Rise of Rurik

Those defeated soldiers who fled the barracks outside Lindisfarne Abbey, lost their armour and ran wildly along the dirt road in the woods towards Bamburgh.

The rain during the period chilled their hearts.

When the fifty or sixty of them arrived at the checkpoint in Bamburgh in ragged clothes, wet bodies and black mud on their legs, the soldiers in charge of the pass thought it was a group of farmers trying to enter the city.

The soldiers began to interrogate, and the fleeing army immediately reported their identity and the tragedy of the raid on the monastery.

They were put into the city, and the terrible news spread immediately.

Their appearance was like a plague to Albert, Earl of Bamburg and the priests.

"Is it a Pict?" Lord Earl, who learned the news, held a meeting in his mansion for the first time.

The commanders of the entire city's garrison gathered in one place, and the bishop who attended the meeting changed his usual calmness and became angry and eager.

The centurion who escaped, he washed his face and continued to report: "Is it a Pict, I don't know."

"What on earth do you know!" The Count slammed the meat-cutting dagger into the table, and continued to curse, "You are the scum of the kingdom. You evacuate with people and sit and watch the monastery be attacked by them."

The centurion hurriedly explained: "My lord, there are at least a thousand of them, and they are as mad as the devils who drilled out of hell. Many people died in battle, while the enemy was almost unscathed."

This brief remark made everyone tremble.

"You..." The Count held his chin. He couldn't believe the man's words, and continued to ask, "Is it a Pict? Or who?"

"It must be the Picts," Bishop Edmund vowed. "Those who rejected our rulers attacked the monastery. As has happened before, we have not controlled the land well enough in the north. The barbarians are just Pretend to join our faith."

"Go tell the king about this." The count bared his teeth. "Now, those Picts may have attacked the Holy Land."

Maybe a real Pict? The centurion who fled back never thought so.

"My lord, I see that they are coming across the sea. They have many ships. I doubt it."

"What do you suspect?" demanded the count.

"Like when the monastery was attacked decades ago. It was not the Picts who attacked us, but the barbarians from the sea."

"Are those people? Are they really them?" The words seemed like a thunderclap, and the count suddenly cheered up and then panicked.

Bishop Edmund was also trembling, "Just a few years ago, Wessex and Kent were both attacked by those sea barbarians, who attacked the monastery, killed the priest, destroyed the Holy Sepulchre, insulted the Holy Remains, and took a lot of gold and silver. The pirates who took over Flanders!"

"Master Bishop, do you mean that the legendary pirates are eyeing us?"

"The events of a few decades ago are not legends." Bishop Edmund stomped and sternly said, "About ten years before his death, a group of pirates sacked Lindisfarne. This time, only the Picts or those Only sea robbers can do it."

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The Count got into his fist, and the beads of sweat kept falling.

"At this time, the king is coming to participate in the festival, and now I want to tell him that the holy place of the monastery has been occupied or even destroyed by the enemy." He smashed the table in extreme anger, staring at all the officers with sharp eyes, "I will bring You can completely eliminate those villains, you can have confidence."

Without exception, all the centurions beat their chests for the attack on the monastery, and in order to prove their bravery, they accused the fleeing officers of being traitors and cowards, and did not deserve to live. They fully support the counterattack, trying to prove their strength, such as boasting of their achievements in the civil war more than a decade ago.

But the earl's head has not yet been coaxed into mush by this group of apparently boastful minions, himself a cousin of King Ernred and an officer in the civil war.

He is not a pampered and fat-headed person, he is really a strong man who fights on horseback. At least his faction was winning the civil war, and then militarily suppressing the centrifugally inclined domestic aristocracy also ensured that the two small kingdoms continued to exist as a unified kingdom of Northumbria.

However, the stability of the kingdom is based on the stability of military strength. A thousand barbarian pirates landed and destroyed, and it seems that the strength is very embarrassing and powerful!

