Rise of Rurik

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By escaping into the mountains and forests in winter, villagers can hide safely for a while, but over time they have to face a series of problems such as lack of food and water, cold, and the risk of wild beast attacks.

The chief abbot of the monastery, no matter how noble he was in the local area, was now down and dirty. He and the people continued to watch. The people wanted to go home, but they knew that the barbarians were still entrenched in Thionville.

People fantasized about robbers plundering and then walking away, just like what happened in the summer. But two days passed in a row, and instead of showing any sign of leaving, the barbarians seemed to insist on spending the winter here.

It wasn't until people who came down from the mountain found the shelter in the mountain with great accuracy. The appearance of these people caused great panic for a while. The panic did not last until they saw the wooden cross they were carrying through the gaps in the woods.

Until the refugees saw a familiar face.

What? Thionville was overrun by barbarians? They are actually not barbarians. The kingdom's little princess Gisla led her Norman army here?

The messenger, as a garrison soldier who surrendered to the Yotalan army, could not believe it when they repeated what they said.

However, his own house was safe, as were the houses of other defenders. The very important Abbey of Saint-Maximin was indeed visited by Norman warriors, who left disappointed because they did not find any gold or silver.

The abbey was not further destroyed, as the actual leader of this group of Normans seems to have been a Christian, and it was converted into a temporary residence for the Norman nobles.

It is an open secret that the Normans have servants of God who are wild and untamable. The Benedictine priests are still going to the north in waves, trying to persuade all the barbarian chiefs to convert and convert those who are not firm. Persuaded to become pious.

"Pada, their leader has already lived in the monastery, and their army is camped in various villages. The Normans said that we can go back. They... promised us enough food to survive until next year, and promised that those who go back will not be taken captive. You won’t be enslaved if you go.”

Can the Normans be trusted? There is also the little princess Gisla. The abbot met the little princess and subconsciously concluded that it was a lie made by the cunning Normans before seeing her in person.

However, the general public cannot care about this. After all, a large number of villagers fled in a hurry. The food in their hands can last for a few more days. Unfortunately, there is no water on the hillside. When the dry hard bread is eaten, how to cook the remaining wheat?

Some people believed what the messenger said, and the first people to come down the mountain were the families of the defenders. Several wives and children of the messengers gathered and went down the mountain regardless of the priest's persuasion.

They returned to Thionville with trepidation, and soon saw that the loose settlement was now filled with Normans. The blond Normans were coming in and out of the traditional native haystack houses, and although the tiled spire of the abbey still had a wooden cross, there were now some flags flying.

The common people did not know what "Saint Andre's Cross" was. They had seen longships flying by with such flags in the summer and knew who they were.

A pair of alert eyes stared at the people coming down the mountain. The gathered defenders were unscathed. They came to claim their families, and then... went home one after another.

They found that there was indeed a lack of belongings in the house, and they must have been taken away by the Normans. The family still has relatively sufficient supplies, and there is no problem in continuing to live, but they are forced to coexist with a pack of hungry wolves. The villagers who live in a remote area and have never seen the world are under great pressure.

At least the people who came down first began to resume their lives.

As these people's lives recovered, the onlookers on the mountain finally could no longer endure hunger. The most fatal thing was the lack of drinking water. Their lips had turned and their faces gradually withered.

Now even the priests couldn't bear it. After many days of consideration, the abbot decided to go down the mountain with a group of priests. "If their leader is really a Christian, he...should treat us reasonably and kindly."

Led by the abbot, the villagers watching all became bold. Thionville has shrunk, with two thousand villagers in one corner. There are a large number of children among them, which is inevitable. Due to the overall poor living environment, couples must have more children to offset the alarming rate of premature death of their children.

In the past few days, children have died in the torture. How can adults continue to endure it?

Over time, the children have collectively developed a condition.

A large number of villagers returned with uncomfortable bodies. Blue Fox noticed this situation and immediately ordered the entire army to remain calm and restrained.

The villagers relied on the abbot, and the abbot immediately met with the legendary leader of the Normans.

Before the man's face could be seen clearly, the cross displayed on his chest was very clear, and there was a woman with curly hair hanging next to him.

