The quality of being able to withstand it strong enough on the one hand, and to be sober on the other, is the mark of a person who has a perfect and invincible soul.

- Marcus Aurelius (the only philosopher-emperor in Western history)

When the Brutus family launched the First Macedonian War against the Kingdom of Epirus with the strength of five legions, there was also a war between the Julius family and the Gallic barbarians beyond the mountains; However, compared to the first Macedonian war, which was fought with great fanfare, the war between the Julius family and the Gallic barbarians in the north was smaller in scale and less famous. The expansion of the Ulius family was not as crazy as that of the wealthy Brutus family, and apart from the additional expansion of the bull legion, the Ulius family only had the standard legion of the Senate.

Even with regard to the establishment of the Auxiliary Legion, the Julius family only symbolically established a light auxiliary legion of 5,000 men; This auxiliary legion consisted of 3,000 light infantry and 2,000 archers, and was the only auxiliary legion of the Julius family. Compared with the generosity of the seven auxiliary legions of the Augustus family and the investment of the five auxiliary legions of the Brutus family, the scale of the auxiliary legions of the Julius family is too stingy, and it is simply an auxiliary legion that cannot be put on the table.

It's not that the Julius family doesn't want to recruit more auxiliary troops, it's just that the financial resources of the Julius family are really not optimistic; Unlike the Brutus family, who had always occupied the rich southern provinces of the Republic, and the Scipio and Maxentius families, who were entrenched in the fertile land of the central part of the Republic, the Julius family had always lived in the two relatively barren provinces in the north of the Republic. More crucially, there were large numbers of Gallic barbarians among the natives of these two provinces; They were also often invaded by aggressive Gallic barbarians, which led to the Julius family always having to ensure a certain number of private troops to defend Etruria and Ubria.

The perennial war and huge military expenditures directly caused the financial constraints of the Julius family; Hundreds of years of Gallic warfare not only did not allow the Roman Republic to completely solve the huge threat to the north of the Gallic barbarians, but allowed them to make great progress. The original Gallic barbarians were only primitive barbarians capable of using wooden weapons and simple bronze weapons, after centuries of war with the Roman Republic; Although the current Gallic barbarians are still inferior to the Roman Republic in terms of weapons and equipment, the gap is getting smaller and smaller.

Even the weapons of the most common Gallic infantry and Gallic fanatics, as well as the Gallic warriors, were greatly improved, and the former wooden and rudimentary bronze weapons were slowly replaced by high-quality bronze and iron weapons; The weapons of the elite Gallic warriors and noble cavalry, the most elite of the Gallic barbarians, were not inferior to the armies of the republic. Of course. These Gallic barbarians alone could not have been a match for the House of Julius; It's not a big deal.

But the Gallic barbarians have two powerful classes of their own pride, namely the Gallic Deiru Order and the Forest Hunters; The Gallic Iru Order was not an elite army with strong combat effectiveness and excellent weapons, but a religious army composed of religious believers from among the Gallic barbarians. Their combat effectiveness can be described as vulnerable, and they are no match for the elite legions of the Julius family on the battlefield; But as long as they appear on the battlefield. All the armies of the Gallic barbarians burst into their greatest formidancy, and often fought to the death against the legions of the House of Julius.

And the so-called forest hunters are even more remarkable; This legendary army of archers is not at all comparable to archers in the ordinary sense. Each Forest Hunter is the most elite archer of the Gallic Barbarian tribes, and they must use their bow and arrows to shoot a certain amount of prey in order to become a reserve for the Forest Hunters; After that, you can use the spear to fight some prey to officially become a forest hunter. The prey must be shot more than five wolves, and the prey must include a ferocious beast like a jackal, tiger and leopard.

That is, every Forest Hunter in the Forest Hunter army is a combination of the most elite archers and the most elite samurai; Each of them is an archer with amazing marksmanship. He is also a fighter with strong combat effectiveness. When the Julius family first encountered an attack by the Forest Hunters, they suffered heavy casualties from a rain of arrows from less than a thousand Forest Hunters; But the brave and fearless soldiers of the Julius family still rushed to the position of the forest hunters.

Originally thinking that the forest hunters were only skilled in archery, the army of the Julius family wanted to completely annihilate this powerful long-range force through hand-to-hand combat; As a result, when the remaining remnants of the army rushed to the position of the forest hunters, those powerful forest hunters actually just threw away their bows and arrows, pulled out the short spears behind their backs, and engaged in a melee with the elite army of the Julius family. The forest hunters, who numbered less than a thousand, wiped out at least a thousand more Roman troops in that battle with bows and arrows; And the final hand-to-hand melee wiped out no less than 3,000 Roman troops, with less than 300 casualties of their own!

After this battle, the forest hunter troops of the Gallic barbarians became a nightmare for almost all the armies of the entire family of Julius; The Forest Hunters are also deservedly called the strongest army in Gaul by the army of the Julius family! From now on, whenever the House of Julius fought against the Gallic barbarians, they would prepare enough shields to deal with possible attacks from hunters in the Gallic Forest; Thankfully, three years ago, a war broke out between the Gallic and Germanic barbarians, and the 3,000 forest hunters gathered on the northern border of Rome were finally transferred to the Germanic border by the Gallic barbarians.

