In the autumn of 182 AD, Maximus, the general of the first legion of the original Roman Empire and the regiment of Felix, became the new emperor of the Roman Empire admired by thousands in the Roman gladiatorial arena.

From a slave to an emperor, it took only half a day before and after; The process is not complicated, and the result is simple.

Countless years later, Maximus' journey from general to slave and then from slave to emperor has forever been recorded in Roman history.

Amazingly, this legend obscures Maximus's great achievements after becoming emperor, such as doubling the territory of Rome, or transforming the empire into a constitutional monarchy, and other great feats that can overshadow all the emperors in Roman history.

Perhaps, people in later generations will be more concerned about stories such as ups and downs! It seems understandable to think about those modern female surnames who obviously fail in history, but they cherish all kinds of palace fighting scenes that deceive children.

Maximus picked up the burden of the Roman Empire, and with the fact that he had just ascended to the throne, busyness was inevitable.

Jointly, as Maximus's most trusted, from his subordinates... 's subordinates were upgraded to friends, and Wang Jun naturally couldn't get out of the matter, which made Wang Jun, who planned to comfortably enjoy the life of the imperial magnates.

The fantasy scene of himself wearing a gorgeous robe riding a horse and a dog fishing for a Roman girl floated through his mind, and Wang Jun looked at the huge map in front of him with a bitter face, and a group of generals were discussing with Emperor Maximus excitedly, without stopping.

From the heart, neither Maximus nor Wang Jun had any interest in war, but war sometimes does not depend on human will. Compared with the old emperor Marcus and the short-lived emperor Camerdos, who were already old before his death, the appointment of the young and powerful Maximus obviously brought a huge deterrent and threat to the surrounding forces of the Roman Empire.

In the eyes of the surrounding forces, the new Roman Emperor Maximus was born purely military, with outstanding personal force and excellent command ability, and the current strength of the Roman Empire is at its strongest in history; With his own heart and the belly of others, the surrounding forces generally believed that Maximus would launch a large-scale war in order to consolidate his position and show his great achievements. There is a characteristic word in the vocabulary of later generations: hawkish; Obviously, the surrounding forces all believe that Emperor Maximus, who has a strong military background, is definitely a hawk among hawks.

So, this is the same thing that the surrounding forces of Rome are all doing; It is better to take the initiative to attack with Maximus when he has just taken office, and it is better to wait until Maximus is full of wings to passively respond to the battle, which is almost a common strategic judgment of the heads and brains of the surrounding forces.

On the map of the Roman Empire centered on the Mediterranean, Britain on the northwest edge and north of Hadrian's Wall, the enemy frequently implemented harassment tactics; To the north of the Rhine and Danube, the Germans began to gather forces to brew a new round of rebellion; On the Eastern Front of Armenia, the resting army has been frequently haunted near the line of defense; On the southeastern edge of Damascus, part of the territory has been ......

In short, the mighty Roman Empire was faced with a situation of being devoured by a swarm of ants at the beginning of the succession of the throne.

The Roman Empire now has 30 legions, including the Praetorian Legion of the former Camerdos; According to the establishment, there should have been a legion, but this legion disappeared mysteriously in 115 AD, and even the eagle emblem was not recovered, so it has not been rebuilt; Wang Jun once saw in another movie "The Missing Ninth Army" that the so-called recovery of the eagle emblem did not happen in this world.

Wang Jun spent a lot of time checking a bunch of archives with great interest, and conducted a detailed study of the Roman Ninth Legion, which could not really be understood in later generations. The current archives of the Roman Empire are well preserved, after all, they were only less than 70 years ago, and the relevant documents are very complete; Judging from the documents, the last place where the Ninth Army lost contact was between Hadrian's Wall and Antony's Wall, and it was not the vicinity of the so-called Ebolak (called York in the 21st century) that Wang Jun found with the help of Du Niang before crossing over, nor was it the so-called Parthian killing at Anxi; Maybe it's the world of movies, maybe it's really history. The Roman Empire then sent three legions to Britain to suppress the rebellion, namely the Seventh, Eighth, and Twelfth Legions, and then the Empire restored absolute control south of Hadrian's Wall, but that was all. In order to safeguard the interests of southern Britain, three legions have been stationed in Britain from that time onwards; Over the decades, generals have changed one after another, and soldiers have changed wave after wave; And the number of the Ninth Army has been vacant until now.

