Augustus Road

"Scipio saw this city, which had prospered for more than seven hundred years since its establishment... Now it has been completely destroyed and ended..." - "History of Rome" describes the plot of the final fall of Carthage

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Lepidus could no longer be passive and inactive. On a slightly sunny morning, he personally went out of the main gate of the camp with Sabo, led a wing of Ala cavalry, held high the flag and wore bright cloaks, and began to cross the plain of Complanion to observe the terrain and situation of the enemy and us. He did this to let all the officers and soldiers who still held the camp see that the supreme commander was still in high spirits and had not given up the hope of winning.

However, the actual situation is that an ancient army, especially an army of 5,000 to 10,000 people, carrying a large amount of heavy baggage, could not move freely like a single person. Once they entered a preset position, they could only form a formation and fight the enemy. Otherwise, if they moved at will, the team might be drowned in the end. This is also the reason why the two armies in ancient times wanted to fight a decisive battle at a certain place. Although Lepidar's body and brain are modern, without exception, he commanded all ancient soldiers. This kind of people's minds are full of ideas of fighting with the wind, fighting with the gods, and looting. Field battles and rain of arrows make them instinctively afraid, and staying in the camp can make them feel safe and reliable and recover their vitality. Once they move, they will be scattered and left behind. Lack of supplies and facing strong enemies will make them waver and lose their fighting spirit. In order to open up a shortcut to Lusitania, the Thyme Legion must face this barbaric and uncivilized Balantia tribe, and they still have no way to retreat. Behind them is a narrow pass. And a turbulent river. Once they retreat recklessly, they will be ruthlessly pursued by the Balantia people, and most of them will die.

During this period, in order to prevent morale collapse, Lepidus began to divide the spoils equally to win people's hearts, and insisted on training and civil engineering in the camp. More importantly, the spring rainy season is fleeting in the Iberian Peninsula, and it will soon enter the dry season again. In this rapid change of weather, how to prevent the terrible collective disease "dysentery" has become a problem that Lepidus deliberately considers. His master has emphasized more than once in the book that this disease is the venomous snake of the devil, the enemy of the military camp and the god of war. Once it breaks out and spreads, the entire army will quickly lose its combat effectiveness. So Lepidus asked the soldiers to dig a feces excretion pool in the camp, bury all kinds of garbage, and boil water before washing or drinking (this habit takes the longest time to cultivate). Try to eat cooked wheat rice and meat, control your appetite and of course **. And all the small number of vendors and prostitutes who remained in the camp were driven out (General Ma Ge expressed rare dissatisfaction with this matter), set up individual camps for living, and even soldiers of different populations lived in separate camps.

Lepidus on the owl looked far into the distance. Although it was called a plain, it was actually a spindle-shaped area. One corner was the pass where the enemy had ambushed before, and the other corner was the city of Ballantia sandwiched between the river valley and the cliff, like the handle of an open fan. The people of Ballantia also erected fences and dug trenches on the narrow ground outside the city to firmly protect their city. In the suburbs, they deployed a large number of scattered cavalry to attack the already frightened Romans at any time.

Such terrain was like a big bag tied tightly at both ends, and the people of Ballantia had obviously heard about the war elephants of Lepidus's troops, so they filled their trenches with animal traps and spikes to prevent the elephants from attacking.

They kept walking forward, and Lepidus was still worried about one thing, that is, the groundwater in this plain was all salt water, and the mules and horses accompanying the army would never drink it. Now they could only collect rainfall to solve the thirst of the horses. Amid the clatter of horse hooves, Li Bi Da suddenly asked, "I wonder how many people there are in the city of the Balantians. Is their drinking water also salty water from the ground?" Sabo shook his head and said that although the Balantians were brave and good at fighting, it seemed that the tribe was not large, with only about 10,000 people, and two to three thousand men who could fight. The last time they attacked us at the pass, they must have been the elite of their tribe. If they really sent out a number of people equal to ours, we would probably be wiped out. In addition, Sabo pointed to the river in the valley over there, which ran across the entire plain and flowed diagonally to the barbarian city at the "handle of the fan". "This is a small tributary of the Douro River. It is said that it flows into the city and serves as drinking water."

"Really?" Li Bi Da pondered.

The very next day, the Ballantine people suddenly discovered that the Romans were divided into several groups, each with two centuries. One century was responsible for guarding, and the other century was digging the ground behind it to set up camp. All the camps they set up were small-scale fortifications, which could only accommodate a century or so. They erected fences outside to prevent horses. There were a total of twelve centuries, and they were building six fortifications at the same time. Lepidus personally led the main force and divided the troops into several wings in the middle of the six fortifications. Each wing was equipped with a considerable number of projectile skirmishers and cavalry reinforcements to prevent the various fortifications from being defeated by sudden attacks by the Ballantine people.

Initially, the Balantian warriors responded to the Romans' cowardice with loud laughter. Behind their own fences, they put the heads of Roman soldiers that they had cut off on wooden stakes and put on horse manes and ox tails of various colors to insult them. They thought that it was completely ridiculous and futile for the Romans to do such things. These invaders who came from afar would soon retreat in a state of dismay and their swords would cut off more heads.

However, the Romans' earthwork was very fast, often giving people the feeling that "these hydras were completed in just a moment of negligence". In one day, six small camps with an arc configuration were completed, and then Lepidus quickly sent six centurions to enter. At night, the second batch of twelve centurions were replaced, and three were built on each side of the six small camps. The fences were also erected first, and the centuries raised flaming flags and used bugles to communicate with each other at a short distance. The construction continued day and night. A small group of brave Balantian warriors came to attack, but they were all repelled by the Roman soldiers behind the fence with slings and javelins. Afterwards, the Romans did not even care about the corpses left in front of them, and continued to build new small camps frantically.

After four or five days, nearly thirty small camps formed a crisscross chain, surrounding the city of Ballantia in an arc. Lepidus deliberately left an open distance of two stadia (about 370 meters) from the enemy, and then he personally held up the tools, hung his cloak on the bushes on one side, and started to build walls in front of each camp with the soldiers! )