Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

So far, Aurelian has only advanced a few dozen kilometers to the north, and the Gauls still have a very broad strategic depth. As long as the Gauls do not collapse in confidence, there is still room for this battle. Orville is not in a hurry because of this.

It is more advantageous for them to let both sides focus all their attention on the vicinity of Narpan Gaul, so that they can attack them by surprise.

While paying close attention to the battle situation on the front line, Orville did not forget to train the strong men under his command and run in the legionnaires under his command.

After a basic survey during this period of time, he has a good grasp of the situation of his army.

The combat effectiveness of the Ninth Legion and his private legion is not very different. The quality of officers and equipment level are slightly worse. After all, the latter is painstakingly configured one by one by himself, and it is definitely higher-end than the assigned ones, but it is harmless. The Ninth Legion is still at the level of a normal legion.

Among the people pushed over by the Herod royal family, there are about 1,500 former auxiliary soldiers and about 500 royal private soldiers. The former basically meets the various requirements of auxiliary soldiers, and the latter gave him a big surprise.

After all, they are private soldiers raised by middle- and upper-class nobles, and their combat effectiveness is worth looking forward to. They are not much different from legion infantry. They are proficient in various necessary skills and are truly all-purpose soldiers, which can be used as elites.

To be honest, the Herod royal family is quite nice. In addition to these people, there are also 500 light cavalry, which are also assigned to Orville as reconnaissance cavalry. Cavalry is still very valuable at this time.

The combat effectiveness of these Palfi light cavalry is definitely not as good as the well-known Numidian cavalry or German mercenary cavalry, but there is no problem in completing some tasks. Orville does not intend to use them to fight the Gaul cavalry head-on. It is enough to use them as scouts or "mounted police".

Vespa gave him a sum of money before the expedition, which was for him to hire barbarian soldiers. There are many such opportunities along the way. It can only be said that Orville will act according to the circumstances and should be able to meet a suitable mercenary team.

Finally, there was the issue of the able-bodied soldiers. The person in charge of training them was Belisarius, who was the most patient and relatively trustworthy. He would organize some time to give them simple training after setting up camp and before going to bed.

In his original words, after these days of hard work, they could already distinguish between the spear head and the spear shaft, and could thrust the long weapons in their hands.

According to Belisarius' optimistic estimate, under this kind of training while marching, they should be able to basically obey simple orders before arriving at the garrison, and they would not collapse at the first blow on the battlefield and could hold on for a while. Thank God, Orville did not ask for anything else.

In his opinion, even auxiliary troops should undergo three to five months of basic training before going to the battlefield, otherwise they would be dragged down. Now they are in a state of taking whatever they have and using whatever they can.

——

The march was generally very dull. After all, it was within the border. Even if there were bandits, they would not provoke tens of thousands of regular troops. However, Tiya was not satisfied with the march speed and repeatedly tried to speed up the army's march so that it could reach the legion's garrison as soon as possible to cooperate with Aurelian's military operations in Gaul.

Every other day, Orville would send a signalman to the front line where Aurelian was located to ensure that he could understand relatively comprehensive and fresh information. Later, the signalmen formed a line, and every day a signalman returned to report the frontline situation to Orville, which gave him a relatively sufficient and rich understanding of the frontline situation.

There was not much he could do during the march. He quickly finished reading the few books he brought with him. When he had nothing to do, he could only follow Tiya or his officers to do deductions to pass the time, so he paid more attention to relevant information.

After all, Aurelian was a military talent who made the voices in his head evaluate him as a brilliant one. He fought a terrible battle like the security war with great success. Although the advancement speed was slow, he was truly steady and did not give the opponent any chance, gradually narrowing the opponent's range of activities.

Later, it was the Gauls who could not stand the loneliness and launched sneak attacks on the Roman army's supply convoys or reinforcements several times. This gave Aurelian the opportunity to counterattack the opponent's sneak attack troops, causing them to suffer heavy losses in their manpower.

This battle was undoubtedly very desperate for the Gauls. Facing such an opponent who had planned everything and whose military strength was even stronger than theirs, there was really no way to break the situation. They could only watch their territory being conquered again bit by bit.

Every day, the news that Orville received from the front line was either that Aurelian had conquered a certain town again, or that he had captured and nailed so many people to death, or that he had defeated the stragglers led by a certain Gaul noble.

These news constantly boosted the morale of the Romans, but the morale of the Gauls fell into a trough accordingly.

A war tests the confidence of both sides in victory. No matter whether they can actually fight or not, if they lose confidence, they lose. On the contrary, even if the objective conditions are very different, overflowing confidence may create miracles. The Gauls are now in a state of lack of confidence after being beaten up by Aurelian.

However, as mentioned above, this war cannot be easily ended by winning a few battles and seizing a few pieces of land. On the way to the German Legion's garrison, Orville kept receiving reports of victory from the front line. Void victories were not particularly popular in those days, and these intelligence were basically credible, but the Gauls still did not collapse. Instead, they continued to resist with gritted teeth, and the sticky tactics also caused great trouble for the Romans.

——

While Orville was studying the frontline sand table, Aurelian, who was fighting hard in Narbonne Gaul, was also frowning and thinking at the map.

The Senate and the emperor had high expectations for him, so they gave him such an important task, and he did not disappoint the expectations of the city of Rome, and has done some good things so far.

After he led 50,000 people to Narbonne Gaul, he reintegrated the local garrison and the defeated soldiers from various provinces in northern Gaul in a very short time. The two sides added up to 70,000 troops, which was enough for him to show his strength in this Roman province.

He did succeed in defeating the largest main force of the Gauls, killing or capturing 50,000 people, and then took advantage of the situation to attack the Gauls' territory, sounding the clarion call for the Roman Empire's counterattack.

But now, he was not very satisfied with his achievements - for him who advocated quick attacks, fighting for land with the Gauls one village and one town at a time was too slow. He needed a more decisive strategy and bolder military decision.