Apples were scattered all over the place, but they were all under their own trees.

- Publius Virgilius Maro (Roman poet)

At this time, in Mauritania, the westernmost part of North Africa, which is not under everyone's attention, a large army is slowly taking shape; This army includes not only the heavy legions of the House of Augustus, but also the elite Desert Legion, as well as the powerful Numidian cavalry cluster, which is the combined legion created by the House of Augustus and Adheba!

Since the last time Spartak left Sardinia with Tuka and Lilias and the newly formed 7,000-strong Chengguan army, Oscar had not paid much attention to this particular army because of all things; But their own development did not stagnate because of Oscar's indifference, but developed at a very fast speed.

When Spartak arrived in the port of Mauritania with his army, he was immediately warmly welcomed by Prince Adheba and the Governor of Gisgow; They had planned to invite Spartak and other generals to a grand welcome banquet. However, Spartak rejected Prince Adheba's enthusiasm; The reason is that he is not sociable.

Of course, Spartak also knew that now that he and his Chengguan army were on Adheba's territory after all, some appropriate compromises still had to be made; If Prince Adheba loses face too much, it will not only affect the survival of the Chengguan legion, but may also destroy the overall strategy of the Augustus family.

Therefore, Spartak did not hesitate to order his legion's lieutenant Tuka to meet him; If Tuka's identity was only the lieutenant general of the Chengguan Legion, he would naturally not be qualified to participate in such a banquet, let alone replace Spartacus. However, Tuka's other identity is very noble; He was the younger brother of Oscar leader and one of only three members of the Augustan family.

When Spartak told Prince Adheba that he could let Tuka attend the banquet instead of him, Prince Adheba's face was obviously not very good-looking, but he reluctantly accepted Spartak's suggestion; However, the governor of Mauritania, Gisgow, was very dissatisfied with this, and he even felt that it was the contempt of the Augustus family for Prince Adheba and Mauritania.

However, after Tuka modestly revealed his other identity, Prince Adheba and Governor Gisgow immediately looked at it differently; They even felt that on the surface the commander of the Roman army and the commander of the combined legion sent by the Romans was Spartacus, but in reality it was this Tuka general who should be in control.

Because of Tuka's special status, Prince Adheba and Governor Gisgo have reason to believe that his status within the House of Augustus is much higher than that of Spartacus. If the House of Augustus is compared to a nation, then Spartak is only the general of the country, and Tuka is the younger brother of the king of the country; Whose status is more noble is self-evident.

Thus Prince Adheba and the Governor of Gisgo accepted Tuka's participation in the banquet with greater enthusiasm; The size of the banquet was also temporarily doubled again, almost reaching the traditional etiquette of welcoming the kings of other countries in the Kingdom of Numidia. And Spartak took advantage of Tuka's banquet to go to the army camp of Prince Adheba under the leadership of Bashirek.

The largest military camp in the so-called province of Mauritania looked to Spartak like a shoddy refugee camp; The Numidian soldiers stationed inside, except for the cavalry, who looked pretty good, were no better than the Carthaginian militia that Spartak had seen.

Spartak thought that he might see a scene that would disappoint him, but he did not expect that the Numidians could disappoint him so completely; However, Spartak was still the commander who could lead a group of gladiators and slaves into an elite army, and he still had a way to clean up the army in front of him.

The military camp Spartak in Mauritania was definitely not going to use it, and before it was too late, Spartak immediately ordered his infantry to start building a military camp station. The climate of Mauritania is not arid, there are not many desert areas, most of them are still forests and plains; Therefore, Spartacus could easily obtain a large amount of wood.

With this timber, the task of building a barracks is much easier, which is the specialty of a standard Roman legion! The soldiers of the Chengguan Legion quickly took off all their weapons and equipment, except for leaving five hundred men to guard the weapons and equipment; Spartak personally led 3,000 men to build a military camp, and the remaining 3,500 men went to cut down wood under the leadership of Lilias.

In this way, a huge military camp was erected right in front of the eyes of the Numidian soldiers, with a speed visible to the naked eye; The size of the entire military camp is far more than enough to accommodate a Chengguan legion, even if the entire 20,000 troops of the United Legion are all stationed in it, there is no pressure. However, Spartak would not let the Numidian soldiers live in their barracks so easily.