The villagers gathered in a group and watched the Normans approaching one after another. Their eyes were full of fear, for fear that these savages would rush up and fight.

The villagers were like a group of helpless sheep, relying entirely on the promised mercy of the Normans for their safety.

"Are you the local abbot?" Blue Fox said arrogantly in Latin.

Hearing this, the dean was shocked: "Why? You are a Norman, why do you know the sacred language?"

"Are you pedantic? Didn't you see the cross on my chest?" After saying that, Blue Fox deliberately showed off this one of his many pendants.

"Saw it. Unbelievable."

"Then you will be even more shocked. My Christian name is Joseph, and my godfather is Eskil, the Saint of the North. Papa, who are you?"

"Sainta Ansgar..." the abbot muttered to himself in surprise, and calmed down: "I am the abbot of Thionville, the retired Cardinal Bishop Metz, I am the most devout servant of God, and I am Pepin."

"Oh, your name is Pepin? You actually call it this?" Blue Fox stroked his bearded chin, still feeling strange.

"Please don't make fun of my name." The abbot asked again: "Since you have the same faith as us, why do you do evil again? You can repent here and end it all. Be kind and loving. That's it. The gospel comes into the world…”

Blue Fox interrupted sharply and ordered: "That's enough! Pada, I'm not here to listen to your preaching. Take a look! I am kind and promise not to kill you. But this is war, and my kindness is not here to treat guests to dinner. . Pepin, you can continue to take care of your lambs, and my army can always maintain restraint. But your granaries have been confiscated by me. As long as you provide enough food for my army, the army will not be destroyed. Understand?"

Blue Fox's words were very strong, and Abbot Pepin was startled. He could only mumble that he would do a good job.

Just at this time, a female voice came: "Pepin! You are still the same Pepin."

"You?" Pepin raised his head. The Norman girl in front of him had a delicate face. What was strange was that her nose was high and her brown curly hair was very different from the "golden haired people" who could be seen everywhere in front of him. "You recognize me? You actually understand our language."

"Have you forgotten me too? Just like Centurion Alovis almost forgot me. I have grown up a lot after not seeing you for a few years, and you are already old."

"You? Are you..." The more the abbot looked at this woman, the more familiar her features became.

Because the Carolingian royal family inevitably had Gallo-Roman ancestry, these Frankish nobles were all barbarians who were settled by Rome five hundred years ago. Two Frankish tribes officially became Roman vassals in 386.

This is the origin of Charlemagne's ancestors. At that time, their status was low, and the men of the entire tribe put on Roman military uniforms and served the Roman emperor in exchange for the tribe's power within Rome.

The barbarians wanted to become aristocrats. Even though they had military and political power, they still considered themselves of low status, so various Frankish nobles married into the noble families of the Roman Senate in the old era.

The Count of Tours and the Archbishop of Tours were both members of the Gallo-Roman Senate. The eldest daughter of Count Hugo III married Lothair. The young granddaughter of the deceased old count was Gisla.

Gisla does have the ancestry of the Latin line of Roman aristocrats, as well as the ancestry of the ancient Celtic aristocrats. As he grows older, his nose becomes taller and taller as evidenced by it. The same is true for noses. The more the Franks are related to the massive number of The Gallo-Romans merged, and their descendants said that the Frankish nasal sound became more and more serious.

This is very different from the Normans who emphasize high-intensity tongue flicking and have extremely long mouths when pronouncing vowels.

Therefore, if the blue fox wants to learn Frankish, it has always been difficult to master the knack of it. On the other hand, he easily mastered the high-intensity tongue flicking required to learn ecclesiastical Latin.

Blackbird had wanted to break away from Gisla's old identity, but now she found she needed to exploit it. The reason for revenge against his father is still a bit far-fetched. It is more like an excuse because behind him are three thousand Normans who are taking orders from him.

The root cause of Queen Judith's failure was that she had no soldiers, while she now had a heavy army.

After a conversation, Abbot Pepin had to believe that the Norman girl in front of him was Gisla, and he also had to believe that Gisla had apostatized. He found that he had to believe this strange thing, and only then could Thionville be safe.

Finally, after a lot of commotion, most of the fleeing villagers came back. Their winter life still had to continue, but because some supplies were taken away by the Normans, life had become very bitter.

