. Those who live long give up as much as those who die young; Because all a person can be deprived of is "now", in fact only this is what he has, and what he does not have, he will certainly not lose.

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

General Anten, sent by Matuginus to Luquis, was a taciturn man, who did not talk much on the march and did not communicate with anyone; However, his attitude to complete the task and the caution with which he did things satisfied Luquis. The 100 cavalry brought by Anten were scattered in all directions, and were responsible for reconnoitring the situation within ten miles of Luquis's army.

The entry of Betica from the coastal road of New Carthage in the province of Iberia required a full half a month's march, during which half a month; Anten's scout cavalry spotted four sneak attacks from Margo in the mountains near the sea route. The first time it was discovered was on the sixth day of the departure of the army, and the enemy army in ambush was only 500 men, basically a small force that had infiltrated from the border.

Without changing the arrangement of the army, Lucis simply arranged for 1,500 Cretan archers and 1,500 Balearic slingers of the auxiliary legion to wipe out the sneak attack force at its ambush site. The second and third ambushes were all elite of 1,000 men; Luquis used three auxiliary legions to eliminate them one by one.

By the time of the fourth ambush, Luquis had already led his army into the province of Betika; It was only two days before the sea and the mountains went on a smooth road. Moreover, this fourth ambushed army is no longer five hundred and one thousand scattered stragglers; It's a full 3,000 elite mercenaries, or a sneak attack elite led by Margo himself.

After this enemy force was discovered by Anton's scout cavalry, Luquis carelessly sent three auxiliary legions; As a result, the 6,000-strong light infantry was unscathed, and the remaining 3,000 light infantry were killed by more than 1,000 before they repelled the ambushed army. However, under the blows of Cretan archers and Balearic slingers, Marco also paid the price of more than 2,000 casualties.

So far, after these four sneak attacks and ambushes, Marco has paid the price of 4,500 men, but none of them have succeeded in sneaking up on Luquis's army; The corresponding army under Luquis won four ambushes at the cost of only a thousand men. Of course, there is no denying it. The reason why Lucis was able to spot the enemy in advance every time was all due to Antan and his cavalry.

Having officially entered the flat territory of Betica, Luquis knew that a decisive battle would soon break out; So he changed the original marching arrangement; In the new marching arrangement, it was still Licinius's cavalry troops who opened the way ahead, but the 2,000 ironclad cavalry under Licinius were drawn out of the cavalry cluster by Lucquis. Directly arranged for the Chinese army in Luquis to be dispatched.

At the same time, the Third Army of Segudus was also changed from the rear to the left, and the Fifth Army of Longkina was also changed from the front to the right; As for the remaining auxiliary corps, Lucquis also transferred 3,000 ranged troops to his central army, and the remaining 2,000 light infantry were reinforced to the equipment cluster to protect the vulnerable equipment troops.

Such. The marching formation of the entire Luquis army changed from a column to a horizontal formation; The long marching procession also turned into a huge marching procession. At this time, after four successive sneak attacks on Margo's border troops, Marco not only lost 4,500 soldiers, but also understood the strength of this Roman army; Therefore, Margo has also made new adjustments.

After the fourth sneak attack, the proportion of losses between the two sides was very different; Marco felt that it was impossible to resist the attack of the Roman army by relying only on the remaining 7,500 troops under his command. Moreover, the large number of cavalry units in the Roman army will also burst into strong combat effectiveness after leaving the sea route; Marco, on the other hand, did not have any cavalry under his command.

Sensing the strong combat effectiveness of the Roman army, Marco had to urgently draw reinforcements from the rear, and the 5,000 cavalry under the command of Coleses and the 2,000 elite round shield cavalry stationed in Córdoba were all transferred to his command; By the time Luquis led his army out of the sea, Margo's command had once again gathered 14,500 troops, including 7,000 cavalry.

Although the four sneak attack battle plans failed. Moreover, the casualties of Margo's troops were far greater than those of Luquis's Roman forces; However, in Margo's mind, he subjectively attributed these failures to the strength of the Roman auxiliary infantry, rather than the strength of the Roman army as a whole. It's no wonder Marco thought so, because the Roman legionary forces were always superior to the Carthaginian army; But the results of the battle were really unyielding, at least Hannibal never took advantage of them.

Every battle between the Roman army and Hannibal was a massive hoplite assembled by the Roman army far outnumbered the Carthaginian army; As a result, each time these hoplites died tragically by the sword of the Carthaginian light infantry. Therefore, although Marco himself felt that the light infantry of the Roman auxiliary legion was good in combat, he still did not care about the large number of heavy infantry clusters.

In Margo's opinion. As long as he can use the superior cavalry strength to deal a fatal blow to the elite light infantry of Rome, the remaining Roman hoplites are lambs to the slaughter; As for the Roman cavalry, which numbered as many as 8,000, Marco had never looked at the so-called Roman cavalry at all.

The combat effectiveness of the Roman cavalry is synonymous with scum, not to mention the variety of cavalry equipment under Licinius; As far as Marco is concerned. There were at least three types: Numidian javelin cavalry and longshield cavalry, as well as Roman cavalry. However, Marco did not think that the Roman army could form real javelin cavalry and shield cavalry; It must have been the Romanes' cavalry that the Romans built in imitation of the weapons and equipment of these two cavalrymen.

