I'd rather make mistakes with Plato than think right with these people.

- Marcus Tulius Cicero (Roman statesman, orator, orator, jurist, and philosopher)

After the two important pieces of information, the rest of the information is relatively fragmentary; Oscar read all the information one by one and found that there was still a piece of information that he wanted to know very much. So, Oscar turned the mechanism on the bookshelf; A quarter of an hour later, Hades was in his study. As soon as Oscar saw Hades, he asked directly:

"Hades, why doesn't the information sent back this time contain specific information about Pylos going to the East to recruit mercenaries? Three thousand ironclad cavalry and twenty thousand pikemen were already a huge army of nearly four Roman legions, so why would the Seleucid Empire hand over such an army to Pylos? Is it just for the so-called commission? Or did the Seleucid Empire have something else in mind? I need to know the details. “

Oscar's tone was not very harsh, but Hades sensed Oscar's deep dissatisfaction; So Hades didn't defend anything, but immediately said that he would immediately go to Apollo's intelligence department to ask. Immediately, Hades exited the study at Oscar's signal; Just ten minutes later, Hades and Apollo were back in their study.

After returning to the study, Apollo first presented Oscar with the information he needed; Then he knelt down and pleaded guilty to Oscar, and admitted that it was his own negligence that caused the incomplete information sent this time. Looking at Apollo, who was kneeling at his desk, Oscar didn't let him get up; Just pick up the information he just presented and start looking. The content of the intelligence is not very large, but the information contained is unusually rich.

It turned out that the reason why Pyros was able to recruit so many Seleucid mercenaries was simply because he had a good opportunity; The Seleucid Empire was originally part of Alexander's Empire, and its founding king was once a member of Alexander the Great's command. After establishing the Seleucid Empire, he attached great importance to the mistake made by Alexander the Great in that year, that is, he did not reuse his own family members; Therefore, the kings of the Seleucid Empire have always relied heavily on their own family members.

During the reign of this Seleucid king, he appointed his queen's brother Alexander as governor and commander of the army in the province of Ionia; And this Governor Alexandria was also a handsome man with both civil and military skills, not only did he live up to his brother-in-law. The entire Ionian province was also put in order. Even later, when the Greek city-state of Phrygia had a border conflict with Ionia, Alexander raised an army of up to 30,000 to repel the Greek attack.

All of this was supposed to be a good thing, but when something else happened, it brought about a huge disaster. The king of the Seleucid Empire after marrying Alexander's sister. has always doted on her very much; But it is a pity that the two have never been able to have children between them. After a long time, the Seleucid king finally couldn't resist finding a beautiful noble lady to become his mistress; What's even more tragic is that this noble lady actually became pregnant and gave birth to two twin sons for His Majesty the King!

This made His Majesty, who had always longed for an heir, very happy; Not only did he bring this noble lady into his palace openly, but he also made the two newborn little ones governors. All of this was seen by Alexander's sister. She hated that the king was actually looking for a woman to have children outside, and she hated the existence of the noble lady and the two children even more; She even thinks that the three of them have taken away their own king.

So, on a dark and windy night in the moon; The queen quietly poisoned the food of the nobleman's mother and son. The result was the death of the noble lady and the two little princes, a tragic event that angered the always suave Seleucid king; He ordered the queen to be executed on the spot, hanged all the members of the queen's family, and then secretly sent court guards to Ionia to kill Alexander.

But no one expected that the person sent by the king would be Ionia's best friend from childhood to adulthood, and after he came to Ionia with his guards, not only did he not kill Alexander, but informed Alexander of the king's tricks and what happened in Antioch. When Alexander learned that his sister's family had been executed by the king, he immediately declared Ionia to secede from the Seleucid Empire; He also transferred his elite army of 10,000 to the border between Ionia and Silesia to guard against a possible attack by the Seleucid Empire.

Meanwhile. In order to counterattack the Seleucid Empire and avenge his family, Alexander also frantically recruited and expanded his army in Ionia; However, this required enough money to accomplish this, and how could Alexander recruit enough troops without money? Even if he used various means to raise nearly fifty thousand troops, he did not have enough money to build weapons and equipment; Do you want to let the soldiers go to the battlefield with their bare hands?

Just when Alexander was helpless, Pylos, laden with a huge amount of money, appeared; One of the two was in dire need of a lot of money, and the other was in dire need of a lot of experienced mercenaries, and the two hit it off after meeting. Pylos and Alexander promised each other that if Pyros gave Alexander one and a half million gold coins; Alexander gave Pylos half a year's right to use 20,000 elite phalanx pikemen and 3,000 ironclad cavalry for ten years.

The conditions on both sides are quite suitable, although one is in dire need of troops. Another is in dire need of funding; But neither side took the opportunity to open their mouths. However, Oscar saw his opportunity in this matter; What Alexander urgently needs now is not gold, but a lot of high-quality weapons and equipment. And these things are exactly what the Augustus family does not lack now, and it can even be said that they are very abundant.

