One precedent creates another, and they quickly accumulate and become law. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

- Lucius Junius Brutus (First Consul of the Roman Republic)

At the same time that Luquis led his army to attack the port, Hannibal's fleet outside the port was also aware of the fierce battle on the port; However, these adrift warships did not have the ability to come down to help the harbor defenders in battle. In addition, the fighters on the battleships were relatively poorly armed and equipped, and even if they disembarked to reinforce the port, they could play an extremely limited role.

In this respect, the House of Augustus is much more powerful than any other power in the world today; The combat personnel on the naval warships of the Augustus family are not inferior to the existence of the regimental officers and soldiers in terms of training and weaponry. The Augustus family was able to do this thanks to the naval thinking of Oscar himself.

In such a great era, the existence of the navy is always valuable to assist the army; Any war between two kingdoms will ultimately be resolved by the army, not the so-called navy. In view of this, all countries and forces will naturally invest less in the navy; There are not many forces that can build warships for the navy on a large scale, let alone spend manpower, material and financial resources to develop the navy.

However, such a thought is not Oscar's idea; As a modern man, Oscar is barely half a military fan, but he has a deeper understanding of the value of the navy. Not to mention that in the human history of that world, there was an era of sea power for hundreds of years, and several empires that never set the sun set were also born across the world; Even in modern times, the Navy is not at all weaker than the existence of the Army!

In the Iraq war led by the US military, in just one month, the joint **** led by the US military defeated Iraq, which had millions of lions; Among them, the coordinated operation of the three services is the main theme, but it is undeniable that the navy plays a huge role. To put it simply, if the U.S. military does not have such a strong navy, how can it be possible to send so many troops to Iraq in such a short period of time?

Perhaps, compared with the navy of that era, the navy of this era is completely two concepts, and the role it can play is also very different; However, the navy of this era and the distribution of various Roman forces doomed the value of its naval existence to be far more important than it appeared on the surface.

From the Apennine Peninsula, where Rome was located, to the land of Gaul; Although there are land roads, the fastest roads are by sea. From the land of North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula, the only way to pass is by sea; There are also many powers in the East, Britain, etc., and the fastest connection between them is definitely by sea, not by land.

Therefore, the value of the navy to any force is definitely not as simple as it seems, but has a deeper meaning. In Oscar's view, the development potential of a power without a strong navy is extremely limited; In such an era when there is no air force, if a force is compared to a giant, then the navy and army are its two legs.

No matter how strong a man is, if he has only one leg, then he will not be able to go far anyway; But a man with two legs, whether he is still walking very slowly at this time, will one day still walk far, far enough to leave the one-legged giant far behind!

Faced with the fierce battle on the harbor, Hannibal's fleet chose to stand by helplessly; In fact, the sudden outbreak of fighting did not last long, and soon Luquis strangled all the garrisons in the harbor.

Luquis, having won the battle, immediately ordered a brigade of soldiers to imprison all the captured defenders in the barracks; After that, Luquis entered the harbor with all the remaining soldiers and began to look for defensive weapons in the harbor to deal with the warships of Hannibal's fleet near the harbor!

In fact, a heavily guarded port like this, which is ready to be attacked at any time, will certainly have some weapons in advance that can attack the landing warships; And that's exactly what happened, and Lucis found ten ballistas in a corner of the harbor! These ballistas looked like they were left behind by the Scipio family in Upper Sicilya, but they were used by Hannibal to defend the port.

If what happened before seemed to Lucquis a tragedy, what happened next was an even greater tragedy for Hannibal's fleet. As soon as Lucis found the ten ballistas, he ordered them to be pushed near the mooring platform and began to aim at the warships of Hannibal's fleet in the dark.

It's unthinkable to use a low-pitched ballista to strike an enemy in the dark; But if the enemy is a large, brightly lit battleship, then it's a different story. When the first salvo was finished, one of the battleships of Hannibal's fleet was hit by at least three shells at once!

With such a sudden attack, Hannibal's fleet also understood the reality of the port changing hands; So, the entire Hannibal fleet immediately began to turn around and sail in the direction of Greater Sicily. Looking at the distant Hannibal fleet, Luquis did not do anything more, but simply divided the army into three groups and took turns patrolling the port.

