Rome must fall.

Chapter 57 Deception
  Thinking of this, Furius felt full of energy and excitedly ordered again: Let the soldiers speed up their march!

After hearing this, a centurion couldn't help but remind him: "Sir, the weather is hot today. We must prevent the soldiers from suffering from heatstroke due to excessive marching!"

Furius glared at him and said quibly: "It is precisely because of the hot weather that we have to speed up and try to reach Naples earlier. Then I will try to let the Neapolitans provide the wine produced by Vesuvius. , to quench the soldiers’ thirst.”

Furius also asked his men to pass on his explanation. The soldiers no longer complained, but cheered.

Seeing this, Furius raised the corners of his mouth proudly and looked up at the fiery red sun in the sky: the military camp commander Cassinius was Valerius's former comrade-in-arms. As a veteran, in such hot conditions, The marching speed should be slowed down next... In this way, when I set off from Naples tomorrow to attack the slave camp, Cassinius's troops will be more than half a day's journey away. When I defeat those slaves, they We may not be able to make it there...

While Forius was thinking about it, a Roman cavalryman in front held up a spear tied with feathers (this meant that he was a temporary messenger and wanted to convey an urgent message), galloping towards him, and the soldiers got out of the way.

"Sir, more than 5,000 slaves are approaching us!" Tanqi reported nervously to Furius.

"Five thousand slaves..." Furius heard this. Instead of feeling nervous, he was very excited: "These lowly slaves did not stay in their own camp and dared to attack me! They came just in time. It saves us a lot of energy!"

"Sir, their number may be far more than 5000, and they also have cavalry. They drove us away, so we were unable to conduct a deeper exploration." Tanqi reminded.

"Cavalry?!" Furius was stunned for a moment, then quickly asked: "How are the equipment of these slaves?"

"Most of them don't have armor or even weapons. They carry farm tools and sticks. Only a few of them have the same equipment as ours and should have been obtained in the last battle."

Forius became more confident, and then asked: "How far are these slaves from us?"

"Uh...it was about six miles when I left."

Furius stopped asking questions and turned back to the herald: "Order the soldiers to stop advancing immediately, put on their armor, pick up their swords and shields, and line up southward to prepare to meet the enemy!"

The herald had just heard the report of the cavalry, and did not raise any objections such as "the enemy is coming fiercely, we should retreat for the time being". Instead, he believed that Forius's decision was a matter of course: How could the citizens of Rome be surrounded by a group of despicable people? Shrink in front of the slaves, no matter how many they come, they are just a rabble!

With this mentality, he galloped beside the marching column and shouted repeatedly.

The soldiers stopped advancing, perhaps because they heard that the incoming enemies were slaves. They acted relatively calmly, and calmly put down the fulka sticks on their shoulders, and unloaded the bags tied to their heads. Take out the square shield from the cloth cover, put on the helmet hanging on the chest, and then start to line up under the command of the team officers. The army slaves packed up the soldiers' luggage, took the carriage with the army, and hid behind the array... The whole process was orderly, which was the result of two months of hard training.

Furius was satisfied with the performance of the soldiers. Now he commanded 4 brigades with about 2000 people, which was not enough to form a traditional military formation, so he asked the soldiers to leave Ania Avenue and set up on the west side of the road. Arranged in a tight horizontal formation facing south. Not long after the Roman soldiers lined up, they saw the enemy appearing in the distance: These enemies had no prominent military flags, no bright armor, no sharp weapons, and no neat queues. They were ragged and not in a queue. The bustling and noisy crowds of people are coming towards the north along Avenida Agna...

"Is this our enemy? Even my old man can defeat them in battle." A soldier's ridicule caused a burst of laughter from the surrounding soldiers.

The Roman soldiers seemed very relaxed, and Furius was equally relaxed. He hoped that these stupid slaves would just rush over, and then he would lead his army to give them a heavy blow...

But then he saw a dozen slave cavalry rushing to the front of the enemy from the avenue, shouting something at them. After a while, the enemy stopped advancing and actually started to try to form a formation...

Furius felt a little uneasy, and he had an impulse in his heart to let the soldiers attack while the enemy was in chaos. But he quickly endured it. After all, the two armies were about one mile apart. Our aggressive attack might scare these slaves away before they reached the enemy's position. The soldiers were wearing heavy armor, so it would be difficult to catch up. These thinly-clad slaves would have to lead an army to attack the slave camp when the time came, so it would be better to just wait for the enemy to come and die on their own.

Furius made up his mind and continued to stand in front of the formation on horseback, patiently watching the enemy's situation...

Then, he saw that the enemies in front of him became orderly after a period of chaos: the enemies in front simply formed an array and then continued to move to both sides, while the enemies in the rear continued to surge up, as if It is a continuously growing bamboo. It originally had a point and gradually turned into a line. Moreover, the length of this line has exceeded the square array and continues to extend...

Furius felt more and more uneasy, and his eyes widened even more: heavily armed soldiers appeared in the center of the enemy's formation, and there were more and more of them, shining with light under the scorching sun...

Damn Tan Ma! Are you blind? Most of the enemies are poorly equipped! Their armored soldiers far outnumber us! ... Furius cursed in his heart and almost wanted to give an order to retreat, but his reason told him: retreating in front of the formation is a taboo. Even if they are a few hundred meters apart, these heavily armored soldiers under him cannot run very far. , they may be overtaken by the almost unarmed slaves on both sides of the enemy's formation, which will inevitably lead to a rout. If he is defeated without engaging the enemy, he will not only be held accountable by the Senate when he returns to Rome, but will also be cast aside by the people. His life will be over!
  Thinking of this, Forius turned around resolutely and looked at the soldiers who were already timid and began to become restless. He raised his right arm high and shouted sternly: "Soldiers, you are noble Roman citizens, and they are just for you to drive." No matter how many slaves there are, they cannot defeat us who are blessed by Jupiter and have excellent military traditions! Soldiers, for the glory of Rome, fight to the death! Fight to the death!..."

Encouraged by Forius's inflammatory words, the soldiers' courage was inspired and they shouted: "Fight to the death!! Fight to the death!!!..."

At this moment, Spartacus stood in the center of the rebel array, looking at the Roman array in front, and he was very happy: the Romans did not run away, this is really great!
  You must know that in order to create a misunderstanding for the Romans, he specially arranged for the fifth and fourth cohorts to be the vanguard (most of the soldiers in these two cohorts did not have armor and weapons, especially the fifth cohort), and also asked Oakmar Led the cavalry to drive away the Roman cavalry... Now it seems that the plan was successful! ...Spartacus excitedly raised his dagger and pointed forward forcefully: "Attack!"

This time, he did not need to act first with the soldiers around him to lead the entire army. After hearing his shout, several trumpeters beside him immediately blew the brass horns in their hands: "Woo!..."

Cross, Enomui, Altonix, and Attumus, who were each standing at the front of their own team, heard the call to attack. They all turned around and shouted: "Brothers, follow me forward!"

The entire military formation began to move forward. In front of it was the Roman army that dominated the Mediterranean. The soldiers who were originally slaves were inevitably nervous, and their palms holding their weapons were sweating. But being in this huge military formation, their ears were full of fear. Listening to the excited shouts of their comrades, they saw the strong and vigorous backs of the gladiators in front of them. Their fear gradually faded, their desire for revenge rose sharply, and their steps became faster and faster...

(End of this chapter)