Rome must fall.

Chapter 278: Marching towards Segestica Territory
“Roar!!! Roar!!! Roar!!!…” the soldiers roared in unison.

Maximus turned and asked Cassinos: "Which direction is the main camp of Segestica?"

Casinos hesitated for a moment, and under Maximus's sharp gaze, he raised his hand with a complicated expression and said softly: "Over there..."

Maximus immediately waved his hand in the direction of his finger: "Forward!"

The soldiers marched forward, and their formation gradually unfolded as they marched quickly. Because the fields had been harvested, there was nothing on the flat land except for the village, so nearly 6,000 soldiers of the First Legion advanced forward in a frontal formation that was more than a mile long...

"Ding! Ding! Ding!..." The soldiers of Linkou Village rang the alarm bells desperately.

The people of Segestica, who were closer to the Nix army, also quickly discovered the abnormality in the southwest and shouted in panic: "The enemy is coming! The enemy is coming!!..."

Thus, the peaceful scene was broken, the herdsmen drove their sheep and ran desperately, the farmers whipped their oxen and ran desperately, some of the pedestrians were holding children, some were driving carts, men were shouting, women were yelling, children were crying, cattle and sheep were making noises... one led ten, ten led a hundred, a hundred led a thousand... like a snowball, people from Segestika continued to run out of various villages carrying packages and joined the fleeing crowd.

No tribe or village urgently called up warriors to resist.

On the one hand, the wide front array of the Nix army was like a long iron wall, which put great psychological pressure on the people of Segestica. The Segestica tribe suffered a series of disastrous defeats and could not muster enough young and strong tribesmen to resist in a short period of time.

On the other hand, these villages on the plains have no wooden walls.

During the reign of the Skodishchi, in order to facilitate their rule and prevent the Pannoni from rebelling, the Skodishchi ordered all Pannoni villages not to build walls. Decades later, when the Pannoni became independent, tribes like the Segestica not only had no external threats, but also attacked Ardei and had an absolute advantage. The villages were not in any danger, so the tribesmen naturally did not want to waste materials and energy to build wooden walls for the villages.

Although the army suffered a crushing defeat and Andres died of illness, which caused panic among the tribesmen, an armistice agreement was signed soon. Driven by decades of inertia, the Segestica people still did not build wooden walls, resulting in each village being exposed to the attack of Nix.

The people in the villages of Segestica had neither the courage nor the ability to resist the enemy's invasion, and the only option was to escape.

Moreover, most people fled in the same direction - the main village of Segestica.

As the power center of the Segestica tribe and the seat of the chieftain, the main fortress of Segestica has wooden walls, because it was built by the Skodischi people as a military stronghold to rule this area and suppress the rebellion of the Segestica people, so its defense facilities are naturally not bad. After the Segestica people occupied it, they only maintained the entire main fortress for more than ten years without making any major changes.

Normally, when the tribes of Segestica encountered trouble, they would go to the main village to ask the chief for help in solving the problem. Now that they were facing life and death danger, the tribesmen naturally wanted to escape into the main village for refuge.

As a result, the people of Segestica gradually gathered into a huge crowd while fleeing and rushed to the main camp of Segestica.

The Nix army maintained a steady pace of march. They neither desperately pursued the Segestica people who were very close, nor took away the lost cattle and sheep that did not know how to hide desperately, nor did they enter the village to rummage through the boxes and cabinets and take away the property of the Segestica people...

Under the strict order of Maximus and the leadership of the legion commander Carminus, they followed the flow of people in front of them, moving forward, forward, and forward...

When the setting sun hung on the top of the mountain and the sunset glow appeared on the horizon, a sparkling river in the distance came into Maximus's sight.

"We are almost at the Sava River..." The reminder from Casinos beside him cheered Maximus up, but soon his expression became solemn because he saw countless sails rowing towards the other side...

"Carminus, you must immediately send two teams to the two banks of the river in front of the stockade. Seize all the boats you can see along the river bank. Go! Go!"

"Yes, Captain!" Carminus turned around to execute the order. "Hargoucus, your cavalry is fast, send them all out and try to recapture as many ships as possible!" Maximus then gave another order to the cavalry captain.

Originally, due to the lack of war horses, Hargucus' cavalry had only about ten people. However, in the previous battle on the banks of the Korana River, more than 20 intact war horses were captured. After obtaining Maximus' consent, he quickly assigned his former old subordinates, increasing the cavalry team to 30 people (in fact, war horses were also captured in the encirclement and annihilation battle on the Kupa River, but they had not been distributed to the cavalry in time). In addition to the cavalry who served as messengers for various teams and villages, there were 20 cavalry who followed Maximus into the Sava River Plain.

