Rise of Rurik

Antwerp is not only a densely populated city, it is also an important trade node.

The people in the distance didn't bother to find out what the "Vikings" were. They only knew that the big city was burned maliciously, and the innocent people who had no time to escape were killed.

It wasn't just Antwerp that was attacked, the town of Nijmegen, also in the Maas River Basin, was also viciously slaughtered and burned.

It seems that the attackers will show up at any time, as long as they appear in a village or even a big city, even poultry will be killed, and innocent people will be ignored.

If it is just a civil war between nobles, the belligerents may not necessarily harm the common people.

However, it turns out that the Vikings' butcher knives targeted everyone indiscriminately. The Maas River Basin is too close to Antwerp. Two years ago, the local lower-level lords led the people to flee on a large scale. Area evacuated.

Village priests also don't understand "Vikings". According to their cognition, such barbaric and ugly people are probably the devils described in the scriptures.

Some priests preached to the nervous people like this: "Because they were not devout enough, they were attacked by the devil. Now, we can only go to the cathedral and wash away the impurity with our strength."

People believe it, they can only trust the priest now. The same priests who preached in this way also continued to strengthen their own ideas when they preached. Everyone's belief attitude became extremely pious, and then there were large immigrants with their families.

The people fleeing the disaster are all heading towards Maastricht. This city is not only the seat of the bishop of the region, but also a holy place of pilgrimage.

As early as the fourth century, the saint "Savior" built a Cathedral of the Assumption in the city. It is a Romanesque church with a large number of bracket structures and a towering bell tower. The gray granite walls speak of history, covered with moss to make it even more ancient. The saint became the archbishop, saving the people from the great world invaded by barbarians, and this is the origin of pilgrimage.

This cathedral is not the only one in the city. Multiple monasteries and cathedrals are combined to form a center of faith.

But it's not only that, the Roman-era bridge over the Meuse River has long since collapsed and been replaced by a wooden bridge.

Some of the stone piers were refurbished, and wooden piles were placed on the completely damaged ones.

With hard oak as the piers, the bridge is still strong after half a century, but the fly in the ointment is that it is too narrow.

The 100-meter-wide Maas River still needs barges to connect the two places

There is only one small bridge in the big city, and now the nearby residents are moving here on a large scale because of hearing horror stories. Many people come to this cathedral as pilgrims to cleanse their sins, making the cathedral, which is already busy with daily business, even more busy.

What made everyone even more alarmed was that in the spring of 842, a large number of troops crossed the bridge from here to the other side.

The Frankish cavalry needed to cross the river as soon as possible, and the bridge here was narrow, so some cavalry detoured to advance from the bridge at the Liege Fortress.

No one knew where this army was going. In short, the area on the left bank of the river became less peaceful.

However, Maastricht is just right to say that it is a big city. If a population of 100,000 is influx in a short period of time, what will life be like?

Originally a holy place of pilgrimage, a large number of slums have sprung up outside the solid stone walls of the Roman era.

Five hundred years later, are new barbarians invading now?

This time Archbishop Gregory maintained a certain degree of rationality. He did not believe in the so-called "devil", but he knew the meaning of "Viking". As elites, the prelate had always known that there was a group of Danes stationed at the mouth of the Rhine, who were the Vikings themselves. Their behavior was obviously contained, but now it became rampant for some reason.

"Could it be that God gave me the mission of becoming the second savior? Can I... save the people here?"

Saint Savatius was rich in saving people, and his tomb is in the Cathedral of Our Lady. The sarcophagus contained a lot of gold and silver, carved Latin commands and cast gold. The church is full of gold and silver, and even the largest black wooden cross in the preaching hall is decorated with a lot of gold.

The jewels in the church are proof of the greatness of the city, but for the archbishop, if those Vikings are daring to enter the inland to attack, Maastricht, with its magnificent church and warehouses with a large amount of grain, will definitely be attacked object.

What else can the archbishop do, only God knows if and when the Vikings will come, hundreds of thousands of mouths want to eat! The church set up a porridge shed to give out thick oatmeal porridge. At first it was sticky. After entering 842, the porridge donated gradually became clear and watery.

