Rise of Rurik

A large number of local Saxons did not send the wheat tribute they needed to pay to Hamburg. Now they are facing war, and this work has to be postponed.

In the upper reaches of the Elbe, a number of emerging Saxon camps appeared on its north bank.

These Saxon people were led by aristocratic leaders who continued to retain the power of the nobility because their ancestors had surrendered to Charlemagne. They did not receive a Frankish title, but used the Saxon Graf as their title. Its original meaning is exactly "tribal leader".

The entire village obeyed the leader's arrangements. Out of consideration for maximizing their own interests, they recognized Liudov's power as a duke and were willing to pay tribute. However, it would be too hasty to organize men to fight for him now.

A large number of villages did not even send scouts to find out more detailed information, they just waited for the drama in the Hamburg area to end.

In this way, if Liudov and the Norman army win, they will continue to be loyal and deliver the remaining food tribute.

If the Frankish army wins, they will continue to declare their loyalty to the Franks and give some food as a so-called tribute.

Whoever wins will help whom. With the situation unclear, the vast majority of the Saxon people, who have a large population, are sitting on the sidelines.

Of course, the Saxons, with a population of half a million, were severely diluted by the huge area. Liudolf directly controlled more than 20,000 Saxons in the Hamburg area, not counting the Saxons north of the Schleswig Great Wall.

He was stunned to have assembled an army of 8,000 people. Even with a large number of people, the militia gathering together was really intimidating.

He would not let the weak troops line up on the other side, so he selected a thousand of the best from the army. In the early morning weapons, the soldiers lined up in two columns and passed from the crescent-shaped pontoon bridge, arriving at the other side anxiously. .

At least these people had had breakfast, which was a generous helping of cooked oats, luxuriously rich in salt.

Cooked oats sprinkled with a pinch of salt have become commonplace among today's Russian troops, and people with discerning tastes are eager to eat something different.

For the Saxon militia, they lived inland, even if they were close to the sea, and the villagers would not leave their farming villages unless necessary, so access to salt was restricted to the Franks.

Mixing with Danes and Russians is actually a good thing. These foreign armies were huge and they also consumed a lot of salt, so they set up a large pot at the mouth of the sea to boil salt.

The extremely low blood sodium and potassium levels were greatly improved. After eating wheat rice before the battle, a thousand Saxon warriors were full of strength.

They lined up on the other side of the river, barely arranging their lines, and then started whispering to each other uncontrollably.

This group of people were quite casually dressed and had a variety of weapons and equipment. Among them, more than 400 of the most elite were dressed like Viking warriors, while the rest were simply farmers. Instead, they unified a special weapon - a sharpened wooden pole.

All wooden poles are chopped from small straight red pine trees. After peeling off the bark, the wooden poles are thinned. Such a wooden pole can be equivalent to five meters. Rurik's requirement is that it is five stikas long, even if it is basically the same length as the Frank cavalry's lance.

Each of them handles his or her own pole, which requires no education at all. On weekdays, Saxon people are familiar with processing wood into building materials and tools, but now they just make extra-long thin wooden poles.

Liudov on horseback paraded in front of his troops, stopped their whispering, and kept giving orders: "First put all the spears on the ground! Put them on your right hand! Do as we said in advance! Do not be afraid, Follow orders!"

The soldiers' chattering reluctantly stopped, and the things they discussed before were quite simple.

How to fight? They just gathered a large group of brothers, armed with axes and shields, and rushed forward with a roar and howled to kill each other with the enemy, and finally won in a pool of blood. A smarter way to play is to form a shield wall at the front line. In this way, at the moment of contact, the brothers can use the shield wall to overwhelm the enemy, giving them an advantage in the subsequent bloody battle.

They had never arrayed themselves like this before, and knowing that if there was a battle, the brothers would abandon their wooden shields, they would fight the Frankish cavalry with their own spears.

The Saxon warriors were uneasy because in their understanding, the "hedgehog formation" where the infantry group spread out their spears was really an overly advanced tactic.

But they soon heard songs that sounded like the Pomeranian language.

Everyone looked sideways at the river where the mist was gradually dispersing, where troops were walking in neat steps.

Those people are not Russians, let alone Danes. Their hair tends to be brown, and their stature is a little shorter than the tall and strong Russians. But they are indeed members of the Ross Army. It is said that they are the foreign allies recruited by the King of Ross in the far east.

This was the Slavic army, numbering a thousand men. Rurik's brother-in-law Medved led this army, almost all from Novgorod, to launch a new war in the far east. It is shameful to say that although they fought all the way from Scandinavia to the Elbe River, the Slavic army did not eat meat well. The soldiers' halberds lacked the opportunity to drink blood, and the killing results they produced were probably far lower than those of the Finnish army. Six hundred shooters.

This time I finally had the opportunity to make a great contribution.

Medved ordered everyone to sing the folk songs of his hometown, and in conjunction with the drum beats played by the drummer in front of the team, the team left the pontoon in an orderly manner and quickly formed an array on the river beach.

