A cavalry regiment rests on the outskirts of the village of Gstadov.
In recent days, this team has been busy clearing away an intruding Norman fleet. The cavalry troops were initially furious after receiving the news, and gradually evolved into the current anger and exhaustion.
Two cavalrymen rode back. They dismounted and hurriedly reported their findings to their commanders.
"Sir, we have investigated. Not to mention the Normans, even the villagers..."
"What happened to the villagers?"
"Dead! Many people died, and there were corpses everywhere. The attackers were so crazy that they didn't even spare the children."
"Damn it!" A big hand slapped his face hard.
Earl Hunter of Bremen has returned to his territory. The village of Gstadov is his fief, and all villagers are tax sources.
"Who killed them? Oh, let me guess, the only people who could do such a thing were the Normans."
The scout looked quite confused and couldn't help asking: "Sir, what should we do?"
"Wait a minute, has the wheat been harvested?"
"not at all."
"Ah, this is the only thing that makes me happy among countless bad things. Tell the soldiers to follow me into the wheat field. I... want to go to the village and see for myself."
Before the poor villagers had time to harvest the golden autumn rye, they were killed by the raiding Vikings and their bodies were scattered everywhere. This was not a big village chief, and more than 200 people in the village died in the village.
The attackers were none other than Ragnar's men.
They had been pursued by Count Hunter, and when the initial contact battle began, they headed straight upstream along the Weser River. They made some gains in Ningbao upstream, but were unable to break through the local wooden fortress and had to retreat. They tried to plunder the village, but the reputation of the Normans spread prematurely, and the villages that heard the news evacuated with their belongings.
The poor village of Gstadov is a little far away from the Weser River, and the overall environment is relatively isolated. The news about the invasion of the Normans was not very clear, so when the butcher's knife came, they were completely wiped out without any decent resistance.
The poultry and livestock raised by the villagers were plundered, and some of the wheat was also harvested.
Ragnar's troops had no intention of staying for a long time. This man had been avoiding a head-on encounter with the Frankish cavalry. No matter how reckless he was, he was not stupid enough to have a group of infantrymen holding battle axes to confront the cavalry group. He made a batch of key seizures in this village. He spent the night guarding the corpses of the villagers, and then continued rowing away with his tribe. In the next battle, he tried to loot some oil and water from the big city of Bremen.
As for Ragnar being forced to retreat after failing to search, and then encountering the Ross fleet by chance, this is all a story for another day.
But the Earl of Bremen said that the cavalry regiment he led was by no means a weak force. Although there were nearly two hundred mounted infantrymen with poor riding skills, more than a hundred of them were veterans who followed him out of the city regularly to suppress bandits. His team made great achievements in the recent truce against Denmark, because this team greatly enhanced Prince Ludwig's cavalry strength.
Even though the brave and capable Frankish army has experienced three hundred years of degeneration, making it difficult for the infantry to hold back even the Danes, who were of the same blood as before, the cavalry is still the mainstay of the army. All the cavalry from the headquarters and the various lords were gathered together. The prince had enough to gather 1,300 cavalry. He just stood majestically on the battlefield. King Horik of Denmark became frightened. The result was naturally Denmark's defeat.
The war with Denmark has not yet ended, and bad news comes from home.
East Francia was already certain to win. When he learned that a group of Danish Norman pirates were attacking in a roundabout way, the prince ordered the Earl of Bremen to immediately bring his elite back to put out the fire.
At the same time, he sent a horse with a letter to order the Earl of Flanders, who had just expelled the Normans, to defend his territory.
The Earl of Bremen finally encountered Ragnar, who was plundering for the second time this year. The cavalry troops quickly raided Ragnar's shore camp. As a result, all the people who came ashore returned to the ship.
An army floated on the river, and a large army rode defeated on the bank and shouted curses.
The two sides shot a small number of arrows at each other, but in the end they stared at each other.
The fleet moved down the river, and it was difficult for the cavalry to catch up with them. Moreover, Bremen was to the south of the river, and the cavalry was all to the north of the river.
What made the earl's mouth bleed was that the nearest ferry was still upstream, which meant that they had to pass through the ferry and turn back before they could continue to pursue the drifting enemies, which was doomed to waste some time. There is no way, even horses cannot move quickly for a long time. Each cavalry only has one horse. They must cherish their horse power and need food supplies from nearby villages.
In the village of Gstadov, facing the stinking corpses on the ground, the furious count ordered the soldiers to bury all the dead bodies.
The soldiers dug the pit, dragged and carried the corpses with horrific wounds, and then sealed the soil and erected a giant tomb.
The war horses gnawed crazily in the rye field, and even the riders took the time to harvest some of it and conduct shelling operations in a surprise attack. The rye was cooked and eaten as everyone's rations.
