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- Socrates (famous ancient Greek thinker, philosopher, and educator)

After a day of fierce fighting, Marcus's 3,000 officers and men of the Third Army were only 2,200 men; Of the more than 2,200 people, more than one-third of them were wounded, and only about 1,500 people had their real combat effectiveness intact.

As for the nearly fifteen-hundred-strong Provincial Guard, the casualty ratio was quite terrifying; Except for the 600 soldiers who finally entered the battle, almost all the 900 soldiers of the other three groups were lost, and only a few lucky ones survived.

In fact, the last reserve soldiers to go into battle also paid a certain amount of casualties when they threw torches to burn the siege towers; And the soldiers of the provincial guards who could survive to the end of the battle were only more than 700 in total.

The provincial guards, who suffered more than half of the casualties, also gained extremely rich combat experience, and the soldiers of the provincial guards who could survive on the battlefield could also be regarded as qualified soldiers; Marcus believed that the remaining 700 or so soldiers were stronger than the pre-war guard.

In order to better cope with the next battle, Marcus directly canceled the separate division of the soldiers of the Third Army and the soldiers of the Provincial Guard, and mixed them together; There are still 3,000 defenders in the city.

Compared with the 1,500 dead of the defenders of the city, the Spanish army, as the attacker, paid a much heavier price; In Tekomin's 1st Corps alone, fifteen hundred men were killed and more than a thousand wounded.

The Edota Division, which used the siege tower to attack, also paid a slightly heavy casualty; At least nearly 500 zealots and bull warriors died on the walls, and the number of wounded was definitely not a few.

In today's battle alone, the army under the command of Botricott paid the price of more than 2,000 killed, and more than 2,000 soldiers were wounded and lost their combat effectiveness; And the total number of troops under the command of Botricott was only more than 27,000 people.

Together with the 3,000 shield cavalry sent out earlier, there were only more than 22,000 troops left under the command of Botrichot; Among them, there are more than 2,000 wounded who are wailing and groaning, and there are only about 20,000 soldiers who can really fight.

In fact, this so-called ability to fight, which is just a conceptual number, does not have much meaning; After two massive casualties in succession, the morale of the entire Legion also fell to a certain point.

Even Tekomin, who had always regarded himself very highly, had to confess to Botrecott that if the First Army continued to participate in siege battles like today's, it was inevitable that the First Army would not collapse.

Botracott also understood that the First and Second Legions were newly formed recruit corps, and it was reasonable that the soldiers were not combative and weak-willed; What's more, the First Army has participated in such a brutal battle twice in a row, and the casualty ratio has almost reached four percent, and it has indeed reached the verge of collapse.

Therefore, Botricott did not embarrass Tercomin; After some kind words of relief, Botrecott granted the First Legion of Tecoming a three-day recuperation, and for three days, the First Legion did not have to participate in any more battles.

As for the Edota Division, which suffered no less casualties, Botricott said nothing; After all, it was Botricott's own direct subordinate troops, and he naturally knew where the limits of the soldiers under his command were, and he was just distressed by the casualties of those elite soldiers.

The day after the battle, the Spanish army of Botracott again attacked the defenders on the city walls; This time, the Spanish army that launched the attack consisted of shield men led by Oghuz and Gezca's Second Army.

There was no difference between Gazka's Second Army and Tecomin's First Army in terms of combat effectiveness; But the shield soldiers led by Oghuz were more than a step behind the fanatical warriors and bull warriors led by Edota yesterday.

Although the number of defenders on the city wall decreased, under the calm command of Marcus, the defenders on the city wall once again burst out with strong combat effectiveness; They cooperated with each other with ease and dealt a heavy blow to the attacking Spanish army.

In this day's battle, the casualties of the defenders on the city wall were less than a thousand, and the actual number of soldiers killed was less than 500; The attacking Spanish army once again left behind more than 2,000 corpses, and many people were wounded.

After the next day's battle, the number of defenders on the city wall dropped again to 2,500, of which more than 1,500 were wounded, and about 1,000 soldiers maintained their combat effectiveness.

And the army of Botrakot was only 20,000 men, of which there were more than 3,000 wounded; More importantly, Gazka's Second Army also had to face the same dilemma that the First Army faced, that is, the heavy casualties made the soldiers on the verge of collapse.

