Rise of Rurik

A cavalry regiment rests on the outskirts of the village of Gstadorf.

In recent days, this team has been busy clearing up an intruding Norman fleet. The cavalry unit has gradually evolved from the initial fury after receiving the news to the current anger and exhaustion.

The two cavalrymen came back on their horses. They dismounted and hurriedly reported their findings to their superiors.

"My lord, we have investigated. Not to mention the Normans, even the villagers..."

"What happened to the villagers?"

"Dead! A lot of people are dead, there are corpses everywhere. The attackers were so crazy, they didn't even spare the children."

"Damn it!" A big hand slapped his face hard.

Hunter, the Count of Bremen, has returned to his own territory. This village of Gerstadorf is his fief, and all the villagers are the source of taxation.

"Who killed them? Oh, let me guess, only the Normans can do that."

The scout was 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 the countless bad things. Tell the soldiers and follow me into the wheat fields. I...go to the village and see for myself."

The poor villagers were killed by raiding Vikings before they could harvest the golden autumn rye. This is not a big village chief, and all the more than 200 people in the village died in the village.

The attacker was none other than Ragnar.

They were constantly pursued by Earl Hunt, and when the first engagements began, they went all the way up the Weser. They made some gains in the upstream Ningbao, but they were unable to break through the local wooden fortress and could only retreat. They tried to loot the village, but the reputation of the Normans spread prematurely, and the villages who heard the news evacuated the village with gentleness.

The poor village of Gerstadorf, they are a little farther from the Weser River, and the overall environment is closed. The news of the Normans entering the bandit is not very clear, so when the butcher's knife came, it was a tragedy that it was completely wiped out without even a decent resistance.

The poultry and livestock raised by the villagers were plundered, and part of the wheat was harvested.

Ragnar's department did not intend to stay for a long time,

This man has been avoiding direct encounters with the Frankish cavalry. No matter how reckless he is, he is not stupid enough to have a group of infantry with battle axes to confront the cavalry group. He got a group of key seizures in this village. After guarding the dead villagers in one place for a night, he continued to row away with the tribe. In the next battle, he would try to snatch some oil and water from the big city of Bremen.

As for Ragnar's failure to search and being forced to retreat and encounter the Ross fleet by chance, this is something that will be discussed later.

However, it was said that the cavalry regiment led by the Count of Bremen was by no means a weakling. Of course, there were nearly 200 mounted infantry soldiers with poor riding skills, and more than 100 horsemen were veterans who followed him regularly out of the city to suppress bandits. His contingent made a great contribution in the recently truce against Denmark, because it greatly enhanced Prince Ludwig's cavalry.

Even though the valiant and adept Frankish army has gone through three hundred years of degeneration, the infantry units are unable to withstand even the Danes, who were of the same bloodline in the past, and their cavalry units are still the mainstay of the army. The headquarter and all the cavalry of the lords gathered together, and the prince had enough 1,300 cavalry, but he just stood on the battlefield majestic, and the Danish king Horrick was angry, and the result was naturally a defeat for Denmark.

The war with Denmark has not stopped, and there is bad news from the hometown.

East Frank was already sure to win, and when he learned that a group of Danish Norman pirates were attacking, the prince ordered the Count of Bremen to immediately bring his elite back to put out the fire.

At the same time, he sent a fast horse to carry a letter, ordering the Count of Flanders, who had just driven out the Normans, to throw his soldiers and defend the territory.

The Count of Bremen finally encountered Ragnar, who was looted for the second time this year. The cavalry troops quickly raided Ragnar's shore camp, and all the people who landed returned to the ship.

An army floated on the river, and a large army rode on the bank and screamed in defeat.

The two sides shot a small amount of arrows at each other, and they stared at each other with big eyes.

The fleet was going down the river and it was difficult for the cavalry to catch up with them, and Bremen was to the south of the river, and the cavalry was to the north of the river.

What made the Earl spit out the fragrance was that the nearest ferry was still upstream, which meant that they had to go through the crossing and then turn back to continue chasing the drifting enemy, but they were destined to waste some time. There is no way, even the horses can't move fast for a long time, each cavalry has only one horse, they must cherish the horsepower, and they need the nearby villages to provide food supplies.

In the village of Gerstadov, facing the smelly corpses, the furious count ordered the soldiers to bury all the corpses.

Soldiers dig pits of gods, drag and carry corpses with horrific wounds, and then seal the earth and erect huge tombs.

The war horses were frantically gnawing in the rye fields, and even the riders hurry up to harvest some of them, and do shelling work in a surprise manner, and the rye is cooked and eaten as everyone's ration.

