"Huha!" The gladiator and rebels roared and rushed towards the neatly arranged Roman phalanx with a short sword.

As Xu Mo and his others looked down, the entire battlefield was divided into two parts. Xu Mo's rebel army rushed towards the Romans like waves. The Roman army stopped, and the entire square formation began to spread to the two wings, and the square formation of three hundred people gradually pulled into three horizontal rows.

The first one is lined up with two rows, the first row is a large standing shield formation with about 100 people. These Roman soldiers inserted the standing shield hard on the grass, and the triangular cone below the standing shield immediately penetrated deeply into the soil. The soldiers tilted the standing shield slightly and held it with their shoulders. A steel wall composed of tower shields immediately appeared in front of the gladiator and rebel army.

The second row of soldiers in the first row were about 80 people, holding two light javelins, which were nine feet long, and four to five feet in the front were metal poles with an iron spear head attached to the metal pole. The metal pole was covered with a wooden pole tail and a rope was added to it.

In this case, the javelin will be heavy in front and light in the back. After being thrown by the soldiers, pull the rope. The javelin will rotate and advance in the air, draw a graceful arc, and then hit the enemy at an angle of 30-45 degrees. These spiral rotating javelins will break the enemy's shields like drills, pierce the enemy's armor, and pierce deeply into the human body, causing serious penetration injuries to the enemy.

The second row was about a hundred people, divided into three rows. These soldiers were arm-to-hand combat soldiers with Roman double-edged swords and oval shields. Behind them was the third row, with a reserve team of about thirty people, and five Roman officers riding horses stayed with the reserve team.

The mercenary legion of Patacas was on the right side of the battlefield, forming a diagonal with Xu Mo and others. Patacas did not throw these people into the battle as soon as possible. Each of these people had to pay for them. Patacas brought them here, mainly to capture the escaped slaves at the end of the battle.

Fifty steps, forty steps, thirty steps... As the gladiators rushed to the shield walls that the Romans had shipped out, the Roman officers behind began to issue attack orders. The first row of javelin soldiers immediately began to assist, and stood on tiptoe to throw the javelin high. After throwing it out, they suddenly pulled the rope behind the javelin.

"Puff!" A gladiator was shouting and running, suddenly found a black dot in front of him. A javelin hit his face directly. The rotating javelin penetrated through his mouth and the back of his head was revealed. Most of the long metal poles slid out of his neck, and then inserted it into the grass behind him, nailing him to the ground like char siu.

"Ah!" A gladiator not far away was even more unlucky than his companion. A javelin penetrated his thigh. Although this injury would not be fatal immediately, from the blood gushing out of the unlucky guy's thigh, he should have been stabbed by the sharp spearhead to break the artery on his leg. On the battlefield where he was fighting, this injury means death.

Fortunately, the Gladiator Rebel Army was not a regular army. Although they did not have a combat formation, the scattered stormtroopers also greatly reduced the power of the javelins thrown by the Romans. Only more than twenty gladiators died in this round of javelins thrown.

In fact, although Lucius was threatened by Badac, because of Neos, and had to send Roman troops to help Badac arrest the rebellious gladiators, Lucius took advantage of Badac's lack of military knowledge and left fatal flaws in the Roman troops sent.

In 197 of the Spartan calendar, Roman consul Marius (Malo) implemented military reforms in response to the shortcomings of the Roman army at that time, such as the lack of military resources, the provisions of military service property, the supply of military supplies, weapons and equipment were provided by the state, and military training was strengthened. This series of reforms gradually transformed the Roman army from a national army that implemented compulsory military service into a professional army.

However, although the regulations on military service property qualifications were abolished and the standardization of military equipment was achieved, the formation of the Roman legion did not change. A Roman army was generally composed of three parts of soldiers, young soldiers, middle-aged soldiers and reserve soldiers.

Young soldiers are relatively young and lack training and combat experience. They are under 24 years old. Generally, they account for 30% of the total number of legions. The middle-aged soldiers are generally between 25-35 years old and are the core main force of the Roman legion, generally accounting for 50% of the total number of legions, as well as 15% of the reserve troops, 5% of the cavalry and other arms.

In fact, the most elite of the Roman army was not the prime soldiers, but the reserve soldiers that accounted for only 15% of the number. These reserve soldiers were all composed of veterans over 35 years old and under 45 years old. These veterans had extremely rich military experience and strong fighting will. They generally took the battle in the posture of traditional Greek heavy infantry, equipped with plate armor, spears and square shields.

The reserve troops are the reserve troops of the legion. Generally, when they are not needed for battle, they kneel on one knee to rest. These veterans can only be used when the battle is stalemate and the legion retreats. Therefore, the ancient Roman proverb: "Do to reserve troops!" means that it is an emergency.

Pompeii could not maintain a large number of troops in peacetime. Even Lucius, the governor of Pompeii, could not form a Roman legion other than the standing army without the permission of the Senate, otherwise it would be a rebellion. Although Pompeii only had 2,000 standing army, most of these soldiers were reserve soldiers, and only a few of them were young soldiers who were rotated and trained.

When the Badacci Manor incident was not considered a slave uprising for the time being, even if Lucius helped Bardacci defeat the rebels, he would not receive the commendation from the Senate, and he could not be regarded as his own political achievements. So at this time, Lucius hoped that the rebels could defeat the reduced army he sent. In this way, "slave defection" would be truly recognized by other nobles as "slave rebellion".

Although Lucius was threatened by Bardac for the leak of Neos and was worried that his reputation would be damaged, he was forced to send three hundred teams to help Bardac suppress the rebellion, but he was careful. All the three hundred teams he sent were young soldiers, and even their officers were young Roman nobles who had not experienced actual combat.

Badac, who did not understand military affairs, saw Lucius sending three 100-man teams armed to the teeth to help him, of course he had nothing to say. However, Badac, who was cautious, used some of the assets of the Badac family in Pompeii and hired 200 mercenaries to join the uprising and suppression.

After passing a wave of javelins, the gladiators of the rebel army rushed to the front of the shield wall. Facing the thick shield wall, the gladiators with rich fighting experience felt like they were a mouse pulling a turtle and had nowhere to start. Their previous gladiators would not be equipped with such large tower shields, and they could not surround the back.

The gladiator's hesitation did not cause any trouble to the Romans. Between the gap between the tower shield and the tower shield, the Romans began to greet the gladiators with spears and double-edged swords.

The double-edged battle swords and spears equipped by the Romans were originally longer than the gladiator's short swords equipped by the gladiator. With the cover of the tower shield, the gladiators screamed and fell under the Romans' butcher's knife.

With the proper combat orders of the Roman officers in the rear, the soldiers on the two wings of the Roman battle formation began to pull out the tower shield inserted on the ground and penetrate the back of the rebel army. They wanted to surround the rebel army, treat all the gladiators as dumpling fillings, and use the tower shield to wrap them in the center like making dumplings.

The number of gladiators and rebels was even greater than that of the Romans. They were on the verge of failure without even breaking through the first shield wall line of the Roman battle formation...

" target="_blank">http://">
Chapter completed!