There are many reasons for this result. First, before the golden autumn wheat harvest, the granaries managed by the church were being consumed on a large scale. The priests themselves chose an account, and determined that if the rations were not reduced, the grain reserves of the entire city before the autumn harvest would be reduced. run out. Would it be necessary to go to Aachen to borrow food at that time? If Fei had to, the Archbishop would not do so.

The second is the factor of civil war.

Now all kinds of cavalry from the four banners under King Lothair have arrived at the Brussels Fortress through the bridge, and other infantry are slowly crossing the river.

If this large army was going to attack, it would have been in action long ago, and they only seem to be confronting the rebellious Earl of Flanders.

The confrontation between large armies requires constant consumption of money and food, and the standing army needs to get military pay, which can be paid after the war, but if there is a lack of military food, everything will be bad.

The Diocese of Liege and Maastricht were asked by King Lothair to pay some food. The archbishop complied, at the expense of his grain stocks being stretched thin.

The Archbishop is trying to maintain the status quo, thinking about the threat of the Vikings, what if they do come? A group of able-bodied refugees were organized. They used farm tools as weapons, and there were nearly a thousand armed men. The existence of these people at this stage is entirely to maintain order, and it is precisely because they can get enough food every day.

"As long as you endure until the autumn harvest, everything will be fine!"

However, many innocent people have been buried in mass graves outside the city, and they all died last winter. Even so, the fear of a Viking attack kept everyone in the city.

Finally, the Vikings came.

The army led by the blue fox doesn't care about the situation in Maastricht. Killing and looting are the purpose of the action. Nothing can make the soldiers angry than the empty village. Driving everyone to become more and more irritable.

At last the first apparently inhabited town appeared.

The longships flew the Ross flag in large numbers, and the warriors at the oars were as excited to see the town of smoked birds as they were to see gold and silver.

Blue Fox can be regarded as heaving a sigh of relief, standing on the commanding height of the **** of the towed armed cargo ship, he can see far.

He informed the semaphore soldiers: "Start the operation and loot the town."

How to loot? Rules are no rules.

Although Blue Fox is Rurik's own commander, what he can firmly control is the Ross Army, Gothenburg Army, and Finnish Army, as well as the Danish Army brought by the disabled Invar. The Swedish army and the armed fishermen following from all walks of life are like a group of rogues, destined to be disorganized and disorderly.

The horns of the whole army sounded, and then accompanied by the dull drums, these fantastic sounds were like ghosts from another world.

The targeted settlement is called Roermond, which is the only way to go on a pilgrimage to Maastricht in the north. There are also some refugees living in this city. Due to the lack of material reserves in the small city and the proximity to the big city, those refugees went to the big city via this place.

Of course they also heard about the Vikings and mass murder, and now they saw a large number of incredible ships popping up on the river.

Who are these people? How can there be a large number of ships rushing here?

Could it be the Vikings? !

The bronze bell of the small church in the city rang, and the unidentified people stopped their hands. Finally, the panting people ran into the town, shouting "Viking", and the prepared people finally panicked.

There is no time to take soft clothes. Anxie's blond-haired strangers in white robes have landed. They hold a huge round shield in one hand and a shiny sword in the other. Although they are completely different from the Frankish heavy warriors, they give the people the same majestic temperament. .

Finally, when soldiers with crossbows shot at the fleeing people and saw their relatives and friends being knocked down, anyone who was dumbfounded started to run eastward unless their legs were filled with lead.

The attacking Ross army shouted and charged, and the monastery in the city became the main direction of attack.

The undefended town of Roermond, a very important "post" on the pilgrimage route, is now completely occupied by the Ross army.

The disorderly robbery has already begun, and the first banner team of the standing army of the Ross Army, which rushed to the front, is the most experienced and knows where gold and silver are.

When the awakened armed fishermen were busy looting the houses and rummaging through pots and pans, the first banner team of the standing army had completely controlled the monastery. Gold and silver are exclusive to this army. Even if the young Seventh Banner Team wanted to come in to fight the autumn wind, they were driven away by these tough veterans of the same race with a smile.

Askad, who was holding the sword, was speechless. He led a group of young men to shout and curse outside the gate, and the curse was quite ugly when he was angry.

The "keeper" at the door kept his mouth shut. If it hadn't been for "Double Swords" Arik's eldest son this time, everyone would have slapped him to shut him up.

It was Grund who came out aggressively.

"That kid is cursing us to die early?"

