Daqin Engineering Corps

Chapter 5 Civilization

Recently, there are fewer, because I reflected on it, and found that most of what I wrote seemed to be narrative, like an outline, what happened, what was done, and then what was the result.

I don't think that's what a novel should be, that it should have characters, emotions, flesh and blood, and that's what soldiers seem to lack.I've always drawn wars and solved them in a way that makes sense on the battlefield.

So the soldiers tried while learning during this time, trying to portray characters from various angles.

So the update slowed down, and the soldier said sorry.

Because I don't think it makes any sense for a writer to make a living by just piling up word counts without progress.

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Antiochus III concealed this defeat from the outside world.

According to him, he just doesn't want the morale of the troops to be hit.

But Acaevus knew that this was not the case. In fact, Antiochus III cared more about his own face. What he worried about was ridicule and ridicule from other kings and consuls.

Acaevus felt a faint sense of unease when commanding the army to move forward.

One hundred thousand troops lost ten thousand cavalry just after the battle. Is this an ominous omen?

With Antiochus III intervening in his own command, is the battle as smooth as imagined?

Although it can be said to be a good thing that the silk army did not escape, is it not a bad thing?

The Si people are not fools, they must have a reason not to escape.

Does that mean that the people of Silk Country have the confidence to defeat the coalition forces?

All these questions were throbbing in his heart like a bucket in Acaeves' mind, making Acaeves uneasy.

But in any case, the coalition forces arrived at Huo Musang smoothly.

Akaifusi realized that he had no way to turn back, so he could only temporarily forget his doubts and devote himself to the command of surrounding Huo Musang.

Acaevus arranged it this way:

The [-] Roman Legion and the [-] Macedonian Legion were divided into four sides to surround Homson, and the [-] Ptolemaic army was reserved as its reserve.

The Seleucid army and the rest of the Ptolemaic army continued to advance to Lam.

Acaves has good reason for this:

"We can't just surround a city."

"Because in this way, we may be attacked from both sides. We don't know and are not sure when the enemies of Lan's City will suddenly appear in the rear!"

"At that point they could be on two sides and break out."

"Generals, you must know that the Lan family still has [-] enemies, that is not a small number!"

The generals of various countries have no objection to this, especially the Roman general Marcus, because he is concerned about whether the weapon that can shoot an iron ball 500 meters is real?If it's true, then grab it.

It is said that this weapon is in Homusang, so he wished that Akaifus would lead the army to attack the Lan family.

What Marcus didn't know was that Acaevus knew very well that the vast majority of Lan's troops were descended from the Lan's with little combat effectiveness.

It can be said that the Seleucid army and the Ptolemy army attacked the Lan family with ease.

As for Rome and Macedonia, what they had to face was the main force of the Silk Army.

Of course, Akaifus will always pay attention to the situation of Homesang. Once Rome and Macedonia fall into a disadvantage, then Akaifus will bring troops back for the overall benefit of the coalition forces.

Acaevus didn't think there was any problem with this tactic, because it was [-] elite... Roman infantry and Macedonian ultra-pikemen, they were the nemesis of cavalry, especially siege and siege, which they were good at.

Standing at the top of the city, Shen Bing looked down, and saw that the enemy's phalanx was everywhere under the city. The Roman legion had red manes and red cloaks, divided into north and west sides, and the Macedonian legion had black armor, divided into south and east sides.

They built the walled city about 500 meters outside the city as usual.

The advantage of building a walled city at close range is to compress the enemy's exit space as much as possible...

If the city wall is built too far during the siege, the defenders can easily go out of the city to form an array and launch an attack.

But if the city wall is close to the enemy's city wall, then the enemy will face the attack and blockade of long-range weapons from the city wall just after leaving the city, which is obviously more valuable.

Without any hesitation, Shen Bing ordered Wang Ben:

"Keep them away!"

Wang Ben responded, and then ordered the artillery to fire.

With two sounds of "boom, boom", two shells flew into the city in the astonished eyes of all the Roman soldiers. One of the shells hit the log fence that had just been erected, and the fence was smashed to pieces. The binding rope also broke, and the logs jumped and scattered all over the ground.

Another shell hit several Roman soldiers before bouncing and hitting a war horse pulling timber.