When night fell, Spartak took his city management army and moved into the newly built clean barracks under the envious eyes of the Numidian soldiers; The Numidian soldiers were still stationed in their camps. Early the next morning, General Sinrida and Tuka, under Prince Adheba, returned to the garrison of the army.

Tuca, after seeing the camp of the Numidian army, was not surprised why Spartak had to rebuild a barracks; But General Sinrida and General Bashirek, who left yesterday, were the masterpieces of Spartak's legion in one day. When Tuka returned, he also brought back a copy of Prince Adheba's order of agreement; That is, Spartak was going to take shape in a month to get the army into shape.

Of course, the reason why Prince Adheba did not say this to Spartak himself, but passed on the order through Tuca, was because Prince Adheba and the governor of Gisgow mistakenly regarded Tuka as the actual master of the army of the House of Augustus; However, Tuka did not disappoint Spartak either, and the condition for him to get it back was that Spartak would have absolute control of the combined legion within a month!

Yes, it's absolute control; That is, in this month, Spartak could train the army of 20,000 men exactly as he wanted, without the slightest fear of the intervention of Prince Adheba and the governor of Gisgow. Spartak knew that if he went to the banquet in person, he would definitely not be able to get such lenient conditions; It seems that the identity of Tuka is easy to use!

Since Spartak already had absolute control over the army in front of him, he would not waste such power in vain; At this time, the main generals of the various legions were also there, and Spartak immediately convened a military meeting between the senior generals of the combined legions. At the meeting, Spartak once again reaffirmed Prince Adheba's order and the previous agreements between the two companies.

The commander of the Desert Legion under the Combined Legion is naturally General Sinrida, who has already been decided; The commander of the cavalry regiment was General Bashirek, who was in charge of the four thousand Numidian javelin cavalry; The lieutenant of the cavalry corps was General Lilias, who was in charge of three thousand shield cavalry.

Once these senior generals had been formally appointed, Spartak began to give his first order as commander of the Combined Legion: to redivide the ranks of the Numidian army and to appoint the elite officers of the Augustan family to serve as mid-level military officers. In the new division, the Numidian army was divided into a hundred-man team of 100 men and a brigade of 500 men, regardless of the cavalry and infantry.

The desert legion of 6,000 men was divided into sixty centurions and twelve brigades, and the cavalry corps of seven thousand men was divided into seventy centurians and fourteen brigades; These troops, which totaled one hundred and thirty men and twenty-six brigades, required a total of two hundred and sixty centurions and fifty-two captains and lieutenants.

This is the time for the three hundred elite centurions sent by the Augustus family to graduate from the Augustan Military Academy; The best fifty-two of the three hundred elite centurions were directly appointed as the chief and deputy captains, and the remaining two hundred and forty-eight were all appointed as the chief and deputy centurions, and the twelve centurions who were missing were drawn from the Chengguan Legion.

In fact, this is also the core of the covenant between Adheba and Oscar; That is, the Augustus family provided weapons and officers, and Mauritania provided soldiers, and the two sides united to form a powerful combined army. When all was said and done, the Augustus legions and officers were withdrawn, and Prince Adheba had two elite legions.

And this agreement was also known to General Sinrida and General Bashirek; Therefore, Sinrida and Bashirek were still grateful to Spartak for appointing all the officers of the Augustan family as all the centurions and captains, and for transferring the centurions of the active regiment of the Augustus family to serve as centurions in the Numidian army, and they simply thought that Spartak was helping them.

Well, whatever other ideas everyone has; This so-called united army was thus formed. Just when those Numidian soldiers thought that they could also live in the new barracks, Spartak directly issued another order: not to allow any Numidian hundred-man team and brigade to enter the new barracks, and the Numidian army must complete the task when they enter the new barracks!

At this order, not only the ordinary soldiers of Numidia were in an uproar, but even Generals Sinrida and Bashirek were in disbelief; Combined Legion, United Legion, everyone is a big army together, you can't deliberately embarrass the Numidian soldiers just because you built the barracks? For this, the two generals approached Spartak directly and demanded an explanation. (To be continued.) )