Although this supply was within the earl's plan, the entire village had been abandoned, and he could no longer collect taxes. He knew that he had to face a worse situation. The territory was ravaged by the Normans twice a year, and the villagers fled everywhere. It was difficult to feed many soldiers. Once the armament is slack and the Normans come back to search, how can there be enough soldiers to fight?

"Damn Normans, I must annihilate you!"

He swore, even though he realized that his cavalry couldn't outrun the Norman fleet drifting down the river, and even if they caught up, the cavalry couldn't run wild on the river or the sea.

Even if they can't catch up, it would be good for the army to withdraw to Bremen.

It was a sturdy city, and the walls were made of stone and wood. Relying on these, the Normans could not attack the city even if they had wings.

However……

It was another morning, and the cavalry regiment was advancing along the river, and soon encountered another village called Akmusted. There was no attack here, or it was attacked anyway.

How can a small village gather as many as five hundred people? The wandering people were disheartened, and when they saw the cavalry holding the "Three Lions Flag", they rushed toward them with a crying voice as if they had seen an angel. Seeing that it was the noble earl, he cried even more thrillingly.

"What happened?" The earl heard the news.

"My lord! The Normans! They..."

"What happened to them?! And you...not villagers at all."

"Sir! Bremen, it's been broken! The Normans broke the city and killed everyone, and we were only spared by jumping over the wall..."

"Wall jump? The city wall is so tall, why didn't you fall to your death?"

The speaker calmed down for a moment, and then replied with a horrified face: "The people who fell to their deaths under the wall formed a slope, and we can only be safe by falling on the dead."

Just hearing this explanation, the Earl's first impression was a nightmare in broad daylight, and he continued to ask, and everyone was saying the same thing.

All of a sudden, the earl's heart tightened, and he fell off the horse, with one leg hanging from the saddle. The horses were even frightened this time, and a raised leg neighed, causing the earl to strain his thigh severely.

He was helped by his subordinates, beat his chest hard and endured the pain in his leg, and continued to hear about the situation of Bremen among the refugees.

As such, some extremely subtle circumstances further surprised him.

There was a special Norman who came in a big ship. They were neatly dressed, generally wearing white robes, and they flew a unified flag with a blue cross printed on a white base. . . .

"Huh? Could it be, Ross?"

Originally, no Normans had entered the pirates, and his usual life was peaceful and even a little boring. Hunting and going out of the city to suppress bandits were very important pleasures. Blue Fox's audience as an envoy of Rus once intrigued the count. As for the concept of the Duchy of Rus, he did not understand. Considering that the other party was an envoy and was hostile to Denmark, he even proposed the possibility of forming an alliance with Bremen. sex. His first understanding of the concept of Rus was not bad, but because of his pride and faith as a noble, he could not ally with the Rus in principle.

He felt that he didn't say anything to death. The so-called military alliance can be imagined, and commercial transactions are possible, as long as the Rus people obediently reach some harsh conditions, which shows that the nobles of Bremen are not barbaric with foreign countries. people trade. He listed ten kinds of taxes at that time, of course, and said it casually, and finally determined that the city entry tax, customs duty, and business tax must be collected, and the right to choose is in the hands of the Rus. He felt that it was a great kindness to deal with the barbarians of foreign countries by imposing heavy taxes instead of directly killing them.

"As expected, you Rus and Danes are exactly the same! Normans are Normans, hungry wolves who can't get enough to feed!"

Because of the accidental fall from the horse and the serious blow to his heart, the Earl had to stay in Akmusted for two days. His cavalry corps also needs to rest, and the local refugees need to be appeased.

On the days of rest, the Count did not just lie down. He ordered his subordinates to capture all the teenagers and adult men among the refugees. Whether they wanted to or not, these people had to take up arms, and they dared to hang their opponents directly.

Three merchants lost all their goods and took their wallets with them. The soldiers also saw money, and the merchants complained that the lords did not protect the interests of the merchants and paid heavy commercial taxes, so they were hanged in public for the crime of resistance. As for the merchant's money, which was directly stolen by the cavalry soldiers...

With the act of slaughtering chickens as an example, other men no longer complained, and even if they did, they would not dare to say it explicitly.

If the weapon was insufficient, it was replaced with a sharpened wooden pole, and the long-handled wooden fork obtained from the villager's fork grass on the spot. After all, the people who were able to escape by jumping over the city wall were mainly young and middle-aged men. After they were forcibly recruited, the Earl assembled an army of 700 people.

Bremen has been destroyed? The Count still has a thought, the so-called inner fort is well-defended, and the barbarians enter the city to loot, so he can only sigh in the face of the inner fort.

He wants to rescue his family and protect his inner wealth, so that he can make a comeback.

