more miserably!

Compared to the self-confident Calabes, the Maasai rulers who distributed food and resolved the unrest in the army were really in the most dilemma; Although they resolved the unrest of the army by distributing food and gave all the Maasai tribesmen a rare full meal, new problems were inevitable.

To make matters worse, after today, from tomorrow morning, all the people of the Maasai tribe will have no food to eat; In other words, the Maasai tribe must choose a path to go through between surrender and initiative. Otherwise, it only needs to be delayed for another two or three days, and the Maasai tribe will not even have the qualifications to surrender, and can only be slaughtered by the enemy outside the city at will.

After a night of careful consideration, the leaders and elders of the Maasai tribe finally decided to take the initiative; Because none of them could make the decision to surrender to the enemy, it was simply an act of shame on their ancestors. In the eyes of these rulers, even if the Maasai tribe is about to perish, it must start a final battle with the enemy on the battlefield to end their tribe!

Of course, choosing to take the initiative to attack a strong enemy does not mean that the superiors of the Maasai tribe will foolishly lead their armies to face the enemy outside the city; That's not an initiative, it's a quick death! Therefore, even if they choose to take the initiative, these superiors still have to negotiate the specific way to attack.

In the end, the superiors of these Maasai tribes decided to launch the most direct and helpless attack on the enemy forces outside the city by means of night attack tonight; The main force of its attack was naturally the 8,000 infantry who had fled back in the last decisive battle and the 5,000 recruits who were relatively good. As for the newly recruited 20,000 young men, they don't even have decent weapons, so what can they do to attack the heavily armed enemy?

Once the attacking forces have been chosen, they must send some people with sufficient prestige to lead them; The tribal leader was not suitable to fight in person, and the only candidates worth considering were the last four elders. After careful consideration, it was finally decided to send the Second Elder, the Fifth Elder, and the Sixth Elder to lead the 13,000-strong army to attack the enemy; Leave the chief and the great elder to guard the city of Marseille.

The time of the night attack was chosen at midnight, which should be the time when the enemy's guard was the most relaxed, and it was also the most advantageous opportunity for one's own side; Moreover, this attack was carried out at night, and the superior cavalry of the enemy could not play a role. When the time comes, if you can inflict heavy losses on the enemy's infantry and cavalry in one fell swoop; Then, the crisis brought by this war to the Maasai tribe can be regarded as completely resolved.

It seemed to the leaders and elders of the Maasai tribe that they had chosen everything that was favorable to them in the most desperate circumstances; But is reality really that smooth? Is it true that Calabes, who has always been cautious and anticipatory, would be wary of the defenders of Marseille?

These things, the superiors of the Maasai tribe did not think deeply, nor did they dare to imagine them; They can only console themselves with the choice to believe in the best side of everything, and keep praying to their ancestors that everything is going well. After midnight, looking at the silent enemy camp outside the city, the army of the Maasai tribe slowly walked out of the city of Marseille. (To be continued.) )