The crime of killing is the same regardless of whether the victim is a famous person or an unknown person.

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

Even though Oscar later suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Lili, Lucis still did not see this pride disappear in Oscar; Although Luquis could see Oscar's usual courtesy and conformity, Lucquis knew that it was just Oscar's superficial contrivance. In fact, Oscar has always had a sense of conceit in his heart, and Luquis is inconvenient to speak out about it, but he is very worried.

Thankfully, after today's own training plan was proposed; The conceit of being on the top of Oscar is finally gone! At this moment, Luquis suddenly felt a sense of relief; As long as Oscar can put down his body, he can really follow the advice. So with Oscar's qualifications and abilities, the Augustus family will definitely be able to reach the top under the leadership of Oscar in time!

So, after letting go of the high in your heart; Oscar smiled and said to everyone, "Since General Luquis has provided us with a very perfect regimental training plan, then we will implement this plan in the future; Since I don't have time to be in the Legion all the time, I'll leave this training plan to Lucis and Quintus. Now we move on to what our legion lacks, and how we can make up for it; I won't mention this topic, you can all talk about it according to your own ideas. “

As soon as Oscar's words fell, Quintus said: "I think that although the current Roman legions have improved their combat effectiveness compared with the old legions of the past, they use better weapons and equipment and more equipment; However, the use of light infantry was compressed to the extreme. All the light infantry that had been part of the Legion was removed, and a few Javelins of the Legion infantry alone were not enough to compensate for the Legion's disadvantage in long-range attacks. "Not bad, even though the current legions use very high-quality weapons; and will use tortoiseshell formations that minimize losses in the face of long-range strikes. However, the tortoiseshell formation did not make the soldiers completely immune to enemy archers; Also, the role of archers in siege warfare is also very huge. So, I think we should provide each corps with a certain number of light infantry to assist in combat. "That's the advice Lucis gave.

It was also the first time that Mary had spoken at a meeting: "Whether it is the Roman legions before the reform. Or the Roman legions after the reform; Both were extremely lacking in cavalry strength. Not to mention that the current Roman legion only has 120 cavalry, even the 300 cavalry attached to the former Roman legion does not have much combat effectiveness; Therefore, I felt that in order to improve the combat effectiveness of the Roman legions, it was necessary to expand the cavalry strength of the legions. “

After making these three suggestions, the generals did not continue to put forward their own opinions; While the Oscars are preparing for the summary. The always honest Ronkina said: "I think there is another problem with the current Roman legions, that is, they will lose their original mobility in battle; Legion-attached units are too slow to move, which can severely slow down the movement of the entire legion. “

This time, there really were no generals to continue to make suggestions; So, Oscar concluded: "Now everyone thinks that there are four main problems with the new army: first, the lack of light infantry; Second. Lack of ranged attack power such as archers and slingers; thirdly, the lack of strong cavalry support; Fourth, the sheer size of the equipment will slow down the mobility of the legion. In response to these problems, I will first share my own views.

First, let me talk about the fourth question; As for the device, I think it can be solved by changing the way it is used. For small ballistas, we can have the craftsman install two wheels on both sides of the ballista, and then use a war horse to drag the action; As for those huge catapults, we can unite the catapult units of several legions and break away from the corps joint operation, and when the time comes, we just need to send enough troops to protect them. This will not affect the actions of large forces.

And the lack of light infantry and archers and slingers can also be solved by creating auxiliary legions; We have a subordinate auxiliary clan for each legion, and the auxiliary legion will work together with the standard legion whenever it fights. An auxiliary legion is made up of a certain number of light infantry and archers. Slingers are composed. In this way, it will be possible to make up for the lack of combat strength of the main army.

As for the problem of cavalry, it is not something that can be solved in a day or two; The republic lacked quality horse farms and allies with an abundance of war horses. Therefore, it is basically impossible for us to build a strong cavalry corps, and it is even more impossible to allocate enough cavalry strength to each legion, and it is already the limit to be able to provide 120 cavalry for each legion as a reconnaissance force.

Still, I'll do my best to solve the cavalry problem; At present, I have sent people to the east to find people who are willing to sell our horses to us, hoping that they will not return empty-handed. However, even if they brought back war horses, they were extremely few in number; In order to make better use of these cavalry forces, they are to be concentrated in the Guards Cavalry Legion. It will not be dispersed among the clans. “

Oscar's intention to establish an auxiliary legion was supported by the generals, but there were different opinions on how large the auxiliary legion generals should be. Luquis and Quintus thought that an auxiliary legion of about two thousand five hundred men would be sufficient, while Vipsani thought that a maximum of one thousand men would be given military expenditures; Other generals thought the more the merrier, and some even proposed a 4,000-strong auxiliary legion.