These Normans were obviously the ones who attacked Trier and Luxembourg in the autumn. There were indeed northern refugees who fled all the way to Thionville, and they continued to escape as far as Metz. Some refugees passed through Thionville and asked for some food. The villagers gave them some black bread and then watched the refugees continue to move south inexplicably.

The local villagers cannot leave their hometown, especially as winter is approaching. Leaving rashly would be risking their lives.

They bet that the Normans would not target the poor themselves. They never expected that the Normans would still come. What was even more unexpected was that this group of Normans had already settled in the north. More Normans who had not yet arrived announced that No evil will be done to the villagers of Thionville.

Because all the local villages, together with the Saint-Maximin Monastery, are now considered the County of Gothenburg that is loyal to the Blue Fox. The area is considered an enclave ruled by blue foxes and the lives of locals will be protected.

Of course, Blue Fox's kindness was not to treat guests to dinner. He immediately plundered them in the name of tax collection. In the end, he took away all the remaining rations and a small amount of cattle and sheep left for the locals.

Thionville was originally the direct jurisdiction of the Count of Metz. Wouldn't it be a betrayal of the old lords if the local farmers paid taxes to the unheard-of Count of Gothenburg?

This allegiance is completely illegal, unless... the Norman army destroys Metz and eradicates the Adalbert family, old and young.

A bunch of farmers are nothing! If you maintain a certain degree of kindness in exchange for the cooperation of the locals, this option will be the most cost-effective. Blue Fox does not really empathize with the locals. He is still guided by the thinking of a businessman and makes what he considers the most rational decision.

But the blackbird really sympathizes with the people here and hates to see them being killed innocently.

If there was some benefit to be gained from doing work for the Norman chiefs, the local farmers did it. Because I heard that there was the greatest king of the Normans behind him, and he was just a count-level nobleman among the Normans. He had to work hard and wait until the army behind him came to avoid disaster.

Of course, every one of the local village women used black charcoal to make their clothes, hands, and faces black to avoid possible invasion by the Normans with a deliberately dirty image.

This did not happen.

The houses in the local villages are basically adequate but very inconvenient. There are still a large number of Götaland warriors guarding their boats on the riverside, setting up tents and lighting bonfires. This is to seize the opportunity to attack Metz.

Because the Moselle River is already very narrow at this point, at most two ships are allowed to go parallel. As long as everyone stops the ship sideways here, King Rus's army will not be able to say anything, even if the king will be angry because of another ship jam.

In order to seize the opportunity to attack first, the Jotalan army preferred to artificially create a ship jam, forcing the large fleet to still be led by the Jotalan people.

Thionville is very close to Metz. As long as the Blue Fox is willing, he can send a partial army to the city in one day to show off his power.

Blue Fox does exactly that.

The work of sneak attacks and showing off was handed over to "Broken Bone" Gorm's Wenarn Lakestad Army. These are the only people in the northern world who worship the water god. They selected a hundred warriors and divided them into three longships. Continue south.

The local villagers of Thionville are recognized as friendly subjects, and everything to its south is free to plunder.

So Gorm asked his cousin to lead the team, and the soldiers were both male and female.

Blue Fox had to consider a balance on this issue. After all, the lakeside residents and Gothenburg residents who lived on both sides of the Yueta River were fighting for fishing rights many years ago. Under the mediation of Ross's army, the two sides ceased war and formed an alliance.

In this attack, the Gothenburg Army captured most of Thionville, and Gorm and his men will definitely have some tempers.

Of course, Blue Fox could say that the number of miscellaneous people Gom brought was only a thousand people, so the spoils he would get should be small. Indeed, there are many half-grown men and unshaven old men who make up the numbers, and there are even old women with wrinkles. Ho! Does an old woman want to be a Valkyrie? Unless she's young.

Considering the future, Blue Fox asked this big brother to explore the road and unlimited plundering rights.

Gorm is not stupid. In the event of an encounter with the Metz defenders, only a small number of people can escape unscathed. He didn't want to put the whole family in danger.

Gorm's cousin is named Injivar, who is just an ordinary fisherman in his hometown. He has golden hair, beard and chest hair like most Norman men, and his bravery is also comparable to that of most men.

