Rome must fall.

Chapter 427 Pompey's Victory

So on January 2nd (similar to the time of crossing the sea in previous history), Caesar's transport fleet loaded with soldiers left Brindisi, successfully crossed the Adriatic Sea, and landed on the coast of Epirus.

The transport fleet was not discovered until it was returning at night by a patrol ship. Bibulus hurriedly led the fleet out and only intercepted a small number of ships.

Bibulus was furious and burned all the captured sailors and ships, and warned his men not to make the same mistake again.

As a result, Pompey's fleet was on high alert, making it impossible for Caesar's transport fleet to transport troops across the sea.

Caesar, who had already landed, was cut off from reinforcements and supply lines in the short term. Fortunately, the fleet transported nearly 20,000 soldiers and hundreds of cavalry ashore at one time. Although the fleet did not have space to carry enough food, with this force, he could find a way to solve the problem.

Caesar gathered the landed troops, rested for a while, and launched an attack on the neighboring towns the next day, conquering most of Epirus in a very short time.

Next, Caesar prepared to capture Dyrrachium, an important coastal trading port and a major supply station for Pompey's army.

Pompey had already assembled his army at this time and rushed to the rescue, arriving there before Caesar.

Since Pompey's army had nine legions, more than twice as many troops as Caesar's, Caesar had to choose to retreat.

Pompey did not choose to continue the attack because although Caesar's army was small in strength, its morale was extremely high, which left a deep impression on him and made him feel that his army still needed further training.

The two sides were in a stalemate, trying to undermine each other through more negotiations and private exchanges.

In this process, Labienus performed the most outstandingly. This most capable legion commander under Caesar left Gaul and defected to Pompey after the civil war broke out.

The reason he did this was, on the one hand, because Pompey was his patron, and according to Roman tradition, the patron must provide help when the patron is in need; on the other hand, he believed that he had made a significant contribution to Caesar's conquest of Gaul, but most of the glory went to Caesar. He stayed in Gaul for seven or eight years but did not even get a consul, and his true value in Caesar's team was not recognized.

It was precisely because of these that he behaved extremely tough when facing his former comrades again, and even kept clamoring: Stop any peace talks, and there will be no peace unless Caesar's head is sent to us.

During this period, Bibulus, who was bent on revenge, became ill from overwork and died soon after. For various reasons, no one was designated to replace him as the commander of the fleet, but the fleet's blockade of the sea continued.

This meant that Caesar's transport fleet was unable to deliver follow-up troops to the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. As time passed, Caesar himself felt desperate.

He began to doubt the beliefs and loyalty of his subordinates who remained in Italy, and believed that only his personal presence could promote the action of reinforcements. So he disguised himself and boarded a small merchant ship, preparing to go to Brindisi, but encountered strong winds at sea and was forced to return.

When the soldiers learned about this, they were a little angry. They thought that their commander was so unconfident and did not believe that they could win the war alone. So they rushed to beg Caesar to have more confidence in them. This shows the high morale of Caesar's soldiers and the close connection between them and their commander.

The stalemate between the two sides continued until April, when Mark Antony led four legions and several hundred cavalrymen from Brindisi and successfully landed on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. If Bibulus were still alive, this might not have happened, and the Pompey fleet, lacking a commander, eventually slacked off.

Caesar now had nearly 5 infantry and over a thousand cavalry. Although he was still outnumbered by the enemy, he did not hesitate to challenge Pompey to a battle.

Pompey knew that the quality of his own soldiers was inferior to that of the enemy, so he refused to engage in a head-on confrontation. He held his ground on land and blocked the sea tightly. He believed that as long as he cut off the food supply of Caesar's army, this huge army would be dragged down.

Caesar was also well aware of this weakness of his army, so he decided to once again capture Dyrrachium, the main supply base of Pompey's army.

Although this time his troops arrived at Dyrrachium first, the subsequent arrival of Pompey's army prevented him from successfully capturing the city.

Caesar then changed his strategy and began to lay siege to Pompey's camp.

Caesar began to use one of his best tactics - building long walls to surround Pompey's camp and completely cut off his opponent's land support.

Pompey was not to be outdone and also built a long wall around his camp to protect it.

Thus, a strange scene in the history of war appeared: the soldiers of both sides were not fighting, but competing to see who could build the wall faster and better. The two long walls were like two parallel lines, extending continuously around Pompey's camp.

During the process of building the wall, small battles continued to break out between the two sides, and Caesar's army often had the upper hand. After all, his soldiers were more experienced and braver and more tenacious.

