Chapter 527: The Roman Tortoiseshell Formation, Encountering the Han Empire Artillery, Staged a Queue to Shoot Dead!
Yes, the armies of both sides were equal in numbers.
The Roman Republic sent 100,000 soldiers, 60,000 heavy infantry, 20,000 light infantry, 10,000 cavalry, and 10,000 auxiliaries.
The Han Empire dispatched a total of 80,000 soldiers, including 10,000 heavy infantry, 20,000 light infantry, 40,000 cavalry, and 10,000 auxiliaries.
The Roman army was commanded by the forty-year-old Pompey, who joined the army at the age of seventeen and traveled to Sicily and North Africa to expand the territory of the Roman Republic.
His greatest exploit was to assist Klaas in suppressing the Spartacist uprising, and with this feat, he became the consul of the Roman Republic.
At this time, Pompey was the best of the first three giants of the Roman Republic, but he also faced great trials and challenges.
With Crassus, who was more prestigious, and Caesar, who was even more powerful, Pompey had to find everything he could to strengthen his position.
In the past few years, he has been desperate to wage war against Anxi, and use his exploits to strengthen his position.
Therefore, after Pompey learned that the Han Empire army in the Far East had declared war on Anxi, he knew that his opportunity had come.
He managed to persuade the Senate to send thirty of the most elite legions of the Roman Republic under his command and wage war against Sabbatia.
Invincible all the way, Pompey became more and more proud day by day, and finally sent an envoy to the Han Empire to claim the territory of the entire Rest Empire.
As the self-proclaimed "patron of the Resting Empire", he ordered the Han army to withdraw from the entire territory of the Resting Empire.
As for Han Zeng, the general of the Han hussars, his life trajectory is somewhat similar to Pompey.
He also joined the army since childhood, and his thirty-year military career has made him an experienced and open-minded veteran.
The purpose of leading the troops on this expedition is to destroy the Rest Empire, and now that victory is within reach, how can it be handed over to others.
With such big differences, there is no room for negotiation between the two sides.
This battle on the right bank of the Tigris could not have been avoided.
In the autumn of the eleventh year of Dingxin, the two sides were looking for fighters in constant temptation.
Although there were winners and losers, neither side could achieve a decisive victory.
The confrontation lasted for a whole month, and the two sides finally lost their breath and exhausted their elites to prepare for the final decisive battle.
In terms of numbers, the army of the Roman Republic was slightly superior, but in terms of infantry weapons, the Han army, which popularized iron tools on a large scale, was stronger.
The Roman army had heavy infantry as the core of the legions; The Han army this time was dominated by cavalry.
The eastern bank of the Tigris River was flat but very long, and it was not suitable for cavalry movement, which is why Pompey chose to fight the Han army here.
Pompey thought that under the tight formation of the Roman heavy infantry, the light cavalry of the Han Empire would not do much.
On the first day of November, the main forces of both sides were in position on the eastern bank of the Tigris.
In the early afternoon, the elite heavy infantry of the Roman army was the first to move.
Amid military music, the Roman army held eagle flags and charged at the Han infantry a mile away.
Soldiers on both sides filled the entire Euphrates River, and hundreds of eagle and Han banners hunted in the wind......
Pompey and his soldiers looked at the Han cavalry farther away, feeling that they were victorious, and marched briskly and decisively.
However, when the lines of the two sides were still a hundred paces away, the Roman soldiers at the forefront saw that the Han army array on the opposite side suddenly opened.
Immediately afterward, more than fifty never-before-seen "huge iron weapons" were revealed from the military formation.
Before Pompey and the Roman soldiers could figure out what it was, they saw flames and smoke erupt from the pipe, followed by a deafening loud noise.
When the Romans laughed at the magic used by the Orientals, black dots flew towards them.
The black dots did not fly very high, and after a short flight from the iron machine, they fell to the ground and bounced towards the Romans.
It was only then that the sharp-eyed Romans saw that what was flying over was actually an iron ball.
These iron balls did not roll fast, and even faltered, and were incomparable to the crossbow arrows in the Roman auxiliary legions.
There were even centurions who ordered their soldiers to come out of the army, ready to intercept the rolling iron balls, so that they could bring them back to the great consul for credit.
But when the iron ball met these daredevils, a scene occurred that the Romans would never forget.
These seemingly lethal iron balls tore apart those who touched them with an unstoppable momentum.
And he rolled into the Roman army in a decisive way.
In the sound of cannons, the Romans' military formation rose in patches of blood mist.
And under this blood mist, there are the stumps and severed arms, internal organs and cerebral plasma spinal cord of the soldiers.
The slow-moving round cannonballs, with their tremendous kinetic energy, plowed blood grooves through the Romans, taking the lives of hundreds of Roman veterans in the blink of an eye.
The terrible screams finally erupted in the ranks of the Romans.
The tortoiseshell that the Romans were proud of became their talisman!
A single shell could pierce several phalanxes and blow dozens or hundreds of Roman veterans to pieces.
It is not reasonable to say that it is explosive, because there is no gunpowder in the round shell, but the huge kinetic energy is still unstoppable in the face of flesh and blood.
The cannons equipped by the Han army at this time had no rifling, no aiming equipment, and extremely poor air tightness, which was difficult to compare with the ancient cannons on the original timeline.
Whether in terms of range and accuracy, or in terms of lethality, this cannon is not excellent.
However, the Romans' phalanx was too densely packed, and the Han army waited for them to advance to a very close distance before firing their cannons.
At this distance, shells driven by black powder had sufficient lethality.
After a few volleys, the Romans' formation faltered, and the Han army immediately switched to shotguns, once again giving the Romans a taste of fear from the East.
Dozens of cannons sprayed out shotguns that covered the entire line of the Romans, the armor was easily torn apart, and the Romans fell in rows......
Compared to death, the horror brought by a mysterious weapon that has never been seen before is even more terrifying.
A quarter of an hour later, under the blow of artillery, the Roman army that had swept across Europa could no longer hold on, and the soldiers fled with cries and wails.
But the dense formation hurt them once more, and tens of thousands of people threw away their armor and trampled on each other like headless flies in the narrow valley, wailing and wailing.
In a panic and panic, the Romans even began to kill each other.
At this time, the cavalry of the Great Han formed a formation behind the infantry, and with the sound of bells and drums, from between the separated infantry, launched a charge against the Romans.
The Romans had no intention of resisting, so they could only keep retreating and fleeing.
Because the valley was so crowded, nearly 10,000 Roman veterans were pushed into the Tigris by their own people.
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(End of chapter)