Remember: after this life and this life, one will no longer have any future life. The life in front of you is no different to anyone. What we waste or gain is precisely the time that is flying.

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

Bloody wars are brutal and helpless; Perhaps the ordinary soldiers of the warring sides were not willing to participate in such a bloody and tragic war, but when they set foot on this battlefield, they could only choose to fight to the death. Because the beginning of the war determines that only one of the two sides involved in the war can win the final victory, and the victor enjoys wealth and glory; And the only thing left for the losers is death. The commanders of armies always fight for various purposes, and the warriors simply fight for survival.

Fighting for survival, this is now the voice of the Roman legionnaires; The swords in the hands of the enemy hoplites in front were indeed sharp, and the spears of the ironclad cavalry pursuing in the rear were also sharpened like clay. But all this did not change the belief of the soldiers of the Roman legions to survive; Constantly people were killed by enemy hoplites, and there were always people trampled to death by enemy cavalry. In the face of death, human beings are always able to burst out with more powerful combat power; The same was true of the Roman army.

When the first elephant was killed by a group of Roman soldiers, the second and third soon appeared; The casualty figure of the ironclad cavalry has also skyrocketed, and the Roman army has begun to fight to the death with the ** team of King Epirus regardless of casualties. In order to kill a war elephant, even a whole brigade of nearly 500 soldiers blocked other war elephants and ironclad cavalry who wanted to come to the rescue; Just so that the brothers inside could kill the war elephant that rushed in.

Under the desperate fighting style of the Roman army, the war elephants under the command of Pylos were soon less than ten, and the number of ironclad cavalry was sharply reduced to more than 2,000, with a loss of nearly 1,000; The ironclad cavalry and war elephants, which have lost their mobility, are just powerful troops, far from being invincible armies. Although the Roman legions paid at least 4,000 casualties, the Kingdom of Epirus did not have the deep foundation and strong confidence of the Romans; Pylos had no choice but to withdraw the cavalry group from the battle.

After settling their worries, the Roman army, with less than 10,000 men remaining, began to launch a decisive assault on the hoplites blocking the way; The survival of the ** made the Roman army burst out with almost invincible morale and extremely strong combat effectiveness. Coupled with the weak links deliberately arranged by Pyrrhus, in the end, more than 8,000 Roman troops under the command of Nero broke through the encirclement of King Epirus' ** army and retreated in the direction of the port of Epirus.

Say it's a retreat. In fact, it is a journey of escape; Although they managed to break through the encirclement of King Epirus' army, they were still twelve days away from returning to the port of Rome proper. Even if everyone ran away now, it would take at least ten days to get back to port; More crucially, the army has lost all its food and grass supplies. What did the army survive on during these ten days? Also, after the end of today's battle, the team of King Epirus**; It is completely possible to have sufficient rest and recuperation, and then use cavalry to pursue the army, and the two-legged man will not be able to outrun the four-legged war horse after all.

Therefore, Nero also knew in his heart that it was basically impossible to bring all these 8,000 people back to the port; The plan for now. I can only escape. In order to better escape the pursuit of the cavalry of the Kingdom of Epirus, but also so that the army can collect more food; Nero decided to split the army of 8,000 into 16 small armies of 500 men. In this way, the army can disperse and collect the food it needs, and it can also disperse the pursuit force of the cavalry of the Kingdom of Epirus as much as possible, so as to ensure that more soldiers can return to the port smoothly.

Nero's idea was right, and the approach was the most appropriate at the moment; If these 8,000 troops are not dispersed, the grain and grass alone will be enough to drag these 8,000 troops down. But this was also expected by Pyrrhus, and all the food in the twelve days from the city of Tulbo to the port had already been swept away by Pyrrhus's order; In addition to surrendering or starving to death, these 8,000 troops could only choose to eat bark and weeds, otherwise there was absolutely no possibility of escaping from the kingdom of Epirus.

When Nero escaped from the encirclement with 8,000 Roman troops, Pyrrhus did not immediately send an army in pursuit. Instead, he brought the whole army under the city of Tulbo; Looking at the nearly 6,000 Roman troops still stubbornly resisting on the city walls, Pyrrhus did not say anything to persuade him not to pursue everything, but just let the soldiers of the Roman legions see who won the victory on the battlefield. In desperation, the 6,000 Roman troops had no choice but to lay down their arms and surrender to Pyrrhus; Because the Roman army had been completely defeated, there was no point in fighting any longer.

In this battle, the Kingdom of Epirus dispatched 30,000 hoplite legions, 5,000 elite light infantry, 5,500 mercenary troops, 19 war elephants, and 6,000 slaves, totaling 46,500 troops; Among them, 5,000 elite light infantry and 6,000 slaves were killed, nearly 4,000 hoplites were killed, 1,000 ironclad cavalry were killed, and 10 war elephants were killed. And remove the six thousand slaves who were already indiscriminate. The kingdom of Epirus lost an army of 10,000 men; But the victory was unprecedented!

The Roman expeditionary corps that attacked the Kingdom of Epirus consisted of five main battle legions, five auxiliary legions, and some other auxiliary units and family guards similar to cavalry, totaling more than 44,000 troops; At the Battle of Tulbo alone, 6,000 Roman soldiers were taken prisoner by the kingdom of Epirus, minus the 8,000 Roman troops who fled. Nearly 30,000 Roman soldiers were annihilated on this day! At the cost of his own loss of 10,000 soldiers, he annihilated the entire Roman expeditionary legion; After this battle, no one dared to underestimate the Kingdom of Epirus and the King of Pyrus!

