Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 365 Victory
It is obvious that Aurelian has strong military ability, otherwise he would not be nicknamed Jupiter's substitute, Thor's human body, etc. In terms of military literacy and ability to seize opportunities, he is better than those under Orville.

If leading troops to fight under the same conditions, Orville may not necessarily gain the upper hand, on the contrary, he is likely to suffer a loss. However, it can only be said that there is always a strong advantage over the weak. The opponent's suspicion of cheating is one thing, but Orville's side is really cheating.

After thinking for a while, Orville finally decided to follow the other party's advice and ambush on that road in advance.

Of course, he also left himself a way out. A large amount of supplies from Brindisi were still on the ship and had not been unloaded. The army had already planned the retreat route. If Jeanne was wrong this time, he would quickly order the follow-up troops to withdraw from Brindisi and make other plans near the Strait of Messina.
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Two days later, by the Lake Consa, the army finally saw everything that Jeanne had predicted. Aurelian did choose to go around to Brindisi at this time, and before that he had not been discovered by the sentries stationed by Orville.

At this time, he was marching fast and urgently. It would take too long to disperse the scout team, and it would be easy for them to be discovered by the troops sent by the emperor, so he took the risk and chose to march directly.

This is what is called a man of great skill and courage, daring to take military adventures in all senses. If Orville had not had Jeanne's help, he would have most likely succeeded this time.

But it’s still the same situation as before. Orville has someone with perspective, so we can only say that fate is not on the opponent this time, and it’s not unfair that they lost this game.

It was impossible for the troops to deploy on the mountain roads. In order to ensure the army's marching speed, Aurelian asked most people to unload their weapons and equipment and put the supporting equipment on the vehicles.

He had not planned to encounter the enemy, because according to common sense, the other party would focus on the main road, but he did not expect to be ambushed at this moment.

The soldiers who had been prepared rushed out from the woods on the south side of the trail, catching Aurelian's soldiers off guard. The result was completely disastrous. Even the most talented general would be helpless in this situation.

As expected, Aurelian's soldiers were defeated one after another, and the enemy soldiers pursued them relentlessly.

After all, he was a decisive officer. Faced with this situation, Aurelian simply chose to abandon his chariot to save his king, giving up a considerable number of soldiers and leaving with the remaining large army.

Of course, Orwell would not let the enemy go so easily. He sent light cavalry and skirmishers to follow the enemy and hold on tightly. However, some of the enemy's confidants took the initiative to stay behind and delayed Orwell's army for a while, but in the end, the enemy still escaped. However, the good news is that the enemy broke through in several directions, and the army was very scattered. It would take time to regroup.

Orville did not intend to give the other side a chance to regroup. He continued to pursue the other side, risking the disconnection of the front and rear troops, and would not give up until he caught up with the other side.
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This was their homeland, and eventually many people managed to escape and hide among the crowd without being discovered. They brought the news of the war back to Rome.

The distance was so close that a few days later the senators also learned that Aurelian had been ambushed during the march. Such an unexpected change made them panic.

They made mistakes in the chaos, and chose the most conservative approach - mobilizing the remaining troops in their hands to try to continue to defend the city of Rome first, rather than risk leaving the city to go 100 or 200 kilometers away to meet Aurelian's army. This left Aurelian isolated and helpless, and he could only run around in the face of the Orwellian army that was biting him from behind.

Finally, after a few days, Orville got a result, but it was not the result he wanted.

Frowning at the head in the box, Orville looked gloomily at the soldiers tied up opposite him and asked, "Did you do this?"

The other party nodded timidly, indicating that it was indeed their idea.

To be fair, Orville had no grudge against the other party, and he even wanted to try to recruit him after the civil war. After all, he was an extremely outstanding military talent, but it seemed that the world line correction force was indeed a weird thing.

Aurelian was killed in the camp by some wavering soldiers in the army. Most of his trusted soldiers were either killed or captured because they tried to stop the pursuers. There were not many people on his side, and he also relaxed his vigilance, which led to this result.

If Orville were fighting a foreign race now, and the foreign soldiers did this, he might reward them a little, after all, he wanted to cultivate the empire's power in foreign lands. But now this is a fratricide, and Orville's reason for dealing with them is far greater than his motivation to reward them.

With a slight sigh, Orville waved his hand to the adjutant and said, "Conspiracy to murder the commander is absolutely a capital crime for a soldier. Take him away and beat him to death."

Agricola hurriedly arrested these people and executed them, ignoring their cries for pleas.

"What a pity. I haven't had a good talk with the other party yet." Muttering this, Orville wrote a letter to Tia in the rear to convey military intelligence. Thanks to the efficient operation of the messengers, he soon received a reply - march into Rome immediately and use force against the local garrison if necessary.
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It is not very different from the dynasties in the Central Plains. The Central Plains dynasties have a powerful imperial guard that is loyal to the emperor himself most of the time. With so many people and strong combat effectiveness, they can easily face any border defense force alone. However, the Romans do not have such an army at this stage.

The Guards were nominally loyal to the emperor, but in reality the senators also had influence on them, and there were only 10,000 of them. Compared with the three major border legions, which had 50,000 to 60,000 or even more soldiers (including auxiliary troops), they were really not enough.

So rather than saying that this is a powerful military force to intimidate local areas, it is better to say that this is a military force used to maintain stability in the central government. In any case, the sacred law has already stipulated that troops from other provinces may not enter the mainland with weapons without permission.

Such a military force was now split into two forces due to different positions - most of those loyal to the emperor chose to remain silent or simply fled to Sicily to continue fighting, while those loyal to the senators suffered heavy losses in Aurelian's military defeat. Now the senators' regular military forces were already very weak, and most of them were temporarily mobilized troops. These people were either old soldiers who could hardly hold weapons, or new recruits who could not wield weapons. How could these people fight against the regular legionnaires who were in their prime and trained day and night? In fact, the senators had long been pessimistic.

(End of this chapter)