Chapter 427 Pompey's Victory

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

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

Bibulus was very angry and burned all the captured sailors and ships with fire, and warned his men not to make the same negligence again.

In this way, Pompey's fleet was strictly guarded, resulting in Caesar's transport fleet being unable to transport troops across the sea.

Caesar, who had already landed, was cut off from reinforcements and supply lines in a short period of time. 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 troops that had landed, took a short rest, and launched an attack on the neighboring towns the next day, conquering most of Epirus in a short time.

Then, Caesar prepared to seize Dyrrachium, an important coastal trade port, which was a major supply station for Pompey's army.

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

Since Pompey's army had nine legions, more than twice the strength of Caesar, 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 impressed him deeply and made him feel that his army needed further training.

The two sides fell into a stalemate, and tried to disintegrate each other more through 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.

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

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

During this period, Bibulus, who was bent on revenge, became ill from overwork and died soon. 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 made it impossible for Caesar's transport fleet to transport the follow-up troops to the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. As time passed, Caesar himself felt desperate.

He began to doubt the faith and loyalty of his subordinates who stayed in Italy, and believed that only his personal presence could promote the action of the reinforcements, so he disguised himself and took a small merchant ship to Brindisi, but encountered a strong wind at sea and was forced to return.

When the soldiers learned about this, they were a little angry, thinking 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, which shows the high morale of Caesar's soldiers and the close connection between them and the commander.

The stalemate between the two sides lasted until April, when Mark Antony led four legions and hundreds of cavalry to sail from Brindisi and successfully landed on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea. If Bibulus were still alive, this might not have happened, and the Pompey fleet, lacking a commander, was slack after all.

Now Caesar had nearly 50,000 infantry and thousands of cavalry. Although he was still less than the enemy in number, he did not hesitate to take the initiative to ask Pompey for a fight.

Pompey knew that the quality of his troops was inferior to that of the enemy, so he refused to confront the enemy head-on. He held his ground on land and sealed off the sea. He believed that as long as the food supply of Caesar's army was cut off, Caesar's huge army would be dragged down.

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

Although his troops arrived at Dyrrachium first this time, Pompey's army arrived later and he failed to capture the city.

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

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

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

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 around Pompey's camp.

In the process of building the wall, the two sides also had some small battles, and Caesar's army often had the upper hand. After all, his soldiers were more experienced and more brave and tenacious.

However, as time went on, the problem of lack of food in Caesar's army became more and more obvious. 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 not always 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 had no shortage of food because they could continue to get supplies from the sea, but because they were besieged on the coast, they lacked fresh water, which led to the death of a large number of livestock and the outbreak of injuries in the camp.

Both armies suffered a lot, but the commanders of both sides refused to give in, so this large-scale siege continued.

But soon Pompey encountered another trouble. Because of the siege, it was difficult for him to get enough fresh grass to feed many horses. This made him realize that if he continued like this, the situation of his army would be worse than that of the enemy, so he decided not to passively defend.

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

Pompey therefore learned about the deployment and defense of Caesar's army on the defense line. Because Caesar's army's long wall was getting longer and longer, the troops were getting thinner and thinner, and some troops were sent out to increase grain, so the troops deployed on some defense lines were seriously insufficient.

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

The unprepared Caesar's army was quickly defeated. Pompey's army successfully occupied the section of the long wall closest to the sea and began to build a new camp there, so as to ensure that his troops could freely enter and exit Caesar's encirclement to obtain the necessary supplies.

Caesar certainly did not allow this to happen. He immediately summoned his troops and launched a counterattack.

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

However, because Caesar's successor troops were not familiar with the offensive area, they went in the wrong direction and failed to launch an attack in time to attack the defending enemy.

The reinforcements mobilized by Pompey arrived quickly and launched a counterattack with the 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 retreated first, 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 it, it was useless.

Caesar suffered heavy losses in this attack, 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 summoned the army and criticized their poor performance yesterday, while praising 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 was high 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 too obvious a maritime advantage, and continuing to fight with it on the coast was too disadvantageous for his side.

So, he led the army to evacuate the coast at night.

It was not until the afternoon of the next day that Pompey discovered that the enemy had run away, but not back to Italy, but eastward into the heart of Greece.

At this time, he was a little hesitant.

The victory of the battle of 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 decisive action should be taken to pursue Caesar's army to end the war.

Pompey was cautious and still in awe of the fighting power of Caesar's army. 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 couldn't 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 the enemy, but not to fight with it head-on, but to cut off the enemy's supplies until it was dragged 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 Oenomabaitis, the commercial officer of the Kingdom of Nix. He wanted to report the news that both Roman armies had left the coast of Epirus to the kingdom as soon as possible, because that was what King Maximus had specifically instructed.

At the eastern end of the Roman province of Northern Italy and on the east side of the road connecting the province of Illyria, there were continuous mountains. The mountains were covered with lush forests and branches, providing a good cover for the Jabod army of more than 400 people.