Rise of Rurik

For the kingdom of Wessex, the Vikings entrenched the lands of Northumbria and established their "barbarian state", a new force that the kingdom must be on guard against.

They were neither deaf nor blind. Even in 840 AD, they learned of the turmoil in the Frankish world, and they also learned more detailed information from the ships of the Principality of Flanders.

In this year, Ethelwoolf, who inherited his father's power, was trying to consolidate his power.

Continental is a world out of Britain's reach, but little Britain is particularly disturbed.

No one can be selectively blinded by the great migration of the Vikings, the Norwegians who are rowing longboats across the sea into the so-called kingdom of Viking York.

Since they have never bordered, what does this have to do with the Wessex people about the catastrophe of the Northumbrian kingdom and the dilemma of the current serious shrinkage of the country?

The newly-promoted King Ethelwolf is very aware of the root cause of the chaos in the state affairs of the neighboring country Mercia, who has a long-standing grievance-King Wigraf was beheaded by the Vikings, the kingdom fell, and the royal family was destroyed.

The nobles of Mercia launched a civil war for the kingship, and of course Sykes had to make peace with this kind of good thing. After all, the throne of the slain Wigraf was abolished, and the whole of Mercia was once the territory of Wessex.

Ethelwoolf couldn't forget the glory of his father Egbert, and a huge sense of mission acted on him, and the annexation of Mercia had to be done.

but! This is not the old era when the Wessex royal family negotiated with the local nobles of Mercia, and he could seize the neighboring kingship by Ethelwolf.

As long as this is done, the Vikings must be closely guarded.

However, if the restoration of his father's glory and the expansion of Wessex's territory requires a direct war with the Vikings, that's all! There is even more righteousness here. The so-called expelling foreign pirates who believe in heresy is the mission of the pious king.

Charlemagne's great expansion brought Frank's brilliance, and was crowned by the Pope as "Emperor of the Roman people". At this point, the great Frankish nobles could call themselves "I am a Roman" in a high-profile manner.

This feat stirred the hearts of ambitious nobles. Although it was impossible to become another Rome, the unification of Britain became the long-cherished wish of the Wessex nobles.

Expansion, confronting the Vikings, all this requires more taxes, more troops.

The newly promoted Ethel Woolf ordered the county lords across the country to strengthen their troops.

To investigate more farmers, organize more militias. Recruits must guard against sneak attacks by pirates, and when the king recruits nobles, the nobles can come up with more soldiers.

In principle, the king's order has been spread to various counties, and the attitudes of the vassal officials are very different.

Wessex and Vikings had a large-scale battle?

On the peninsula at the southwestern tip of the Great British Isle, the Celtic Kingdom of Cornwall invited Viking mercenaries, and their allied forces entered Cowessex. The former King Egbert completed the last battle of his life and successfully Organized the destruction of the enemy. This battle, Wessex paid a small price. They had seen the strength of the Vikings, and they knew that the strength of the Cornish alone could not stand against Wessex.

But Wessex will not destroy Cornwall, because there is intelligence that the Vikings have established a large stronghold in Ireland on the other side. Their guys are not the same as the Vikings who occupied the homeland of Northumbria. The former is a large group of pirates, and the latter seems to be slowly transforming into a normal country. Don't have any illusions about the so-called Viking York Kingdom, unless all the savage pirates are converted.

The decision of the county lord of Lydfordshire was even harsher than the king's order, and the local people also supported the strengthening of the military. All village men, even a ten-year-old boy, must be armed. Because this was the main battlefield at that time, the locals talked about the Vikings with fear and anger, and anger had turned into courage.

For these armed peasants, the war is nothing more than organizing people with wooden shields and forming a large human wall to fight against the enemy with a roar.

The county owner does not have any military literacy, and his understanding of war is still at the stage of fighting in groups. That being the case, whichever party has a large number of people with strong morale can gain the initiative, and it is easy to win. At least the last time, with this trick, after the arrival of reinforcements from the king's own expedition, he really defeated the Viking army. Since it has been proven to be useful, the county owner feels that there is no need to make improvements, and he does not realize how to improve.