A conscripted group of inferior infantry slowed down the entire team, and the depressed cavalry unit was reluctant to advance quickly. Fortunately, the village is not far from the city of Bremen, otherwise there would not be a large number of refugees fleeing in.

The group spent the night in the forest, lingering lazily into the morning, when someone began to notice the unusual weather in Bremen - the smoke billowing.

"Oh no!"

When he saw the smoke and dust with his own eyes, the Earl instantly thought of a hundred kinds of bad things. All the languidly sleeping people got up, and the earl couldn't take care of the so-called infantry who was slowly taking it away, so he ordered all the cavalry to throw off the tail of the group of cranes and charge towards Bremen!

They were going to rush back to put out the fire, and slammed the horse's hips with the attitude that they could save some but some.

So in the eyes of those infantry soldiers, when will this matter not escape? The figure of the cavalry had just been obscured by the forest, and a group of infantrymen scattered as birds and beasts.

Who is setting fire? It is the Ross and Ragnar coalition forces.

Originally, it was very dangerous for the coalition troops to stay in the city for a long time, but there were too many things to remove.

Arik wanted to leave early, but a large amount of wheat was stunned by the soldiers of the Ross Army, who also carried them for a whole day. Preliminary estimates of many rye are about 900,000 pounds. The Ross sergeants joked that the so-called loot was one million pounds, and all ten large ships in the fleet had to share some of the load, and the amount of cargo should not be underestimated.

This is just the capture of wheat. The Ross Army and Ragnar's clansmen have truly scoured the houses one by one. Some people who hid were caught out, but if they were found by Ragnar's department, it was a dead end, but they were captured by the Rus, and the women among them could still be cooks. This is not because the Rus people have maintained the last trace of humanity. It is because the army expedition to Britain also captured a small number of women as cooks. The brothers are just following Frank's method, and everyone still likes to eat hot meals directly when they are exhausted after looting their belongings.

They were all obedient to the promise that they would survive by cooking the wheat honestly. If he really wanted to kill these women, Arik couldn't do it, and the people from Saaremaa under Spuut wanted to drag them to live on the island.

A small group of prisoners was an unexpected harvest. The Ross Army was more concerned about the seizure of various metal utensils. Of course, a batch of wooden utensils, such as wooden chairs and wooden barrels, were taken away.

They did not find the wool warehouse, but they intercepted a large amount of wool, which was enough to be delighted.

The coalition forces searched the city for two whole days, and in the end it was the Rus army who occupied the earl's mansion that 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 would be divided among the brothers.

It was dawn, and the coalition soldiers had already withdrawn to camp outside the city. The two days of looting and carrying made the brothers exhausted. All the work was worth it. The people of Ragnar finally experienced the joy of a bumper harvest, because once they were allowed to live by the prince of Ross, the wealth at hand was enough to make the tribe make a comeback. .

More than 200 men had a good rest, they got up and gathered under the blue sky, and soon there was a dense light.

Arik and Ragnar stood in front of them and exhorted jointly. The so-called robbed has already been taken, and the Franks cannot be left to the Franks if they cannot be moved.

The so-called all this is part of the war, the Frankish kingdom is the root of all evil, destroying the Rus's industry in Denmark, destroying the free trade port of Hazelby, 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. Burning this city is the most perfect revenge.

The coalition fighters are in high spirits, and they need the most explosive catharsis, such as creating a purgatory in flames.

"Fire! Come with me!" Arik roared and greeted his men to rush into the city.

Seeing this, Ragnar also greeted his subordinates to charge with torches.

Most of the houses in Bremen are single-storey and have thatched roofs, and the pure wooden structure is easier to burn.

If there is any building that is the most perfect torch, it is the pure 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, many places have already turned into huge fires. The orange flame is facing the golden morning sun, and the gray-black smoke and dust soars up, quickly forming a plume of smoke up to 200 meters, and it expands under the wind. with appalling.

Bremen's wooden cathedral will eventually be destroyed in a fire, and the reconstructed church will be made of pure stone. Only in this time and space, the arsonists became Normans.

The whole city became a big oven, and all the arsonists evacuated, for fear of running late and becoming a barbecue.

The coalition forces boarded the ship, and the fleet drifted calmly along the Weser River, only the "volcano" behind them continued to spew fire and smoke.

Setting fire to the city was proposed by Arik, after all, the first battle of his career was to kill all the enemies and burn down the town. Ragnar felt that this was a clever strategy, and the raging fire was just right for his need for revenge.

The two sides hit it off, and all of a sudden, history was created.

Vikings looting Frankish villages and towns have long been recorded, and the fire of Bremen in 836 must have been a highlight. A large northern Frankish city was caught in flames, and nearly 10,000 people died in this Viking raid, which will surely shake the entire kingdom.