Soldiers were widely equipped with armor, so-called rivets used to rivet iron pieces to the deerskin. The driving part of the soldier was protected, and the rest only had a layer of deerskin as a makeshift leather armor, which also served to keep out the cold. From the outside, you can't tell that they have armor. They wear white robes with belts tied tightly, and two blue strips of cloth are sewn on the chest in a staggered manner.

Soldiers have also popularized iron helmets, and put on velvet hats made of fox skin, rabbit skin and other leather outside the helmet. After all, the weather is getting colder now.

They lined up neatly, and the soldiers grasped the halberds with extra-long wooden poles in their hands, as if they were creating a forest with the riverside. They also had a full meal and now their bodies are full of strength.

"Listen! Halberd! Take it!"

After a command, the woods suddenly disappeared, and all the halberds were placed flat on the right side of the soldier, while the soldier still stood upright.

They have used spear formation as a major training item since they formed an army, and their many successes in actual combat gave the Slavic army great confidence.

Rurik placed this army in his own central army. This was definitely not out of personal likes and dislikes. It was definitely not because the commander was his brother-in-law. It was just because what he would face next was a crazy charge by the Frank cavalry with a high probability. The spear formation of the Russian army was already the last barrier in the final land battle.

In fact, all the coalition infantrymen crossing the river were divided into two types. One type focused on hand-to-hand combat. The primary weapon was a spearhead made of an extra-long wooden pole or a halberd. The "Maruns" of the main flag corps of the Russian army also had to use their swords. Putting aside his specialty of shield fighting, he armed himself with an extra-long wooden pole and trapped his meat-cutting dagger at the end of the pole to serve as a spearhead.

Can a mere dagger be used as a spearhead? But these meat-cutting daggers are at least longer than the palms of their owners.

Most of the Russian soldiers rowed to the other side, and all the large ships were anchored on the south bank of the Elbe River, almost stranded.

Javlo led all the pan-Finnish shooters in the army such as Finland, Koven, Vips, and Rudy. They stood on the deck of the big ship holding longbows, and they also controlled the ship's torsion slingshot.

The ship deck is at a high place, not only does the soldiers have a good view, but the range of fire of long-range weapons is also very good.

As many as a thousand people are required to control long-range weapons on the battleship to strike targets up to 350 meters away by projectile. Such a distance is too crazy, because the distance from the edge of the forest to the bank of the river in the current dry season is only about 500 meters.

In a sense, if the enemy's cavalry is lined up and they just launch an attack, their army can be completely covered by the Russian naval firepower.

And this is just the "floating arrow tower" installed by the Russian army on the Elbe River.

Rurik gathered all the crossbowmen in the army. After all, there was a centurion carrying crossbows in each banner. Even though the Russian army had suffered a lot of losses so far in the war, Rurik still gathered 1,500 crossbowmen. Archer. In other words, he owned nearly 1,200 wooden arm crossbows (pine gum and birch glue bonded to deer tendons to make the wooden arms more elastic), and nearly 300 fierce steel arm crossbows.

The cart-mounted torsion slingshot that was used in the decisive battle on Visingse Island was even more indispensable. By modifying the small agricultural cart in Liudov's hands, Rurik was able to assemble seventy vehicle-mounted slingshots.

Gu Yan

How could such a huge battle be without cavalry troops?

Not only the cavalry, Rurik would not be so stupid as not to even deploy a tactical reserve.

A fleet of forty long boats was stationed on the Elbe River. They were some distance away from the main array, and the weapons they carried were swords and shields. They were the Danish army, and King Ragnar was very satisfied with Rurik's tactical arrangements for him. After all, high EQ means that everyone likes to fight with a sword and shield, while low EQ means that everyone is afraid of the Frankish elite, all of whom are wearing armor. Ragnar will stare at Rurik's flag and move. Once the enemy's Frank cavalry is anxious on the battlefield, the Danish army will enter the battlefield.

Fisk's cavalry simply stayed in Hamburg, and Ross's cavalry archers should not appear unless necessary. When the time is right, these cavalry can quickly enter the war through the pontoon bridge, and the overall situation does not take long.

Rurik's wishful thinking was a good one. Since the enemy chose war, Ross adopted a national war attitude and devoted most of his troops to the battlefield on the south bank of the Elbe River.

Of course he had some reservations. There were still troops stationed in Hamburg, and most of them were the remaining troops of the Saxon militia and the Blue Fox's Unclas-Gothenburg Army.

"This is such a huge army. In my opinion, Ludwig's elite will be killed by us even if they come!" Liudov was so proud that even his mount was swaying back and forth in excitement.

Rurik was full of confidence: "If they are willing to fight, I will fight with all my strength. I respect that Count Robert very much, but unfortunately, he may be killed by our joint efforts."

"He asked for this!" Liu Duofu gritted his teeth and had to sigh again: "Refuse to negotiate and insist on fighting. Even if his arm is injured, he still fights. It is in line with his character."

"Then if he dies in battle, what will happen to the earldom?" Rurik asked.

"Naturally inherited by his son."

"Oh...that's it. It seems that those nobles have already arranged their future. I am so naive, I still hope to talk to him. But, I don't know if this Robert dares to come."