Lydfordshire's immediate proximity to the Kingdom of Cornwall, a direction that had been the focus of Wessex's defense against the Vikings after the war, was the most logical for the county's defense.

But if the defensive attitude is counted, the more eastward the kingdom's territory extends, the more negative the attitude of the local county master.

Or because Wessex is constantly annexing small countries to achieve the territory that now has the entire south of the Thames. Sussex, Essex, and Kent were all annexed by her. Afterwards, the royal family was abolished, and the nobles of various places basically followed their inherent power. An increasingly mature feudal system has kept the lives of the nobles of the annexed small kingdoms upside down. They have changed their course to the royal family of Wessex, and through complex marriages have become you have me and I have you.

However, these nobles did not originate from the same tribal family as Wessex, especially the Kents, who invaded Britain as early as 450 AD.

The Lord of Kent displayed a negative attitude.

"The conscription, the increase in taxes, made me send troops north to help him grab the land of the Mercians. In the end, I spent the money and killed people. What can I get? An uncontrollable enclave?"

Because the deceased Egbert first had the right to inherit the kingdom of Kent, and then the inheritance to Wessex. The two kingdoms were peacefully merged by his inheritance of the law, and the era of kings in Kent was abolished. She became a county. uncle.

The uncle felt that the nephew was not mature enough to restore the Wessex dominance. More importantly, he is also getting older, and he wants to gain more power for his sons.

Although there is no need for Kent to return to the country, it is not necessary to fight for Wessex.

The training of farmers was indeed done, with only a limited number of new pawns added and major cities such as Rochester, Canterbury and Dover being strengthened. Especially Dover, where there is a high probability of being attacked by Vikings.

As for other areas, since there are only scattered villages, they can only ask each village to organize men to defend their homes.

Strong men in Kent hit the core city of Canterbury, and the county chief placed the strongest army in front of him. He complained, and if his nephew decided to go north, he would be able to move quickly with the army.

Even the defense of an objectively scattered village is better than nothing. This is actually an economic account. If defenses are everywhere, the population of Kent and the taxes that can be obtained will not be able to maintain this defense expenditure. The county master can only focus on defense in the core area, praying that the Vikings will not come and cause trouble.

The new information from the European continent explained by the wandering Flanders pointed out a major change, and the news was so bizarre that the county owner did not want to believe it.

The Saxon relatives in the Continent rebelled against Frank. Frank lost a lot of troops. The Vikings fought with Frank. Antwerp in Flanders was set on fire by the Vikings...

The English Channel is like a moat. Even if the Vikings can cross freely, for the people of Kent County, including the county owner, the Channel still gives them a lot of confidence. At least, their side guarding the strait can wait for work, and if there is trouble, Canterbury can send troops to destroy the invading Vikings.

However, here comes Ragnar.

A hundred longships mixed with a Russ-style armed cargo ship, this is the Danish army of Ragnar!

It is enormous and sustains Ragnar's prowess.

In fact, this army is a mixed bag. The main force is the group of Danish ruthless people who live in Zealand, and there are also Gothalans, Viking Saxons who want to take advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune, and even Obers who have mixed into Danish society. Slavic slaves of Tridit.

Such a good thing of robbery and making a fortune is hard to come by! As a result, some Swedes who went straight to the free South Baltic fishing grounds after the beginning of spring did not hesitate to join the pirate army in Ragnar when they heard the good news.

It seems that this army lacks organization.

In fact, its core is the more than 400 supporters organized by Ragnar during the war, and there are as many as ten Danish tribes on Zealand Island. Soldiers help.

By the end of winter, the North and East Franks had signed a peace treaty in Hamburg, but most of the Danes had gone home in the autumn of a year earlier.

A group of sea wolves held back for a whole winter, and after the completion of the spring sowing in Denmark, it came to the popular annual looting season.

