Rise of Rurik

At the beginning of the period, Ludwig led his army across the Inn River, entered the south bank area and continued southward until occupying the town of Lauten.

At that time, Ludwig declared his rule as soon as he arrived here and moved directly into the royal villa here.

Long before Charlemagne, Frankish rulers had built their royal palaces here. With the palace as the center, a group of servants and craftsmen serving the nobles settled here. The church sent priests to work in the monastery here, and a small town was established. Because the town originated from the emperor's palace, it naturally also has the unofficial nickname of Kaiserslautern.

There are a number of Frankish villages scattered in the nearby area. In times of peace, this place would have been a prosperous and pastoral place.

Because it is located in a flat area west of the Northern Vosges Mountains, it belongs to the Rhineland-Palatinate in the narrow sense and the Saarland region in the broad sense. This place is very suitable for the development of agriculture, and the wealth of the nobles is almost based on the exploitation of farmers. Any ambitious Frankish nobles must compete for the Frankish population here.

However, the civil war forced people in areas where the war was fierce to choose sides. Many people flocked to the north, which meant finally the Eastern Kingdom. Another group went south. There are still a group of villagers who have not left and are living their daily lives in their own villages, because they believe that the civil war between the nobles has nothing to do with the common people.

Ludwig and Lothair were both kings. Since King Ludwig came to Lauten in person, the remaining people who had no choice would naturally submit to him.

However, Ludwig lost his rule over Lautern in the summer battle of 840 as King Lothair's standing army flowed across the Saar River from Sarabrücken to Saarbrücken via pontoon bridges.

The reason why King Lothair acted quickly was because the flat land had long been targeted by the Roman Empire. A Roman road passed through the entire Greater Saar region, with Metz being the starting point. When passing through Sarabruggia, Rome built a solid stone bridge. After passing through the Saar River, the road basically extended northward along the Northern Vosges Mountains. Until the Laiyin River blocked it. The Roman-era town of Mainz was built at the confluence of the Main and Rhine rivers and served as a strategic bridgehead for the continued attack on northern Germania.

Rome had long been destroyed, and some of its ruins were inherited by the Franks. Those old infrastructures still play a crucial role four hundred years later!

In the wild land, a Roman road was the necessary passage for military operations. From a macro perspective, if the Eastern Kingdom wanted to mobilize troops from Bavaria to participate in the civil war, the geographical shortcut seemed to be to cross the river at Wiesbaden, and then cross the northern Vosges Mountains from the eastern foothills to completely control the Saar region.

But the army faces the mountains, and the move to forcefully climb over the mountains will definitely consume the army alive.

The nobles' wars relied heavily on the Roman roads that had existed since ancient times. They would not risk letting their armies go wild unless they had to. And because of extremely poor navigation technology, the Frankish army did not have the slightest advantage in water warfare. The self-aware nobles relied more on the tactical maneuverability of the Roman Avenue.

Sarabruggja is a name that existed in the ancient Germanic period and refers to "bridge".

After all, the stone bridges in the Roman era were not as strong as Roman avenues, and the stone bridges disappeared into history. However, Frank built an iron cable pontoon bridge on the Saar River, making traffic still smooth.

This pontoon bridge was the key to the Middle Kingdom's army being able to quickly enter the Saar region. So in the spring of 841, Lothair's Middle Kingdom army firmly controlled Lauten.

For reasons of his own safety, Lothair himself did not stay at the Emperor's Palace in Lauten.

Adalbert, Count of Metz, entered Lauten with his army. He did not dare to cross, and for the convenience of fighting in the wilderness, he stationed himself in the open area outside the town with the king's standing army.

The earl was granted great power, and Lothair made an important promise: "If your army successfully invades Mainz, that city can become your new fief. The earl of Ingau refuses to pledge allegiance to me. You have a chance." Become the new Count of Raiingau."

Are the promises true? If it is true, such a reward is too generous!

Count Metz planned that if he succeeded, he would be able to take over the counts of the two regions of Saar and Leingau in the future. The area of ​​the fiefdom has more than doubled. Is this the benefit of being loyal to Lothair? What a joy.

