True friendship is both tolerant of counsel from friends and receptive to counsel.

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

After formally signing the covenant between the two sides and going to the port of Sardinia** to exchange gifts, Adheba took Salah and Bashirek to Oscar and submitted his resignation; Originally, Oscar was also ready to keep Adheba to stay in Sardinia for more stays, but Adheba bluntly said that his Mauritania could be attacked at any time, and he must rush back to preside over the overall situation as soon as possible.

In fact, if there had been no war between Zuguta and Carthage and the annexation of Tripolitania had been successful; Soon, then, Tulguta would organize a large army to turn back and eliminate Adheba, the Numidian prince who was a potential threat to his throne. If war had really broken out between Tulguta and Carthage, Adheba would have gone back sooner; Opposite Mauritania is Carthage, in the province of Betica on the Iberian Peninsula.

Once a war broke out between Carthage and Numidia, Hannibal, with his personality, would have ordered his younger brother Salthanes, the governor of Betica, to lead Betica's army across the sea to attack Numidian Mauritania; At that time, the Carthaginian army would not be divided into who was Tulguta and who was Adheba. For the Carthaginians, the war with Zuguta was the war with the kingdom of Numidia; Moreover, Hannibal was not a soft-hearted man, and neither were his brothers.

In short, whether or not a war broke out between Numidia and Carthage; Security in Mauritania and Adheba is not guaranteed. Therefore, in order to expand the strength as quickly as possible and keep their nest; Adheba really couldn't stay too long in Sardinia. The fact that he was able to leave Mauritania and come to Sardinia to meet Oscar in person shows how much he valued the alliance; After the covenant was established, he really couldn't stay too long.

In the face of Adheba's eagerness, Oscar certainly did not keep him anymore; However, in order to show his sincerity, Oscar still made his own gesture towards this. Oscar took out the weapons and equipment of three thousand Roman light infantry directly in the barracks not far from the port and sent them to Adheba's transport ship along with three thousand barrels of wine, and then Oscar sent ten more double ships to escort Adheba's convoy back to Mauritania; All this moved Adheba and his entourage, and even Adheba said that he would definitely provide the most capable herdsmen and the strongest war horses for Oscar.

After seeing off Adheba and his party, Oscar took Licinius and Quintus to ride their horses in the direction of Calaris, taking advantage of the bright afternoon sunshine; On the way back to the city, Licinius could not hold back the question that he had been puzzled by when he got off the ship, and asked Oscar:

"Leader. Why did we promise Adheba to give them a whole legion for three years? Even provided them with three hundred experienced centurion officers, isn't this helping them to be strong for free? Although they have promised to provide us with a large number of horses and herdsmen, we can get them in exchange for weapons; Why does the family have to pay so much? ”

After Licini voiced his doubts, Quintus also turned his attention to Oscar; It's obvious. Quintus didn't quite understand what Oscar was trying to do. Seeing the two of them looking at him suspiciously, Oscar laughed out loud and said, "It's not just that you think so, even Adheba certainly can't understand why I agreed to his terms of lending the Legion and the Centurion; But will I trade at a loss? ”

"Of course the leader will not make a loss-making deal! However, it doesn't make much sense for our family to send a whole legion and three hundred centurions to fight under Adheba; Didn't we make a wedding dress for Adheba for nothing? If he really achieves the throne of Numidia in the future, will he still remember our family Augustus? Licinius continued to ask, puzzled.

It seems that it is difficult to get Licinius to understand what he meant; Thereupon. Oscar had to explain bluntly: "The reason why I promised to lend a complete legion and three hundred centurions to Adheba for three years is not for war horses at all, I have my own purpose; Moreover, our corps was not completely under the command of Adheba. Didn't I already discuss it with Adheba? Form a Combined Legion, and the commander of the Combined Legion must be the Commander of the Legion from which we send it; As for the remaining two Numidian legions, they were also under the command of our centurion.

You say, who is in command of the 20,000-strong combined legion of these three legions? And, I can assure you that before Adheba did not completely settle the matter of Zuguta's seizure of the Numidian throne; He will not turn against us, and he will not easily put our legion in danger, this is politics. In addition, we do need to train a large number of mid-level officers with experience in desert warfare and an elite army that is proficient in desert warfare.

Don't always limit your gaze to Sicily and Hannibal; Surely we will be able to defeat Hannibal one day. Because no matter how good Hannibal is, he is only one person, and the Carthaginian Senate has been dragging behind him. Does Hannibal want to fight the whole republic forever with the wisdom of one man and the power of one island? Hannibal's defeat was only a matter of time.

