Cowardprimadimorire，l＇orrorecoinvolgenteharipetutamentemorti。 (The coward had already experienced the horror of death many times before he died.) ）

- Gaius Julius Caesar (Roman dictator)

When Oscar's speech was over, it was time for all the Romans to revel in the Piazza della Repubblica; With the bonfires that should have been there, and the complimentary wine provided by Oscar, the city of Rome was a sea of joy tonight. But our Triumphant Oscar, after the end of his speech, returned to the house of the Augustusian family, with Licinius and Quintus; For Marius sent to inform them that they had something important to discuss tonight.

Sure enough, as soon as the three of them returned to the mansion, old Carabes quickly told Oscar that Marius was already waiting for him in the living room. Why are you in such a hurry? Oscar and Quintus looked at each other but didn't know what Marius meant, so they hurried to the parlor to find Marius. Marius, who was waiting for Oscar and Quintus in the parlor, was flipping through some parchment rolls; After seeing the two Oscars hurrying in, Marius didn't say anything, and handed the two parchment rolls to Oscar and Quintus.

Oscar and Quintus inexplicably took the parchment scroll, and when they opened the first parchment scroll, several frightening words appeared - Marius's military reform plan. Oscar and Quintus looked at each other and continued.

It turned out that Marius joined the army as an adult, served under the famous general Scipio the Elder, and eventually rose to prominence in the Punic Wars. After several years of practical experience, he knew that the military system formed by Rome in the Punic War had many shortcomings, and he had long intended to reform it. The primary purpose of Marius' military reform was to try to gather a sufficient number of soldiers for Rome. Despite the republic's population shortage, Marius also vetoed plans to call in mercenaries from various neighboring countries.

This was not because mercenaries were too expensive, but because the Romans themselves would hardly be able to match the Carthaginians. Marius believed that Rome should still be self-reliant and work hard. In the past, the Roman army was dominated by nobles, knights and wealthy peasants, and their equipment was purchased by the soldiers themselves, and wives and concubines and slaves often followed them to carry their luggage when marching, so the status of soldiers was relatively high.

Previously, the Roman army had a very short period of service, sometimes only a few months or even days. As the scale of the war escalated and the areas conquered by Rome expanded, the length of service became longer and longer, but there was no uniform standard. Marius wanted to stipulate that a soldier, once enlisted, must serve for 16 years. This was in effect a clear definition of the Roman army as an all-professional army.

During the period of service, they are supported by the state and paid according to their ranks. When a soldier is discharged from the army, he can also get his own land in the conquered area. In doing so, the soldiers were fed and clothed during their service and after their retirement, ensuring their loyalty, and at the same time combining the previously unresolved struggle of civilians for land with military service.

In order to obtain enough soldiers, the republic had no choice but to collect a large number of lumpenproletarians and poor middle peasants from the slums, and even free some slaves, use the money in the treasury to purchase equipment for them, and strive to train these scum at the bottom of society into elite divisions that could compete with the Carthaginian warriors.

After recruiting enough soldiers, Marius decided that the next thing to do was to reform the traditional Roman military establishment. The current Roman legion of the Republic is a rather complex multi-arms joint combat system, which takes the hundred-man team composed of 60~80 people as the basic combat unit, and is arranged in parallel 3~4 columns in wartime, with 20 people in each column, including a certain number of light infantry and heavy infantry, supplemented by a number of cavalry, combining long and short, convenient for independent combat.

The equipment of each 100-man company is different, and it can be roughly divided into 5 categories, and there is a certain dependence on each other. The equipment of these five arms is slightly different, and they are arranged in three rows, front and back, and the tactics of the legion are basically completed around these three lines. Compared with the well-groomed but slightly dull Macedonian phalanx, such an army has the advantages of flexible movement and changeable formations; But in the face of the powerful Carthaginian army, its organizational structure was too loose.

To this end, Marius suggested that the size of the Roman legions be expanded from 4200~4500 to 6000 people, divided into 1 cavalry centurion and 12 brigades, each of which included 6 centurions, with a total number of 480 people; However, the first brigade that was the first to engage the enemy was the largest, up to 720 people. And it is only divided into 9 hundred-man teams, and the 1-hundred-person team of the first brigade has 80 people, which is equal to the size of an ordinary hundred-person team. With the exception of a small number of cavalry and auxiliaries, the entire army consisted of heavy infantry in metal armor.

In actual combat, the corps fought more in large brigades, rather than with hundred-man units as the basic unit, as in the past. It is not difficult to see that such a formation was basically tailored to withstand the powerful charge of the massive cavalry of the Carthaginians. If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools. Marius was well aware that the Roman tradition of light infantry had long since become obsolete.

Their short spears, short swords, and light javelins proved useless during the Punic Wars, as they posed little threat to the metal-clad enemy. It is time to abolish it altogether and replace it with a powerful long-range weapon operated by professional sappers - ballistas with a range of more than 400 meters; The equipment of the heavy infantry had to be unified and strengthened, and iron chain mail should be better popularized, as it was cheaper and easier to produce in large quantities than the traditional Roman fish scale and plate armor.