"He will definitely come." A confident smile appeared on Liu Doufu's face.

"Is it because you know him well?"

"It's not just that. He would be a coward if he doesn't come. Besides, if they don't come, wouldn't it be in vain for us to put up such a big battle?"

Hearing this, Rurik couldn't help laughing wildly, and then bared his teeth and growled: "Hurry up then, it's best to end the battle before noon."

At the same time, the Frankish army also prepared accordingly.

Because of the previous morale boost, all Frankish cavalry believed that the traitor Liudov and the Normans had degenerated into bandits. The attack they launched today was for the thousands of Frankish people who were killed, as well as the slain northern saint Eski. You take revenge. Punishing traitors was originally the job of these elite cavalry, but now there was an added layer of rage to avenge the deaths of their fellow tribesmen.

They feel that what they are doing is the most just thing, and even if they die in battle, their souls will be saved.

In this era, the Pope of Rome has not yet defined as truth the self-righteous statement that "you die in battle to defend your faith and combat heretics, so that your soul can be redeemed and go directly to heaven", so there is no official crusade.

However, Charlemagne's great expansion was largely guided by this idea, and he found a theoretical basis for his expansion. Then the hereditary elite cavalry trained by him must implement this creed.

"Let's go!" Robert called to the assembled cavalry.

Under the guidance of the trumpeter's bugle, the soldiers who fed their war horses a good meal and had a good meal mounted their horses, arranged their weapons and armor, especially the long and narrow lances in their hands, and began Walk out of the forest in single file along the forest road.

What is arrogance?

Already determined to fight, and boasting that through Baron Nassau's report, Robert felt that the enemy's key intelligence had been obtained, and it didn't matter what was left.

He also knew that he had boosted morale through lies, which objectively gave birth to the existence of "nationalism". It is a double-edged sword. If you temporarily avoid it for some reason, you will definitely get the rage of the army, and the three cavalry flag captains may choose to go alone.

Because these three flag captains are the de facto military nobles of the Franks, it is a pity that their special background does not have titles or fiefs. What they most need is some victory in exchange for the capital to claim credit in front of Ludwig. They think that achieving military success should be able to exchange for the status of a baron, so that they can retire and live a stable life like a lord. After all, no one can stay young forever.

Robert was swayed by the will of all the cavalry. When they came out of the forest, they saw the enemy who had already assembled in formation.

Looking at it, Robert took a breath.

The soldiers were frightened by what they saw in front of them. The sand and gravel along the river were covered with enemies. Behind them was the Russian fleet, with a large number of flags fluttering to cover the sky.

The morning sunshine barely dispelled the coolness of autumn, and the sun shone on the soldiers' helmets.

Baron Nassau came on horseback: "Sir, they have indeed been prepared. This is their entire force. If we attack blindly, we will suffer big losses."

Robert gritted his teeth and pretended to be disdainful: "So what? Our invincible cavalry charged suddenly, how could they escape? This time they were not on the banks of the Weser River. There were too many of them and they could not escape easily. "

"But we must beware of their terrible arrows."

"It doesn't matter. As long as we are fast enough, we can break through their front. Then it will be our unilateral killing, and the Elbe River will help us drown them."

"I hope so. However, I still hope you can talk to their leader. Even if it is still a war..."

"No need." Robert shook his head: "What else can we talk about? Are they willing to surrender? Can we accept the traitor's surrender again? Stop talking! Henry, take your soldiers and prepare for the decisive battle. We will line up and charge directly. !”

What makes him so arrogant that he doesn't even need to negotiate with the other party for even a few words? Even if you come over and talk trash, you can still take a good look at the enemy's array from the corner of your eye, looking for flaws and traps, which will help you in subsequent battles.

As a result, the Frank cavalry began to form a formation, and the exaggerated length of the lance formed a forest.

They formed a wide array in front of the Ross army, and their intention was not clear.

Rurik had already dismounted his horse, and Liudov seemed to have withdrawn to the right wing of the array to command his Saxon army.

Arik, Konuson the Younger, Kanuf, Helliger, Hellafield, Medved, find the bookstore www. zhaoshuyuan.com These generals of the Russian army are lined up according to their unit numbers. They strictly followed Rurik's arrangements, completely hiding the spears and halberds placed on the ground, and pretending to be sword and shield bearers. The so-called enchanting soup for the enemy cavalry made them think that the Russian army could be beaten by the cavalry. Tread flat.

Everyone, including Liudov's Saxon army, is acting now.

Rurik himself gathered with the archer unit. There were nearly 1,500 warriors armed with various types of crossbows. They were divided into three rows, one row standing, the second row half-kneeling, and the third row lying down. The guys in their hands were already cocked, and the looser array allowed them to quickly retreat to the rear after firing.

Because the battlefield along the river is too cramped, in principle it is not suitable for cavalry combat, or even for infantry deployment.

The land archers of the Russian army have one and only one chance to shoot, and the same goes for the seventy-seat torsion slingshot sandwiched in the middle.

This is enough. Since the other party has no intention of negotiating, then prepare for the cavalry attack and let the Frankish nobles experience the fury of the north!

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