With the assistance of the royal army, Maximus quickly completed a major rectification of the imperial [***] team, and Maximus's prestige in the army combined with the general trust of the Roman political forces in the new emperor made this rectification move carried out smoothly.

The rectification of the army mainly involves two aspects, one is the organization and number rectification; The second is the rectification and reform of the main armed forces.

The first thing to do is to rectify the organization and number.

The empire set up a higher-level military command structure, the group army, and adjusted the number of the subordinate corps in the reorganization to facilitate identification and command; There are nine group armies, each of which has a commander and a deputy commander.

The First Army was responsible for defending Yenching Rome and the lower sections of the Illyrian and Roman ramparts, and had five forbidden legions;

The Second Army was responsible for garrisoning Spain and had a corps under its command;

The Third Army was responsible for Mauritania and Africa, with two corps;

The Fourth Army was responsible for garrisoning Egypt and had two corps;

The Fifth Army was responsible for garrisoning Syria and had three corps;

The Sixth Army was responsible for Mesopotamia and Armenia and had three corps;

The Seventh Army was responsible for garrisoning Dakia and had four corps;

The Eighth Army was responsible for garrisoning the upper part of the Gaul and Roman ramparts, with seven legions;

The Ninth Army was responsible for garrisoning Britain and had four legions (one legion missing).

The regiments under the jurisdiction of each group army are named in such a way as the regiments of a certain group army, but those who already have their own honorary names can add honorary names along with the standard number.

In this way, the number of legions under the jurisdiction of the nine armies of the Roman Empire reached 31, and the Praetorian Legion of the original Camerdos and the First Legion of Maximus were dispersed, and the three legions originally stationed in Illyria and the lower part of the Roman ramparts were integrated and mixed to form a huge Praetorian Legion with a total strength of five legions; Of course, this is the opinion of the royal army, after all, the number of legions under the personal control of the emperor cannot be too small. Although the commanders and deputy commanders of the various armies were all excellent soldiers loyal to the empire and trustworthy, especially the Eighth Army, the Seventh Army, and the original three corps that were incorporated into the Praetorian Guard, and the generals of each corps were subordinates of Maximus when he was originally in charge of the Northern Army Corps, and it stands to reason that they should be reliable, no one can say for sure what will happen in the future.

The commander of the Ninth Army, of course, was Wang Jun, and the deputy commander was General Villeris, the former auxiliary corps of the First Army before the reorganization; This is Wang Jun asked Maximus to transfer himself to help, he is now very good at personal force, and his strategic thinking is not bad, but when it comes to concrete actions, Wang Jun can be blind; Commanding tens of thousands of people to fight, not to mention anything else, just solving their eating, drinking, and Lazar was enough for the king's army to despair.

As far as Maximus was concerned, he really wanted Wang Jun to stay by his side to help, but Wang Jun himself offered to go to Britain in the west of the empire, and the situation in Britain was the second most troublesome area in the entire empire, and it really needed a powerful person to solve it; Although Wang Jun's previous military career was not close to command at all, in the matter of Maximus's ascension, Wang Jun's strategy was enough to make Maximus trust, and with the assistance of Villerias, there would be no big problem.

The Ninth Army needed to be relegated to an additional corps, and all the generals understood that Britain was not an easy place to handle. In the case of the entry of two legions, one of them suddenly disappeared without a trace, and the cruelty of Britain can be imagined; Now although the empire has sent three legions to stay there, it can only rely on Hadrian's line to resist the enemy's invasion, and is unable to go north.