In desperation, Botracott had no choice but to order the attack on Córdoba to be stopped, and let all the soldiers under his command rest for two days before fighting; The rest of the Spanish army also happened to give Marcus's defenders a chance to breathe, and he naturally couldn't ask for it.

At this time, far south of Córdoba, Tetius's Fourth Legion was on an urgent march, and Botricott's 3,000 shield cavalry were also quietly ambushing the path of Tetius's legion, waiting for the arrival of Tetius's legion.

The combat effectiveness of the three thousand shield cavalry is naturally extremely good, but the fourth legion of the Augustus family is not vegetarian; Especially the hoplites of the Fourth Legion, which is also a standard Roman legion infantry configuration, even Hannibal's army can't break through the existence!

Can the shield cavalry of the Spanish army be compared to Hannibal's elite division? The answer, of course, is no! In addition to the despicable method of sneak attack, the Spanish army could only rely on absolute numbers against the army of the House of Augustus.

This time, however, the army sent by Botracott to stop the legion of Tetius was only 3,000 men; Even if they were all swift cavalry, they would not be enough to withstand the advance of one of the Augustusian family's main battle legions.

In fact, the purpose of Botricott was only to let the 3,000 shield cavalry harass the army of Tetius all the way; Unless it is a critical moment, try to avoid a head-on confrontation with the Legion of Tetius.

However, the general who was in charge of commanding the three thousand shield cavalry misunderstood what Botrecott meant when he received the order; He thought that the order given to him by Botricott was to desperately block the Fourth Legion of the Augustus family north at all costs!

That is, the three thousand shield cavalry of the Spanish army, which from the very beginning acted under the wrong strategy; And their specific way to block the advance of the Tetius legion turned out to be to ambush and fight a battle to attack the Tetius legion!

When Tetius's legions slowly entered the ambush circle, the commander of the shielded cavalry hesitated; Originally, he was still outside the army of the Augustus family, and it would become disorganized due to the emergency march, who would have thought that they would still maintain a solid formation!

Perhaps, the officers and men of the Spanish army did not know that the common denominator and greatest advantage of all Roman armies was not the excellent weaponry, but the orderly organizational structure; It was this organizational structure that shaped the powerful Roman legions that they are today.

Unfortunately, the commander of the shieldriders understood too late; Now that the ambush has been ready for a long time, it is ready to be launched. So, he took the lead and gave the order to attack on all fronts.

The rapid slaughter of the large-scale cavalry immediately caused the soldiers of the Fourth Army to fall into a certain panic; However, soon they were able to restore normal order on the orders of Tetius.

As the sound of the trumpet sounded and changed, the hoplites of the Fourth Army quickly formed a circular defensive formation in large groups; In particular, the four brigades around Tetius united to form a larger circular defensive formation.

And in this largest circular defensive formation, there are the officers of the auxiliary corps and the soldiers of the equipment unit under the command of Skori himself; The archers of the auxiliary legion also quickly opened their bows and arrows and began to fire a salvo at the rushing cavalry!

Because the sneak attack came too suddenly, the circular defensive formations formed by the Fourth Legion were too close together; Therefore, the powerful equipment units cannot be used at all, and the archers can only be used as the only long-range strike force.

After only three rounds of arrows, the galloping Spanish shield cavalry rushed into the defensive formation of the Fourth Legion; The defensive formation formed by the brigade was simply unable to block the onslaught of the three thousand long shield cavalry, and three battle formations were broken through one after another.

However, there is no point in merely breaking through these circular battle formations; Whenever the circular battle formation was breached, the brigade's six hundred-man squadrons would quickly disperse to form a stronger and more independent tortoiseshell formation to deal with the onslaught of the enemy cavalry.

After the three thousand shield cavalry broke through the three circular battle formations, they could no longer continue the assault; Those brigades that had broken through, after forming a tortoiseshell formation in a hundred-man team, immediately launched a counterattack against the long-shield cavalry around them to slow down the impact of the cavalry.

The Long Shield Cavalry, having lost its mobility, was soon eaten away by the hoplites of the Fourth Legion; Even the commander of the Long Shield Cavalry was killed on the spot under the siege of several hoplites.

These elite cavalry of the Kingdom of Spain were completely defeated by the soldiers of the Fourth Legion in less than half an hour after they took the initiative to attack; In addition to the commander and more than 1,000 cavalrymen who died in battle, more than 1,500 cavalry became prisoners of the Fourth Legion. (To be continued.) )