Rise of Rurik

Charlemagne's flag of the Three Lions flies from the top of the mound where the fortress of Aleb is located.

The castle built around the mound crowded into nearly 10,000 soldiers and civilians. Most of these people were Saxons who had lived in Jutland for nearly half a century. They supported Liudov, the legitimate descendant of Vidukind, and were very happy that they finally had a king. , they all moved to the emerging Aleb Fortress and settled down.

Who would have thought that just after the first winter, when oat seedlings were growing well in the newly opened farmland, the war would break out.

People thanked God, thanked Liudov for his wisdom, and thanked the strong circular stone wall for giving everyone shelter.

But having a large number of old, weak, women and children crowded into the city is not a good thing after all.

What Liudov needs is a large number of young and middle-aged men. Although it is too far-fetched for those twelve or thirteen-year-old boys to serve as soldiers, it is best if there are a large number of twenty-year-old men here for him to recruit.

Since the people were passively gathered in a small fortress, in a situation where everyone was in danger, a large number of insightful people were willing to stand up and take up arms for the lives of themselves and their families.

People who were once extremely frightened saw Lord Liudov personally leading the cavalry to carry out punitive killings against the barbarian landing personnel. The cavalry returned with a great victory with almost no losses.

Liudov was covered in the blood of his enemies, and his men were bathed in blood.

The killing of the cavalry was clearly seen by the people. People cheered and their thoughts of fear disappeared, because they saw that the Liudov they supported was indeed a descendant of Vidukind.

Optimism spread throughout the Aleb Castle, and the people trapped inside completely ignored all potential crises.

For example, there was no water source, and the food in the fortress was seriously insufficient.

There is nothing wrong in Europe with building fortresses around the tops of hills.

Because a fortress can provide daily living for at most hundreds of people, and most of the supplies come from the bottom of the mountain. Relying on manpower to carry and drag supplies on shoulders can fully cope with the long-term daily life of a person of this size.

However, nearly ten thousand people suddenly poured in here...

After all, Liudov was the real Count of Westphalia. He had experience in governing a place. He knew very well that the people in the territory provided supplies to the nobles, and the nobles were also obliged to protect the right to life of these people.

Protecting the people with a fortress is the moral practice of practicing one's beliefs.

But there are too many people! A large number of people took refuge at the same time, and the lords had to provide these people with food and water. This was "the obligation given by God to the nobles."

The reality is very cruel. Liudov gave the people food and water according to the rules of the nobility. Just one collective dinner emptied nearly one-third of his material reserves, and this was based on how much people brought with them when they fled. Under some soft conditions.

A rain can greatly alleviate the people's drinking water problem, but the stored food will be used up quickly. If the situation cannot be opened in three or four days, the Aleb Fortress may begin to turn into a hunger purgatory.

Asking some old, young, women and children to leave the fort and escape under the cover of night?

Liudov did not speak, and the northern sage Eskil had no such "inhumane" thoughts at all.

From an absolute rational point of view, these old and weak people are a burden in the defensive battle. In addition to consuming the food and water of the defenders, they also force the defenders to allocate manpower to protect them.

Ordering them to leave during the chaos is beneficial to defense, but it is a ruthless trampling on faith.

Because Moses never abandoned his people.

What the world saw was Liudov who had made great military exploits and was like the resurrection of Vidukind.

The world also fails to see the tremendous pressure Liudov himself faces.

The strength of the Normans (referring to the partial division of the Russian army and the Ragnar Danish army) used to be huge. To deal with this kind of army, I am afraid that my master, Prince Ludwig, would need to personally lead the main crusade.

With only 500 cavalry on hand, he could only adopt mad bull-like tactics and do his best to cause massacres, hoping to drive all the Normans away and wait for the theoretical reinforcements from Horik's north.

oh! Poor Liudov! He didn't know that Horik had been beaten severely and was running away towards Aleb Fortress with his tail between his legs.

…

Overnight, there were more than 2,000 armed men in Aleb Fortress, and many people even deliberately picked up sharpened sticks to defend themselves.

When the cavalry rushed out of the fortress, the winch quickly pulled up the suspension bridge, and the upper and lower opening and closing hardwood doors of the main entrance also fell heavily.