However, as a great nobleman in the central region, Adalbert was not just a reckless man. There are now many rumors that Ludwig of the so-called Eastern Kingdom suffered a defeat in the north, leaving other places empty of troops.

Are they really out of strength?

Why did King Lothair go to Strasbourg with his main force? Although the king left himself a standing army to command, after all, the main force was the warriors who came here to Metz.

The current news is very complicated. Charlemagne rests in Aachen, but there are either Norman pirates roaming around Aachen, the Count of Flanders who defected to the Eastern Kingdom, or even the Western Kingdom's army that is ready to move near Paris.

Adalbert did not worry about being stabbed in the back in his own territory, because behind him were the Burgundians.

One of the biggest reasons why the Principality of Burgundy and the Principality of Provence firmly supported Lothair was that Lothair's nephew Pepin led troops to guard Provence and northern Italy. A strong army guarded the south and forced a semi-free state. Burgundy must insist on standing in the Middle Kingdom.

But Count Adalbert's army was not large. He brought 5,000 men to the battle, most of them infantry, and he was also responsible for the baggage. Lothair arranged for him to have one thousand cavalry and one thousand infantry.

Theoretically, Adalbert could command 7,000 men to participate in the battle. Due to the unavoidable wounded soldiers and even the long-term civil war that weakened the will of the sergeants, Count Metz's army did not have a strong will to fight.

The king has an order and must take the initiative to attack.

At the beginning, Earl Metz had been delaying in the spring and summer on the grounds that the food was not in place. Now at the end of summer, he really could not delay any longer.

Because the harvest season is not far away, the best way to solve the problem of army supplies is to supply them on the spot, which is to directly rob the village. Considering that all the villages in this place are likely to be their own territory in the future, if they really engage in plunder, it will not be conducive to their future rule. Besides, robbing a village would be disgraceful, and the nobles were not gangsters.

Perhaps Mainz could be captured before the wheat heads, so as to obtain the local wheat tax. He concluded that the Eastern Kingdom's army would not launch an immediate counterattack, and that the other party must complete the wheat harvest in the autumn, otherwise their winter and next spring supplies would be a big problem.

Count Metz's abacus was good. Under King Lothair's constant urging, he launched the summer offensive against Mainz brazenly!

However, not long after the army set off, there was an encounter with the Eastern Kingdom's army.

But it is said that Ludwig, who was defeated in 840, signed a peace treaty with the Russians and other victors in early 841, and returned to the original place on a Russian ship.

Count Robert of Lyingau was released and fled to the Taunus Mountains in the north to live in seclusion. This person is considered to be wise, so Ludwig completely controls all the government affairs in the Leingau region except the Barony of Nassau.

So, how do you hide your weakness?

When a weak cat feels threatened, it will arch its body and its fur will explode and expand. Its body will double in size instantly to scare away the threat.

The same is what Ludwig wants to do.

He was glad that he had left a group of elite members of the standing army in Mainz, and he had long expected that his eldest brother Lothair would definitely go on the offensive.

"If I were captured or died, or even evacuated from Frankfurt, I would be willing to become a little Duke of Bavaria. This would be a defeat. Even the title of Duke would not be preserved."

He believed that his eldest brother would definitely kill him, even if he was a member of the royal family.

In other words, just because he was a member of the royal family, there was a reason why his whole family was killed. This was the case with the Frankish nobles. The nobles killed each other. The son killed his father, his uncle killed his nephew, and his nephew killed his aunt. However, the young Charlemagne survived by chance and was one of the few survivors in the entire royal family. The childhood disaster forced Charlemagne to formulate a system of enfeoffment of the nobility, and the purpose of the three-part world initiated by him was to avoid this kind of self-destructive royal civil war.

Charlemagne was dead, and so was Louis the Pious.

From Ludwig's point of view, since the eldest brother refuses to recognize the "three-point plan" formulated by his grandfather, it means that the eldest brother must kill his entire family and not even leave a single baby. There is no middle ground at all.

