Augustus Road

"First build a house to comfort his wife, and raise cattle to pull his plow." - Ancient Greek poet Hesivotus

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Because Labienus's attack was not a single route, but multi-echelon and multi-directional, this reflected his perfect command art and his meticulous preparation. Under such a fierce offensive, only the three adjacent battalions, all of which were the troops of the Ninth Legion, came to join the battle, surrounded and protected the eagle flag. Everyone was excited and ready to die, but in the end it seemed that they were not defending the position, but all the focus was on the eagle flag.

As a result, the other two Pompeii troops detoured to both sides of the camp, climbed up the high ground, and attacked. The slaves and some auxiliary soldiers guarding the camp's baggage began to escape, which then caused a chain reaction. The rest of the nine legion camps followed suit. Even though a few centuriae were still able to resist under the scolding of the brave officers, the obstacles to the Pompeii army were sporadic and ineffective. Because Labinus had invested a full 25 battalions in the attack direction in the north, not including the auxiliary soldiers.

The attackers did not want to fight, they understood the mission objectives assigned by the commander: if they encountered an enemy who was determined to fight to the death, they would besiege them, and the rest of the troops would continue to break through and infiltrate. Our goal was to drive all these people to Dickhaqiang and destroy their camp, baggage and morale.

Soon, General Celeste of the 11th Legion also became uneasy, because the Pompeii army also killed his garrison camp, and his subordinates did not seem to have the intention to fight to the death, but began to pack their luggage in panic.

Celeste, in theory, was at least as qualified as Labienus. He was one of the earliest famous figures to follow Caesar's party. He also made contributions in suppressing the Catiline rebellion. But later, Labienus was Caesar's chief lieutenant, while he was unknown, because his enthusiasm for Caesar in politics was as mediocre as his military service to Caesar. Previously, Caesar arranged him above Gaius and Eulabella to take on the task of attacking Epirus by land and sea, hoping to give him a chance to make achievements. But the result was obviously not very good. Not only did he lose all his ships, but he also captured Antony's brother Gaius, which once made Antony want to kill him as soon as possible - so when Caesar deployed the siege line, he deliberately separated the two of them, one in the south and one in the north, so that they would never have any contact with each other.

When Pompey's troops came to attack, Celeste was still immersed in writing war history. This was his hobby and seemed to be a source of pride: even if a general had ordinary combat ability, he could still go down in history through writing. He focused on two things: the Jugurtha War and the Catiline Rebellion. The former was to honor the former leader of the party, Marius, and the latter was to boast about himself.

But when the real battle came, the general began to panic again. He was not lacking in courage, but was worried that he would fail again. The camp of the 11th Legion was built on a high ground surrounded by streams and trenches. Celeste was originally determined to hold on to the end. Even if other legions began to flee, he still led the chief brigade, holding the golden bull flag, and relied on the terrain to repel Pompey's charge several times.

Confidence emerged again - "Light the beacon for His Excellency Caesar, and hold on. The 11th Legion needs to rebuild its reputation." Celeste shouted, and then the soldiers lit an emergency bonfire, which was also a signal for Caesar's various departments to contact each other.

But neither Caesar nor even Antony could come to reinforce, because Labinus not only left a strong garrison in the east and south of Cocura, but also arranged a considerable number of auxiliary archers on the city wall, blocking the road to reinforce the northern front, and even the crew rowers in the port were mobilized by him to guard the weak areas.

Fighting in all directions, all struggling, so the beacon can only become a symbolic symbol. Only the chief brigade of the 12th Legion, which was the first to set out by Calenus, was still struggling to fight a small-scale battle on the side, and then advanced towards the target of support with all their strength.

At dawn, Celeste did not see any soldiers coming. He looked around and saw Pompey's helmets swaying on the roads leading to the camp, with ferocious faces underneath. The resistance force led by Dicias, the chief battalion of the Ninth Legion, was also facing collapse. Although they had promised to protect the eagle flag in advance, the flag bearer died in the battle, Dicias was also injured, and five of the six centurions died in the battle. More than half of the soldiers were injured or killed, so they could only hold the eagle flag and retreat to the rear.

At this time, even louder shouts and killing came from behind Celeste. He turned his head and was stunned for a moment - behind the camp, a dark mass of enemy troops appeared again, lining up in dense formations and killing towards them. This was the Macedonian Third Legion that Labinus had brought back by sea. Its appearance completely destroyed the morale of Caesar's side. Soldiers and centurions no longer cared about their honor and fled. Many people and their pack animals fell miserably into the deep trenches they dug and died. The rest of the people stepped on the piles of corpses and began to flee further.

"It's collapsed, it's all collapsed!" Celeste didn't have time to think about it, so he also took the guards and armed slaves and fled with the soldiers.

In the morning breeze, on the hillside five Roman miles away from the northern camp, Lepidus rode up on horseback, with the flags of his three legions behind him. "What a spectacular scene." When he saw that the only thing he could see was flames and defeated soldiers, he said this with a certain mocking tone.

"The two legions of His Excellency Caesar here have collapsed." Sabo and Hanske, who were panting beside him, were obviously not in as good a mood as the acting commander-in-chief.

"There is enough time, so let Labinus have three days to be in such a good mood. I will treat him well at lunch time!" After saying that, Lepidus pulled out his gilded baton and pointed to the original place - here, it will soon be the assembly place of the Sixth Legion.

Then, he pointed to the coastal plain on the right, "There is the Thirteenth Legion, the attack point with the cavalry and chariots."

Finally, he looked to the left, pointed to the high ground extending vertically, and said, "There is the assembly point of the Fifteenth Legion!"

Behind Lepidus, the Sixth Legion arrived first. They were panting, but they were still able to follow the queue and climb up the hillside where the acting commander-in-chief was in the dust. Then they desperately built simple fortifications. When everyone saw the scene in front of them, they all felt that they had finally caught up.

Afterwards, the Fifteenth Legion and the Thirteenth Legion arrived, but they soon separated naturally under the guidance of the messenger cavalry - Selha led the Fifteenth Legion to the flank hillside designated by Lepidus, while Peteneus personally led the Thirteenth Legion to the coastal area.

"Next, it's our turn to attack!" (To be continued..)