At last. It was Oscar who decided to form an auxiliary legion of 2,000 men first; Among them were a thousand light infantry, a thousand archers and slingers. The conscription of the light infantry Oscar decided not to return to Rome to collect it, but directly among the indigenous people of Sardinia; As for the ranged troops, the best archers were recruited from Crete - Cretan archers.

Of course, these tasks cannot be solved in a day or two, so now it is only a preliminary plan to be formulated; The specific establishment of auxiliary legions will at least wait until the training of the six major legions is halfway completed. Otherwise, the House of Augustus simply did not have enough strength to train these auxiliary legions; Moreover, before the implementation of the reforms. Nor could the Augustians raise enough troops in Sardinia.

However, just when the generals thought that the discussion was over, Mary made a new suggestion on the question of cavalry; That was to obtain good horses from Numidia and to hire enough javelin cavalry. Numidia was notoriously not on good terms with Carthage; Although the Numidian king Siepsa had always been reluctant to be aggressive with the Carthaginians, his brother Adheba and uncle Zuguta were hard-line fighters.

They all believed that only one could survive between Numidia and Carthage in the limited space of North Africa; Moreover, Carthage's declining state is no longer the Mediterranean hegemon it once was. Pity. Carthage still produced a Hannibal; Because of Hannibal's existence, the Numidian king Siepsa still did not dare to act rashly against Carthage. However, as the king of Siepsa grew older; Adebach and Zuguta grew in power, so much so that Numidia's relationship with Carthage became more and more severe.

So. In this case, the aid of the Romans should have been a surprise to the Numidians; Moreover, supporting the Numidians in war with the Carthaginians could also alleviate Rome's own situation. Because Carthage's sparse army could not be an opponent of the Numidian kingdom, the Carthaginian senate would definitely summon Hannibal back to Carthage in the event of a war.

For the Carthaginians, no matter how strong the Romans were, they were rivals across the Mediterranean; Numidia, on the other hand, was a kingdom next to Carthage. Once the Numidians conquered Carthage, the Carthaginian senators would be killed. Therefore, they will summon Hannibal back regardless of their previous suspicions; And with Hannibal's feelings for Carthage, he could not have ignored it.

At that time, Hannibal returned to the land of Carthage; The Roman Republic and the House of Augustus could have a respite. As for what would happen if the Numidians were defeated, it had nothing to do with Oscar and the generals present; You are not Numidians, so why should you think about these things for them? So, Oscar happily agreed to Mary's suggestion; He also told the generals that he would arrange for an envoy to go to Numidia to discuss the alliance.

After these two questions were determined, the next step was the arrangement of the private army of the Augustan family; Regarding the issue of the family's private army, Quintus and others are not suitable to intervene. After all, they weren't the generals of House Augustus. However, Oscar still made it clear that Quintus and the other three generals can speak freely; Because now everyone is a coalition in one camp, and there is no need to stick to formality.

Of course, Oscar's deliberate lowering of his posture is Oscar's behavior, and Quintus and the others will not really participate in the discussion of these sensitive topics of the Augustan family without interest. Thus, this third question became a topic of discussion among the generals of the House of Augustus; In fact, there is nothing to discuss, the Guards Cavalry Corps and the Guards Infantry Corps are directly as the name suggests, and everyone only needs to negotiate the establishment in detail.

This time it was inconvenient for the generals to say anything, because no one knew how Oscar defined these legions in his heart; Whether it's a main battle legion, a non-main battle legion, or a legion just formed to expand its strength rather than a legion against Hannibal. In a word. There are too many doubts that the generals dare not easily say their suggestions; In the end, it was Spartacus, Oscar's best friend since childhood, who spoke:

"Since the establishment of the Lion Legion has been determined to be a standard legion, there is no need to discuss it, as long as the soldiers, weapons and equipment are ready, the training can be carried out; As for my Samonai regiment, I think it's better to use a looser formation. Personally, I would recommend not having a complicated Roman legionary formation. A simple formation of a brigade with only a thousand people will do; Although the gladiators had strong individual combat effectiveness, they still lacked the use of battle formations and cooperation on the battlefield.

So I don't want them to use the standard legion structure, which of course will cause the Samonai Legion to be less effective on the battlefield than other legions; However, we can define the Samonai Legion as a siege and street fighting legion. The Samonai Legion's strong individual combat strength will make them a fish in water in siege warfare and street fighting, and they will become a different kind of force in the family! ”

Spartacus's opinion surprised Oscar, Oscar really didn't expect that his little hair would have such a strategic vision; Truly. Cultivating gladiators with amazing individual combat effectiveness as ordinary legionnaires not only wastes their advantages, but also seriously hinders the formation of legionary combat effectiveness. Rather than this, it is better to form them into an alternative special army that uses their strengths and avoids their weaknesses; As soon as this suggestion was spoken, the generals were also impressed by this sudden appearance of the corps commander, Spartak is really extraordinary!

(To be continued.) )