The war horse neighed miserably, and after flying a few meters horizontally, fell to the ground and twitched. A blood hole had appeared on his body, and blood gushed out like a fountain.

The Roman soldiers dropped their tools and wood in a panic and fled back. The horses tied not far away were also frightened. If they hadn't tied the reins, they might have fled away.

Marcus, who was commanding the legion to build the city wall, couldn't help being surprised when he saw this scene.

It was only then that he was convinced that what the Seleucids said was true, that the Silk Army did have firearms that could shoot iron balls hundreds of meters away, and that the power and range were no less than what the Seleucids said.

"General!" The subordinates cast their terrified eyes on Marcus.

Marcus understood the meaning of their eyes.

If the enemy's artillery can hit the city and destroy it easily, then there is no point in building a city here.

Thinking about it, Marcus ordered loudly: "Retreat 200 meters!"

"Retreat 200 meters!"

"Retreat 200 meters!"

……

Even so, however, Marcus felt that something was wrong.

After thinking for a while, Marcus found the Macedonian general Hector.

"I think you must have seen the firearms of the silk people!" Marcus looked at Hector with a trace of fear, and asked, "What do you think?"

"I hope that the people of Silk Country don't have many such weapons." Hector replied solemnly: "Otherwise we may have nothing to do with it!"

"I have no doubts about that!" Marcus shook his head. "If they had a lot of this kind of equipment in their hands, Acaevus would have been blown to pieces."

After a pause, Marcus continued: "So, what I'm saying is that we don't know anything about it."

"Is it strange? General Marcus?" Hector raised his head disapprovingly: "Alexander proved this a long time ago. We are not the only civilization on this continent."

"I'm not surprised by this, but that they are more advanced than us!" Marcus' eyes were complicated, like anger, sadness, jealousy, and helplessness.

Hector pursed his lips disapprovingly: "If you accept that there are other civilizations on this continent, then you must be mentally prepared to lag behind others."

Hector spread his hands and continued: "I mean, it's not that we are the most advanced, it's just that we don't know. Now we know!"

Seeing Marcus' unbelievable expression, Hector comforted: "I know this is hard to accept, General Marcus. But I think you should think of it this way: Who is more advanced is not looking at weapons , but to see who can defeat each other on the battlefield!"

Chapter 5 Nineteen Situation

From a modern point of view, it is definitely wrong that advanced civilizations must defeat backward civilizations, because there are many precedents in history for backward civilizations to defeat advanced civilizations, the most typical one being Mongolia that defeated Eurasia.

But Hector and Marcus didn't know this. They both firmly believed that advanced civilizations must defeat backward civilizations, just like Alexander conquered Persia and Egypt.

It's just that the two people's ideas are still different.

Hector believes that if this is the case, then as long as the silk army is defeated, the Greek civilization will still be an advanced civilization.

And Marcus was worried: Judging from the equipment of the Silk country's army, the Silk country is likely to be a more advanced civilization than Greece, so can they defeat the Silk country's army?

In fact, this is not what Marcus is worried about. What Marcus is really worried about is: if the advanced civilization must conquer the backward civilization, does that mean that the silk army will definitely conquer all of Europe?

From this point of view, Marcus is actually more far-sighted.

In the end, no one could draw a conclusion, and Marcus returned to his camp to actively prepare for the battle and think about countermeasures.

This is the habit of the Roman army in combat. They always put out the weapon advantages of the enemy and our army for a drill, and then look for defensive methods and the enemy's weaknesses.

What frustrates Marcus is that no matter how he deduces it, he can't solve this thing that can shoot an iron ball more than 500 meters... It has exceeded the range of all equipment in this era, and it is also indestructible.

Just as Marcus was rubbing his chin and staring at the map in a daze, a communications soldier came in and reported, "General, the silk army is out of the city, and they seem to be trying to break through!"

"Breakout?" Marcus was taken aback, then shook his head and said, "No, they're not breaking out."

As he said that, Marcus took the helmet from the guard and put it on. He let the guard tie the cloak on him and asked, "Did they push the firearm out?"

"No, no, General!" the signalman replied, "but they have a smaller iron pipe in their hands. We don't know what it is."

