Chapter 288 - Eve of War

Chapter 288 – Eve of War
Seeing that the Roman army was increasing in numbers, even Wei Xiao Bei did not dare continue his chase.
In this kind of street, it would be hard for the Roman forces to surround Wei Xiao Bei even if they wanted to. However, it was hard to say that stronger Roman forces would not come after he killed enough of them.
No matter what was said, Wei Xiao Bei had already gained 4100 evolution points from this battle. It could already be considered to be very abundant.
Wei Xiao Bei was satisfied. The danger level of the Dust World here was quite low.
With just a bit of caution, it was easy to gain a lot of evolution points.
Naturally, it meant that one must not be too greedy.
Wei Xiao Bei was much more curious as to why the Roman soldiers were moving and congregating towards the sound of the horn. He climbed up a building at the side and looked at the Romans from afar.
Wei Xiao Bei saw that the Roman forces were gradually moving outside the city.
As the Roman forces advanced, the buildings were gradually becoming Carthaginian styled. There were tall stone pillars that could be found supporting structures with large stone doors everywhere. Wei Xiao Bei had immediately became interested as he inspected the majestic buildings.
While following the Roman army, Wei Xiao Bei did not have an easy time. There were many buildings that had large distances in between them. As a result, Wei Xiao Bei had to go back down to the ground.
However, there was a situation when the Roman soldiers appeared behind him, forcing him to eliminate them. After eliminating two groups, Wei Xiao Bei could not help but pretend to be a Roman soldier.
After all, the farther he walked out of the city, the more Roman soldiers there were, and he did not want to expose himself yet.
After donning on armor and a helmet, Wei Xiao Bei looked at the troops and took the chance to enter the fray between a group of Romans and Carthaginians.
The Carthaginians soldiers could be considered to have met their misfortune. They had been surrounded at the heart of the street by the Roman soldiers.
Compared to the Carthaginians that were crowded together in a defensive position, the Romans’ attacking formation was a bit more spacious. Between two soldiers, there was at least a 1.5 meter distance. Whenever one row of soldiers brandished their weapons to attack, the second row would also advance and once again attack the enemy as the first row retreated.
In this cyclic attack, every soldier would be able to save up more stamina. Moreover, they were slowly wearing down against the Carthaginian soldiers, killing them one by one.
In the end, the Roman soldiers were able to easily kill all the Carthaginian soldiers for a small price.
From start to finish, Wei Xiao Bei did not display any skill that exceeded a normal soldier.
After the battle ended, it was inevitable that the Roman soldiers would take the spoils of war, and then, they congregated again into rows as they advanced.
Wei Xiao Bei stood at the furthest position from the front. On his left were adult soldiers while on his right were young soldiers.
In truth, this kind of arrangement had a very powerful effect.
In the era of ancient Rome, citizens were divided based on their wealth. This had also become the army’s standard.
The people start performing military service at the age of 17. From there, they would serve for four years. After the four years, they would be called young soldiers, then adult soldiers. On the other hand, those that had accumulated wealth and experience for eight years were veterans called the reserve forces.
From their names, it was easy to tell how strong they were.
At the beginning, the citizens did not have much money, so they did not need to serve the army. However, as the Roman Empire expanded, the need for soldiers increased. In the end, the citizens were recruited to serve the army, but because they only had inferior equipment, they could only be light infantry.
Naturally, they would not stay as light infantry their whole lives. As long as they could gain enough spoils of war, then their wealth would accumulate. After that, they could slowly become reserve forces the more they survived.
As the entire army advanced, nobody spoke a single word. Even their pace was very orderly. From this, it could be seen that the army was trained properly.
This was surprising because troops in the BCE did not have much organizational training. Many of them needed to train by themselves. Thus, being organized like this could be considered to be well trained.
This march was very dull. After advancing for five kilometers, they reached the huge city gates. Wei Xiao Bei could not help but let out a light sigh.
Outside the city was a large and vast plain. A few kilometer away from the gate were orderly rows of Roman soldiers.
Behind Wei Xiao Bei, Roman soldiers were coming out from the 10-20 meters tall wide gates, congregating towards the plains.
Wei Xiao Bei was simply unremarkable among these Romans. He was like a drop of water in the sea.
Before the soldiers approached, a Roman cavalryman holding onto a flag rushed over and shouted,
You people come with me.


