Prudence is better than recklessness.

- Tacitus (the greatest historian of ancient Rome)

Even so, the hoplites and light infantry of the First Army suffered greatly; Of all the armies under Calabes, they were the only ones who were not Gauls, but purely Romans. Even if they were once robbers, it would not change the fact that they were Romans; They are quite unaccustomed to such a jungle environment.

However, with the experience and various protective measures provided by the large number of Gauls, the hoplites and light infantry did not suffer non-combat casualties, which is undoubtedly a very good start. The dense jungle of Gaul outside the mountains is only a conceptual thing, and in fact it is not really full of dense jungle.

The dense jungle was the main feature of Gaul, but there were also many open roads opened up by logging and barbarian life; Overall, it's more appropriate, at least not as dense as Karabes imagined. In fact, except for primitive humans, as long as there are human beings, it is impossible to be a pure jungle area.

The Gallic barbarians were called barbarians, mainly relative to the more civilized peoples of Rome, Greece and other peoples; The degree of development of its own civilization is still very different from that of real primitive people. Therefore, their living environment is not as bad as imagined; It's just relatively simple.

Such terrain does not affect the advance of the Calabes' army, and the distance between the Calabes' army and the Telma tribe is getting closer and closer. When there were still three days to go from the Telma tribe, the Itami cavalry unit in charge of opening the way ahead spotted the first Terma to appear; These Terma civilians, numbering less than a hundred, were quickly brought under control.

Since then, small villages belonging to the Telma tribe have continued to appear, and even a patrol cavalry of the Terma people has appeared; Needless to say, all of these villages, including the patrol of twenty cavalry, were controlled by Itami's cavalry. The cavalry of the patrol also tried to escape, and after paying the price of six killed, the rest surrendered.

At this time, the army of Karabes was a day's journey from the tribe of Terma; If nothing else, the people of the Telma tribe already know the information about the attack of the army. After all, the disappearance of a patrol of twenty cavalry was not a trivial matter for any power, especially the Gallic barbarians, who had frequent internal wars.

Sure enough, half a day after the cavalry of this patrol was captured, a cavalry force of nearly 500 men appeared in front of Itami's cavalry troops. According to the confessions of the captured cavalrymen before, Karabes also really understood the strength of the Telma tribe; The total strength of the tribe was 3,500 men, including 2,000 Gallic infantry, 1,000 Gallic warriors, and 500 Gallic cavalry.

Such a confession is not much different from the results of the investigation of his secret agents, and Carabis naturally did not question it; This also means that the cavalry unit that appears in front of you is the entire cavalry force of the Telma tribe. Of course, it was impossible for Calabes to spare this cavalry of the Telma tribe, and a fierce encounter began.

In fact, the terrain of Gallic beyond the mountains was not suitable for large-scale cavalry combat; Therefore, it is impossible for the 7,000 cavalry under Itami to really exert their full combat power. It was only the 1,500 noble cavalry under Itami's command that really fought against the 500 or so Telma cavalry.

It is said that it is a noble cavalry, but in fact, it is a noble cavalry in the eyes of the Gauls, but the weapons and equipment are superior to ordinary Gallic cavalry; However, after all, the cavalry under Itami's command was once an elite cavalry under the command of the famous Gaul general Lugotorix. Its combat effectiveness is already good, and after changing into excellent weapons and equipment, its combat effectiveness is naturally not inferior to that of normal aristocratic cavalry.

The battle of 2,000 cavalry between us and the enemy was the largest cavalry battle in the terrain of Gaul outside the mountains; If you want to invest more troops, you can only add chaos and cannot give full play to the numerical advantage. Even so, the attack of fifteen hundred noble cavalry was not something that five hundred ordinary cavalry could reach; The battle between the two sides was a one-sided battle from the beginning, and there were no surprises.

The cavalry of the Telma tribe were not fools, and as soon as they discovered the large cavalry of the army of Calabes, they began to divide their forces; At least ten cavalrymen directly turned their horses and retreated, and the rest of the cavalry met them without hesitation. The will to fight is still very important; But in the face of the absolute strength gap, sometimes it seems very helpless.

The less than five hundred Telma cavalry did not resist for long under the attack of Itami's cavalry, and in the first round of confrontation alone, more than a third of the Telma cavalry fell from their horses; In cavalry warfare, whether you are injured or not, as long as you fall from your own horse, you are almost dead, and the galloping horses on both sides will trample you to death.