Although this supply was within the count's plan, the entire village had been abandoned and he could not collect taxes again. He knew that he would have to face a worse situation. The territory was ravaged by the Normans twice a year, and the villagers fled everywhere. People were panic-stricken. Once the farming season next year was delayed, he would suffer a severe economic blow. The reduction in fiscal revenue meant that It was difficult to feed many soldiers. Once the armaments are weakened and the Normans come to search again, how will there be enough soldiers to challenge them?
"Damn the Normans, I must annihilate you!"
He swore an oath, even though he realized that his cavalry could not outrun the Norman fleet floating along the river. Even if they could catch up, the cavalry could not run wildly across the river and the sea.
Even if they can't catch up, it would be a good idea for the army to withdraw to Bremen.
It was a solid city with walls made of stone and wood. With these, the Normans could not attack the city even if they had wings.
However……
Another morning, the cavalry regiment advanced along the river and soon encountered another village named Akmusted. There was no attack here, or rather it was still an attack.
How could a small village gather as many as five hundred people? The wandering people were disgraced, and when they saw the cavalry pair holding the "Three Lions Flag", they were like seeing angels, rushing towards them with cries and howls. Seeing that it was the noble Earl, the cry became even more thrilling.
"What happened?" The earl immediately heard the news.
"My lord! They are the Normans! They..."
"What happened to them?! And you...are not villagers at all."
"Sir! Bremen has been attacked! The Normans broke into the city and killed everyone. We were lucky enough to escape by jumping over the wall..."
"Jump over the wall? The city wall is so tall, why didn't you fall to death?"
The speaker calmed down for a moment, and then replied with a frightened face: "The people who fell to death under the wall formed a slope. We can only be safe if we fall on the bodies of the dead."
As soon as he heard this explanation, the count's first impression was that he had a nightmare in broad daylight. After further questioning, everyone was telling the same thing.
Suddenly, the earl's heart tightened, and he fell off the horse, with one leg still hanging on the saddle. The horse was so frightened that it raised its legs and neighed, causing the count to severely strain his thigh.
He was helped up by his subordinates, beat his chest hard and endured the pain in his legs, and continued to hear about the situation in Bremen from this group of refugees.
Thus, some extremely subtle circumstances further surprised him.
There was a special group of Normans who came on a large ship. They were neatly dressed and generally wore white robes. They flew a unified flag with a slanted blue cross printed on the white background...
"Huh? Could it be, Rose?"
Originally, there were no Norman invaders, and his daily life was peaceful and even a little boring. Hunting and going out to suppress bandits were very important fun. The count was once very interested in Blue Fox's visit as an envoy from Ross. As for the concept of the Principality of Ross, he did not understand. Considering that the other party was an envoy and was also hostile to Denmark, he even raised the possibility of forming an alliance with Bremen. sex. His first understanding of the concept of Ross was not bad, but because of his pride as a noble and concern for his faith, in principle he could not form an alliance with the Ross people.
He felt that he had not said anything to death. The so-called military alliance could be imagined, and commercial transactions were possible, as long as the Russians obediently reached some harsh conditions, thus showing that the Bremen aristocrats were not barbaric with foreign countries. People trade. He listed ten types of taxes at that time, naturally speaking casually, and finally determined that city entry tax, customs duty, and business tax must be collected. The choice lies in the hands of the Russians. He felt that it was a great mercy to deal with foreign barbarians by imposing heavy taxes instead of directly killing them.
"As expected, you Russians and Danes are exactly the same! Normans are Normans, hungry wolves who can't get enough to eat!"
Injured by an accidental fall from his horse and suffering a severe psychological blow, the earl had to stay in the village of Akmusted for two days. His cavalry regiment also needs rest and recuperation, and the local refugees need comfort even more.
During the days of rest, the Count did not just lie down. He ordered his men to capture all the teenagers and adult men among the refugees. Regardless of whether they were willing or not, these people must take up arms and hang them directly if they dare to oppose them.
Three merchants lost all their goods and took their wallets with them. The soldiers were also jealous of money, and the merchants complained that the lords had failed to protect the interests of merchants and paid heavy commercial taxes. They were hanged in public for the crime of resistance. As for the businessman's money being directly embezzled by the cavalry soldiers...
With this act of killing the chicken as a warning to the monkey, other men no longer complained, and even if they did, they did not dare to say it openly.
Weapons were insufficient, so they used sharpened wooden poles instead, and long-handled wooden forks used by villagers to fork grass. In the end, the people who could successfully jump over the city wall to escape were mainly young and middle-aged men. After they were forcibly recruited, the earl assembled an army of 700 people.
Bremen is ruined? The earl still had one thought: his inner fort was so well-defended that even if barbarians entered the city to plunder, they would only be surprised when facing the inner fort.
He wants to rescue his family and protect his internal funds, so that he can make a comeback.
A group of inferior levied infantry slowed the entire column down, and the depressed cavalry units were reluctant to advance quickly. Fortunately, this village is not far from the city of Bremen, otherwise there would not be a large number of refugees fleeing.