This move was by no means a desperate move by Liudov, he was doing it to ensure that there were no loopholes in the fortress.

After all, the enemy can tell at a glance that they have more troops. The cavalry can kill all directions in one place. If an enemy division secretly succeeds in storming the fortress, everything will be over.

Now the cavalry were thinking of Ragnar's storming of the seaside warriors' camp. The vast formation did not allow anyone to slack off. They were supposed to be carrying the bodies of those who died in last night's battle early in the morning, but now they had to form a shield wall and engage the cavalry head-on.

Liudolf was actually happy to see the Normans organizing a shield wall.

"They are already on guard! Soldiers, organize your lances and prepare for wheel battles!"

In wheel battles, the cavalry were divided into various fighting squads, taking turns to challenge the shield wall, and stabbing at the right opportunity with their extra-long spears. Regardless of whether they hit the target or not, they pulled out the spears and immediately retreated.

In principle, this classic Frankish tactic is not essentially different from the steppe cavalry's face-to-face mounted shooting.

The Frankish cavalry attack was about to begin. Ragnar and his men lined up in a short time, gritting their teeth and preparing to resist the attack. Some bow holders also began to throw arrows in the direction of the charging cavalry. Unfortunately, this was a deterrent.

The nervous Ragnar's troops completely ignored a powerful force that completely escaped from the Russian camp.

A guard cavalry whipped his horse hard at the critical moment. He rushed to Liudov's side and shouted: "Sir, look behind us! Those are not our cavalry."

"What?"

Liu Duofu turned his head subconsciously and saw a scene that he had never dreamed of.

"Am I dazzled? Whose cavalry is that? Is it from our Saxons?"

He took a closer look and saw someone on the cavalry behind carrying a flag. The flag has a white background with blue stripes extending diagonally to form the X coat of arms.

That's a Russian! It's actually the Ross Cavalry!

"Damn it. Eskil was right, those Rus' among the Normans had cavalry. Damn it, where did these cavalry come from?!"

He couldn't imagine the serious situation, and he didn't even have time to think about it.

Because of the Ross cavalry who were pursuing like crazy, everyone had their legs tightened on the horse's belly, and the soles of their feet were firmly in a state of not leaving the saddle.

Fisk shouted an order: "Throw! Harassment!"

There was a lot of noise, and he ordered his subordinates to do things in the simplest terms.

I saw the Ross cavalry wearing uniform white robes and blue stripes, holding a recurve bow in the left hand and pointing it up to the sky. The right hand immediately pulled out the quiver on the horse's back, pulled out the armor-piercing arrow and fired quickly with the right hand.

Nowadays, precision is no longer required, and the Ross cavalry, which is inferior in strength, now looks like a steppe light cavalry.

The big saw-sawing recurve bow quickly throws light arrows. The extreme tactics trained in the training ground are now being tested in actual combat.

The Ross cavalry drew their bows and shot arrows as fast as they could, and those who did well could achieve the speed of one arrow in two seconds.

The ultra-fast rate of fire completely made up for the lack of troops, and dense arrows hit the heads of the Frank cavalry group.

These armor-piercing arrows flew great distances and fell almost entirely with gravitational potential energy.

The arrows no longer had strong kinetic energy and hit the Frank cavalry head and face like hail.

Deep dents were made in the leather helmets, and those warriors who did not use cloth linings were immediately hit so hard that their heads buzzed.

An arrow just happened to get into the gap in the iron ring on the shoulder, causing the cavalryman a not serious but painful trauma.

There are also unlucky people who are fine, but their horses lack defense and are hit by an arrow. This is a disaster for the fast-moving horses.

Liudov could not ignore the presence of the Ross cavalry at all. His men were suffering casualties. Such a scene reminded him of the legend that when Charlemagne was conquering the Avars, he was attacked by a large number of enemy horse archers.

That was just a legend a long time ago. Liu Doufu didn't know it, and now he can only face this dilemma personally.

One of the men fell off his horse and his life or death was uncertain. Another horse clearly broke its leg after falling.