After receiving Maximus' order, Hargous left two cavalrymen to act as messengers and led the rest of his men to rush towards the river bank.

Maximus turned his gaze to the front and saw a wooden fort standing on the river in the distance. That was the main fort of Segestica.

The main fort of Segestica is somewhat different from the main fort of Ardi. Although both are built on the riverside, it spans both sides of the river, with the east bank as the main bank and the west bank as the auxiliary bank, connected by a floating bridge in the middle.

At this moment, the village on the west bank was in chaos. The fleeing people not only blocked the passages of the three village gates in the north, west and south, but also surrounded the entire west village.

When the warriors in the village learned that the "enemy was coming", the tribal leader who was responsible for guarding the west village was shocked and at a loss for a moment. But soon the fleeing people came, and the warriors could not turn their own people away. However, as more and more people fled, blocking all the entrances and exits, making it impossible to close all the village gates, the warriors regretted it too late.

"Carminus, the task of capturing this village is now left to you." Maximus said calmly.

"Yes, chief!" Carminus saluted excitedly, but he did not issue an attack order immediately. Instead, he made an attack deployment after careful observation: three teams of 500 people were divided to attack the north, west and south gates respectively, and more than 2000 soldiers besieged the north, west and south walls...

Although the Third Legion came in a hurry and did not bring any siege equipment, not even the simplest ladders, Carminus found that the village ahead had no trenches or stakes, and the wall was no more than three meters high. The attackers could go straight to the wall, and while the defenders were distracted by the fleeing people, they could have the soldiers build a human wall under the cover of the crossbow team and climb over the wooden wall...

After the order to attack was issued, the originally long "iron wall" soon split into six columns and rushed towards the Segestikasi Village from all directions...

The terrified people of Segestica, who had been gathered in front of the village, were now in a state of panic...

In fact, yesterday Pequot led his troops to hide in the dense forest and then raided the Segestica army that was wading across the river, causing its defeat. Some defeated soldiers escaped the pursuit of the Nix soldiers, but because the enemy was blocking the way ahead, they did not dare to return to the battlefield, but fled back to their homes. As a result, the news that "the Segestica army suffered another defeat" spread in the territory, and the people began to panic.

Fortunately, the tribal leaders and patriarchs who stayed behind in the territory tried to comfort them and told them: the Segestica army was only auxiliary, and the armies of the four large tribes of Brochi, Mazii, Disione and Peruste were the main force of the attack, and the coalition they formed could not be stopped by the Nixes.

The people's panic was thus eliminated, and the only thing left was worry about whether there were any of their relatives among the Segestica warriors who were killed or injured in the Nix raid.

Most of the remaining Segestica nobles believed that the powerful Pannonian tribal coalition would win the final victory, and they could remain calm about the defeat of their own tribal army. However, another piece of news brought back by the defeated soldiers made them feel uneasy: Cabdes might have died in the Kupa River!

The one who was most happy about this was Plicas, as he realized that the chance had come for Andres' son to regain the position of chief. At the same time, he became more alert to the war in the south. After all, he had participated in the swamp battle and knew how powerful the Nyx were.

He sent his confidants to keep an eye on the developments in the west. Therefore, in the main camp of Segestica, he was the first tribal leader to learn of the news that the Nix army had invaded the territory. Feeling the urgency of the situation, he immediately summoned some trustworthy people in the main camp, and under the pretext of "urgent matters need to be discussed", he went to meet with the tribal elders who were appointed by Capdes to stay in the main camp of Segestica before he led his army away. He took the opportunity to knock him unconscious and imprisoned him.

However, in order to prevent any accidents after his departure, the cautious Kabudes made some arrangements in the main camp. In order to eliminate these back-up plans and completely control the entire East Camp, Pricas took advantage of the chaos in the East Camp caused by the news of the invasion of the Nix army and took action one after another. He captured and imprisoned Kabudes' confidants one by one and finally took control of the entire East Camp.

But at this time, the cries for help coming from the West Village became clearer and more shrill. The fleeing people rushed to the floating bridge, pushing and shoving each other, completely disregarding the friendship of their compatriots. People kept falling into the river... The order in the West Village had been completely out of control because the Knyx people had attacked the city.

(End of this chapter)