Do not consider it beneficial to you anything that compels you to break your promises, to renounce your honor, to make you resentful, to be suspicious, or to curse anyone, to play the role of a hypocrite, to tempt you to pursue pleasures that need to be covered by walls. ●⌒，

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

The war on the Western Front finally ended with a great victory for Carthage; At this time, it was less than half a month since Hannibal returned to Carthage. The real battle between Tulguta and Vimina on the Southern Front had only just begun; However, Hannibal did not intend to reinforce Vimina immediately, and Hannibal had more important things to do.

In this battle on the Western Front, the Holy Order Legion lost more than 500 troops, and the 20,000 Long Shield Cavalry lost nearly 3,000; The 15,000 infantry who were in charge of guarding the camp were killed by Amikas' command error, and more than 3,000 were killed, all of them Iberian infantry. The results of the battle were extremely amazing, and the generals of the Numidian army who led the invasion of Carthage, including the main general and the four army commanders, were all killed; The 35,000-strong army was annihilated by nearly 30,000, more than 5,000 were taken prisoner, and the entire army of the Western Front of Numidia was completely wiped out!

Having solved this serious problem, Hannibal's plan was: in the next month, to complete the replenishment and training of the lost troops; And all the necessary horses and other transport animals were assembled. After that, Hannibal would launch an attack on the province of Numidia; However, this attack was not carried out by all forces, as long as Amikas led his infantry legions.

Of course, during this month, Hannibal will also make changes and enlargement of this infantry legion; The original 5,000 Iberian infantry will be expanded to 10,000. The 5,000 Libyan lancers will be expanded to 6,000, and the slingers and javelinmen will be eliminated and the 6,000 Punic infantry will be added. The size of the entire legion will reach an even larger 22,000 people, and the combat effectiveness will be even stronger!

Although the combat effectiveness of the Iberian infantry was really poor. But many times on the battlefield there is always a need for some specialized sacrifice troops; These sacrificed troops had to be massive, easy to replenish, and battle-ready. Needless to say, the Iberian infantry was very suitable for this role, so Hannibal chose to have the Iberian infantry serve as the sacrificial force.

As for Amikas, Hannibal did not think that the mistakes of the First World War could represent anything; Since he was capable of commanding 15,000 recruits to complete the training, and with a little training he would become a qualified regiment commander on the battlefield, all he lacked was experience and actual combat, and Hannibal was willing to give him such an opportunity.

Except for the Armikas infantry corps that needed to attack the province of Numidia a month later. The remaining two Cavalry Legions and the Holy Order Legion continued to train in the barracks; Hannibal had to let Vimila drag the army of Tsuguta for at least three months. It would take only three months before Tulguta's army would lose all its fighting enthusiasm; Soldiers will also lose their will to fight because they are tired of war.

If Hannibal had now marched south, the Carthaginian army would have to fight the Numidian army at its peak; The most elite of the Ahmed and Juguda legions under the command of Tulguta are extremely strong in combat. In such a situation. Even if the Carthaginian kingdom had won the final victory, it would have paid a very heavy price.

The war, then, would have become a lose-lose war between the kingdoms of Numidia and Carthage; The Kingdom of Numidia did not gain anything, and the Kingdom of Carthage could not regain its position as the overlord of North Africa. Only the Numidian army was eliminated at minimal cost. Carthage was able to rely on the elite cultivated by war to dominate North Africa; And this requires the efforts of Victoria's Secret!

Since the end of the last Iron Arrow Graveyard. For ten days the Numidian army did not launch an attack on Tapsus; In addition to the daily drills, the Numidian army was busy occupying the rest of Baisasian. Vimyna, on the other hand, was completely indifferent to the actions of the Numidian army, and trained his soldiers in the city of Tapsus every day.

Ten days had passed, and Ahmet had led his elite army to complete the occupation of all of Baisasian; Moreover, it took over all of Baisasian, except for Tapsus and Quselle. When Ahmet led his legions back to Tapsus once again, Vimini knew that a new battle was about to begin.

This is not to say that the Numidian army's attack on Tapsus must be under the command of the Ahmet army, but because in the past ten days, the siege weapons built by the Numidian army have finally been built; This time it was not the humble ladders and siege cones that had been hastily prepared before, but the six well-built siege ladders and countless siege ladders!

The majestic siege ladder is like a house that has been elevated; Siege soldiers can push siege ladders to the vicinity of the city walls. Then climb from the ladder below the siege ladder to the top of the siege ladder layer by layer; There is an exit at the top of the siege ladder, and when you get close to the wall, the exit barrier is lowered to the wall of Tapsus!

Other words. Relying on the cover of siege ladders, the Numidian infantry could carry the ladder to attack without risking being attacked by a rain of arrows; Just climb the walls from the siege ladder and start a melee. Siege ladders have their drawbacks, though; That is, there are too few soldiers who can board it at any one time.

If it had relied only on siege ladders, the Numidian infantry could only transport a maximum of 200 men to the walls in five minutes; Therefore, siege ladders must be used in conjunction with cloud ladders. A small number of the most elite infantry were sent to the walls by means of siege ladders, and then the defensive arrangements on the walls were disrupted with this part of the soldiers; The rest of the infantry climbed the walls by quickly erecting ladders.

