Chapter 13 The Army Is Excited (Part 1)

"Romulus was pleased with his foster mother's brown wolf skin, so he led the entire tribe and named them Romans." - Virgil

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But at dusk in the bad weather, of course there was no sunlight, and the eagle emblem borrowed by Lepidus from Paulus of the Fourth Legion suddenly appeared prominently on the right wing of Mount Lamii. He asked all the cavalry to mount their horses and wear helmets, and personally conducted a brief mobilization at the front. "I sent six letters of challenge to the King of Parthia today, and in the last letter, I claimed that if you, the coward, still did not fight, I would take the initiative to attack the next day! But as I expected, those timid guys They were frightened by my letter and still stood firm in their place, so I changed my mind and immediately took my most proud cavalry, that is, you, to raid their left wing and defeat them! Don't worry about the enemy's bows and arrows. In this weather, their slings and bowstrings are useless. Come, take the way you Gauls or Nubians love most, that is, lying on the saddle, wielding swords, and chopping everything of the enemy. "

"Chop everything of the enemy, like the thunder god over the black forest!" Dusongwei took the lead and raised the Sparta long sword. All the Vipicinus warriors drew their swords and struck each other. The Nubian cavalry behind also shouted and held the bent habaishi tightly. Then a row of scorpion crossbows at the head of the formation made a crisp sound and shot the big arrows with bone whistles into the opposite Parthian left wing team.

Thunderous sound. Suddenly passing the cliff, on the passage that had been opened in the middle, Lepidus took the lead, led more than 2,000 cavalrymen, and rushed towards General Nasica's left wing in a row of 40 to 50 people. The light of the sword was like a meteor, flying rapidly with the horse's hooves. General Nasica faithfully carried out the order of King Athasis. "Keep quiet. And prepare for the decisive battle tomorrow", so even the simple trenches were not dug. The Parthians also hated to engage in such military labor, and were directly bitten by Lepidus's cavalry assault.

So in the midst of the strong wind. The left wing of Nasica was suddenly attacked. The front team was like an avalanche on the mountain. They rushed back one after another. The lightly armed infantry could not maintain sufficient vision in such dark weather full of haze and dark clouds. Let their shots hit the Roman cavalry that was galloping, but the personnel arranged by Nasica in the rear, when they heard the ambiguous shouts from the front, did not know whether their companions had won or retreated, and could only try their best to move forward under the shouts of the officers. The front and rear, a total of more than 10,000 people, were crowded together in a low-lying narrow area.

"Dismount, dismount! No need to charge forward anymore, use swords to kill the enemy." Dusongville shouted. In the two long military trumpets, the cavalry and the subsequent infantry used shields and swords to continuously drive the Parthian infantry who attempted to counterattack back to the low-lying area, killing them with swords or shooting them with hunting spears. The corpses piled up more and more, and more and more people escaped like sand between fingers.

Soon, the fluctuations spread to the right wing and the center, and even to the Parthian camp in the north. However, they still obeyed the king's orders and did not dare to take the initiative to assist the place where the fighting took place. Finally, the sudden battle situation finally reached Herod's ears. He immediately felt very embarrassed and powerless. With such a large team, the right wing could not share the pressure of the left wing. He never expected that this cunning Roman general would play such a psychological tactic, constantly using letters to help himself form a mindset, and then ruthlessly crushed it and launched an unconventional raid.

"Since the left wing is like this, it seems that we can only rely on General Mentis in the north to rescue. Our right wing must also raid the Roman left wing at this moment and crush them!" Herod personally put on his armor and started a competition with Lepidus on the other side, a competition of time, decisiveness and luck.

In front of the camp, all the heavy and light cavalry of Parthia mounted their horses. Their light cavalry wore sleeveless soft armor made of linen and leather, and Persian-style breeches. The armor plates between the pieces were connected with buttons and metal plates. There were colorful tassels hanging from the waist, and there were standing collars that exceeded the neck. Their most elite heavy cavalry wore ball-conical helmets and Scythian-style fish-scale armor. The horse's head and front crotch were covered with linen, which was covered with delicate armor plates to resist the attack of stray arrows. They carried heavy spears on their shoulders, but it was actually impossible to hold such spears with both hands to charge into battle. After running, they would be carefully placed on the horses by the heavy cavalry using the rings on the saddle, and then clamped with one hand for assault.

The more than 10,000 cavalry on the right wing were Herod's biggest bet. They charged towards the waistline of Mount Lami in an all-round way, like a tide of armored vehicles rolling in under a storm.

The Cyrene legion behind Phaobinas formed a solid line behind the horse-blocking trench. They imitated the Macedonians and stretched out dense spear tips. The auxiliary archers ambushed on both wings desperately shot arrows continuously on the hillside. On the other side, the Parthian light cavalry shot like water. In such weather, the arrows could only fly aimlessly. "Don't worry about the opponent's arrows, don't worry about the opponent's arrows, they are inaccurate, and resist the charge of the heavy cavalry like a city wall." At this time, the Cyrene legion leader was in a horizontal formation (Phaobinas was a shrewd commander. He did not form a too dense square formation, which would cause heavy casualties under the Parthian rain of arrows). Many dead and wounded fell sparsely on all sides, but the wounded still stubbornly held up their shields and slowly crawled back towards the camp.

Then, there was a violent collision, the snapping sound of broken spears, and the wailing sound of horses kneeling down. When the first wave of Parthian heavy cavalry almost all fell into the horse-blocking trench, the following warriors collectively shouted the slogan "Azhema" (meaning selected brave men), stepped on the corpses of their companions, and broke into the line of the Cyrene Legion, tearing and trampling.

At this time, beyond Lepidus's expectation, of course he was on the right wing of his own army and could not identify the situation, just like Herod also did not know where he was. That is, hundreds of the most heavily armored oven cavalry that Herod had originally arranged in the center to act as a chain, actually rushed boldly towards the center of the Romans under the "mobility" of the commander.

On the way, there were only a few lightly armed infantrymen who shot inaccurate arrows, which could be regarded as interference to the oven cavalry's charge, but these arrows were easily deflected by their heavy armor, and finally they realized that the Romans' "center" was just a facade. The sound of bells hanging on the front, the roaring wind, and the increasingly rapid sound of horses' hooves mixed together. After a round of cheers, the oven cavalry easily rushed up and slashed into the mountainside! (To be continued...)