Chapter 32 Big Ship (Part 2)
The Toston River Valley suddenly narrows like a pocket in the middle, and Yazda is located at the mouth of the pocket. There are mountains on both sides of the river, and they have no names. The mountain on the west is low, and there are docks and towers built in the belly of the mountain. It should be the location of the small Hashidi fleet. The mountain on the east is very tall, thousands of Roman feet high. The fortress built on the mountain is located here, which can accommodate thousands of troops and has dense weapons and food warehouses. It is not advisable to attack the eastern fortress by force. Our army’s goal should be on the fleet base in the west. This is the purpose of my suggestion to build large ships. As long as we capture that place, we can truly isolate the internal and external traffic of Yazda, and then slowly attack the eastern fortress. In addition, I have another prediction, that is, the Hashidi garrison troops in the southern part of the Toston Valley will definitely shrink in the fortress here. As long as we can annihilate it and take it down, our army will continue to go downstream. The Hashidi will no longer be able to compete, and any fortress along the way will be unreliable, so it is worth spending more time and sacrifice here!
After listening to Faobinas's narration, Lepidus nodded slightly, and he asked Gabe, who was still standing there, how long it would take to build ten large armed river ships and several more small wooden boats. Gabe replied: "It will take about next spring. The ships only need to be armed, because the deck will be very comfortable, and it is a short-range attack, so the commander-in-chief's infantry and archers do not need any adaptive training."
Next spring? Wouldn't this delay too much time? Would the power of the Hashidi sect continue to expand? Lepidus began to hesitate again. For the commander, any decision must be repeatedly scrutinized and anxious before it is issued.
Antony responded again. He strongly advocated a surprise attack on the Yazda Fortress. If what Faobinas said was true, he should take advantage of the other side's panicked retreat and directly use the cavalry's maneuver to seize the fleet base in the west at lightning speed, "and then directly board the ship there, and then meet the wooden boats on the river to capture the eastern fortress." The request of the military tribune also won the consent of some centurions.
In the end. Lepidus finalized a more compromising plan: arrange for Antony to take the attached cavalry brigade, cooperate with the two regiments of infantry carried by wooden boats on the river, plus an auxiliary brigade, and advance rapidly towards Yazda along the Toston River, but Lepidus also reminded Antony to strengthen military reconnaissance and not blindly seek speed. In addition, let Hebrida take the 1,000-man brigade of the 13th Legion and also equip an auxiliary brigade to conduct a secondary search and advance at a position 20 Roman miles behind Antony. Remove the possible remaining Hashidi garrisons. Peteneus led the main force of the Thirteenth Legion to follow behind, and Commander Lepidus supervised the progress of the shipyard.
Result. A battle was encountered the next day.
But Anthony's cavalry actually passed through. These Hassids were really tricky. They did abandon most of the small fortresses and concentrated on Yazda according to David Angit's instructions. However, under David's arrangement, there was still a shepherd general named Pation who led hundreds of people to quietly lurk in a fortress on a cliff. Seeing the careless Anthony cavalry appear, they did not expose themselves. Anthony did not conduct a careful reconnaissance of the fortress on the mountainside at all. He just roughly judged that there was no one guarding the periphery. Just like what he encountered before, the whole team galloped away.
However, when Hebrida's thousand-man brigade reached this point, things were not so good. The Hasidis suddenly rained down torches, stones and javelins at them halfway up the mountain. The leading centurion was killed on the spot. The rest of the troops reacted, put their shields on their heads and retreated in panic. As a result, the Jews ignited a blazing fireball and pushed it down the hillside, cutting off the road between the front and rear of the thousand-man brigade. The group could not connect front and rear and was in chaos. At this time, the Hashidi army on the hillside shouted and rushed down. The leader was like the Thracians, holding a sickle-like reverse-blade machete, and the flanking troops were all lightly armed infantry. This was the "magnet tactic" they invented. The heavy armor of the captured city-state mercenaries was used to arm their elites. They held the reverse-blade machetes with both hands and chopped the Romans' large shields like pieces of paper, or chopped them from top to bottom and then pulled them back. This made it impossible for the front troops of Hebrida to set up a shield wall. They held the Romans' vanguard like a magnet. Then the light troops on both wings went around to the side and threw javelins and slings. In this way, the Romans in the rear team could not form a battle line at all and could only block left and right with their shields in a panic.
"Don't retreat any further!" Hebrida shouted ferociously under the flag, because he saw people retreating automatically all around him. If they continued like this, the troops in the front separated by the wall of fire would be completely annihilated. "Attack, rescue the front team, and then retreat and wait for reinforcements." Then he snatched the flag and went straight through the wall of fire. The soldiers around him gritted their teeth, unwilling to see the reputation and flag of the legion's thousand-man battalion lost today, and followed the centurion and passed through. Dozens of fire men howled and joined the battle with swords raised, putting out the flames and stabbing the enemy, which scared the Hashi believers who were fighting.
Finally, the auxiliary team behind arrived. This group of people ignored the barrier of the wall of fire. After simply measuring the distance, they shot a hail of arrows directly over there, and then fell to the hillside and river bank over there. Although they were indiscriminately killing, they were obviously Believers with little or even no armor suffered greater damage from arrow clusters. Fortunately, they had already expected that the Romans would have subsequent reinforcements. Pation waved his flag on the mountain, and the Hasidim left their rearguard behind and retreated in an orderly manner. Walk.
After the war, a count showed that the thousand-man brigade suffered 300 casualties, of which 80 died. Fortunately, although Hebrida passed through the flames and rescued the people, the burns were not serious, and his hair was burned completely. When he retreated to the cliff fortress to build a temporary camp four furlongs away, he was furious and vowed to pull out this "nail" within three days.
At this time, Phaobinas followed up with the "Cyrenees" group behind him. When he reached this part of the camp, Hebrida grabbed him and asked him if he said that Hasidism would Abandon all the fortresses south of Yazda? Why were you ambushed here?
After thinking for a while, Faobinas took the opponent's hand away with a serious expression, "I'm more worried about Antony's cavalry group in front of me than this. Since Antony's troops passed here before you, then this lurking team is The Hasidic troops on the cliff are definitely not attacking without purpose. They are trying to cut off the connection between us and the tribunes, most likely to annihilate the tribunes’ cavalry.” (To be continued...)