Once we have put an end to the myth of Hannibal, then our next target is Carthage; However, our legions lacked experience in the deserts of North Africa, and our centurions and group commanders did not know how to fight in desert areas. Therefore, in order to be able to attack the Carthage land smoothly in the future; We had to prepare for the desert in advance, and that was the real reason why I sent the regiments and mid-ranking officers to assist Adheba. ”

After listening to Oscar's explanation, both Licini and Quintus had a sense of sudden enlightenment; It turned out that Oscar did not regard the victory over Hannibal as an impossible task at all, but took the victory over Hannibal as a matter of course, and began to prepare for the future battle plan of attacking Carthage. This self-confidence and mind. It's really not comparable to ordinary people; The two couldn't help but feel convinced by Oscar.

Still, Licini, who had a tendon in his head, raised his own question; After Licini suddenly came to his senses, he once again asked Oscar: "Since Hannibal cannot compete with the Republic with the wisdom of one man and the strength of one island, then why did the Republic lose to Hannibal three times in a row before?" And each time it was more tragic than the defeat. In the last decisive battle, more than 30,000 troops were killed; Why is that? “

Licinius's question is actually a bit sharp; If it weren't for Oscar or even Licini's personality and loyalty to himself, he would definitely think that Licini was questioning himself. However, with Licinius's personality, he raised the question. Then say that he is really puzzled; So Oscar went on to explain: "These are just superficial phenomena, and you can look at the problem from a different perspective; You think about it, although Hannibal defeated the great army of the republic three times. But has the army of the republic become less? Has there been more of his own army?

Hannibal's army broke out with one great war after another. The number of its most elite troops has been dwindling; Although there have been increases in troops, they are all mercenary armies with low combat effectiveness. And what about our republic? Once upon a time, the republic had only five legions and an army of more than 20,000 men; Now we in Sardinia alone have four regular legions of the Republic, four family legions, and a total of more than 50,000 troops.

Plus the four legions of the House of Julius, the native of the Republic. three legions of the Maxentius family, two legions of the Scipio family, four legions of the Brutus family; That's a huge army of thirteen legions and more than 90,000 people! That is, we fought three great battles with Hannibal, and we lost three times; But our army went from more than 20,000 to 150,000, and what about Hannibal? How many troops does he have under his command?

The population of Rome is our greatest reliance on victory, as long as we do not lose the demographic advantage of Rome itself; No matter how many defeats we fail on the battlefield and how many troops we lose, we can still replenish them quickly. And once again to restore their combat effectiveness, this is our real confidence. Hannibal had all the skills, but he was never able to gain the support of the Carthaginian land; For him, failure was only a matter of time. Because we can fight countless defeats, and he can only win a hundred battles; As long as he fails once, then he will never have a chance to make a comeback. “

After Oscar's laborious and detailed explanation, Licinius finally understood what Oscar meant; At the same time, Quintus also silently thought about Oscar's remarks in his heart. It turns out that what Oscar says is indeed well-founded, and even Quintus thinks that Hannibal's defeat seems to be only a matter of time. Oscar's words not only explained Licini's problem, but also established the belief that Rome would win and Hannibal would lose.

In the evening of the 16th. Oscar's group finally returned to Callaris after a full day; After a brief dinner, Oscar once again gathered the generals in the conference room in the Doge's Palace. At the beginning of the meeting, Quintus informed all the generals attending the meeting of the agreement between Oscar and Adheba, and relayed Oscar's explanation on the way; After all the generals understood the situation, Oscar began today's topic.

In fact, the topic is also very simple. that is, how to select the legion and the corps commander and the three hundred centurions; In this regard, Oscar's suggestion was: from the seven legions that are fully staffed, each legion should draw two brigades to form a brand new legion; The resulting vacancy of 7,000 soldiers will be filled after the arrival of 7,000 recruits sent by the Senate this year. The three hundred centurions waited until the eight hundred cadets in the military academy graduated, and then the three hundred centurions who did not perform well in the six major legions were drawn out and sent to Numidia; The vacancy will be filled by the new graduates as originally planned.

There was no opinion on the formation of the legion and the arrangement of the centurion. After all, according to the original plan, these three hundred centurions were also sent back to the military academy to re-study, and now they were just sent to the battlefield in advance. However, there were different opinions on what weapons and equipment should be used in the new corps and the appointment of the corps commander.

Both Luquis and Quintus believed that the commander of this legion was not only tasked with commanding this legion, but also with the task of collecting the characteristics of various desert operations; In addition, he had to command a combined legion of more than 20,000 people, avoid danger to the legion, deal with the coordination between the legion officers and the Numidian army, and many other matters. In short, there are so many things that one of the two must go in person.

According to the commanders, the formation of a joint legion with the Numidians was indeed a vital event, but it was not a level compared to the affairs of Sardinia; After all, Hannibal and his army were the heart and soul of the Augustan family and the entire Roman Republic. Moreover, the sword has no eyes on the battlefield; The deputy commander-in-chief personally involved in danger is also not in line with the system of corps combat; Therefore, the commanders of the legions mean to send the legions to go there, and the two deputy commanders do not have to go there in person.

(To be continued.) )