Chapter 289 - The God of War, Hannibal!
Chapter 289 – The God of War, Hannibal!
During the time when firearms hadn’t been invented yet, for Hannibal to command a group of mercenaries that fought for money, it was indeed grand.
From the aspect of defense, with the advantage of the city wall, these slingers could even cast stones 50 or 60 meters away.
Without comparing the distance, the damage to the heavy infantry and others was much more powerful than bow and arrows.
Well, with the number of troops from both sides, it was indeed war.
Anyway, judging from the location of this battle, the commander of the ancient Roman forces should be Scipio Africanus.
What made Wei Xiao Bei somewhat puzzled was that the frontline of the troops from Carthage didn’t seem to have a commander.
In any case, this scene in front of Wei Xiao Bei was far beyond the biggest war scene he had ever witnessed.
As a matter of fact, it was impressive enough for the historical war dramas on TV to organize a battle scene of two to three thousand people
However, the soldiers who gathered from both sides had already exceeded 20,000 people.
The battlefield was quiet with only soft footsteps on the ground from the gathering of the ancient Roman and the Carthaginian soldiers.
As time went by, the number of ancient Roman soldiers who emerged from the gates began to decrease.
At this moment, Wei Xiao Bei had estimated that there were more than 28,000 ancient Roman soldiers and more than 6,000 cavalries. While the number of soldiers from the Carthage was more than 30,000 of which the cavalry was much less than the ancient Romans only at about 2,500. However, with the addition of four phalanxes made up of more than a hundred war elephants, the Carthage might not be weaker than the ancient Roman cavalry.
As time passed, although no one spoke, the atmosphere of the battlefield quickly became tense.
It seemed that everyone’s hearts started to race.
This atmosphere made Wei Xiao Bei feel uncomfortable as if there was a mountain pressing on his heart.
There were no more Roman soldiers appearing at the gate of Barcelona at this time.
Time seemed to have paused.
Scipio Africanus, who was standing on the white chariot, lightly knocked on the giant shield in his left hand. With that, the infantry with the golden horns began to blow a different sound from before.
Immediately, the ancient Roman troops began to change formation and regroup.
To be honest, Wei Xiao Bei didn’t know what the horn meant, but he had to change direction with the ancient Roman soldiers around him.
However, Wei Xiao Bei responded quickly. Unfortunately, his unfamiliarity to the change of formation of the ancient Roman made him the worst performer in the phalanx.
The leading flag officer stared at Wei Xiao Bei for more than 20 times from the beginning. Of course, the young soldiers had more or less received most of his stares, but Wei Xiao Bei who was standing at the back received the brunt of it.
If it weren’t for Wei Xiao Bei’s set of reserve forces’ armor, the flag officer would have already placed Wei Xiao Bei at the front line.
After the reformation of more than 50 phalanxes of infantry, three lines were formed, each consisting of more than 10 phalanxes staggered like fish scales.
While for the 15 cavalry phalanx, 5 heavy cavalry phalanx was placed on the left wing, and 10 light cavalry phalanx was placed on the right wing.
Right after the adjustment of the formation, Scipio Africanus on the chariot raised his giant shield while the infantry blew the horn slowly again.
Guided by horn sound, the ancient Roman phalanxes slowly began to move forward.
Noticing the ancient Romans moving forward, Carthaginian phalanxes on the opposite also began to advance forward slowly.
The distance of five kilometers wasn’t too close for ordinary people, but for the battlefield with more than 60,000 people, it wasn’t a great distance.
About an hour later, the two parties stopped when the distance between them was less than 2 kilometers. At this distance, both armies would probably be able to see each other.
It must be said that experienced veterans were different from the new recruits.
Even Wei Xiao Bei could feel that the ancient Roman light infantry phalanx was acting differently, but it was soon calmed under the reproach of the leading officer.
However, the phalanxes that contained reserve forces did not make a single move, as if they did not see the tens of thousands of neatly-arranged rows of magnificent enemy forces close by.
This pause did not signify that the flames of war had extinguished but this was the necessary rest before the war.
The three-kilometer journey might not cause too much fatigue for a strong soldier, but it did consume some energy. If the soldiers weren’t well rested, the disadvantages in the next battle were conceivable.
It was another half-hour break, and Scipio Africanus even let the soldiers sit on the ground.
The same was true for the Carthaginian army on the other side.
The waiting was making Wei Xiao Bei feel a little unsatisfied.