This is not to say that Oscar's legions do not need weaponry. It's just that the Augustans still hoarded a lot of old-fashioned Roman legionary equipment in Sardinia; In the future, the new Roman legions will use more high-quality new weapons and equipment, and the old weapons and equipment were originally used to smelt and forge new equipment. However, this kind of smelting reinvention is very time-consuming and labor-intensive; There is also a very high cost, and some non-metallic equipment, such as javelins, bows and arrows, wooden shields, etc., cannot be smelted.

Therefore, the Augustus family could have sold these old weapons and equipment that had been retired from active service to Alexander; And. Considering Alexander's extremely scarce funds, Oscar can also charge no fees at all! Did our Excellency Oscar want to give these weapons and equipment to Alexander for free? Of course not, this is not charity, and it is given away for free.

The House of Augustus was not short of money now, and the need for gold was not primary; More important than these is to increase the military power of the House of Augustus. So how can we improve the military strength of the Augustan family? Oscar believed that the quickest and most effective way to do so was to build a strong cavalry corps; Because in the first war with Hannibal, the Roman Republic lost its most elite cavalry legions, and all Hannibal's elite cavalry units have always been the nightmare of the Roman legions on the battlefield.

However, due to the disparity in strength and geographical location, the Roman Republic was unable to build a strong cavalry force; And Hannibal is different. Carthage itself was rich in high-quality war horses and war elephants. Plus he could hire elite Numidian javelins at any time in Numidia; Hannibal's cavalry has always been the core of Hannibal's army, and its combat effectiveness is extremely strong.

On the other hand, the Roman Republic had no place to hire cavalry, and it did not raise high-quality war horses; There is also an extreme lack of excellent cavalry generals, how to fight Hannibal. But. Seleucus was quite different; The Seleucid Empire had the most powerful cavalry corps in the world, and no other country could match the cavalry of Parthia and Armenia, which also had extremely large ironclad cavalry corps.

Of course, the Carthaginian cavalry legions were also extremely powerful; It was once said that there were five most powerful cavalry nations in the world: Seleucid, Armenian, Parthian, Carthaginian, and Scythian. The first three relied on ironclad cavalry with amazing combat effectiveness, while the latter two relied on the cooperation of multiple cavalry arms. It can be seen that the cavalry of the Carthaginians was very powerful; The Seleucid ironclad cavalry was also a very powerful cavalry unit.

Compared to these powerful cavalry armies, the cavalry of the Romans was completely inadequate; Not even qualified to carry shoes for them. Therefore, Oscar's army that defeated Hannibal on the battlefield had to suppress his cavalry troops, and if he wanted to suppress his cavalry troops, he could not count on the Roman cavalry at all, and had to find another way; And this time the Ionian rebellion of the Seleucid Empire gave Oscar a chance.

Oscar was planning to trade with Alexander with a large number of old-fashioned weapons and equipment that his family did not use. In exchange for a large number of high-quality war horses and ironclad cavalry in Alexander's hands, the weaponry forging technology; This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Prior to this, high-quality war horses were one of the most important strategic resources of various horse-producing countries, and the forging technology of weapons and equipment of ironclad cavalry was an unknown mystery of the Seleucid Empire, and it was impossible for outsiders to obtain it.

It was clear that Alexander, who was now at odds with the Seleucid Empire, did not care about these things; He will not hesitate to exchange the weapons and equipment forging skills of high-quality war horses and ironclad cavalry for himself for a large number of high-quality Roman legion weapons and equipment. You know, the weapons and equipment of the Roman legions are also very sought-after; It is a high-grade weaponry that is simply not accessible to ordinary countries.

Of course, there are also countries that imitate the weapons and equipment of the Roman legions to create similar weapons and equipment with their own national characteristics, among which the more typical ones are the most elite silver shield pikemen and silver shield infantry in the Seleucid Emperor's ** team; The weaponry used by both classes is modeled after the Roman legion. But how can imitations compare to genuine Roman equipment, Oscar is convinced that Alexander will never refuse his deal.

Therefore, Oscar ordered Apollo who was kneeling on the ground: "Forget it this time." I don't want a next time; You immediately arrange for your intelligence officers to contact Alexander, and reveal to him that our Augustus family is willing to trade with him the weapons and equipment forging technology of high-quality war horses and ironclad cavalry with Roman equipment. The specific price of the exchange is set by him, and let him decide quickly. ”

At the end of the sentence, Apollo and Hades withdrew; looked at the two of them who were quickly moving away. Oscar was deeply aware of a sense of crisis. Before the establishment of the Jinyi Guard, the power of the Tragic Dead was too great; And their internal organizational structure is very perfect, which makes Oscar gradually have a feeling of not being in control. It seems that the establishment of Jinyiwei is imperative, and it must not be delayed any longer.

Also, since the old weapons and equipment that were obsolete in Rome can be used today; So does it mean that you can have a lot of opportunities to use it in the future? Rather than allowing these weapons and equipment to be wasted worthlessly, it is better to take them all out and hoard them; Even if you can't exchange it for what you want with other forces. You can also turn out a temporary armed militia at a critical moment, at least stronger than Harpoon. (To be continued.) )