Since then. The army of the Julius family really used its own weapons and equipment advantage to once again occupy the war advantage against the Gallic barbarians; As a result, the Julius family had the idea of expelling the Gallic barbarians from mountain Gaul and truly solving the northern threat to the republic and the family. Although the Gallic barbarians sent a sufficiently elite Lugotorix expeditionary corps to confront the Julius family in the mountains of Gaul, the Lugotorix legion only had an army of 4,000 after all; Even with the 6,000 garrisons of the two provinces of Gallic in the mountains, the total strength was only 10,000.

In addition to the family's private army, the Bull Legion, the Julius family also has three main battle legions belonging to the Ulius family and a reinforcement corps sent by the Senate; These five fully formed legions already have nearly 40,000 troops, and with the newly formed auxiliary legions, the Julius family has formed an absolute numerical superiority over the Gallic barbarians in the north. Of course, none of the army commanders of the Gallic barbarians were fools; Naturally, they also knew the news that the Julius family had assembled a heavy army in the north.

After the results of the Battle of Lilic became known to the Gallic barbarians, Lugotorius took the opportunity to launch a southward war against the Roman Republic itself; But before the armies of the Gallic barbarians could be assembled, the Roman army of five legions had already been deployed on the northern border of the Roman Republic. All right. At this moment, Lugotorix's desire to take the initiative to attack Rome properness also disappeared; Even 40,000 Roman recruits were not something that 10,000 Gallic troops could easily deal with, and Lugotorix had no choice but to abandon the idea of attacking Rome proper.

And that's not all. Lugotorix's knowledge of the Julius family; After acquiring such a large army, the war-loving Julius family would sooner or later wage war against Gaul after training these armies. So. In order to cope with the possibility of war, Lugotorius had to recruit more temporary troops to defend against the outnumbered Roman army. Fortunately, the Gallic barbarians were brave and warlike in their bones. Add to that the prestige of Lugotorix; He easily recruited 10,000 recruits in the provinces of Montnai, Gaul and Veneto.

In order to improve the combat effectiveness of these 10,000 recruits as soon as possible, Lugotorix mixed them with the 4,000 lions under his command and reorganized his expeditionary legion; This newly formed expeditionary corps consisted of 5,000 Gallic infantry and 5,000 barbarian cavalry, 2,000 javelinmen, and 2,000 Gallic warriors. At the same time, the two provinces of the Gallic barbarians in the north of the republic were also under the orders of the governor Epredolix. A Gallic regiment of the mountains and a regiment of Veneto were formed and placed under the command of Lugotorix.

The two newly formed legions were in addition to the 2,000 Gallic infantry and 1,000 barbarian cavalry that each of the two provinces had. A thousand new Gallic infantry and a thousand barbarian cavalry were added, bringing the total strength of each legion to five thousand; Through this method of temporary recruitment, General Lugotorix had assembled three legions and an army of 24,000 men. Although the Roman legions of the Julius family still had an absolute advantage in terms of quantity, they were not necessarily in terms of quality.

The Roman army stationed in the provinces of Etrusa and Oubria, except for the 5,000-strong light auxiliary legions, the other 40,000 troops were simple legionary heavy infantry, and the cavalry strength was only 600 light cavalry; On the contrary, Lugotorix's army of 24,000 had a full 9,000 cavalry. Among them were not only 6,000 newly formed cavalry. There are also three thousand battle-hardened elite cavalry; This cavalry force is the most important military force in Lugotorix's hands.

Of course, the combat effectiveness of the barbarian cavalry is also extremely limited, and it is simply whimsical to achieve the results obtained by the combination of war elephants and ironclad cavalry; But a group charge of 9,000 cavalry was enough to crush any Roman legion head-on, which is why the Julius family did not dare to act rashly even after gaining enough troops. On the other hand, the strength of these cavalry was also greatly limited; Aside from the banks of the Rubicon on the border between Gaul and the Roman Republic, which were suitable for large-scale cavalry operations, the other terrain did not allow the 9,000 cavalry to be used, which was why Lugotorix was reluctant to start a war on his own initiative.

Unfortunately, the existence of the army is for the sake of war; Whether it was the six legions of the Roman Republic under the command of the Julius family (including the auxiliary legions), or the three legions assembled under Lugotorius. These assembled armies will eventually be consumed by war; Just as the Brutus family launched an expeditionary army to attack the kingdom of Epirus, the Julius family also officially decided to launch a war of conquest against the Gallic barbarians.

At the same time, Lugotorix had completed his own preparations for war; The Gallic armies of all three legions were massed near the Rubicon. The training program for the recruits has also been completed, and weapons and equipment have been distributed. What made Lugotorix even more confident about this upcoming war was that the three thousand forest hunters who had been transferred to the Germanic barbarian border had also been secretly transferred back; and was sent to Lugotorix's command to follow orders.

The strong combat effectiveness of the forest hunters, coupled with the absolute superiority of the cavalry, made the difference of nearly 20,000 men in strength not a major problem for General Lugotorix; And the Julius family is also confident in this battle because they don't know about the return of the Forest Hunters. In a word. The war between the two sides is on the verge of breaking out; What awaits both sides is a suitable reason for the outbreak of war. There is no way, snatching the moral high ground of war has always been the common goal of both warring sides; It is undeniable that this is also a good way to boost the morale of your own army.

At this moment, a sudden accident made both sides feel that they had found an excuse for war; A new round of the Gallic War has finally begun! (To be continued.) )