The waves that were hunting for food were assembled by a brave man, and he was Ragnar!

Just like those great chiefs in Denmark in the past, Ragnar, who was upgraded to king, knew that he wanted to maintain the kingship, and it was necessary to get the support of the Rus, but it was the most important thing to get the support of his own people.

In the past, he was a warrior who resisted the invasion of the Franks, but now, he wants to establish a new one-a great man who leads the lords and commoners to make a fortune.

A hundred longships and an armed cargo ship, the Danish pirate army of three thousand!

They were so hungry that they lowered their sails and sailed against the wind in the North Sea, striding along the continental coastline to the emerging stronghold of Rotterstad.

"Are we going to build a brand new Durist on the wasteland?"

"I heard that there are other cities nearby. How about that Utrecht? Why don't the brothers grab it."

"You can also go to the south to loot, and you can make a fortune immediately."

The lords of Zeeland went into battle in person. Their knowledge of this area called Great Flanders was limited to the past. They only knew that there was an old port of Durist controlled by the Danes, but it was a pity that it had been destroyed.

The three thousand army is indeed beautiful, but if it is not handled well, it is a group of uncontrolled wolves. He hurriedly warned the lords who smelled blood, and pointed out in particular: "Utrecht is an ally of Denmark, and it is the territory of the Netherlands! Here are all our allies, and we will either plunder the Middle Franks. , or go to Britain. If you loot on the spot, you are breaking the peace treaty you just signed, and even if I don’t punish the guilty, the Rus will turn them into blood eagles.”

The lords are still more afraid of the methods of the Rus.

The army left only a small number of troops in Rotterstad, and they built strongholds to prepare for the division of the spoils in the future. Who will stay? It's easy to do!

There is a saying that looting can certainly make money, but it is also risking death. Some Danish businessmen who are chicken thieves want to make a fortune without risk, so it is better to build their shops in this wasteland, and wait for the life-threatening guys to come back and accept the dirty and redistribute them.

Some people were in charge of robbing, while others were in charge of selling. Although Durist was dead, the deer, Testad, which was very close to the estuary of the Inner River, took its place.

Ragnar's heart blossomed when he saw all this, and his army was condensed, maintaining a combat power of 2,500 people, and continued to drift along the strait.

Now that the Danish fleet has reached the narrow Dover Strait, Ragnar stands on the tall bow of the armed cargo ship and sees the arc-shaped coastline in the distance.

"Great! A good landing spot! Let's go!"

Through the loud guys shouting to each other and the flagship leading the way, the entire fleet rushed straight to Romney Bay...

Romney Bay, which is not very curved, is an excellent landing site. The coast is not steep, and the soft yellow sand beach is clearly visible. It perfectly fits the beach of the Viking long ship.

The Danish troops landed without a hitch, and a pack of hungry wolves immediately went into action.

They rushed inland, smashing the clearly visible villages in the extremely flat Romney wetlands, which fell apart in an instant in the face of an overwhelming army of plunderers with pure intent.

They murdered and sold more goods, but there were often less than a hundred villages settled. Even if they looted surplus grain and livestock, how to satisfy the appetite of the army was just a gap between their teeth.

After all, even if Ragnar realized the significance of logistics, most of his subordinates only brought a small amount of materials to participate. If the brothers could not loot enough wealth, they could only retreat to the sea to fish and maintain supplies.

There is only Romney Wetland as an excellent landing spot in this area, and there are too many rocky mesas on the other coastline, and the washing of ships means that the keel is broken.

After the landing army left a small number of personnel to guard the ship, Ragnar assembled an army of more than 2,000 people and rushed to the nearest city - Dover with "strong hunger".

It can be said that the rugged rocks of Dover Beach make it difficult to sail here, it has been opened up as a small port, and a low wall is built with the stones at your fingertips. This port has been a shortcut between the Kent Kingdom and the European people for hundreds of years, but their ships are only sampan-level, and they have not enjoyed the dividends of the great change in the shipbuilding industry in the Viking world since 760 AD.