The javelin, the traditional weapon of the Roman army, and the dagger, a new weapon that emerged during foreign wars, once slaughtered the most formidable army in the Apennines, the Etruscans, were now vulnerable to the carthaginian spears and swords. There was a reason for this: the Romans were by no means good warriors in terms of physical fitness, as they were shorter and less powerful than the Carthaginians and Gauls.

If the use of the dagger requires many complex skills, then the main thing required to throw the javelin is the strength of the arms; And in this regard, the Carthaginian warriors were far stronger than the Roman soldiers. In order to increase the range, over the centuries, the Roman javelin became more and more homogeneous and lighter. The Roman Javelin in the Punic Wars was only about 0. It weighs 7~1 kg and is easy to break in hand-to-hand combat.

In order to increase its lethality, Marius felt that the Roman javelin should be made longer, thicker, heavier and stronger, and the total weight should be increased to 2~4 kg. Such a weighted javelin could not only be thrown, but also suitable for hand-to-hand combat, becoming a 1. 6～2。 1 meter long short spear. The shields were also widened, lengthened, and thickened to create a sturdy "tortoiseshell formation" that counteracted the impact of enemy weapons and the ferocity of cavalry charges.

According to Marius's new military thinking, each Roman hoplite was required to carry two weighted javelins, a short sword, a dagger, and a weighted shield in order to be able to change weapons according to the different conditions on the battlefield; All of the above, together with helmets, chain mail, knee pads, shin armor, wrist armor, camping tools, raincoats, oil lamps, three days' diet, etc., the total belongings that a Roman hoplite had to carry were more than 40 kilograms, which was not much lighter than his own weight.

Unlike in the past, the soldiers of the new army can no longer have slaves who carry luggage, and all their equipment must be carried by themselves. Of course, this will seriously affect the speed of the march, and the reason why Rome was able to defeat Etruscan back then was mainly due to the advantages of the Roman legions to move flexibly and quickly, which naturally could not be discarded casually. In order to balance both weapons and speed, Marius felt that the recruits should carry a full set of equipment and march continuously for five hours at a speed of 5 kilometers per hour every morning, and then compete in the afternoon to train their physical fitness.

Even if a soldier who is constantly exhausted falls, the commander of the legion will turn a blind eye to it; It's better to be tired on the playground than to be hacked to death by the Carthaginians or Gauls on the battlefield, right? After holding out like this for a few months, the soldiers of the new legion will not even have the strength to complain; They will adapt to their daily routine and slowly get used to it.

However, this is how a true professional army is made; They have been away from all occupations such as farming, farming and business for many years, killing is their only mission, booty and military pay are their only source of livelihood, and war is their daily life. As long as this iron-blooded training is persistent, the combat effectiveness of the Roman legions will definitely rise to unprecedented heights.

Marius's military reform program was very large-scale, and almost completely changed the original Roman republican system; However, this change is clearly a positive one. As long as this military reform plan can be implemented, the army of the Roman Republic will definitely be greatly strengthened! This, of course, was Quintus's inner thoughts; In fact, Scipio the Elder, Quintus's father, had thought of a reform similar to this one back then.

However, strong pressure from the Senate made Scipio the Elder reluctant to give up. Now, the republic has reached the point of life and death; Again, there are proposals for such reforms. As long as the remaining senior generals of the army support this, this reform will definitely be implemented; Because it was for the survival of Rome and nothing else. Moreover, what made Quintus choose to support this reform plan was that; Quintus saw a shadow of his father in this so-called Marian military reform plan. Marius himself had served under his father; Therefore, Marius must have been influenced by his father to propose this reform.

The benefits of the reform that Quintus thought about can certainly be seen in the Oscars; But Oscar understands the deeper implications of this reform plan. Marius himself wanted to completely control the entire military power of the Maxentius family through this military reform program; He even wants to take over the entire military power of the Roman Republic in the future in his hands!

As long as Marius's military reform plan is implemented; From then on, the Roman Republic's centuries-old system of temporary conscription, which combined farming and warfare, and the integration of soldiers and peasants, would be completely changed. Once enlisted, soldiers are required to serve for at least 16 consecutive years, during which time they are no longer allowed to carry their families and slaves, and must leave everything to the organization; And the organization, of course, is the commander-in-chief himself.

The soldiers' enlistment, discharge, promotion, pay, etc., were now all contracted by their commanders in the name of the Roman Senate and the people. The professional soldiers thus recruited were of low social and economic status, and in fact became the personal servants of the army commanders, who knew only the commander, but not the state. Soon, one legion after another will become a memorial to the commanders; Needless to say, Marius himself would have served as the supreme commander of all the legions of the Maxentius family. At that time, the army of the Maxentius family will become Marius's "horse army"!