Augustus Road

The cavalrymen who were sent out walked forward very carefully along the road with low visibility. In order to guard against the enemy's attack, the cavalry captain divided the team into three groups and connected them one after another. Soon the outpost sent out an alarm signal. He saw swords reflecting light in the valley half a stadia away, and he could also hear the neighing of horses.

"Are you sure?" The cavalry captain asked the outpost who came to report the situation nervously.

The other party just nodded, and the cavalry captain hurriedly took everyone back without saying a word and reported to Scipio, "I knew it, it was exactly as I predicted!" The commander shouted with a somewhat proud look, and then he ordered all the troops to dig trenches and set up camp on the spot, claiming that they would take steady steps and wait until tomorrow when the sky is clear and the snow has cleared, and then send out a powerful detachment to defeat the cunning ambush of Lepidus.

In fact, there was no ambush. The reflection of swords and knives that Scipio's scouts saw was just the reflection of about fifty cavalrymen arranged by Mindaz, who hid there, holding hundreds of shields and swords, with branches forked on them, intentionally reflecting dazzling light, making the scouts mistakenly believe that there were a large number of ambushes there. In addition, the so-called "camp" of Mindaz only had a section of walls and wooden fences across the cliff, and the rest were blocked between the peaks, because his 1,000 cavalrymen only built this section, which was also used to confuse Scipio.

Mindaz seized the opponent's fear of being ambushed in Andabgia and implemented a very clever deception tactic to delay time.

At this time, the garrison soldiers on the Taketun Tower were surprised to see that in the wilderness below the city, two huge teams were marching towards each other with the fortress they were defending as a gathering point. Thousands of elite cavalrymen were galloping from the south. There were all kinds of helmets and feathers. Many people's eyebrows and beards were covered with snow foam. The white gas exhaled by the horses was like fog, and the sound of horse hooves was like thunder. They did not stop at all, but cheered when they saw the long column of infantry coming from the west street to Taktun. They knew that it was the 15th Legion and the 28th Legion that came from Lepidus Castle day and night. They were also strange-looking troops, with blond hair, black skin and flipped noses, and Greek Macedonian appearance. The shields included the square tower of Rome, the large round Greek, the small animal skin shield of Africa, the oval shield of the Celts, and the narrow teardrop-shaped shield that had never been seen before. However, most of the soldiers wore leather cloaks to protect their backs and faces. The leather was already covered with thick snow. It seemed that they had experienced an extremely difficult march last night. Between all the columns, there were also carriages shaking in them, carrying equipment covered with cloaks and leather. All the gunners sat on both sides of the carriage, their faces darkened by the wind.

"Carabia!" As the cavalry rumbled past the walls of Tacton, the leading cavalry commander, Lepidus, gestured and shouted loudly at the towering tower over there.

"Long live the goddess of victory!" The Eubetan soldiers on the wall didn't understand why, so they cheered in unison.

"Follow the cavalry commander, the two legions continue to march in a long column." The old deputy general Peteneus immediately ordered. "Tell my comrades that we don't have time to rest. Let's enjoy the wine and women in Taketun after our victory!"

"No. Let's enjoy them directly in Sinop, the pearl of the Euxin Sea." Sai Erha, the commander of the 15th Legion, corrected excitedly. He was very happy that his legion could participate in such a decisive war again. You know, even when he served in Egypt, he knew that Asia Minor across the ocean was full of rich cities and seaports. If they defeated the Bronze Shield Army, the cavalry commander's troops could march straight into the giant city called Sinop.

So the forced march continued in the wind and snow. At this moment, in front of the Amasya Valley, in the flat trumpet-shaped wilderness, the camp of the Bronze Shield Army of Menander and the camp of the Twelve Legions of Callenus were separated by a distance of about three furlongs. This was determined by the location of two streams. While Lepidus' 5,000 cavalry and two legions were rushing here, Callenus had already fought fiercely with Menander for a whole day, on this battlefield of three furlongs from north to south.

Calenus cleverly made use of the hilly area where his camp was located, and intricately connected the position with wooden palisades and trenches, in order to limit the "spear forest impact" of the opponent's Bronze Shield Army formation, but Menander still failed to do so over the years. Giving up the in-depth study of Alexander the Great's sacred tactics, I finally transformed Alexander's tactical formation into the essence. No, to put it more directly, it was the formation skills of the deep phalanx spearmen that reached the pinnacle. His bronze shield Regardless of whether the army is "left ear" or "right ear", it can flexibly divide a 6,000-man division into five or six regiments in an instant, and then split it into 300-man regiments, similar to the size of a Roman legion* *Detachment. And for the detachment, it can also freely switch between the dense phalanx against the cavalry and the broad horizontal formation launching the charge. It relies on a set of extremely complex order systems, plus light infantry and Sarmatian troops. Due to the cooperation of the sub-cavalry, in the battle that day, the Twelve Legion still failed to defeat its fierce and flexible offensive, losing two small camps, but it dealt a big blow to the opponent. At dusk, the Bronze Shield Legion, after a series of strange bugle calls, each detachment hollered and raised their spears, and then swished together from various terrains. Then they turned around collectively, leaving behind a whole column of rearguards, shouting victory slogans loudly, and retreated to their own camp.

After nightfall, the first three thousand reinforcements sent by Adiana from Taktun City arrived under the leadership of Biduita, which brought great excitement and courage to the Twelve Legions. Commander Ka Lenus made timely adjustments and sent all of them to his left-wing camp, and told Chief Centurion Tagus that in the morning of the next day, he would launch an attack with these reinforcements to destroy the two flat areas that had been lost today. The small camp on the mountain was recaptured. "Otherwise, when the cavalry commander arrives, our army will lack a gathering place for cavalry assault, and I will be very dishonorable."

However, before the Twelfth Army took action the next day, Lepidus' 5,000 cavalry galloped over. After many of the cavalry arrived at their destination, they dismounted in twos and threes and lay on the ground exhausted. The rest of their comrades Come over and step on each other's ankles to relieve the fatigue of your muscles and bones.

"The Fifteenth Army and the Twenty-Eighth Army are following behind. They will arrive one after another in about one or two daylight hours. How about it? Can you show some color to the Bronze Shield Army now?" Li Bida also said He jumped off his horse and asked Calenus who came to greet him with an expression of fatigue and excitement. (To be continued)