Here comes the Danish Vikings, and as soon as they arrive, they completely change the old routine of small gang operations.

It seems that an army of 2,000 people is not much, but the population of the entire British island is less than 1.5 million, and the population of Kent is only 50,000.

Two thousand armed men came only to loot, and it was not a problem to eat Kent alive.

Although Dover has a low stone wall as a barrier, it also successfully blocked the siege of the Viking army that appeared like a demon. Finally, with the felled tree as a battering ram, the Danish army, which has an absolute advantage in numbers, successfully broke the city. , followed by killing.

The baron of Dover was killed, all the defenders in the city were killed, and some were taken captive as slaves.

However, it was precisely because Ragnar's action was too fast that a large number of villagers didn't even have time to take refuge in Dover, and the city's defense collapsed.

The villagers who heard the news began to flee towards Canterbury, Dover fell, his second son's family was killed, and the Lord of Kent suffered a thunderbolt. He didn't regret his neglect of defense, just that he didn't understand how easily the Vikings had broken through Dover.

The county owner does not know the situation of the enemy, and he can only believe a small part of the exaggerated description of the refugees.

Based on past experience, he felt that this was a strong Viking bandit. In this way, he rushed forward with the army, dashed with limited cavalry, and forced the enemy back to recover Dover!

"Dover must be taken back! I want revenge!"

An old father lost his mind. He ordered his eldest son to stay in Canterbury honestly, but he still couldn't resist the eldest son's request: "My brother was killed, I can't hide in a safe city. I can't be a coward..."

The assembly of the Kent army will take some time. Now even if the county owner has something against the king, the news of the Vikings entering the bandit has become a reality after all.

The county lord personally led a thousand infantry and fifty cavalry under his command, rushing towards Dover.

The Kent army met the Danish army who was busy transporting the soft stuff in the city. After all, Dover is the main city of Kent and the fief of the second son of the county master. The wealth accumulated here is being transported. Ragnar got the real money he dreamed of, and those who followed him also benefited.

Now that the enemy army suddenly appeared, the Danes, who were eager to make a fortune, urgently assembled.

Even if the other party appeared suddenly, Ragnar could summon more than a thousand brothers on hand, and many of them put their chainmail aside for convenience, so they wore iron helmets and held round shields to prepare for battle urgently.

The Lord of Kent found this opportunity, and then saw the smoke everywhere in Dover, and the long Viking ships floating outside the small port. He blushed and drew out his broad-edged sword: "Warriors! Go!"

Ragnar is no longer a simple man. He ordered his brothers to retreat to the occupied city of Dover first, and then borrowed the enemy's city wall to hinder the enemy's counterattack.

The gate was urgently blocked with a trolley, and some debris was thrown over to act as a counterweight. So when Kent's vengeful army arrived, the Vikings threw some loot that needed to be transported away, and had already returned to the city walls to show off their power.

At this moment, Ragnar has taken out his beloved steel-armed crossbow~www.readwn.com~ to explore which target should be killed by this magical weapon.

As a result, the incompetent and furious horse-riding princess under the city wall became the unparalleled target of death.

The Danes on the wall lost their arrows at the enemy, and Kent subconsciously raised a shield to avoid it.

The county lord is still waving his sword and asking people who are not afraid of death to climb up the city wall to recover the city even if they use the method of climbing.

Hearing a swish sound, the county master felt a piercing pain. He lowered his head and looked pale and looked at his well-protected chest, which was clearly covered in chainmail, but there was a "wood stick" that was bleeding rapidly.

Specifically, a special arrow.

The county master didn't speak again, his consciousness quickly lost, and then he fell unconscious from the horse.

At this moment, Ragnar used the stone battlements as the platform, and his Ross crossbow arrow slot was empty...

The Lord of Kent died just like that. He died in the city of Dover in Romney Zeland in AD 841, just like history should happen, like a fate.