novelraw Chapter 112: The Wooden Bridge
Chapter 112: The Wooden Bridge
Ch 112: The Wooden Bridge
AD 849, June.
The weather was scorching hot, and the soldiers’ mood grew increasingly restless. They repeatedly requested a forceful attack on Stirling Town, but Vig rejected their pleas.
Watching the commanders vying for battle, he posed a question: “What is the most important quality of a commander?”
“Strategy!”
“Charisma!”
Faced with numerous answers, Vig furrowed his brow, “Self-control. A commander, as the brain of an army, needs to discard all sorts of distracting thoughts, and control the desire for bloodshed and restlessness.”
After speaking for a full half hour, sensing his audience’s inattention, he felt an inexplicable sense of frustration. Just then, a scout rider arrived with a message,
“Sir, the Gael army on the West Coast is mustering; their number is unknown.”
“Reconnaissance again.” The rider departed. Vig gazed at the map. Currently, three thousand eight hundred Viking warriors were gathered in the Stirling region. The Gaels would mostly not dare to engage in a direct confrontation, and it was more likely that they would go to Edinburgh to relieve the siege.
“When we left, the Shrike had eight hundred men. Recently, a new batch of raiders arrived, expanding the siege force to fifteen hundred.
As a native Welshman, he was only skilled in small-scale mountain warfare. Although he had previously defeated Halfdan, this achievement was largely inflated. Facing the enemy’s pincer attack, and also having to divide troops to guard a thousand prisoners, there was a high probability that he would suffer a loss.”
After much consideration, Vig left two thousand warriors to continue the siege, and he himself led eighteen hundred men south to deal with this Gael reinforcement.
According to his deduction, this was the only remaining mobile force of the entire Northern Alliance. Winning this battle would completely deprive the enemy of the capital to launch a field battle.
Before departing, Vig instructed Joren, “Be careful in everything. Continue to besiege Stirling with fortifications. If my response is incorrect, and the Gaels’ marching objective is Stirling, then you don’t need to fight a hard battle; just take the longships and run.”
“Yes!”
After traveling southward for half a day, Vig arrived at Falkirk. As dusk approached, he ordered the soldiers to set up camp on the spot and spent a restless night.
The next morning, the troops set out and headed towards Edinburgh in the southeast. Before long, a scout rider rushed to Vig’s side, delivering news that was both welcome and worrisome.
He had guessed correctly; the Gaels’ target was Edinburgh. But these men were making rapid progress, only more than twenty kilometers from Edinburgh, and were expected to arrive by evening.
The situation was urgent. Vig dispatched a rider to inform the Shrike, instructing him to deploy a small detachment to block the wooden bridge eight kilometers west of Edinburgh, and to burn the bridge if necessary.
“As you order!”
The rider received the order and galloped towards Edinburgh at top speed.
After running for more than an hour along the country lanes, the rider crossed the wooden bridge, followed a shepherd’s path to the top of the hills, and saw the outline of the wooden fort appearing on the eastern horizon in the distance.
“Whew, delivering this message wasn’t easy.”
The rider scratched his light yellow hair. As the second son of an Anglo gentleman, Connor did not inherit the manor and had to participate in the lord’s military campaigns in order to obtain enough land to make a living.
Taking out his waterskin, Connor drank a large gulp of cool water, then gave the remaining water to his mount.
The summer Scottish lowlands were steaming with the smell of grass, and the humid sea breeze made him feel an indescribable mugginess. After traveling a long distance, the horse’s belly was covered in sweat, its wet mane clumped together, and it was surrounded by many annoying mosquitoes, causing the mount to occasionally flick its tail.
Taking out oats and salt to feed the horse, resting for about ten minutes, Connor continued on his journey. When he reached the siege camp, fifteen hundred allied troops were having lunch.
Soon, he found the Shrike eating lamb chops, “Sir, this is a letter from the Lord.”
“How many Gaels are there?”
Connor: “More than two thousand. The vast majority are light infantry without iron armor.”
After listening, the Shrike felt a mixture of relief and anxiety. The lack of iron armor meant that the enemy’s combat power was weak, but their mobility was relatively faster. Seeing this, he dispatched a team of the fastest hunters to rush to the wooden bridge.
With the message delivered, Connor had no time to rest. He filled his waterskin, took two pieces of black bread and a small bag of oats, and rode away from the camp, intending to return to the Lord in the west as quickly as possible.
Enduring the strong midday sun, the horse ran along the road it had come from for a distance, but its speed slowed down more and more until it simply stopped and refused to move no matter how much its master urged it.
“Hey, buddy, just a little further!”
Connor took out oats to feed the horse. The horse barely ate a few mouthfuls before half-lying down on the ground and falling asleep, its tail occasionally swinging to drive away the mosquitoes around it.
At this point, Connor was completely helpless. He muttered curses at his father’s stinginess for giving him such a lazy and slow horse, not caring whether he would lose his life because of it.
Half an hour later, over a hundred Welshmen passed by him. They teased the unlucky rider in their native dialect before noisily moving on.
When the horse finally finished its nap, Connor rode it westward again. When he reached the wooden bridge, he found that the Welshmen were engaged in battle with the enemy.
With their excellent archery skills, the Welshmen repelled dozens of Gael light infantry west of the bridge. Looking at the dense crowds surging in the distance, they gave up on defending the bridge and tried to set it on fire.
Tap, tap.
The Welsh leader repeatedly struck the flint, and sweat dripping from his chin onto the surface of the flint prevented him from igniting the tinder.
Seeing that the enemy’s main force was imminent, the remaining comrades took out their short axes and knives and frantically hacked at the bridge deck, destroying most of the wooden planks.
Finally, the main force of the Gael Alliance arrived on the west bank. They launched a volley of arrows and threw iron axes and spears, killing one-fifth of the Welshmen and preventing these hunters from continuing to sabotage the bridge.
Driving off the enemy, the Gaels searched for bridge-building materials and ended up dismantling a nearby farmhouse, using the salvaged wooden planks and iron nails to rebuild the bridge deck. Meanwhile, the Welshmen on the east bank of the river fired longbows from two hundred meters away, but did not achieve much success.
Meanwhile, Vig’s reinforcements were still trying their best to catch up. According to the scout rider’s report, two thousand five hundred Gael soldiers had arrived on the west bank of the river and were working hard to repair the bridge.
“So fast?”
Estimating the time, the reinforcements still needed half an hour to reach the bridge, Vig was extremely anxious. Noticing the commander’s anxiety, Torger and the other knights all requested to engage in battle.
“Sir, let us go ahead.”
“Two hundred cavalry against two thousand five hundred enemies, wouldn’t that be too risky?” After a moment’s hesitation, Vig agreed to the knights’ request and gave command to Torger.
“Gunnar is the most talented cavalry commander I have ever seen. I hope you learn from his strengths and avoid his weaknesses. In war, use your brain more.”
Hearing these words, Torger did not refute, bowed to Vig, then mounted his saddle and led the two hundred cavalry galloping away.