The group spent the night in the forest and lazed until the morning, when some began to notice unusual weather conditions in the direction of Bremen - thick smoke.
"Oh no!"
When the count saw the smoke and dust with his own eyes, he immediately thought of a hundred bad things. All the people who were sleeping lazily and soundly got up. The Count no longer cared about the so-called infantry walking slowly, and urgently ordered all the cavalry to get rid of the group of cranes and charge towards Bremen!
They wanted to go back to put out the fire in a hurry, with the attitude of trying to save some of them.
From the perspective of those infantrymen, how long would it take for them to escape? The silhouette of the cavalry was just obscured by the forest, and the infantrymen dispersed.
Who is setting the fire? It is the Ross and Ragnar coalition.
Originally, it was very dangerous for the coalition forces to stay in the city for a long time, but there were too many things to move.
Arik wanted to evacuate early, but he had no choice but to carry a large amount of wheat. Russian soldiers came to the battle and carried it for a whole day. The initial estimate of the large amount of rye was about 900,000 pounds. While the Ross sergeants were joking, they said that the plunder was worth one million pounds. All ten large ships in the fleet had to share some of the load. The amount of cargo should not be underestimated.
This was just the seizure of wheat. The Ross army and Ragnar's tribe really searched every residential area. Some people who were hiding were found out. Anyone found by Ragnar's troops would end up dead. However, they were captured by the Rus, and one of the women could still be a cook. This is not because the Russians have retained the last trace of their humanity. In fact, when the army went on an expedition to Britain, they also captured a small number of women to work as cooks. The brothers just followed Frank's example, and everyone still liked to eat hot meals directly when they were exhausted after searching for their belongings.
They all remained obedient after receiving the promise that they could survive by cooking wheat honestly. If he really wanted to kill these women, Arik couldn't do it, and the Saarema Islanders under Spuyut wanted to drag them to live on the island.
A small number of prisoners was an unexpected gain. The Russian army was more concerned about the seizure of various metal tools. Of course, a number of wooden utensils, such as wooden chairs and wooden barrels, were taken away.
They did not discover the wool warehouse, but they intercepted a large quantity of wool, which was a joyful seizure.
The coalition forces searched the city for two full days, and in the end it was the Ross army that occupied the Earl's mansion and plundered the most wealth. For example, the earl's treasury was looted. Although there were not many silver and gold coins in it, half of them could fill the treasury, and the rest was divided among the brothers.
It was dawn, and the coalition soldiers had already withdrawn to camp outside the city. The two days of searching and moving made the brothers exhausted, but all the work was worth it. Ragnar's tribe finally tasted the joy of the harvest, because once they were allowed to stay as guests by the Prince of Rus, the wealth on hand would be enough to make the tribe come back. .
More than two hundred men had a good rest. They got up and gathered under the blue sky, and soon a dense light appeared.
Arik and Ragnar stood in front of them and lectured together. Everything that could be snatched had been taken away, and what could not be moved should not be left to the Franks.
The so-called all this is part of the war. The Frankish Kingdom is the source of all evil, destroying the Rus' industry in Denmark, destroying the free trade port of Hedebe, destroying the home of the Stonewall tribe and killing many people.
The so-called Frankish Kingdom must get its due revenge. The Bremen army is a participant in the war, and burning this city is the most perfect revenge.
The emotions of the coalition soldiers are high, and they need the most explosive catharsis, such as creating a purgatory in flames.
"Fire! Follow me!" Arik shouted, calling for his men to rush into the city.
Seeing this, Ragnar also called on his men to attack with torches.
Most of the houses in Bremen are single-story and have thatched roofs. Pure wooden structures are more likely to burn.
If there is any building that is the perfect torch, it is the purely wooden St. Peter's Basilica.
At first there were only small flames everywhere, but with the help of the weak north wind, the fire gradually became crazy. When the sun rises, fires have already broken out in many places. The orange-red flames are facing the golden rising sun. The gray-black smoke and dust are soaring upward, quickly forming a smoke column as high as 200 meters, which will expand when the wind blows. And scary.
Bremen's wooden cathedral was eventually destroyed in a fire, and the rebuilt church was made entirely of stone. It's just that in this time and space, the arsonist became a Norman.
The whole city became a big oven, and all the arsonists evacuated, fearing that they would be too late and become a barbecue.
The coalition forces boarded the ships, and the fleet floated calmly along the Weser River. Only the "volcano" behind them continued to spew fire and smoke.
It was Arik who suggested setting fire to the city. After all, the first battle of his career was to kill all his opponents and burn the town. Ragnar felt that this was a clever plan, and the raging fire fit his need for revenge.
The two sides hit it off immediately and created history.
Viking raids on Frankish villages and towns have long been recorded, and the Great Fire of Bremen in 836 must be a highlight. A large northern Frankish city was in flames, and nearly ten thousand people died in this Viking raid. It was bound to shake the entire kingdom.