However, everyone is puzzled that Wang Jun repeatedly insisted on taking this opportunity to rebuild the Spanish legion, which even Maximus did not quite understand; You know, according to tradition, if the eagle emblem of the legion is lost, the number of this legion will be canceled forever. In everyone's opinion, it is necessary to increase the strength of a corps, and it is not necessarily enough, but according to the current new system, isn't this corps number the Fourth Army of the Ninth Army? Why bother tossing and turning and giving an honorary title to a newly created legion?

For the first time, the royal army saw the stubbornness of the Roman generals, and tradition is tradition, especially when it comes to legionary honor, and even Maximus has no choice. In the end, the royal army had to accept a compromise that if the legion had distinguished itself in Britain, it could be given the honorary title after the victory.

No one knows that the cause of this controversy is only because Wang Jun, a pseudo-army fan, has a little interest......

The Ninth Legion is gone, but it's good to be able to restore the honorary number of the Spanish Legion, and besides, upgrading from the Ninth Legion to the Ninth Army seems to be more accomplished......

After that, the reform of the main branches of the armed forces was implemented.

The Roman army of this period overly believed that their hoplites, whether they were cavalry, archers, ballistae, catapults, etc., existed only as auxiliaries.

In Wang Jun's view, this is a very dangerous strategy for the development of the armed forces.

In countless ancient war movies, in addition to hoplites, there are several classes that make people feel even more desperate

One is a long-range swarm attack in the era of powerful cold weapons.

First, flying rocks and fireballs rolled all over the ground, and then there were locusts and arrows all over the sky, which was very fatal for the defenders, even if you hide behind the battlements; If you met in the field, congratulations! Basically, you can get several free tickets to hell.

The other is a formed cavalry unit.

Heavy cavalry, a class of troops with obvious shortcomings, is expensive and inferior to light cavalry in speed and even inferior to light infantry in endurance, but in the wilderness, especially in the plains, this is the king of field battles; The hoplites who pulled up the speed were absolutely thunderous and imposing, and any team without defenses would be ruthlessly crushed in front of them.

Cavalry archers, it seems that they are not very strong in combat, but in fact, as long as they are not too oppressive in terms of combat time, this class can kill all classes in the field, including heavy cavalry; Harassment, raiding, dragging, this is the typical tactic of the archers. Of course, within a limited time, let the archers attack the infantry phalanx or heavy cavalry phalanx that is ready to fight, and the archers will be rested.

Different branches of the armed forces have different usages, and the military structure of a single branch of the armed forces will inevitably suffer great losses. The Roman army is not so stupid that it has only one class of hoplites, but it does not attach much importance to other arms; If the current military structure is used for expeditions, then once the formed cavalry is encountered in the plains, deserts, and Gobi regions, there is almost only one way to die, and if the other side still has a formed long-range strike force, then the Roman soldiers will die without even scum.

Maximus was worthy of being a famous Roman general, and Wang Jun's suggestion that he immediately begin to implement it after many deliberations, increasing the construction of the two types of troops that already existed in the Roman army: bow and arrow, and cavalry.

In addition to the major military reforms, economic and other aspects, Maximus also carried out a series of reforms, but Wang Jun was relatively less involved; Many of the old members of the Senate are still very good in these aspects, and with their assistance, Maximus's reform has been carried out quite smoothly.

At the end of the autumn of 182 A.D., Wang Jun took Valerius and Hogue to Spain with the emperor's conscription order; Because Wang Jun saved his life, Hoge volunteered to be Wang Jun's personal guard in the name of a centurion; This is also a bonus, people with better force can still find a bunch of them with a little time, but it is rare to add loyalty. In fact, Hogg had another reason, he did not want to follow Maximus to conquer the Germans. The other gladiators chose to become Maximus's personal guards, bearing the name of Centurion of the Praetorian Guard; At the beginning of next spring, they will follow Maximus to the Rhine and Danube rivers.

Because the Germans were the first threat to Rome, Maximus decided to take it personally.

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