Augustus Road

"The Republic is built on ancient traditions and human power." - Aelius, On the Republic

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"Then let's fight, let's fight! We will smash your camp with our swords and grab all these beautiful purple transparent liquids." The warrior was drunk and yelled until he was "asked out" by Caesar's entourage.

"From tonight, all wooden fences must be guarded." When the messenger was forcibly sent away, Caesar issued this order.

Behind the fence in the evening, Hortensius was full of dissatisfaction, saying that the governor's order was really difficult, because even if the full legion was distributed among the positions on the four sides of the Jura Mountains, it would be extremely difficult to strictly guard against the Helvetii.

Lepidus had another idea in mind. He dispersed the 18 cavalry cannons in the core position of a triangle, fixed the firing position, and asked Pope to adjust the shooting parameters in advance and load the bullets fully, so that they could be ready at any time. Then he asked Sabokemus to bring some special things to the garrison behind the wooden fence.

The layout of the Illyrian Twelve Legions was like this. Every few stadia, there were some scouts acting as secret sentries, and then a hundred-man team was stationed at the key points behind the wooden fence. About one-quarter to one-third of the front-line guards were like this, and the rest rested in the temporary camp to maintain the reserve status. Lepidus's command mode was "focus on early warning, not on defending".

Because he and his men had carefully considered it, they believed that the possibility of a decisive battle between the Helvetii and the legion in the Rhone River was not high. The barbarians' pontoon bridge technology was very backward. They only found some canoes that were only used in wild areas, and their carrying capacity was extremely limited. Once Caesar sent heavy troops to guard all the Asase tribes that could wade on foot, they would not be able to effectively use their numerical advantage, and they had no strong will to attack the Roman military camps head-on. This was also the fundamental starting point for Caesar's previous use of the delaying tactic.

But even so, the Helvetii might still launch a medium-scale infiltration attack, and according to Lepidus's estimation, the timing of the attack was likely to occur at night - the barbarians often believed that the moon and the black fog were their world, and the timid Romans would only rely on shield walls or camps when fighting.

This is indeed the case. When the soldiers of the 12th Legion confronted the barbarians, many of them were still afraid of the night. They had not forgotten how the brutal Iberian warriors ambushed and killed their patrols or transport teams at night when they fought in Barantia, Spain two years ago, and how they tied their bloody heads to javelins and threw them into the camp.

The moon on the battlefield, especially the crescent moon with a faint cold light in the April night sky, was particularly creepy in the eyes and hearts of the soldiers.

Therefore, after Sabokemus handed over the special thing that could pierce the darkness of the night to the wooden fence of the front-line security troops, they felt more at ease after learning how to use it.

But what made people more uneasy than the night was that after a few days, the north bank of the Rhone was quiet and the air was so peaceful that it was suffocating. Every day, Lepidus asked several centurions to observe carefully on a protruding cliff in the Jura Mountains, but there was nothing unusual about the Helvetii's tents on the other side of the river. There was still smoke from cooking, and men and women led horses and mules to drink water, which was a pastoral scene.

"Don't think too much. Their attack will probably be in the next one or two days. If there is no hostile behavior in three days, they will definitely send envoys to negotiate again." This was Lepidus' judgment, which was a bit mysterious. For this reason, he also asked a fortune teller to "verify" his prediction by the way geese eat, which made Milu and others laugh secretly. Lepidus was very good at playing this trick before.

April 18th was a moonless night. The dark cumulonimbus clouds covered the entire banks of the Rhone River. Lepidus sat in the tent, chewing figs and pickled peas with some anxiety. There was only one day left before he used the goose to predict the barbarians would launch an attack. After eating all the dishes, he wiped his palms carefully with a napkin, and called Tagus to ask him to bring flags and torches with him. He wanted to personally inspect the entire wooden fence and trench.

Although the rainy season was about to arrive, the night wind was very cool, the temperature that could easily induce sleep. The dense frog sounds and insect sounds rose and fell on the river bank. Tagus shook the torch a few times and burned some flying insects that approached the commander. The thin wings of those insects were stained with fire and instantly shone, and then turned into a wisp of smoke, leaving only the sound of puffing and a slight burnt smell.

As they walked forward along the wooden fence, soldiers stood up from their blankets in the shadows and saluted them. Li Bi Da took the opportunity to ask about the situation on the other side of the river in the past two days, and the answers he got were that everything was normal.

At this moment, a fire quickly ignited in everyone's eyes. It was on a big tree one furlong in front of the wooden fence. There were two scouts of the legion hiding on it, responsible for reconnaissance. As a result, when the two were about to get down from the tree and wait for others to change shifts, the new recruit was afraid of heights, so he rashly snatched the torch from the old soldier and lit it hastily to prepare for lighting. As a result, it burned the branches next to it, and the fire fell on the long grass on the ground. Suddenly, the grass flew up with flames, and someone screamed and beat the flames on his body.

Then, the trumpet sounded sharply from the dark night sky. It felt like there were traces of trumpeters in all directions. Lepidus hurriedly waved his hands and shouted to Tagus, "The enemy is coming. You stay here to command. I will run to the cliff to dispatch people!" At this moment, the big tree was burning everywhere, like a big torch. There were fast-moving figures holding javelins and long axes all around. When did the Helvetii hide in the grass on the river bank in batches? No one knew that Lepidus, who was running towards the top of the mountain, even wanted to crucify all these so-called pioneers.

"Don't panic, don't panic, let those things go!" Tagus drew his sword and shouted to the soldiers who were at a loss as they attacked the enemy in the dark night. Seeing that the chief centurion was so calm, the soldiers stayed where they were and lit a fire under the thing. It was a frame made of thin wooden strips, covered with a thin leather bag on the outside, with an ignition device and clear oil underneath. The soldiers nicknamed them "Juditia's eyes". Soon, countless "eyes" burst into flames and were strung by ropes by the soldiers. They floated in the air and slowly passed over the wooden fence in the wind direction, slowly dispelling the darkness of the river bank wilderness in front of the wooden fence. The whole hideous scene was presented to the soldiers of the 12th Legion. Everywhere were the Helvetii, like ants, howling and approaching the trench! (To be continued.)