"Stop the assault! Change direction! Fight the enemy cavalry!"

Liudov's troops were well trained, and all the cavalry made a short counter-clockwise turn as a whole.

Their rapid change of formation also surprised the pursuing Ross cavalry.

In this regard, Fisk had already finished the meeting with his brothers before the war. He held up his recurve bow and said, "We succeeded! Everything went according to plan!"

Therefore, the Ross cavalry responded with a change of formation.

There were 290 Ross cavalry currently participating in the battle. After the injured and injured horses were absent, the remaining people were divided into three centuries and subdivided into twenty-nine ten-man squads.

Since they were going to fight in the Pecheneg way, some junior officers in the team were originally Pechenegs, and a great drama between the prairie cavalry and the Western European cavalry was staged.

At the beginning, from the perspective of Liudov's Frankish cavalry, these enemies were about to engage in a cavalry charge against him.

Hedging? Isn't that asking for death?

The lances moved forward one after another. Liudov said nothing, his eyes were full of murderous intent, and his lance pointed in the direction of the cavalry charge.

The Frank cavalry adopted new tactics. They quickly built a wide riding wall and pressured the Ross cavalry.

On the other hand, the Ross Cavalry, consisting of twenty-nine squads of three centurions, spontaneously divided into two groups and quickly circled the two wings with the mobility advantage of the light cavalry.

The cavalrymen flew by like wind boards and fired two rounds of arrows rapidly. As they circled the wall one after another, they did not forget to fire two more rounds of arrows.

Only in the first round, Liudov's cavalry suffered special casualties on both wings.

Some warriors were hit by several arrows and accidentally fell off their horses due to pain.

Some unlucky ones were hit in the face and died on the spot with armor-piercing arrows piercing their skulls.

There were more than a dozen warriors who stumbled and endured the multiple arrow shafts stuck in their mail armor, pulling out their swords and holding them high, eager to fight. However, his horse was already covered with arrows, lying on its side on the sandy beach near the shore, trying to raise its head and vomiting blood...

"It works! I just want to bully them into not using bows and arrows." Fisk was overjoyed and hurriedly ordered his subordinates to maintain their current position and continue shooting arrows.

If the Frank cavalry did not attack, the Ross cavalry would maintain a safe distance and keep shooting arrows.

There are quivers on both sides of the saddle, and fifty swords are stuffed into each bag. They are very heavy burdens, so the horses are not too tired. The Ross cavalry is fighting without armor today.

One advantage of continuing to shoot arrows is that the weight of the war horse is constantly reduced.

Liudov had never seen such cavalry tactics in his life. He saw his men taking off the round shields on their backs and protecting themselves on their horses.

It's okay to be passive like this. The enemy's arrows seem to be unlimited.

Looking at the current situation, the Norman army has begun to take advantage of the opportunity to advance!

Also, what's going on there in the west? ! A forest is moving? !

In an instant, an arrow accidentally penetrated Liu Doufu's round shield. He took a closer look and it was fair to say that it was really a beautiful armor-piercing arrow cluster, like a needle.

He also suddenly realized that this needle could mercilessly penetrate the chain mail ring and penetrate deeply into the flesh.

"No! I fell into a trap."

escape? No! We can't just run away.

The furious Liudov urgently ordered: "We can't sit still and wait for death! Continue to rush with me!"

Vidukind's soul suddenly possessed him. In his rage, Liudovlin threw away his spear. He pulled out a battle ax and said, "Let them see the power of the axe!"

Therefore, faced with this situation, it is better to restore the glorious tradition of Frank cavalry-axe throwing.

The Farak cavalry resumed their charge, and they could not be seen raising their lances, which made Fisk think it was a scam.

Fisk didn't think much about it, and his subordinates still used the old tactics to deliberately maintain a distance and engage in mounted shooting battles.

Just as the two cavalrymen approached, a bunch of axes were thrown at the Ross cavalry.

And the Ross cavalry was not in vain. Some high-level warriors simply stood in stirrups, holding three arrows in their right hands, and fired "three consecutive shots in the face" at the very close Frank cavalry.

Armor-piercing arrows penetrated the bodies of horses and the chainmail of warriors.