However, as time went on, Caesar's army became increasingly short of food, and he had to send many soldiers to the surrounding areas to collect food, so that the soldiers had to eat barley (usually livestock feed). Later, even barley was sometimes not available, so they could only mix the roots of a plant with milk and bake it into a kind of unpalatable bread. Pompey's army also suffered difficulties. They did not lack food because they could continue to get supplies from the sea, but because they were besieged on the coast and lacked fresh water, a large number of livestock died and injuries and diseases broke out in the camp.

Both armies suffered greatly, but neither commander was willing to give in, so this massive siege continued.

But soon Pompey encountered another trouble. Due to the siege, it was difficult for him to obtain enough fresh fodder to feed his numerous war horses. This made him realize that if this continued, the situation of his army would be worse than that of the enemy, so he decided not to be passively defensive anymore.

It happened that at this time, several Gallic tribal leaders who followed Caesar to fight had made mistakes and were afraid of being punished by Caesar, so they had to defect to Pompey's army.

Pompey therefore learned about the troop deployment and defense situation of Caesar's army on the defense line. As Caesar's army's long walls became longer and longer, the troops were divided thinner and thinner, and some troops were sent out to collect additional grain, so the troops deployed on some defense lines were seriously insufficient.

Pompey acted decisively, concentrated his forces, and attacked the weak points in Caesar's defense.

The unprepared Caesar's army was quickly defeated, and Pompey's army successfully occupied the section of the long wall closest to the sea and began to build a new camp there, thus ensuring that his troops could freely move in and out of Caesar's encirclement to obtain the necessary supplies.

Of course Caesar would not allow this to happen. He immediately summoned his army and launched a counterattack.

Pompey did not expect Caesar's attack to come so quickly, and he suffered a loss at the beginning.

However, Caesar's follow-up troops were not familiar with the attack area and went in the wrong direction, and were unable to launch the attack in time to join forces with the defending enemy forces.

Read more latest popular novels at 6.9*shuba!

The reinforcements mobilized by Pompey soon arrived and launched a counterattack together with his besieged companions. At the same time, Pompey's numerous cavalry also began to fiercely attack the flanks of Caesar's cavalry.

The weak Caesar cavalry was the first to retreat, which affected the defeat of Caesar's right wing and eventually caused all the attacking troops to flee. No matter how Caesar tried to stop them, it was of no use.

Caesar's attack suffered heavy losses, not only thousands of soldiers were killed or wounded, but also dozens of senior officers.

However, after winning the victory, the cautious Pompey did not take advantage of the victory to attack Caesar's camp.

The next day Caesar gathered the army and criticized their poor performance yesterday, but also praised them for being able to besiege the enemy who outnumbered them for so long. Finally, he encouraged the soldiers to fight bravely next time to make up for yesterday's failure.

Inspired by him, the morale of the soldiers rose again, and many officers even urged Caesar to take the risk of fighting the enemy again.

But Caesar realized that the strategy of encircling Pompey's army had failed. Pompey's army had an obvious advantage at sea, and continuing to fight with them on the coast would be too disadvantageous for his side.

So he led his army away from the coast at night.

By the afternoon of the next day, Pompey discovered that the enemy had fled, but not back into Italy, but eastward into the heart of Greece.

He was a little hesitant at this time.

The victory at Dyrrachium gave Pompey's senior officers and senators a great encouragement. The senators urged Pompey to use his navy to transport troops back to Italy to recapture Rome and break the illusion that Caesar represented the real Senate. His subordinates felt that they should take decisive action to pursue Caesar's army and end the war.

Pompey was cautious, and he was still in awe of the fighting power of Caesar's army. In his heart, he wanted to return to Italy and destroy Caesar's base camp first, but he was worried that the senators would say that he was forced to retreat by sea again. More importantly, he could not let his father-in-law Metellus, who was leading his troops from the east, be isolated and helpless and be eaten by Caesar, who had far more troops than him.

So Pompey decided to lead his army to track down the enemy, but not to fight it head-on. Instead, he decided to cut off its supplies until it was worn down.

Just as Pompey's army withdrew from the camp and left the Dyrrachium area, a small merchant ship also left the city's port and sailed quickly to the north.

The captain of the ship was a subordinate of Onomabaitis, the commercial officer of the Kingdom of Nyx. He wanted to convey the news that both Roman armies had left the coast of Epirus back to the kingdom as soon as possible, because that was the special instruction of King Maximus.

At the eastern end of the Roman province of Northern Italy and on the east side of the road connecting to the province of Illyria are continuous mountains. The peaks are lush and verdant with trees and branches, providing a good cover for an army of more than 400 Japodes.

(End of this chapter)