The first rays of the morning sun dispelled the mist of Capua, revealing the neatly lined ranks of soldiers in the open space of the square. The helmets, one-piece battle armor, and queues of high-ranking officials are all uniform, and they can really be described as a well-equipped army of tigers and wolves.

Graeber rode a tall horse, and from time to time looked back at the strength of his own man. His status today is completely earned for him by this tiger and wolf army. Therefore, it is important to win this battle with one blow and win it with the least possible cost.

At the front of this team were already hundreds of pioneer sentinels. In the course of their investigation, they suddenly found a number of corpses left behind in the outpost camp. And the further southeast you go, the more corpses of the sentinels can be found. They also immediately passed the news to Graeber and the others who were marching quickly behind them.

Graeber was even more convinced of the rebels' whereabouts. He began to quicken his pace, urging the troops behind him to hurry up. Be sure to take out the rebels quickly and quickly.

However, Graeber and the others marched in this direction for a whole day, but they could not see any trace of the rebels. The sentinels in front also seem to have completely lost the movement of the rebels. It was as if there was no sign of recent human activity in the rest of the place, except for the corpse of the sentry who had fallen earlier.

Moreover, the surrounding villages and slave owners' estates were unharmed, and there was no news of harassment at all. This made Graeber start to realize that something was wrong.

Could it be that the corpse of the sentry found earlier was just a deliberate trace left by the enemy to lure them in this direction? After all, if the rebels were really here, the first to be attacked would be the nearby villages and slave owners' estates.

Graeber was already feeling that something was wrong. It is very likely that the enemy detachment bypassed the sentry sentries scattered in other directions, deliberately leaving themselves with an obvious direction of whereabouts, causing their troops to rush for so long in vain.

Moreover, the enemy's plan to divert the tiger from the mountain is likely to be aimed at sneaking up on the city of Capua in order to snatch more supplies.

Fortunately, he didn't blindly dispatch too many people. It is very conservative and prudent to keep the city of Capua well defended. In this way, his base camp is at least unharmed.

But now the question is in which direction to march? Such aimless actions can quickly deplete the morale of the troops. At the same time, the collective expedition of tens of thousands of people consumed huge resources and wealth at all times, but he did not dare to carry out it lightly, nor did he dare to go out alone with a highly mobile cavalry unit.

Because he was always very afraid of the fighting power of the gladiators. If you use cavalry blindly without knowing the situation, you may fall into the trap set by the enemy. If anything happens to the cavalry, then he really has suffered heavy losses.

Now he is ready to shoot. If the class teacher returns to the city, it will only deplete the morale even more. In desperation, he could only lead the army to the south to try his luck.

By the evening of Graeber's second day out of the city, their troops and sentries had not found any useful clues to determine the rebels' movements. The place where he passed was also peaceful and peaceful, without the slightest trace of war.

As he paced back and forth, exasperated, he waited for the long-awaited news. The rebel army has finally appeared, but this is also sad news.

A large area of aristocratic estates southwest of Capua was attacked and looted, and a large number of slaves fled with the rebels, leaving behind the frenzied nobles and slave owners.

Graeber was shocked. According to the herald soldier, the place where he was attacked was nearly a hundred kilometers away from where he was now.

And if you guess by time, the time when those manors were really attacked should have been shortly after he left the city, which made him even more surprised.

Judging from all indications, the enemy seems to have figured out the movement of his entire army, and after taking the bait and marching in the southeast direction, he immediately attacked in the opposite direction.

This only shows that the enemy is completely superior to himself in intelligence work. But he couldn't understand why he was still being so toyed with and applauded by the enemy when he had already sent sentry agents everywhere to investigate.

Graeber suddenly remembered something and asked anxiously, "What about the situation in Capua City?" The soldiers in the city didn't go out of the city to fight, did they? ”

The herald soldier reported: "Return to the general, everything is well in the city of Capua. The troops stationed in the city strictly followed your orders and did not make any moves. ”

"Good!" Graeber's apprehension just now finally eased. As long as Kapua City does not rush to attack, the small fights around him will not hurt his roots.

What he himself did not want to happen was that the enemy constantly mobilized his main forces and then took advantage of the chaos to attack Capua again. In that case, his logistics would be cut off in an instant. At that time, it is inevitable that there will be a shortage of food and grass, the morale of the army will be weakened, and even the risk of mutiny.

