novelraw Chapter 100: Disposal
Chapter 100: Disposal
Ch 100: Disposal
Waiting for the envoy to stammer out the conditions, Vig accepted them completely, and had the soldiers light a bonfire near the dock.
“Go back and tell Hywel that if the bonfire is extinguished and he has not surrendered, from this day forward there will be no Gwynedd.”
More than ten minutes passed, King Hywel walked alone towards the dock, and was greatly surprised to see Rodri by Vig’s side, “You shameless traitor, you actually defected to the Vikings?”
To the abuse from his old acquaintance, Rodri rolled his eyes, turned to face the sea, and didn’t want to say a word to him.
Having settled these two, Vig felt that the atmosphere was appropriately set, and led the two kings back to Mathrafal, dispatching envoys to invite the nobles from various places to gather.
During his stay, Vig had nothing to do, and observed the production status of the local residents. Welsh agricultural technology was backward, and they implemented an “Equal Inheritance System”. The further it went, the less land the average peasant owned. No wonder they frequently pillaged Mercia to the east.
“The root of the pillaging lies in poverty, well, this problem should be alleviated. Otherwise, in a few years they will rebel again, and then the responsibility will still be on me.”
Vig intended to find a method to divert the Welsh people’s energy, at least to prevent war for five years. After much consideration, he decided to teach these people to clear the swamps and develop the wasteland.
Under the questioning gazes of the local peasants, thousands of Vikings went to the swamps in the southwest direction, holding hoes and excavating a network of ditches, diverting the accumulated water into the River Severn to the east. In addition, the terrain was low-lying in some areas, and natural drainage was impossible. Vig referred to records in ancient books, combining the vertical axis windmills of the Persians, and the Archimedes screw pump and water wheel technology from the Roman period, to build a drainage windmill about ten meters high.
“Idlers disperse, don’t delay me from doing my business.”
Ordering people to disperse the idle peasants nearby, Vig attempted to operate the windmill. By noon, a mountain wind whistled past, and the four large sails creaked.
At the foot of the windmill, muddy water was surging from the artificially dug network of ditches. The ditches crisscrossed, dividing the swamp into patches of damp squares. Many Viking warriors were barefoot, using shovels to scoop the mud from the bottom of the ditches to the sides, the mud splashing on their legs forming dark brown hard shells. Occasionally, a frog would jump out of the grass, with a plop, plunging into the yellowish-brown ditch water.
Inside the windmill, huge wooden gears meshed with the axle, transmitting the power of the wind to the screw pump at the bottom. The iron pump was obliquely inserted into the water, and when the screw pump rotated, the ditch water was pushed section by section up the iron pipe, gushing out from the wooden trough at the top.
Through practice, the power of a single drainage windmill was limited, only able to raise the water level by one meter. Therefore, Vig adopted a multi-stage drainage system, building three windmills to successively raise the ditch water to higher channels, finally flowing into the River Severn following the natural drop.
As time passed, the water level of the swamp decreased inch by inch. The surface of the water, where reeds had been floating, gradually revealed cracked black mud, and wild ducks flapped their wings and flew away.
Subsequently, the Viking warriors poured clay onto the exposed plots of land, planted willows on the edges of the swamp to consolidate the soil, and prevented re-swampification.
At this point, the task of clearing the swamp was largely completed. Vig suggested that Rodri sow pasture seeds on it, improve the soil using wood ash and livestock manure during pastoralism, and cultivate it into farmland in a few years.
Faced with this large expanse of newly reclaimed land, Rodri was happy but somewhat puzzled, “Why?”
Vig yawned, “Master is kind-hearted, and cannot bear to see the poor suffer.”
Currently, only five hundred acres of land had been cleared, equivalent to a medium-sized manor. Throughout Powys, there were countless accumulated swamps waiting to be cleared, and Rodri would have plenty to do in the future.
The clearing work took more than a month. During this period, Welsh nobles arrived at Mathrafal one after another. Seeing the windmill drainage technology, they all had the same idea of imitation.
Guessing at the expressions of these people, Vig breathed a sigh of relief. At least for a long time in the future, the Welsh people’s energy would be consumed in improving the land, and they would not have time to go out pillaging.
In the future, even if Wales cleaned up the swamps and its strength increased significantly, if certain nobles decided to use force externally, only Mercia to the east and Wessex to the southeast would suffer. They would certainly not go to the Northern Border to trouble Tyne.
“In the early sixth century, the Britons were defeated by the invading Anglo-Saxon tribes. Part of the Britons fled into the Western Mountains and called themselves Welsh. The Welsh and the Anglo-Saxons are also an old feud, let them continue to make trouble, it has nothing to do with me anyway.”
On September 20th, Ragnar appointed “White Hair” Oleg as an envoy to go to Mathrafal to receive the allegiance of the Welsh nobles.
On the gentle slope outside the wooden fort, Rodri hastily arranged a venue. The venue decoration was mixed with some elements of nature worship and Druidism. Under the witness of the envoy, the nobles swore never to rebel again.
The ceremony ended, and the clerks spent two hours registering the information of thirty-five nobles of various sizes. Because “White Hair” Oleg couldn’t understand Latin, he could only pretend to flip through it, without realizing that he had held the book upside down.
“Let me see.”
Vig took the roster and turned to the last page. These people paid a total of three hundred furs and three hundred barrels of salted fish every year. Converted into silver coins, it didn’t even reach one percent of the expenses of this war!
From an economic perspective, Ragnar undoubtedly lost a lot. From a political standpoint, he barely recovered from the impact of Halfdan’s defeat, nominally gaining a batch of vassals, which was neither a gain nor a loss.
After Oleg relayed the pardon decree, a young noble wearing a green cloak raised a question:
“There are rumors that Ragnar is about to appoint his son as the Duke of Wales, is this true?”
Oleg: “I don’t know. I am only responsible for conveying the decree, pardoning all Welsh people who are willing to submit, and I don’t care about the rest.”
The green cloak turned his gaze to Vig, “Sir, could it be that you have obtained this title?”
By now, the nobles had witnessed the abilities of the Serpent of the North, capable of both combat and managing territories. If they had to choose a spokesperson, he should be the most suitable candidate.
“Don’t guess randomly, it has nothing to do with me.”
Vig decisively denied this rumor. Now that the land of Wales had been divided among the nobles, even if he became the duke, he would not be able to possess a suitable directly ruled territory. He could only be a puppet with a title but no real power, similar to the Zhou emperors and Han Xiandi, at the mercy of Rodri and others.
In his view, Ragnar would never tolerate a vassal simultaneously possessing Wales and the Northern Border/Scotland, he could only choose one.
Comparing the two, the Northern Border was rich in coal and iron reserves, and it was convenient to absorb immigrants from Northern Europe, far better than mountainous, remote Wales.
Hearing his answer, the green cloak’s expression became even more flustered. In his anxiety, he even found Theodulf, offering a silver bracelet as a bribe,
“Sir, I have been inquiring about news from merchants recently. They say that Ragnar has five sons, and the eldest son and second son both have fiefdoms. It is very likely that he will grant Wales to one of the remaining three sons. Do you think Halfdan has any chance of becoming the Duke of Wales?”
Declining the gift, Theodulf sighed, “I am just a noble who surrendered less than two years ago. Do you think I am qualified to participate in the decision-making of such a crucial issue?”
Noticing the other party’s unusual reaction, he took the opportunity to ask: “You have been entangled in whether Halfdan will become the Duke of Wales, is there any special reason?”
Thanks to book friend Tada Deyao Yao for the reward.