Based on this understanding, Ludwig, who suffered a defeat in the north, must regain his face on the civil war battlefield in the south, boost his morale through a victory, and give himself an explanation.

As soon as he returned, he reorganized his armaments, first reorganizing all the cavalry, and then targeting the farmers.

He increased taxes to plunder farmers' surplus grain, further plundered the labor force in the Leingau area, and forcibly incorporated more farmers into the army. The peasant soldiers were naturally extremely reluctant, but Ludwig personally promised them: "We will take back Lauten! As long as we win, you can loot freely! What you grab is yours, even if it is a piece of cake like The gold as big as your fist is also yours!"

Not to mention, the speaking skills I learned from the Russians are really useful. He saw a group of war-weary farmers whose eyes seemed to be breathing fire. Even if these people were just a group of armed farmers, they were numerous enough.

Ludwig was unable to provide enough weapons and equipment for this new group of sergeants. Thinking about the reasons for his defeat in the north, he made some adjustments to his army as soon as he returned.

If you are poor, you can only fight poverty. The main weapon held by a large number of unarmored peasant soldiers must be a spear as long as three men. If there is no spearhead, daggers and short swords can be used instead. As for the handy secondary weapons, they are agricultural tools used for personal work, mostly hand axes.

Mainz, on the south bank of the Rhine River, has always been Ludwig's defensive stronghold. Since its return, small boats have continuously transported recruits to the other side. In desperation, he abandoned defenses in other directions and transported all his main forces to the other side of the river, including the last thousand heavy cavalry.

The rafts were pieced together into a giant raft that resembled a barge and was towed to the other side by a small boat.

Ludwig changed his past war logic, and it can be said that he learned something from the war in the north. In particular, it was of great significance for the great nobles to come to the front line in person.

Perhaps the arrival of the Rus' army in Mainz could serve as a good friendly force. Those guys are just in it for the wealth, so easy to control. A Russian army is in Nassau, its strength is comparable to the Danish mercenaries in the past, and its combat effectiveness is stronger.

Let those Russians who live in Nassau come? When he thought of his previous defeat, he dismissed it out of concern for face.

"I must use my own power to take Lauten back! If I can tear down the damn bridge at Sarabrugga in one breath! What will Lothair do to me?"

Only a handful of the great nobles of the Eastern Kingdom were involved in this matter, and their attitude towards Ludwig himself was very ambiguous.

Just like you can't count on Russian mercenaries, you can't even think about borrowing troops from Flanders, the Netherlands, and Saxony right now! As for borrowing manpower from Cologne, the local priests have suffered huge losses and will never be able to borrow manpower, money or food.

As for the Diocese of Worms, it would be great if they still declared their stance on the Eastern Kingdom! The diocese provided extremely crucial money and food. As for recruiting soldiers from the diocese, Ludwig had already completed this matter.

It would take time to mobilize troops from his old territory of Bavaria, and the Marquis of Thuringia in the north made up a bunch of reasons not to send troops.

It seemed that all the nobles were watching Ludwig's personal performance.

He felt that he was already standing on the edge of a cliff, and the only one who could save him was himself.

He forcibly gathered 8,000 people! Of course, these are just numbers on paper.

There are only 2,000 real standing army soldiers, and nearly 1,000 peasant soldiers who are probably capable of fighting. Whether the remaining 5,000 are considered soldiers is a question.

Since the settlements of the Count of Leiingau are highly concentrated in the Main River Basin from Frankfurt to Mainz, as long as a string of villages along the river are forcibly recruited, squeezing out thousands of peasant soldiers is not a problem.

There are eight thousand troops, three thousand warriors who dare to fight, and five thousand people who make up the numbers. The former is the main battle force, and the latter is mainly used to escort supplies.

The Inn River is very lively. As long as it's not raining, the river is filled with boats and rafts that are constantly transporting people and materials.

Ludwig was very envious of Ross's large ships. Even just some longships were enough to change his poor transportation capacity. Even if he could reasonably borrow Russian power from Nassau in accordance with the treaty, he would never do so.