"It's me!" Askad did not change his name: "You are so greedy, you must die early!"

"Really? Boy, you are so weak, you can't grab others and insult others? Don't tell me, we have to give you some gold and silver. You didn't do any meritorious service."

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"you!"

"Listen, your majesty ordered again that everyone in this expedition will rob according to their ability, and half of the proceeds will go to the national treasury afterwards. If you don't have what you have, don't shout!"

"Damn it!" Askad slammed the round shield a few times, calling on his angry subordinates: "Let's go. Go to the next stronghold and plunder."

There are only about 500 permanent residents in Roermond during peacetime, or there are three types of people who settle here: priests, those who have land at home but go to the city to do small business, and provide life services to passing pilgrims .

Most of them are small businesses. They are farmers in nature, and they sell some daily necessities such as wooden utensils, cloth, and woolen clothes that they know when they are not farming.

These daily necessities that had no time to move were looted, and the property owners who were determined to protect their wealth were all killed.

The mere little Qian Lanhu has no greed at all, he doesn't even bother to enter the city, and he doesn't show weakness in the face of the wailing of those captured women.

He ordered his subordinates to inform all the nobles: "Set up camp on the spot and bury the stove for cooking. All the prisoners will be executed tomorrow. We don't have time to capture them. After that, continue to march."

The town of Roermond is not far from Maastricht. In principle, the Ross Army fleet sets off in the morning and arrives in the evening. However, they are unable to walk for a day when they hit the fleeing town. Go to that big city.

The next morning, the soldiers who had slept all night boarded the ship one after another.

Blue Fox re-boarded the flagship of the armed cargo ship, seeing that the army of the headquarters had been assembled, he ordered to set off.

"Boss, there are still some people on the shore who haven't boarded the boat." The guard asked cautiously, "We're not waiting for them?"

"It's all a group of Danish fishermen who popped up from all over the place, and they can satisfy themselves by robbing small villages. Regardless of them, let's go."

Blue Fox didn't order to set the fire on fire. This was definitely not a good intention, but because the target could see it from a distance if the smoke was billowing.

The warriors who had eaten their breakfast were full of strength, and everyone was full of boiled oatmeal stewed peas, and they sprinkled more salt on purpose.

The warriors on the voyage took off their armor one after another. They didn't know when they would reach their goal, but they knew that wearing an apparently insignificant load would not help rowing at all.

Even the young Seventh Banner soldiers, some of them simply act barebacked. Their immature shoulders and backs have been deliberately tattooed by their parents, including swords, axes, and runes tattooed on runes. The warriors with this tattoo seem to be protected by the gods. Almost all of them are the new generation of mixed-blood Ross people. It is precisely because of this that they need tattoo runes to prove their identities.

The young people paddled as hard as their fathers and grandparents did. Askad didn't know how much strength they had to reach their destination, but he was humiliated in the last town. He urgently needed to take his brothers to Maastricht. Get back on the field.

He himself was paddling hard to keep up with the grown-ups, and scolded his brother for being too lazy to bump the paddles.

He would also yell some encouraging words: "If we see a town with a bridge, that's our goal. Rob gold and silver to make a fortune, sure!"

"Ulla!" The young warrior responded with this special battle cry very elegantly.

"That kid is really so angry that he wants to kill someone?" Grund, who heard Askad's roar, smiled knowingly~www.readwn.com~ He and the veterans will never let the water go, if there is a chance to rob gold, brothers Also take it for yourself.

But long-term paddling has been consuming the strength of the soldiers. Even if the flow of the Maas River is not fast, any carrying will lead to retreat if you do not advance. In order to avoid collision with the rear boat, everyone must continue to paddle.

Strenuously paddling is a skill that all northerners must master. It is not the arms that are exerting force, but the legs that push the bottom of the boat to make a backward movement.

The sunshine time in summer is very long. They set out in the morning, and before evening, a big city suddenly appeared in the distance.

The blue fox who was a little drowsy on the flagship was awakened. Standing at the height of the stern deck, he saw the tower of the church in the distance, a large urban area, and an obvious wooden bridge.

His fatigue disappeared immediately, and he immediately ordered: "Notify everyone to put on armor quickly, we have to complete the looting!"

He then said domineering words in a low tone to the people around him: "Tonight, we will spend the night in Maastricht."