Sir, yes sir!

The leader did not hesitate at all as he brought the group behind the cavalryman, moving towards an almost complete square formation.
Wei Xiao Bei was mixed into this troop, so he could not act recklessly. However, he was evaluating things through the small opening of his helmet.
Activate precise calculation!
In an instant, Wei Xiao Bei had obtained information.
In this place, every single troop contained more than 400 people.
And there were 32 troops and increasing.
In other words, the amount of soldiers at that place had exceeded 12,000 people.
From Wei XIao Bei’s recollection, the ancient Roman army comprised of hundred men troops. Every two troops was a mid-sized troop while three mid-sized troop was a big troop.
Moreover, a legion contained 1200 light soldiers, 1200 pike soldiers (young soldiers), 1200 main force soldiers (adult soldiers), 600 reserved forces, and 300 cavalrymen, giving  total of 4500 people.
Apart from this, every troop needed to have an assisting force.
Wei Xiao Bei’s gaze landed on a formation afar.
This troop had a different soldier composition compared to others. This troop was comprised of chariots, and each one was pulled by four horses. On the sides of the chariots were half meter long pikes, and there stood three soldier for every chariot. One soldier was in charge of steering while the other two were holding onto pikes or javelins.
Additionally, there were also eight cavalry formations. Every formation had at least 200 cavalrymen, but it was still increasing.
Just like that, two standing armies were congregated in the plains.
However, there were still soldiers coming out of the gate behind him. He could imagine that the number of troops would fill up more than two armies.
In the very front of every formation, there was a white chariot that stood a three meter tall man. He was wearing white Greek-style gowns under a bronze armor. He held onto a golden big shield in his left hand and a big mace in his right hand.
Behind him stood a soldier holding onto a big golden war horn.
Without a doubt, this three meter tall men should be the commanders of the troops.
Is that Scipio Africanus? Or is that Quintus Fabius?
This information immediately floated up from Wei Xiao Bei’s memory. Seeing this scene, it should be the second of the three Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. In the second battle, these two people were the well-known commanders leading the war.
Quintus fabius was a consul of ancient Rome. At the same time, he was the general known for his delaying tactics against his fight against Hannibal. Due to this, he had saved Rome and was given the nickname ‘cunctator’.
Scipio Africanus, on the other hand, was the one who conquered Africa. In the Zama military campaign, he had thoroughly defeated Hannibal. This battle was also Hannibal’s final battle
Thinking about this, Wei Xiao Bei’s gaze moved towards the other side.
Five kilometers in front of the Roman square formations, there were troops beginning to gather there.
Because the distance was quite far, it had exceeded Wei Xiao Bei’s strong line of sight. He could only see the fuzzy human figures.
The only thing that he could see clearly were a troop of more than 30 elephants.
Wei Xiao Bei was surprised as it was the first time he saw elephants that were more than 10 meters tall!
They were wearing thick armor and the armor tail reached their knees. They wore half open helmets on their head, and their backs had a small garret. Inside were five Carthaginian soldiers sitting inside. One was the driver while the rest were wielding javelins. Even the nose of the elephant had a sharp spearhead.
It was easy to imagine how terrifying the scene of elephants charging towards you at the start of the battle was.
Luckily, there were not that many of them. From left to right, there were four of them.
Other than these war elephants, the rest of the Carthaginian forces were not less than the Roman forces.
Compared to the Romans, the Carthaginian cavalry formation seemed to be lesser. Additionally, it seemed that some of the formations were stone throwers.
Wei Xiao Bei had a bit of understanding to this.
Because Carthage flourished through business, they also hired mercenaries in war. On the other hand, these stone throwers should have come from Palma.
Stone throwers were not as worthless as depicted in novels. It was said that within 30 meters, these stone throwers were 100% accurate with their throws. When the stones picked up speed and hit the enemies’ bodies, it was able to fracture bones even with armor on.