The count already had a countermeasure, he continued at the desk, "We must organize soldiers and horses to kill them completely, there is no room for compromise. I will immediately gather soldiers, organize men in the city, and organize farmers in the village. This is to defend justice and light. The battle, I will wait for the king to arrive and form a strong army to attack."

Earl Albert is also a black man, because his cousin King Ein Reid can be described as a "warrior king". If he rashly dispatches troops, no matter the outcome, he is robbing his cousin for credit.

The act of arrogance will arouse the fear of the king, or the kingdom will fall into civil war because of it.

He suddenly called out loudly: "Glory belongs to the king, let's hurry up and prepare for war."

Edmund Pig's Foot murmured tragically, "It will be a bloody Assumption Day."

"There's no way. Those pirates are like Satan's demons. If you can't kill them, the whole kingdom will fall into hell. Let the king go on the expedition and let the nations see our strength. War!"

"Aye!" The centurions present shouted sharply, full of confidence.

Pity that the centurion who led the escape was imprisoned. He could not escape the charge of being a coward and a traitor. As for who can punish him, of course, the king.

...

It seems that in the huge kingdom of Northumbria in Britain, she has just ended a century of chaos. Following the expulsion of King Erdwolf in 806 by the union of domestic nobles and the Church, the nobles began a large-scale civil war over the power of the kingdom. However, the exiled Erdwolf was restored in 808 under the intervention of Charlemagne of the Franks.

He received military aid from the Franks, a cavalry unit trained by the Continental Franks, who helped him suppress those who opposed him.

But how did this great king have Charlemagne's wit?

He swore an oath with the submissive nobles to give the priests more power to gain support. For those staunch opponents, Prince Ernred was ordered to wrestle the army.

It was this feat that, when Erdwolf died, Ernred was crowned king. So far, it has been 110 years since the outbreak of civil unrest, and the people have finally enjoyed a rare relative peace, but the world is never peaceful.

To the north of the kingdom were the Picts, and to the south were the kingdoms of Mercia and Kent, and news of barbarian invasions circulated.

King Ernred was well aware of the many threats facing the kingdom, and he had no illusions that he would be immune from the chaos.

However, he never dreamed that the most important monastery in the kingdom, where he was crowned, would be occupied by a group of barbarians!

The king, some of his family, and his personal guard, a group of more than 500 people, arrived in Bamburg from York in a mighty manner. When he arrived, the tragic news had spread throughout the city.

Not only that, but those who fled from the northern border of Edinburgh to the south claimed that Edinburgh had been destroyed by the seafaring barbarians, and another group of barbarians from the Pict Kingdom randomly began to try to invade.

When the king came to Bamburgh, Earl Albert, his cousin, immediately gave up his mansion.

However, the two terrifying news of this thunderbolt literally shattered the king's head.

He didn't even think about it in his rage, and faced all the officers present, even the lower-level centurions, indignant.

"Decades ago, barbarians from the sea also attacked the Abbey, and we rebuild it and are still attacked! I'm afraid it was these people who attacked Edinburgh, and our defenders were defeated. Are they the devil? Ours? Is the army of everlasting victory because the days of peace are too long, and men have become rubbish? You are a bunch of rubbish! Our holy land has been occupied by barbarians, and the city has been destroyed by them! At least a thousand soldiers have died, and they are still alive victory!"

All the officers hooked their heads, even those who followed the king all the way, did not dare to speak out against it.

Count Albert stretched his body and said bluntly: "King, those enemies... are very strong. There are at least a thousand of them, everyone is very good at fighting, and they also have some special weapons, we..."

"Shut up! It's all excuses. The soldiers are not religious enough, do you think I'm a fool? How many men are in the military barracks hanging out with the reared women? If the country signs a covenant, there will be no war. Don't make excuses, cheer me up!"

It is foolish to belittle his own people too much. King Ernred needs this group to realize that they have been humiliated by the enemy and must fight to the death to restore the honor.