Just when Graeber breathed a sigh of relief, an adjutant general hurriedly ran in and said to him: "The general is not good, the sentry troops we have sent out to reconnoiter the front have not sent back a message for a long time. ”

"What?" Graeber got up again and said angrily, "We have sent so many sentinels to the southeast, how come there is no news at all so far. ”

The adjutant general hesitated and said, "I'm afraid there is really a large force of the enemy in that direction, right?" ”

What about the manor on the west being attacked at the same time? Didn't the previous intelligence say that the number of their rebel army would not exceed 2000? With such a small number of people, do they dare to divide their troops?

The adjutant turned pale, and indeed could not answer Graeber's question. He could only prevaricate and say, "Maybe the enemy is really dividing his troops." There are at least 200 of us in this group. It must have been the enemy's main force that would be wiped out so silently. ”

Graeber also began to rise up without a master. In fact, this kind of sentry unit is not weak in individual combat ability, and it has also undergone a certain amount of special training, and its ability to survive and escape in the wild is quite good.

However, due to the fact that the personnel are too scattered and the combat effectiveness cannot be concentrated, if the main combat force of the gladiators is really encountered, it is reasonable that they will be outnumbered and eaten away in batches.

Or if they encounter a small force of cavalry that is highly mobile, it is possible that something may happen, but this possibility is quickly rejected, and even if the rebels grab the horses, these lowly slaves will not be able to adapt to fighting on horseback without riding skills.

However, if the enemy has a large force moving nearby, why didn't they leave any traces along the way? This is obviously contradictory and difficult to explain.

Although military experience is not lacking, Graeber did not expect that a strong gladiator could tame his mount so quickly, and the great power that can be exerted when he adds a mount.

When Jin Zhan took Kress and a few people to secretly kill some of the sentry agents, he also took their horses by the way.

With the bonus of the war horse, the combat power of several gladiators such as Kress soared. Although there are only a few rides, it can be galloped in the fields on the outskirts of Capua, which is a human meat harvester.

At the same time, Jin Zhan didn't know where he conjured something called a stirrup. The simple addition of two iron ring-shaped objects to the saddle played an unimaginably significant role.

Even gladiators, who were not very skilled in riding, greatly strengthened their horse skills and riding ability through the auxiliary and supporting effect of stirrups on their legs.

After a simple adaptation, they were surprised to find that when fighting on horseback, they could stabilize their body and center of gravity just by controlling the stirrups with their feet.

At this point, they can completely free their hands to perform a series of complex attacks, which is an improvement for a warrior like them with excellent strength and coordination.

Therefore, Kress bore the brunt of the gladiator sword he was accustomed to. After riding on horseback, he chose a horse lance with a greater range and power. Dash and slash have great lethal power, and can also exert the horse's own inertia to the extreme.

Seeing several gladiators instantly upgrade to qualified knights, Jin Zhan was also quite excited. I didn't expect that the invincible horseman who galloped on the battlefield in history was born in his own hands so quickly.

People are like beacons, horses are like dragons. Kress and several other knights immediately applied this increase in combat power to clear the sentinels of Graeber's army.

In the face of the galloping gladiator knights, the sentinels of the Roman army were simply unable to parry, and they were not mentally prepared. Since they had not noticed any movement of the main forces of the rebels, the sentries began to slack off again.

Often when you don't react, you're already in a different place. Where are the relatively elite knights in the sentinel who are the opponents of the strong gladiators?

An opposing charge was swept off the horse by the powerful weapons in the hands of the gladiators. In this duel of cavalry charges, the value of individual force obviously plays a decisive role. The scattered and fleeing infantry were constantly harvested like lambs to the slaughter.

When did the gladiators experience such a painful feeling of revenge? They were constantly looking for the sentinels of the Roman army to attack, as if as long as the horses still had the strength to run, they would never stop and be unstoppable.

Therefore, in just over a day, Kress and the others successively swept away the front-row outpost spies that could be seen on the field, and they did not stop until they saw the black and oppressive team.

Jin Zhan originally just wanted to create some illusions of judgment for Graeber's army, but he didn't expect the gladiator knight's attack to be so powerful. It was originally a feint attack and harassment, but it also achieved good results. If he hadn't tried his best to stop him, Kress and the others would have already rushed into Graeber's army camp and made trouble.