With his opponent right in front of him, Hannibal could only concentrate on dealing with military issues first.
Actually...
After Hannibal reorganized Rome's domestic situation and rebuilt the empire, his first foreign strategic goal was not Eastern Europe.
Although I have stayed in that place for many years, and that place has a high priority in my mind.
But as a ruler, Hannibal also knew that he had to be reasonable.
To be fair, the highest task at the moment is actually the province of Africa.
This province, across the sea from Europe, is located very far south and can even be said to be the southernmost part of the Roman Empire - the great former emperor Severus was born there.
But what really interested Hannibal was the region further south in the province of Africa!
The province of Africa is located on a different continent, so obviously...a continent cannot be just Africa, it is just a place further away, and the Romans in the past failed to capture more land.
But now, I have the full opportunity and conditions to see what the scenery is like further south in the African province in the southern border of the empire.
But this reasonable idea changed because of the existence of one person.
That's right...it's the Tatar, "Wang Xuanchen".
Hannibal once asked the other party what this name meant in the language there, and after the other party explained it, Hannibal immediately guessed it.
This guy must be a noble!
And he is not a minor nobleman.
Damn, your surname is "Wang", why aren't you surnamed God?
But since he has such a surname, he can guess that his ancestor must have been a lord or something, and he was definitely not a small lord, but a rather big one.
But the other party ended up living with him, so very early on when Hannibal first met Mr. Xuanchen, he guessed that he was probably the result of an internal struggle within the country and finally failed and fled here.
As soon as Hannibal communicated with Mr. Xuanchen, hey!
Guess what, it’s really like this...
To this day, Hannibal can't help but silently praise his wit.
But these are not important. What is important is that this important new friend of mine has brought him a lot of strange technologies, like magic...
Let his originally small and weak territory quickly become rich and powerful.
But this naturally made Hannibal extremely curious about where the other party came from...
This question, of course, refers to the "Tang Empire".
In other words, meeting the troops led by Cheng Yaojin was not Hannibal's first introduction to China. He had already known about the Tang Dynasty very early on.
It was just that due to the distance at that time, there was too little information, and it was not easy to communicate with this Tatar friend, and he had to be busy with the management of the territory first.
However... it was precisely because of Hannibal's Tatar friend that he did not directly send troops to Africa, but understood... that he must first defend against a more powerful opponent.
This Tang State was no ordinary empire.
According to this Tatar friend's description, there are demons in that country...
The term "demon" comes from the group of barbarian natives in the north who believe in some kind of "Christianity", but recently it has become quite popular throughout Rome.
According to the description of the Tatar King, Hannibal also naturally thought of the concept of devil.
Although it is none of his business that there are demons in the Tang State, but according to Tatar friends, on the one hand, there are demons in the Tang State, and on the other hand...
It's disgusting, but this foreign country is not weak at all.
What to do in this situation? It must be dealt with first!
The biggest difference between Hannibal and the zombie nobles now entrenched in the corpse of Rome is that he never avoids the most serious questions.
Since there is a strong enemy on your side, deal with this strong enemy first!
And this suggestion received a crazy response from a Tatar friend, who even said that he would worship him as his "adopted father"...
After Hannibal learned about it, he learned that this was a relationship similar to that of a stepfather. Although he didn't understand why the Tatar wanted to be his stepfather, since he asked for it, of course he happily allowed it.
After the Tatars performed a sacrifice to the god called "Heaven", he became this person's "adopted father".
Of course, to Hannibal, this is all trivial, or not a big deal.
What matters is that the Tang Dynasty is very dangerous and powerful, and I... may have to fight against the legendary demon.
but……
This time...
The real confrontation between the two armies lasted for a whole month, and neither side made any move!
This made Hannibal nervous and confused.
Since the Tang Kingdom is ruled by demons, shouldn't the army immediately sweep away thousands of troops when they come out...
Of course, according to the intelligence from the investigation, the opponent's army is still very strong, and every soldier looks like a well-trained elite.
However, it is said that the other party came over extremely difficult mountainous terrain, and yet after such a difficult march, they did nothing...
It’s a bit hard to understand what the other party’s intentions are!
Of course, Hannibal is no fool.
Anyway, I can keep an eye on the location of your tens of thousands of troops at any time.
Since you don't make any moves or show me the way, I'll just stay still and continue investigating... It's over.
Of course, the idea of sending envoys to the other party was also considered, but Hannibal gave up.
Sending an envoy sounds like a normal act, but think about it... it's an army of tens of thousands.
No matter what kind of demon is ruling the Tang Dynasty, and how strong the national power is.
In short, although this country is strange, the cost of sending a large army of tens of thousands of people must be very high, and considering that the army has traveled a very long distance, the cost is even less likely to be low.
It's quite confusing to spend so much money and then do nothing, but since it's not you who spends the money, why should you worry...it's the other person who should be worried.
Although my own legion has traveled a long way, but... this place is close enough to the core area of the Mediterranean! And there are no mountains to block it, it's all flat and flat.
The distance is short and easy to travel, which means that you don't have to send equal or even more troops than the opponent, and you can hang up in Eastern Europe with almost no scruples, because although supplying is not easy, compared to the opponent... it is still easy.
too much!
It only takes half a month to transport military rations from the Mediterranean to the front line, and according to what Wang said, the fastest war horse would have to travel the same length of time from the grain-producing areas of the Tang State to the current location of the Tang Army - and transportation
The food convoy, that speed...
Not two months? The transportation cost is exciting just thinking about it...