The thrown double-edged ax swirled and hit the unarmored horse, causing severe skin and flesh wounds.

A new round of confrontation between the two sides resulted in losses, and the Ross cavalry also encountered unexpected casualties for the first time.

Fisk, who had beaten many battalion commanders, never thought that the cavalry would suffer casualties, nor did he expect that one of his own would be in pain from being hit by an axe.

It was Frank's ax that hit the Ross cavalry to wake up, followed by rage and smart response.

The Pechenegs in the team are asking everyone to keep a strict distance, because the distance of throwing axes by manpower is very limited, and the reserve of axes must not be much. As long as the Ross cavalry keeps a distance and deceives the enemy into throwing all the axes, the next step will be their own. Killing.

Therefore, the Frank cavalry, who had been beaten all over by cavalry shooting, finally found a way. They began to throw axes wildly, while resisting the enemy's always sharp arrows.

Round after round.

However, the war situation continued to deteriorate. The Frank army suffered almost no losses in the following ten rounds of confrontation, and the Russian army also suffered no losses.

The Russian army clung to Liudov's Frankish army like plaster. When the latter discovered that their throwable hand axes had been thrown away, they suddenly realized that all this was the enemy's conspiracy.

"Haha! Their axes are gone!" Fisk noticed the enemy's plight and stood in the stirrups and shouted to all his men: "Continue! Impact! Shoot through their faces!"

The right quiver was empty, so many people attached the left quiver to the right side. This collective behavior of changing quivers, in the eyes of Liudov, who realized that something bad was going on, was simply a signal for a decisive battle.

Suddenly, the Ross cavalry launched an attack. Faced with this scene, the Frank cavalry had no strength to organize a shield wall. There were warriors in armor and chainmail. The horses were so tired that they were panting. Liudov hoped to withdraw from the battlefield quickly but was unable to do so. .

The Turkic horses with stronger endurance showed a strong tactical advantage. The Ross cavalry noticed that the enemy did not even have the energy to form a formation, and their confidence suddenly increased.

Arrows kept hitting their bodies, and the Frank cavalrymen and horses kept falling down.

A large number of soldiers dragged their injured bodies and fled towards the Aleb Fortress, closely following their count Liudov.

The Frank cavalry, which had high hopes, was finally bled out under the attack of almost unlimited arrows. If they did not leave the battlefield, everyone would die!

This was a painful but not long escape. Compared to the enemy's embarrassing situation, Ross's cavalry was also tired.

Continuously drawing their bows and shooting arrows, the soldiers endured the pain in their right arms and pursued. Facing the last quiver that was gradually emptying, could they still let the horses grow wings and fly over the stone wall if they continued to pursue? !

In order to escape quickly, Liu Doufu desperately threw away some debris. He untied a key rope, so that the armor protecting Brother Ma fell off. Other warriors followed suit, and the Frankish cavalry, which was mainly composed of Saxons, was literally beaten into pieces.

The grand scene of the battlefield was clearly seen by the people watching the battle on the stone wall of the fortress. They saw Lord Liudov's tragic defeat and the escape of the last cavalry.

The soldiers in the fortress hurriedly opened the suspension bridge and looked for Shuyuan www.zhaoshuyuaｎ.com. The warriors holding bows climbed to the top of the city and shot arrows at the pursuing Ross cavalry. The arrows cannot hit the enemy at all and can only serve as a deterrent.

The arrow feathers made of big white goose feathers were too conspicuous, and Fisk clearly noticed the enemy's countermeasures.

Wasting no time to follow the enemy's greatness and rush across the drawbridge into the fortress?

No! Let these cowards who fled the battlefield go back to the fortress!

Because behind the Russian army, a coalition of more than 5,000 New Denmark-Russian-Slavs had begun their siege.

After all, even if the battle was hasty, there was no way Ragnar, Spyut, and Medved would let go of the opportunity given by the Ross Cavalry.

"Let's go!" Fisk turned the horse's head: "Kill the enemy's wounded soldiers and rescue our wounded soldiers!"

Then he muttered a few more words: "Rurik, please don't blame me for today's loss..."

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