Why did Margo think that there were Roman cavalry in Licinius' cavalry cluster? This is because the ironclad cavalry under the command of Licinius will not wear all the ironclad armor neatly in a non-combat posture; Otherwise, no matter how good the war horse is, it can't withstand carrying such a heavy knight for a long time. In addition, the military uniforms used by the ironclad cavalry of the Augustan family were originally the standard military uniforms of the Roman cavalry, so after taking off the ironclad suits, these ironclad cavalry became Roman cavalry.

Marco made his own military plan based on his own subjective consciousness and erroneous intelligence. Luquis, on the other hand, was cautious about the battle; Moreover, the combat effectiveness of the new Roman legions is far from being as simple as Marco imagined. Two days after Luquis led his army into Betica, the two armies finally met on a plain.

Margo, who had been living in Hannibal's glorious exploits, chose the exact same layout as Hannibal in the Battle of Lilibal this time, and 7,500 mercenaries were lined up by Margo in the center of the battlefield he chose to form a huge phalanx; The entire phalanx was divided into three lines of defense, the first was made up of two thousand five hundred ordinary mercenaries, and the second line of defense was made up of two thousand elite mercenaries. The last line of defense was the three thousand of the most elite mercenaries led by Margo himself.

On the two flanks of the middle three lines of defense are the cavalry troops, Marco on the left flank is the 2,000 elite round shield cavalry commanded by General Zamorxis, and on the right flank is the 5,000 barbarian mercenary cavalry led by General Zeuxis; Margo's strategic intent was obvious, to imitate Hannibal's tactics. Use the infantry phalanx in the middle to hold back the infantry of the Roman army, then use the cavalry troops on both flanks to first solve the weak cavalry of the Romans, then return to the army to destroy the ranged troops of the Romans, and finally encircle and annihilate the Roman infantry.

When Luquis slowly appeared three miles outside Margo's army with a large army, Luquis also began his own tactical arrangement; The first thing Lucis did was to get the two thousand ironclad cavalry to change into his full ironclad equipment. Then the equipment troops were slowly pushed down to the location of the Chinese army. Then, Luquis began his official combat deployment.

Because the scout cavalry had already reported Margo's battle deployment to Luquis, Luquis directly made his own arrangements for the target; With 2,000 round shield cavalry on Margo's left flank, Lucquis ordered the lieutenant general of the Third Legion, Marcus, to lead 2,000 ironclad cavalry to meet them, and Mary Marcus immediately attacked from the left flank of Margo's middle army after completing the defeat of this cavalry.

The 5,000 barbarian cavalry on Margo's right flank, Lucis ordered Licinius to lead his 6,000 cavalry to meet directly; Lucis did not ask Licinius to crush the cavalry, but only ordered Licinius to entangle the cavalry so that it could not move. Then came the arrangement of the Third and Fifth Legions, and Luquis gave the Third Legion the task of destroying the cavalry after Licinius had entangled the enemy light cavalry.

All that remains is the offensive against the enemy mid-army. Luquis ordered his lieutenant general Raqqa to lead three thousand archers and slingers to launch five rounds of long-range strikes against Margo's army; After that, Gabriel, the adjutant general of the Fifth Army, was responsible for directing the equipment troops to launch a catapult attack and a ballista attack on Margo's army after five rounds of long-range strikes.

The last to carry out a frontal infantry attack on Margo's army was the Fifth Army of Longkina, while the First Army led by Luquis himself was the central army; If a situation arises on either side of the battle that is unfavorable to the Augustus army, Luquis will directly send corresponding support. That is, the 1st Army Corps will serve as a reserve for this battle.

When everything was ready, Luquis led the deployed army and began to slowly continue to advance; Less than two miles into the two armies, the cavalry on both sides began to accelerate their onslaught. It was only then that Margo discovered the strangeness of the cavalry in Luquis's army; It turned out that the two thousand Roman cavalry were not light cavalry at all, but ironclad cavalry with amazing impact!

It's a pity that at this time, it was found that this was no longer relevant to the battle situation; Because it's too late for Margo to change the layout. So Marco had no choice but to bite the bullet and continue the fight, praying that these ironclad cavalry were nothing more than crappy "imitations" of the Romans. After retracting his gaze from the cavalry, Margo began to order his Chinese army to begin to advance slowly.

After the departure of the cavalry on both flanks, Luquis also ordered himself to speed out of the army with three thousand archers and slingers. Launched an attack on Margo's army at the forefront of the military formation; At the same time, the Third Army of Segudus broke away from Luquis's base and began to follow Licinius's cavalry group slowly towards the cavalry on Margo's right flank.

At the same time, there was also a cluster of instruments led by Gabriel, and the three armies of the three legions had a total of thirty-six stone catapults and one hundred and forty-four ballistas; These catapults began to be slowly operated by the soldiers under Gabriel's orders. Because of the range and elevation angle of the ballista, the ballista could not directly attack Margo's troops in the rear of the Chinese army.

So, Gabriel left a captain to command the catapult troops in the rear. He personally took all the ballistae to the front of Luquis's army, that is, to the rear of the archers under the command of Raqqa. The troops on both sides were all in motion, and the battle officially began; The cavalry, which was much faster than the infantry, was the first to fight.

Marcus's 2,000 ironclad cavalry group was the first to collide with the enemy's 2,000 round shield cavalry cluster, but how could the impact of the round shield cavalry compare to the powerful ironclad cavalry? Marcus and the two thousand ironclad cavalry slammed into the cluster of round shield cavalry, and the surprise of the round shield cavalry seemed to be instantly stopped by an invisible barrier.

(To be continued.) )