Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

Boudica took the initiative to find Orwell and asked him for a task: "So what do we have to do? The first batch of soldiers promised to you are already in place, and they are all ready to fight bravely."

"This Winchester city is not big. The two gaps on the south side will be given to your people to attack, and the remaining five will be given to my people. We will launch an offensive against the seven gaps at the same time, making the opponent feel overwhelmed and make mistakes in a hurry. As long as one team of soldiers can continue to control the city wall, we will win the whole war!"

Orwell's plan was simple and easy to understand, and Boudica agreed: "No problem, it's easy to do. But in addition to this, I have something to remind you. Those people with crow flags seem to be heading south, and their target may be the Kingdom of Wessex. Your people had better pay attention."

Boudica came from Wales. At the same time, there were Celtic forces in the north of Northumbria. She was a little more informed than Orwell. She already knew the news that Ella was defeated and executed. That is to say, now those Vikings seem to have begun to turn their spearheads against the Kingdom of Wessex or the Romans in the south.

Hearing this, Orville frowned slightly, then nodded to Boudica to express his gratitude: "I understand, I will handle this matter, don't worry too much."

——

There is one thing that Orville admires about the Vikings - although they look backward, they are very willing to learn the necessary technology. Originally, Scandinavia or Denmark did not produce high-quality war horses, so they mainly used horses for plowing and carrying rather than fighting, but Britain at least had some war horses. After invading Britain, they quickly adapted to the environment and began to use cavalry to fight. In a very short time, they developed a strong reconnaissance light cavalry unit.

Orville was still quite afraid of mobile forces. In order to guard against these Vikings, he mobilized most of his cavalry to patrol around the city and legion camps. Anyway, these foreign allied cavalry were not particularly useful during the siege, and they could be used as wingmen for early warning.

In addition, he also wrote a letter to Tiya, who was far away in Gaul Province, asking her to transfer the volunteer army temporarily organized in Gaul Province. It was a little help. One hundred people could increase the combat effectiveness of one hundred people. Even a small mosquito leg is still meat.

The person in charge of temporarily organizing and training local people in Gaul Province was the Gallic general Gilles de Reis. In history, he seemed to be a very cruel and gloomy general. In fact, many soldiers in Gaul had similar opinions about him. But in the process of getting along with him, Orville was unexpectedly very active. I don't know why.

Orville had some malicious guesses. It was probably because he had captured Joan of Arc as a hostage that the other party was so busy.

Since ordinary infantry could not rush down the city, he changed his mind and tried to use the gifted to lead the team to attack.

There were not many gifted people in Wessex. There seemed to be only three or five people with super combat effectiveness. Now there were only Alfred and another general in Winchester City. With this number, Orville could use the majority to bully the minority.

He planned to bring all the gifted people he could mobilize over here, and use the advantage of numbers to crush the Wessex people. Gil. Dress was also a gifted person, and Orville mainly wanted him instead of the temporary army under his command.

The premise for doing this was to maintain the absolute advantage in the number of gifted people. The number of gifted people on the Viking side seemed to be quite a lot, so they must be stopped and blocked outside the city.

In addition to sending cavalry to intercept the other side, he also let his fleet, which had been on standby, sail with soldiers to the estuary of the Thames, preparing to occupy there first, and then block the possible Viking fleet on the sea.

The Vikings had rare mobility in ancient times, mainly relying on the ocean. Their light long ships were very fast, and the dual use of rivers and seas allowed them to quickly switch from ocean voyages to inland river voyages. With the help of the intricate river network, they could almost appear and disappear.

Orville didn't plan to play hide-and-seek with them on the river. It would be embarrassing if he couldn't catch up with them and might not be able to fight. The best way was to block them on the sea and prevent them from entering the river.

After half a year of hard work and buying a few second-hand ships from the Mediterranean Navy, Orville now has twelve Punts (five-layer galleys) and twenty-five triremes, plus the cargo ships temporarily requisitioned from Gaulish merchants, he has about seventy ships of various sizes, which is not a small fleet.

It sounds like the Vikings have more than 300 Viking longships, but in fact most of these ships are small boats more than ten meters long. Dragon-headed warships of the same size as Roman warships are scarce, and only the most powerful warriors and warlords can afford them.

The two sides are barely opponents on the same level. If the Vikings attack head-on, they will definitely not get much advantage, but if they swim and don't play flexible maneuvers, then the navy led by old Trajan will really have no choice. They are more than resistant to frontal attacks, but their flexibility is too poor.

——

Just when he was thinking about it, Jeanna finally came back from Ireland and brought brand new news.

Ulster, a small country north of the island of Ireland, agreed to help the Romans fight the Anglo-Saxons entrenched in England on the condition that Orville would help them fight the Vikings.

Due to the limited land resources and the ever-expanding population, the Nordic people had only two choices: either to reduce the population through endless internal friction, or to increase land resources through external expansion. This is not a difficult choice. Under the leadership of Ragnar and others, many Vikings chose the former.

These are robbers and invasions, but there are not only these two words in the career of the Vikings, but also the keyword of trade.

Under the leadership of Ivar the Boneless and his partner, the Norwegian Viking Olaf the White, the Vikings invaded Ireland, occupied a piece of territory, and established their own trading base there, making profits through slave trade and the import of advanced crafts and ironware.

The Irish did not resist. On the contrary, they killed a Viking pirate leader before Olaf, who was a mountain brother respected by both Danish and Norwegian pirates. Without this person to lead, the Danes and Norwegians fought among themselves for a long time.

But unfortunately, the internal strife will not last forever. Ivar persuaded the Norwegian Vikings to join him in turning their spearheads against the Irish again. The protracted war with the Vikings made the locals miserable, and the current situation is roughly the same.

It is estimated that Jeanna used this method to persuade the King of Ulster to help the Romans. After all, compared with the threat far away in Ireland, the Vikings who are close at hand are more annoying.