Early the next morning, Luquis immediately sent men in small harbor boats in the direction where the Nams fleet was; In addition to this, Lucis began to prepare for the direction of Messina at any time. Five battalions of hoplites were left behind to guard the port, while the remaining three officers of the Samonai Regiment were ordered to be ready to go.

It was only less than two hours before Nams's fleet slowly appeared in front of Luquis's eyes; Immediately, Luquis began to order his soldiers to prepare to help the transport ship unload! Soon, a thousand cavalry of the auxiliary regiment, an army that was not easy to land, such as an army that was not easy to land, came ashore; A large amount of grain and grass materials were also quickly unloaded.

After the cavalry brigade and the equipment brigade had landed, Luquis did not stay any longer; Pressed for time, Luquis did not make any further stops, and left the port with the cavalry brigade and the equipment brigade and the three brigades of the Samonai regiment, and set out in the direction of Messina.

From the port to Messina, there were no cities or military fortresses, nor any of Hannibal's troops; Luquis led the army and marched unhindered and rapid. In order to speed up the march of the equipment troops, Luquis even had the cavalry of the cavalry brigade drag the equipment as well, so that each ballista and stone crossbow was twice as many horses.

Although this did not increase the marching speed too much, it still increased the original marching speed by more than a little bit; After more than ten days of marching, Luquis's army finally appeared five miles outside Messina. At this time, it was the third day of the siege of Messina with Oscar's army!

After the successful rendezvous of the two armies, the forty-eight ballistas and twelve stone catapults belonging to the First Army were officially returned to Oscar's command; In addition, in the previous three days, Oscar's soldiers also built four siege towers, two siege cones and a large number of ladders in the barracks, and everything is ready!

The movement of Luquis and his army did not hide from the defenders of Messina, after all, the tall stone catapults could not be hidden; Moreover, the movement of the cavalry was much greater than that of the infantry, and the fact that the army outside the city had received reinforcements was naturally impossible to hide from the defenders inside the city.

In fact, Oscar had no intention of hiding from the defenders of the city; Because from the beginning, Oscar didn't want to fight the defenders of the city. What Oscar wanted was to take Messina and all of Upper Sicily, which was the strategic purpose of the House of Augustus; As for the annihilation of the enemy's living forces or something, it was not put in the eyes of Oscar at all.

The real elite of the defenders of the entire city of Messina was no more than 4,000 cavalry; In addition to these 4,000 cavalry, the remaining 8,000 infantry had no combat effectiveness at all. More crucially, is cavalry a defensive class? Are these 4,000 cavalry suitable for the next battle to defend the city?

Oscar believed that as long as the Husky Duba was not a fool, he would definitely withdraw his 4,000 elite cavalry from Messina after discovering that he had so many siege engines; Defending the city with Hannibal's most elite shield cavalry is a folly that even the stupidest general can't do!

Once the Huskidubas withdrew from Messina with these 4,000 shielded cavalry, would the remaining 8,000 infantry in Messina be the opponent of the mighty Samonai Legion and the First Legion? As long as Messina can be successfully taken, the whole of Upper Sicilia will be in the pocket of the Augustan family.

In order to force the cavalry of Huskiduba to withdraw to Messina, on the afternoon of the arrival of Luquis's army, Oscar led his army in a tentative attack on Messina; Forty-eight ballistae were lined up, and at a distance of two hundred meters from the city wall, they began to bombard the defenders on the city wall, and twelve stone crossbows, also behind the ballista, fired a salvo at the city wall!

Forty-eight ballistas used not all of them, but twelve of them used crossbow arrows; As soon as this giant crossbow bolt hits the wall, it will nail the defenders on the wall, and even occasionally pierce several enemy troops! The power of the twelve stone crossbows is even more terrifying, and every big stone can smash the city wall and shake the ground, which makes people frightened!

In the face of such a fierce attack, the cavalry units under the command of Huskidulba also suffered; There will always be some small artillery shells or stones smashed into the cavalry camp located near the city wall, which directly led to more unexpected casualties among the cavalry in the barracks. Having found that his cavalry unit had suffered casualties, Hushduba decisively led his cavalry out of Messina through the side door.

It's not that Huskiduba is greedy for life and afraid of death, it's just that he thinks too seriously of this cavalry in his heart; Although the 4,000-strong cavalry is not large, it is an iron-blooded division that has followed Hannibal to the north and south, and it is also the most elite and only cavalry unit under Hannibal's command. (To be continued.) )