Marcus secretly breathed a sigh of relief, as long as it wasn't that kind of terrible firearm.

What Marcus didn't know was that this "iron pipe" was exactly what he needed to worry about.

Shen Bing's battle plan is actually not like this.

From the very beginning, Shen Bing thought that the Seleucid coalition forces would split up and attack the Lan family.

After all, the Lan family has few troops and is on the only way to the Central Plains and Central Asia.

If the Seleucid allied forces take the Lan family, on the one hand, they can cut off the connection between the Central Plains and Huo Musang and surround Shen Bing, and on the other hand, they can also intimidate the rebellious Dawan and Anxi so that they dare not act rashly.

In fact, this is what Anxi and Dawan hope for. They say they want to surrender to Daqin or form an alliance with Daqin. However, in this situation where Seleucid has a higher chance of winning, it is normal and necessary to fall back to Seleucid again. ... Between countries only talk about interests, there is no morality, credibility and commitment at all, otherwise they should not exist in this world.

Shen Bing's thoughts are:

Wait for a few days to wait for the changes, and then fight when the Seleucid troops approach the city of Lanshi. In this way, the Seleucid army attacking Lanshi and the Roman and Macedonian troops attacking Homusang will be very close to each other. It is difficult to reinforce, so the Seleucid coalition forces cannot take care of both ends.

But people are not as good as heaven.

While Shen Bing was waiting for the Seleucid Army to advance towards Lan's, Shen Bing had to change his plan due to the passing of pigeons from Lan's.

The intelligence reads: "Mr. Fusu and Princess Ziyang went to Lan's City."

Shen Bing frowned.

Fusu and Ziyang actually rushed to Lan's City, at this time? !

It turned out that this incident was caused by Princess Ziyang.

Not long after Shen Bing's army set off, Fusu moved to the sandbar with Ziyang and others... Fusu was going to sit on the sandbar to organize the deployment of supplies for the expeditionary force.

Shen Bing believes that this can temper Fusu's management and emergency response capabilities, especially knowing what to do and what not to do in times of war.

In fact, the ancient kings were usually like this, that is, to ensure the internal stability of the country and provide strong logistical support for external wars. The outside battles were all handed over to the generals, and the real imperial conquests were rare.

It was the same with Qin Huang's unification of the six countries, and it was the same with Han Wu's expedition against the Xiongnu.

Princess Ziyang is the one who pestered Fusu to follow her to the sandbar:

"My lord doesn't know something. This place is a grassland and barbarian cavalry."

"Young master and the general are not here, just leave me alone in Longcheng, if something happens, I don't know what to do..."

Zi Yang lowered his head and fiddled with the corners of his skirt timidly, pretending to be pitiful.

Fusu thought it was the same, even though there were personal guards to protect her, it was not prudent to leave her here alone, so she took her to the sandbank.

How could Fusu think that this was just the first step for Princess Ziyang.

Not long after, Princess Ziyang pestered Fusu again, saying that she was going to Dawan.

Princess Ziyang's reasons are naturally very good:

"Li Yan is in charge of logistics and supplies, you can rest assured, young master."

"The great general at the front is reporting frequent successes and even captured the Lan family. Fu Su, as a son, should go to the front to reward the three armies in person. At that time, our army's morale will definitely be boosted and we will take Dawan in one fell swoop!"

"The same goes for Shen Bing. How much can you learn if you are dispatching food and grass in the rear all day long?"

Although Fusu is a few years older than Ziyang, she has been unable to deal with this eccentric younger sister since she was a child. She thought to herself, there is nothing wrong with going to the front line, anyway, everything will be safe with the general at her side. , By the way, also inspect the supply route and ask the 36 countries in the Western Regions to provide more supplies.

On the other hand, it is also because Fu Su traveled and studied with Chun Yuyue, a great Confucian since he was a child. Confucianism emphasizes "leading by example and teaching by example".

So Fusu thought that as a son, he should "take the lead" and go to the front line to experience the sufferings of the soldiers and the people.

So I also had this kind of thought in my heart, and Princess Ziyang persuaded Fusu for a few more days, and persuaded Fusu.

Fusu even ignored Li Yan's persuasion, and went straight to Lan's with thousands of Shenwu troops.