The rest of the battle ended easily, and after more than half of the casualties, the cavalry of the Telma tribe completely collapsed; They began to flee from the nearby jungle on their horses, but Calabes ordered Itami's cavalry to stop the pursuit and let the horses, which were less than two hundred terr, escape.

The dozen or so cavalrymen who had evacuated before would definitely bring the news of their army back to the Terma tribe and the Maasai tribe, and it would not be of much use to pursue this rout at the moment; Moreover, the jungle of Gaul outside the mountains was an unfamiliar combat terrain for our army, and it was naturally impossible for Calabes to let Itami continue to pursue those routs, in case there were any accidents.

After this episode of the battle was over, Calabis led his army to march more quickly towards the Terma tribe; Calabis knew that the Terma tribe must not be supported by the army of the Maasai tribe, otherwise the war would become a real tug-of-war, and even if he could win, it would be a pyro victory, not the one he wanted!

The journey, which was supposed to take a day, was completed in only half a day by the urgent military order of Calabes; As for the Second and Fourth Legions in the rear of the First Corps, Karabes did not let them speed up their march, but let them march in a step-by-step manner, and could slow down the pace of the march appropriately.

Not to mention Itami's Third Legion, an all-cavalry legion that marched really fast, it would be the legendary gallop. When we arrived less than a kilometer on the outskirts of the Telma tribe, it was already more than three o'clock in the afternoon; If Terma cannot be captured within three hours, the battle will not continue after nightfall.

There is no doubt that the Telma tribe did get a report from their cavalry in advance; All the people of the Telma tribe had gathered into their camp with wooden walls. Three thousand Gallic warriors of the Terma tribe and thousands of improvised young men gathered at the gates of the tribal camp, waiting for the arrival of the enemy.

Just as Itami's seven thousand cavalry and the first army of Calabis slowly appeared, the Terma tribe once again rushed towards the rear in the direction of the Rhône, with more than a dozen cavalry; This is also one of the purposes of Carabes. After achieving this goal, Calabes directly ordered Itami to lead his 7,000 cavalry to quickly surround the entire Terma camp; No one can escape!

It was indeed more than enough to encircle a tribal camp with a total population of no more than fifteen thousand with seven thousand cavalry; Don't think that there are 30,000 people in the Telma tribe, even if these 30,000 people live in one place, and there are many people from the Terma tribe who are scattered around the Telma camp in the form of small villages, and the fact that the Telma camp can have a population of 15,000 has surprised Karabes!

After the cavalry surrounded the Terma tribal camp, Karabes began to lead his First Legion to the attack; The Gallic barbarians were a very lacking people with long-range strike power. It is impossible for them to make siege equipment such as ballistae and stone catapults, and even bows and arrows are not very numerous; The javelin is most often used in hunting and combat.

Of course, the Gauls also did their best to form a strong archery army; The prestige of the forest hunters can be said to be the power of the Kingdom of Spain, the Roman Republic, the Germanic barbarians, and the British barbarians who were connected to the Gallic barbarians. However, now the strongest archer force of the Gauls belonged to Calabes; And became the enemy of the Gauls themselves!

The vast majority of the Terma tribes who were improvised were hunters of the Terma tribe and other prime men engaged in manual work; The weapons in their hands were nothing but one or two javelins, which were short knives of little use. Karabes even found in these crowded makeshift armies that some were still armed with sticks that had not had time to be sharpened.

Regardless of their reaction, Karabes directly ordered Falkus to lead the forest hunters to a distance of a hundred meters from the Telma camp to start firing a salvo; Behind the Forest Hunter were three thousand hoplites led by Tursus. The salvo of the forest hunters caused massive casualties among the soldiers in the Terma camp in just two rounds; How did the unarmed Gallic warriors withstand the attacks of the forest hunters?

However, the leader of the Telma tribe is not a fool; He knew that if he continued like this, his tribe would be destroyed by enemy archers. Therefore, he decisively opened the gate of the camp and personally led the Gallic warriors, who were already less than 2,500 people, to launch a fierce counterattack against the enemy troops outside the camp!

The howling Gallic warriors did not cause confusion among the forest hunters, and after calmly continuing to shoot two rounds of arrows, they quickly withdrew behind the hoplites; The hoplites, who were on standby, were immediately met by the Terma warriors, who numbered less than two thousand and were mostly wounded. The result of such an engagement between the two armies is naturally self-evident; It's just a matter of increasing casualties. (To be continued.) )