Count Albert continued to speak bluntly: "The soldiers who escaped, especially a centurion, said some very detailed information."

"What? And the coward who escaped?"

"Exactly."

"Why wasn't he hanged?" The king was furious, staring at his earl cousin with eagle-like eyes.

"This.... The centurion was taken into my cell by me and needs your ruling."

"Okay! Okay..." The king leaned back slightly with his heroic figure, and almost looked at the people present with his chin.

He was quiet for a while, and then asked his cousin, "Apart from the centurion, what about the other soldiers who escaped?"

"It's all in my army now."

"That won't do. Brother, it's not good for us to let these cowards infiltrate the army."

The count was taken aback: "Could it be that those soldiers are also hanged? With all due respect, they are just lowly people. If the officers don't flee, they don't dare to flee."

"No no no, we should follow the Frankish way of doing this. You know, I have some experience in the Franks, I even met Charlemagne himself. The Franks had a strong army, and I thought their strength was in governing the army. Strictness. How to be stern? Kill the cowards in the army and scare the others. All soldiers should know that those who run away will be killed, and those who fight will be rewarded."

Although this method of reward and punishment is very simple and straightforward, can it really be done in the face of specific circumstances?

As king, Ernred held himself high, at least in Northumbria.

He firmly believed that the Frankish army was strong, but Charlemagne's army became more and more decadent at the hands of his sons who were busy with infighting. He didn't even know that the Frankish "German" Louis had a "blond-haired mercenary" with hundreds of people under his command, whose leader was the former Danish leader Harald Clark who was expelled in 826.

The once all-powerful Frankish army had decayed, and even Ernred himself was about to enter middle age.

It has been sixteen years since he became the king, and the kingdom cannot be said to have been under his rule for a long time. At least there is no military conflict with Mercia, and the friction with the Picts in the north is also very low.

He was quiet for a while, and came up with a solution: "Then follow Caesar's rules. Brother, gather the army, gather the entire people of Bamburg, I want everyone to see the fate of those who betray their duties."

What are "Caesar's Rules"? It was eleven slashes.

The next day, on a wet and clear morning, before the dew on the grass had evaporated, some wooden poles were erected in the rather muddy town square of Bamburgh.

It was a simple gallows, and as many as two thousand people came to watch this terrible criminal law.

The monastery was occupied by a powerful enemy, and if the king did not take measures, the barbarians were afraid that the next step would be to attack Bamburgh. The news of the attack in Edinburgh has spread among the people, and everyone is still in danger today.

The king wears a gilded silver crown and an orange cloak. He rode a horse whose mane was neatly braided.

Ernred pompously, his sword pointed at a total of seven prisoners wearing sacks and lanyards around their necks.

"My subjects! Look at you all! These are the warriors who were ordered to guard Lindisfarne, but they did not defend against the savages from the sea, and abandoned their faith and became cowards. Whether they go to hell or not, that is God My mission is to make these cowards and traitors go to God."

The people and soldiers held their breaths, but in fact, everyone was holding back a bad breath.

At this moment, no one felt that their king was exactly like a tyrant, and even at this moment they urgently needed a decisive king to lead people to regain their lost treasures.

"Execution!"

The executioner kicked the stool the prisoner was stepping on, and after a struggle, all the prisoners died.

Ernred didn't change his face, and his wife, young son Ella, witnessed all this from a distance.

In the end, it was the execution ground for murder, and the priests all took the pose of avoiding it. They are still busy with the arrangements for the Assumption Mass, but everyone has already had the most terrible idea that the Holy Land has been destroyed by the enemy, as it happened forty years ago.

In any case, mass must be done when the date comes, and if Lindisfarne Abbey is not available, it will be done at the Abbey in Bamburgh.

After the death of the prisoner, the body of the prisoner has been hanging like a salted fish. The soldiers who saw this scene are thinking, if the future battle is not brave enough, the fate is probably the same.