But Pyrrhus's goal is more than that; In his opinion, it was only a matter of time before the 8,000 Roman troops who escaped would sooner or later remain his prisoners. As for Gnaeus and Tiberius, who left early. Pyrrhus didn't really care; For such an enemy, to keep his life is to lay a solid foundation for the next victory. After properly arranging enough troops to take care of the Roman prisoners, Pyrrhus ordered his younger brother Pyrrhus to lead the ironclad cavalry to rest tonight and officially start the pursuit of the Roman army tomorrow.

And he himself led the guards back to the capital Apollonia overnight; Because the people of the entire Epirus Kingdom are anxiously waiting for the outcome of this great battle that will determine the fate of the Epirus Kingdom, it is not enough to arrange cavalry to cheer up, and Pyrrhus must personally rush back to Apollonia to announce the news of this great victory to all the people of the Epirus Kingdom! This day will also be the day when the kingdom of Epirus will truly rise on the Greek peninsula!

At the end of the Battle of Tulbo, countless spies hiding around Tulbo reported the news of the almost total annihilation of the Roman legions to their own countries as quickly as possible. Whether it was a spy of the Macedonian kingdom, a spy of a Greek city-state, or a spy of Thrace, or even a spy of the tragic dead, he did not expect that the kingdom of Epirus could defeat the expeditionary army of the Roman Republic so cleanly under the leadership of Pyrrhus.

To know. Originally, in the imagination of the major forces; The best outcome of this Roman Republic's expedition to the Kingdom of Epirus is that both sides will lose, otherwise the Roman Republic will completely conquer the Kingdom of Epirus. The various powers of the country also had different opinions and opinions on this, but the main disagreement was focused on how much the Roman expeditionary army would have to pay to completely destroy the kingdom of Epirus; I didn't expect the situation to be so subversive now.

After this battle, the once weak kingdom of Epirus will become a powerful state in the Greek peninsula; Pyrrhus himself and his brother Pyrrhus would become the second best players after Hannibal. The strength of the Roman Republic and the Roman legions will once again be questioned by various countries, and the situation in Rome will once again be critical. However, there is one thing to be sure of; That is, the Kingdom of Macedonia and the Greek city-states could not pose a threat to the Roman Republic for a while.

Because the rising king of Epirus, Pyrus, would not allow the Macedonian kingdom and the Greek city-states to attack Rome proper; And the kingdom of Epirus itself lacked sufficient naval power to attack Rome proper. Even if there was no lack of sufficient naval power, the wisdom of the Pirus brothers would not have easily launched an attack on any country; After all, defensive warfare and offensive warfare were completely different concepts, and they could not have been ignorant enough to think that the victory of a single war in the Kingdom of Epirus could change the essential difference in strength between it and the Roman Republic.

Whatever the future holds. At least this war was won by the kingdom of Epirus and the king of Pyrus; Over the next five days, more than 7,000 Roman troops were captured by Pylos' ironclad cavalry. The reason is simple, that is, no one can endure hunger all the time; There were even more than 3,000 Roman troops who surrendered to Pylos because of hunger, and it is clear that Pyrrhus's advance arrangement became the last grass that overwhelmed the camel of the Roman expeditionary legion. The total number of remaining troops who managed to escape back to Rome was less than a thousand; As for the generals, there were only three people: Tiberius, Gnaeus, and Nero.

Five days was enough time for the Macedonian kingdom and the Greek city-states closest to the kingdom of Epirus to receive the latest news of the war; There is a legendary record about King Pyrrhus who wiped out 50,000 Roman expeditionary troops with a peerless strategy, and his own losses of less than 10,000 also swept the entire Greek peninsula. Such a record is already second only to Alexander the Great and Hannibal, the god of war, and Pyrrhus has become the absolute legendary god of war in the Greek peninsula.

There were even a large number of young Greek people who worshipped Pyrrhus in the whole Greek peninsula, and they believed that the appearance of Pyrrhus symbolized the re-rise of the Greek peninsula and the re-rise of all Greeks; For these young people. Pyrrhus is the undoubted new leader of the Greeks, and the only person who can shoulder the responsibility of the Greeks to the world. They worshipped Pyrrhus so much that they spontaneously came to the kingdom of Epirus to demand an oath of allegiance to Pyrrhus.

In the face of such national fanatics, Pyrrhus formed them into a so-called "Greek Legion" with the mentality of not offending or reusing them; What makes people laugh and cry is that this group of idle people think that this is the deep hope that Pyrus has placed on them, so they spontaneously encourage their relatives and friends to come to this legion to join the army. In just one month, this "Greek legion", which was not favored by Pyrrhus, had a scale of 20,000 men!

This was beyond the reach of the kingdoms of Pyrrhus and Epirus, who could no longer afford to support a regular army of 20,000 men after replenishing the 30,000 hoplite legions; When Pyrus communicated these questions to the soldiers of the Greek Legion, the result was that the soldiers of the Greek Legion were all warriors who fought for the rise of the Greeks, and they were all real Greek warriors who did not need pay and gold!

This was an unexpected result. It also made Pyrrhus begin to pay formal attention to this legion; In order to make this legion also the military force of the Epirus Kingdom, Pyrrhus sent his younger brother Pylos to officially serve as the commander of this Greek legion. At this point, the kingdom of Epirus and the name of Pyrus officially became synonymous with great power; Pyrrhus himself has become the object of the major powers of various countries that must be understood. (To be continued.) )