This time, the re-prepared Numidian army directly adopted a three-sided attack in order to take revenge; In addition to the north gate, a large number of Numidian infantry and siege equipment were concentrated outside the three gates of the east, west, and south. Among them, the west gate and the east gate were attacked by more than 6,000 light infantry led by Niptassan and Egklos respectively, two siege ladders and a large number of ladders.

The most important south gate was Ahmed personally commanded the attack, and the army responsible for the attack was also the most elite 8,000 infantry under Ahmet; The remaining 12,000 javelinmen were evenly dispersed across the east, west, and north gates. In order to prevent the Carthaginian defenders from breaking through, this defense of the southern gate was given to the five thousand elite longshield cavalry under the command of Ahmet.

Zuguta's exhaustive offensive style also doubled the pressure on the defensive Vimy; In order to counter the three-sided attack of the Numidian army. Vimini had to order Abydos to defend the west gate with 3,000 Punic infantry and 1,000 archers, Mahabal with 3,000 Libyan spearmen and 1,000 archers to defend the east gate, and himself to lead less than 3,000 archers and 2,000 Libyan spearmen and more than 1,000 Iberian infantry to defend the most powerful south gate.

Although the defenders of Carthage had the advantage of walls, this advantage was not obvious to the siege ladders of Numidia; It was not easy for the Carthaginian defenders to resist the attack of the superior forces of the Numidian army with weak forces on all three walls, at least after the end of today's war, the Carthaginian defenders would also suffer heavy casualties.

Vermina also considered whether he could use the power of his trump card now, but at this time there were still more than five months before the six-month period; Use the trump card force now in advance, although it can deal a heavy blow to the Numidian army. But if the Numidian army had regrouped reinforcements from the rear after a heavy blow, it would have been more than worth the loss.

Therefore, Victoria finally decided not to use the power of his trump card; But. In order to reduce casualties, Vimina decided to use the two thousand shield cavalry in his hands today. If these two thousand shield cavalry can defuse the attack of the Numidian army and deal a certain blow to the Numidian army; Then the mission of these two thousand cavalry was completed.

The Numidian siege forces on three sides simultaneously attacked Tapsus with the sound of a unified trumpet, and the Numidian infantry slowly pushed the tall and heavy siege towers towards the walls of Tapsus; Ahmet, who was in charge of the attack at the southern gate, ordered 500 of his 2,500 Numidian infantry to attack the city walls using siege towers. The remaining 2,000 Numidian infantry carried ladders and were ready to attack Tapsus at any moment.

Vimila on the city walls looked at the slowly approaching siege towers. The archers on the walls were ordered to shoot rockets at the siege towers with all their strength to attack the siege towers; This attack of Vimina had been expected by Tulguta and Ahmet, so the surface of the siege tower was tightly wrapped in a layer of cowhide, so that the siege tower would not be ignited by rockets at all!

Vermystat soon discovered the strangeness of the siege tower, and he guessed the secret; As a result, Victoria Secret ordered the archers to abandon the use of rockets to attack the siege towers, and instead let them use their normal bows and arrows to directly attack the Numidian infantry pushing the siege towers. Although this method was effective in killing and injuring the Numidian infantry pushing the siege towers, the actual effect was not very good.

The five hundred Numidian infantry pushing the two siege towers were tightly huddled near the siege towers, and it was impossible for the archers on the walls to rain arrows at them; Most of the rain of arrows shot was fended off by the massive towers of the siege towers. There weren't many arrows that could really fall on the infantry. Moreover, only 300 of the 500 infantry were pushing the siege tower. All that remains is to hold a shield against the rain of arrows.

From beginning to end, the archery forces of Vimina did not pose much obstacle to the siege forces of Numidia; The situation was similar for the other two gates, and the siege force of Numidia made it to the walls of Tapsus without incident. When the siege tower was still two meters from the wall, the infantry stopped and began to climb from the bottom of the tower.

The entire siege tower is divided into four floors, except for the highest floor, which can only accommodate forty people at the same time, the remaining three floors can accommodate sixty people; In other words, the entire siege tower was able to concentrate 220 men at the same time, and these infantry quickly began to climb, and then they packed up their equipment and prepared to attack. The archers on the walls were also evacuated to the city by Vermina after the siege tower approached, and Vermina led the remaining 2,000 Libyan spearmen and more than 1,000 Iberian infantry to meet the enemy.

After the forty elite infantry at the top of the siege tower were ready, they lowered the three-meter-long barrier; Then the infantry rushed from the barrier to the wall. A fierce battle broke out between the defenders and the infantry who were sworn to attack. The first infantryman who jumped off the barrier was helplessly stabbed to death by several spearmen, but the second infantry who followed was witty and jumped from the barrier to the defenders; This move not only did not cost him his life, but helped his comrades behind him to suppress the defenders.

The next infantry jumped directly down from the barrier, and the top infantry soon all climbed the city wall and began to fight with the defenders on the wall; The infantry on the three floors below the siege tower and the infantry who had not yet entered the siege tower also continued to climb rapidly, and one after another the infantry who climbed the city wall from the siege tower quickly expanded the gains on the wall.

The attacking force in charge of the south gate this time was not the previous Numidian recruits, but the real elite division of Ahmet's legion, the most elite army in the entire Numidian kingdom; They were trained to use the tactics of three-in-three, five-man regiments to hold their positions on the city walls and then engage the defenders in a scuffle. (To be continued.) )