Hundreds of people cross the river every day, and follow-up personnel gradually arrive in Mainz on the other side of the river. In a short period of time, Mainz became a city with a huge population.

At the end of June, Ludwig personally led the army and began to move south. Just like his previous tactical plan to capture Lauten, he moved along the old road.

The 8,000-strong Eastern Kingdom Army marched straight to the Northern Vosges Mountains along the old Roman road from the Upper Lyin Plain.

At the same time, the Middle Kingdom army led by Count Metz was ordered to leave Lauten in the mountains and plains, and also advanced along the old Roman road.

Both sides deliberately chose this time to act, a whole month before the so-called wheat harvest, but neither knew the other's existence.

Count Metz's army passed through the mountain pass in a cramped manner, and the army forcibly inherited the strips as if entering a pasta machine. He had to rest in the trumpet-shaped area after breaking through the mountain pass. There was the small town of Winneville here. The army rested and assembled here. It was planned that the personnel and supplies would basically expire before continuing to march.

Ludwig was also gathering in the villages and towns of Altce on the plain. After all, the quality of a large number of the troops under his command was not good, and many of them fell behind after only two days of marching. Thanks to this being a plain, the stragglers could find the larger troops based on the clouds that were baked red by the bonfires at night.

However, it was the burning red cloud that shocked Count Metz.

Since most of the troops under his command were his own soldiers, the count and lords used all their strength in this campaign. Count Metz could not tolerate defeat. He did not dare to gamble or launch a surprise attack. He at least knew that there were signs of incredible large-scale human activities ahead, and concluded that it was definitely not a peaceful situation.

So when Count Metz saw the red-hot clouds over there, didn't the fire in his own army also look the same?

Ludwig also discovered an unusual scene in the south and concluded that Lothair's people had appeared.

"Is there a traitor who leaked the secret?" He felt that his actions were very confidential and did not bother to catch the mole. He was longing for a battle to wash away his shame, and this time he finally got the chance.

What to do?

Continue to act step by step during the day and prepare for the decisive battle?

"No! I have nothing to lose!"

It can be said that it was the Russians who became his teachers again! As the saying goes, the army on the march last year was unexpectedly attacked by the Ross cavalry. Ludwig, who was severely caught off guard, only realized after the war that the battle could be like this.

Launching a sneak attack was considered extremely immoral and contrary to the character of the Frankish nobility.

Thinking that if the eldest brother wins, he will definitely not give his whole family a chance to survive. "Since you are so cruel, I won't show any etiquette either."

Since 200 Russian cavalry can plunder and wreak havoc along the way, and now that he can make up 1,500 cavalry including bad horses and reluctant horsemen under his command, why not just take a barbaric gamble!

So, before dawn, Ludwig summoned his four cavalry banner captains and ordered: "I will lead the charge! All of you must follow me without fear of death! The Lord will grant us victory! The shame of First Blood in the North , once again we suffered the shame of losing Lao Teng last year. We killed the enemy by surprise! Remember, there will be no mercy. After the war, you looted wantonly, and I will give you all a military pay increase!"

The captain of the flags thinks that the king is crazy! But it is very much like Charlemagne when he was young.

At dawn, the deep blue sky is gradually turning into sky blue.

The huge cavalry is advancing up the Yinpingyuan Group.

Almost all the heavy cavalry of the Eastern Kingdom in the Mainz area were here. Ludwig didn't want to know what the enemy's strength was at all. He used the strongest army he could to launch a strong attack.

Finally, the village ahead suddenly appeared in the early morning mist, and a large number of white tents were extremely conspicuous.

"Attack! Either win! Or die!" Ludwig held up the Ross steel sword, shining brightly in the morning sun.

The earth is shaking, and the cavalry of the Eastern Kingdom rushes into the bell mouth area formed by the Palatinate Highlands and the Northern Vosges Mountains, rushing towards the lazy army of Count Metz who has just woken up and is stationed here to rest...