If he knew that the situation would come to this point, he’d rather stay in the city, that way he’d at least be able to gain some evolution points.
Of course, Wei Xiao Bei was still looking forward to such a large-scale battle.
In a war like this, the acquisition of evolution points shouldn’t be too difficult.
After half an hour, the soldiers of both parties slowly stood up under the command of the officer. They stretched their hands and feet on their ground to eliminate any possible numbness.
The Carthaginian army suddenly split into two, and a mounted commander slowly came to the front guarded by hundreds of elite cavalry.
Suddenly, the soldiers of the Carthaginian army became excited and began to cheer, as if to welcome the arrival of a god.
The commander’s physique was no less than Scipio Africanus. Just like Scipio Africanus, he wore a white robe with a set of golden armor, but his face was full of wisdom.
Hannibal?
Wei Xiao Bei could roughly hear the syllables of the name from the cheers of the Carthaginian soldiers.
Did it turn out to be Hannibal?
Wei Xiao Bei could not help but feel a bit excited.
Hannibal, the greatest commander of the Carthaginian Empire, was one of the four great names recognized in the history of the West. In which at the war with the ancient Roman Empire, he was undefeatable and invincible as he turned war into art, an art of massacre.
Under his command, the Carthaginian army sailed through the Mediterranean Sea, corssed over the Alps and captured the southern part of Gaul, casuing half of the Italian peninsula to fall into their hands. His army defeated the ancient Roman Empire multiple times and made ancient Rome afraid of confronting him.
As soon as Hannibal’s flag appeared, the morale of the ancient Roman soldiers would immediately decline.
If it wasn’t Quintus Fabian that put his position and reputation at risk for deploy delaying tactics, the ancient Roman city would have been captured by Hannibal.
Of course, every great commander had a sad history. The same was true for Hannibal. Behind his invincibility in warfare, Hannibal’s prestige triggered the uneasiness of the Carthaginian rulers. They frequently obstructed Hannibal, and eventually, in the battle at Zama, Hannibal hd utterly failed.
In any case, this commander was indeed awesome. His art of war retained a high research value even in modern times.
It could be seen that Hannibal’s prestige among the Carthaginian soldiers was extremely high. With the gentle raise of his right hand, the cheers from the Carthaginian army immediately subsided.
“%#¥!……”
Wei Xiao Bei did not understand a word that Hannibal said.
Although Carthage’s 24 common phonetic letters were the prototypes of Greek, Arami, Arabic, and Brahmi series letters, the Greek letters later extended to Latin, Cyril, Rooney, and other letters while Latin then extended to Spanish, French, and others.
However, these extensions made Wei Xiao Bei unable to understand Hannibal’s Carthaginian language.
Of course, there was a chance that the language spoken by Hannibal was a secret language used in military command as even the senior officers of ancient Rome seemed to be confused.
Since the battle between ancient Rome and Carthage had continued for many years, they would have been able to understand most of each other’s language.
With that being said, Wei Xiao Bei judged that it should be a military secret language. In fact, before the common era, the creation of such military secret language should have been regarded as a fairly advanced military technology.
There was no doubt that the ancient Romans did not understand what the Carthaginian army was about to do.
Soon, the Carthaginian phalanxes were mobilized. Although it was relatively messy as compared to the ancient Roman forces, the arrays of war elephants arranged on both sides made the ancient Romans dare not have the slightest idea to attack.
In less than 20 minutes, the Carthaginian army formed a semi-crescent formation.
In fact, Wei Xiao Bei had gotten numb to the adjustment of formations.
This was the war of the age of melee weapon during BCE.
The two parties arrayed at a relatively flat area, adjusted their formation according to the formation of the other party, etc. In short, the initial gathering to getting close by foot and the time needed to adjust formation for a battle involving tens of thousands of people spent more than two hours
Adding to Wei Xiao Bei’s previous delay at Barcelona, it had been more than three hours.
Wei Xiao Bei could only stay for about seven and a half hours in the Dust World.
In other words, he had spent nearly half of the time since he entered the Dust World.
While the Carthaginian army was perfecting their formation, the ancient Romans had started another break with the vast majority of soldiers seated down on the spot. Even the cavalry dismounted to feed their beloved horses.
Looking at the state of the battlefield, Wei Xiao Bei simply focused on his status panel. The war was approaching. It was time to improve his strength. In a large-scale war like this, even Wei Xiao Bei wasn’t sure whether he could endure till the end.
This wasn’t like fighting some brainless monsters!