Those fighters who escaped but luckily did not win the lottery, they are not happy now, because they know best how powerful the enemy is.

But others were overwhelmed by optimism and immersed in the crowd cheering, most forgetting the horrors of war.

Because the men in the entire city of Bamburg were mobilized, even some of the surrounding male villagers were arrested.

The king's orders were absolute, and Ernred issued a decree in Bamburg to call men from fifteen to fifty years old to assemble in Bamburg.

The local Bishop Edmund and the priests who accompanied the king also jointly issued a proclamation that the so-called pious people would arm themselves and expel the barbarians and pay the Holy Land of Lindisfarne. .

Even so, the king had no intention of raising a strong army.

The 100-year-old chaos in Northumbria did not end in even 20 years. The country only had a population of more than 100,000, and it was mainly concentrated in the royal city of York.

Is it necessary to transfer elite troops from the southern border, which is mainly controlled? If so, who can guarantee that Mercia will not seize the opportunity to attack immediately? A few years ago, Mercia forced the King of Kent to become Mercia's servant.

It took a lot of time to mobilize the guards of the royal city of York to the north. The battle dragged on, and the enemy ran away. What's more, if the seafaring barbarians attack another target by sea, the result can only be worse.

Even though Northumbria had trained a cavalry with a strength of only a few hundred cavalry, there was no seafaring force.

There was no think tank by the king's side, or there was no civil servant role at all.

There is no civil bureaucracy in Northumbria at all, and the chiefs who are responsible for the work of various places are all military aristocrats.

It is really inappropriate to act arrogantly in Ernred. The king can't get any staff, and he can only do the military-oriented affairs himself. However, he is now in the territory that his cousin is in charge of, and the position of the earl is the canonization of his deceased father. The previous king was successfully restored in Northumbria under the support of Frank, so the domestic administrative model also began to try to learn from Frank.

Is it correct to do so?

King Ernred, after two days of preparations, he can be said to have quickly assembled an army and civilians almost entirely within the Earl of Bamburgh.

The strength of this army is indeed large, and the composition of soldiers during the period is really varied. A large number of farmers and craftsmen had no intention of fighting, but they learned that they would be executed if they did not fight, so they could only bring their own farming tools, or even a sharpened wooden stick, to join the army. They had to take care of their own food and marched almost with bare feet.

Among them, only more than 800 people are real soldiers of the kingdom. They are walking on real leather boots. Although the kingdom does not have a uniform style of military uniform, the orange linen dyed by multiple processes constitutes the main color of the regular soldiers.

In addition to this "Bamburgh Earl's Army", King Ernred also brought out his own entourage.

Two hundred swordsmen and shields, all in chain mail, and one hundred and fifty armored "heavy cavalry".

An army with a total strength of 2,400 people was born in this way. Although the king did not pay attention to those peasant warriors, the regular kingdom warriors numbered more than 1,000.

Are the enemies brave? Is there anyone in this world more brave than the cavalry?

The cavalry is the foundation of the king's confidence, but the horse-riding scouts sent out for the past three days have not followed up. It seems that those people have lost their way?

Ernred was immersed in the fantasy of a bloodthirsty war, and after ten years he had suddenly assembled such an army, he felt that he was only one step away from victory.

All that was left to do was to follow the dirt road leading to the monastery and drive the army forward in a mighty manner. It is better for the enemy to stand there like a fool, so that his glorious victory can be deserved, and it is also through victory that he will long-term defeat the prestige of the barbarians at sea, and let the nations see who is brave.

He has already chosen a departure date.

As for the Vikings and Rurik, their actions directly conformed to Ernred's fantasy.

Maybe it's just a fight. Considering that his subordinates were not from Rus, Rurik tried to do some detours and sneak attacks. He was afraid that this group of Balmerks who were prone to infighting would not be able to do it. Since it is a dull fight, the tactics of the defensive counterattack will be carried out to the end. Just like the battle of Gotland, this Rurik was familiar and extremely confident.