He himself was an extremely ordinary northern fisherman, so naturally his cousin was knighted by King Rus and he also gained glory.

On the one hand, Blue Fox only sent ships to report the news to the downstream camp after the dust settled in Thionville. At this time, it also sent a hundred warriors to conduct an armed reconnaissance at Metz.

Classic Viking raids were often a sneak attack by a few longships, with up to a hundred pirates appearing as full-fledged bandits. After looting, they burned down the settlements and then attacked the next target with the loot.

Ingvar and his male and female warriors happily rushed to the gates of Metz.

The three ships were parked on the river. Not far away were the Metz City Wall and Arrow Tower, and right in front was the stone bridge that was blocking the road.

Seeing all this, everyone was talking about it.

"Huh?! That's their stone wall? We really can't get over it without King Ross's magical weapon."

"The bridge blocks the shipping route. Only by dismantling it can we continue to plunder."

"Do you think there really is a lot of gold and silver in this city?"

"There must be." Injivar's attitude was very firm, "otherwise King Ross wouldn't insist on attacking this place."

"But we still have to cross the city wall to get rich."

"Yes." Injivar shook his head. He noticed that there were villages nearby. "We will go to the villages to look for things and take away the cattle, sheep and food. If there are beautiful women, we will also move away."

Hearing the golden light in the eyes of these soldiers, someone reminded: "Didn't Blue Fox say we don't want to arrest people? We can't fight with prisoners."

"Bah! Our count is Gom, and we are just in alliance with Blue Fox. Listen to me, let's go arrest people. Which of you guys is married?"

At this point, everyone stopped talking nonsense. They immediately found a small waterway, randomly found a distant village and rushed straight to it.

At the same time, a group of people outside the city were surprised to see the Normans coming again.

The three longships were like ghosts from hell. Metz, who had experienced the war, had already cleaned up the ruins where the Normans had ravaged, and buried all the slain.

The city of Metz is now managed by the local archbishop. After experiencing the war, the archbishop who does not know how to fight has to learn to be a general.

So some sharpened wooden stakes were placed outside the city, just to delay the Norman siege.

Although the city wall was made of stones piled by gravity, the wall was further thickened. Based on the events in the summer, the Normans used huge logs to hit the door. The Metz authorities further strengthened the defense of the city gate and prepared some four-wheelers filled with soil and gravel. The plan is to push these vehicles over when the enemy hits the door~www.readwn.com~ and then remove the wheels to act as obstacles.

The most critical innovation was that the city defenders assembled some arrow towers out of wood, which could be used as watchtowers or to launch attacks from a high position.

All they did was adopt passive defense measures. Since the able-bodied men in the entire region were taken by the count to the eastern expedition, Metz was depleted of troops. It was so miserable that a large number of old, weak, sick and disabled men were needed to defend the city.

In this way, the army cannot go out of the city to fight, and due to winter, it may not be able to wait for reinforcements from the west. Archbishop Metz clearly knew that the Auxerre Army, the Burgundian Army and other large armies were nearby.

Recently, especially the powerful Burgundian army was stationed in Dijon further upstream of the Moselle River.

Recruiting troops from Dijon, as long as the little king of Burgundy is willing, the army can reach Metz within half a month.

The bells of all the churches and monasteries in Metz were rang loudly, the whole city was mobilized, and the gates were temporarily opened to allow the nearest residents to escape.

Even if there are only three ships of the Noans appearing now. But the people fleeing from Luxembourg claimed that the Norman army was boundless and more than half of them were killed!

If there is enough food and water, Metz will close its doors and become a large refuge for tens of thousands of people.

A large number of people rushed towards Metz, but there was no way to escape from the villages too far away.

Ingvar and his men noticed the high tension of the Metz people. They were so arrogant that they chose to ignore it and plundered the targets they found.

One hundred men and women soldiers disembarked, and the winter war against Metz was started by these hundreds of soldiers from the county of Wienerenstad.

Naturally, it was also very disturbing.

To arouse the enemy? Blue Fox didn't care, and Rurik didn't care even more. If we talk about alerting the enemy, when 10,000 troops appear in Trier, all pretense will be meaningless. I'm afraid that the imperial nobles in the entire region are aware of the unprecedented attack by the Norman army.

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