Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 245: The Road Network

With the rebellion quelled, Wigg formally stripped Edmund and his family of their ruling rights. East Anglia was absorbed into the royal domain, becoming a newly established county.

All vassals who participated in the rebellion were stripped of their lands. The core members were executed, while the rest were exiled to the Canary Islands.

Looking at the great nobles gathered in the tent, Wigg spoke in an icy tone, "Do any of you have objections?"

In the current political climate, the aristocracy was highly vigilant against any act of stripping titles. However, since Edmund had openly rebelled, the great nobles simply could not find a reason to plead for leniency on his behalf and had no choice but to tacitly accept the matter.

Next was Scunthorpe. Because Ricard and the four barons had rendered meritorious service by exposing the plot, Wigg lacked sufficient justification to strip them of their ruling rights. The resolution was as follows:

Buden was stripped of his nobility and placed under permanent house arrest in a remote temple. His uncle, Ricard, was granted the title of Earl, and the territories of the other four barons were doubled as a form of checks and balances.

A directly administered county, fourteen hundred captives, the wealth, military equipment, and grain stored in the cellars of Norwich Castle, along with the family estates of those minor nobles.

These were the fruits of Wigg's painstaking six-month wait. The gains were quite good, but they fell far short of his expected goals.

"The original plan was to use thousands of captives to rebuild the roads," he muttered. "Now, it seems we will have to spend money to hire laborers. This will be another massive financial expense."

After the Roman Empire invaded Britain in 43 AD, they began systematically constructing roads, reaching a total length of approximately four thousand kilometers.Britain's road network was centered around Londinium, radiating outward to various towns and frontline fortresses. The main roads featured waystations at regular intervals, allowing messengers to rest and change horses. There were two crucial arterial roads:

Dover to Londinium to Chester, running from the southeastern ports to the western frontlines of Wales, spanning roughly four hundred kilometers.

Londinium to York, running from south to north, stretching over three hundred kilometers. North of York, there was an even narrower path leading to Hadrian's Wall, responsible for transporting supplies to defend against the incursions of the northern Picts.

However, after the Roman legions withdrew in 410 AD, Britain plunged into severe civil unrest and technological decline.

The Anglo-Saxon tribes that migrated from the continent lacked the capability to maintain this vast and efficient road system. They even scavenged the stones to build city walls, palaces, and churches, causing most sections to degrade into muddy country lanes.

As the King of Britain, Wigg planned to repair these two main roads. This would facilitate the rapid deployment of troops to quell rebellions, while also benefiting domestic commodity circulation and promoting economic prosperity.

Suddenly, he recalled the practices of the Roman Empire—utilizing soldiers to construct roads.

The Roman legions were not merely combat units; they were also highly organized, strictly disciplined engineering corps with efficiency far surpassing that of loosely organized commoners. Furthermore, during garrison periods, building large-scale public works was an essential method of maintaining military discipline.

The following day, Wigg brought up the matter during a cabinet meeting. After the meeting adjourned, he summoned all military officers at the company level and above. Following a lengthy discussion, he decided to draft one infantry regiment to participate in the construction for a four-month period. With three infantry regiments in total, they could perfectly rotate throughout the year.

Combining the army, hired civilian laborers, and captives, the kingdom managed to assemble a four-thousand-strong engineering team. They prioritized the maintenance of the long-neglected ancient road from Londinium to York, referencing surviving parchment scrolls for their plans.

The high-difficulty tasks were handled by the military, with civilian laborers acting in an auxiliary capacity, while prisoners of war were assigned to quarries or logging camps.

During construction, the soldiers divided the labor cooperatively. The strongest men were tasked with excavation, swinging heavy pickaxes to smash into the earth. Clods of soil fractured and turned over beneath the powerful blows. Sweat quickly soaked through their coarse linen shirts, and the pervasive dust clung to their exposed skin, making the stifling heat almost unbearable.

Soldiers with slightly less physical strength used shovels to scoop up the loosened earth, piling it on both sides of the road. Another group of soldiers mixed mortar nearby, using a base of lime, volcanic ash, and river sand.

Once they excavated to a certain depth, a different batch of soldiers hauled over crushed stone, dumping it into the freshly dug trenches.

With the roadbed completely filled, the Minister of Industry, Lucar, loudly urged them on. "Hurry up, stop dawdling! It's rare enough that we get a sunny day." The most exhausting step began. Over a dozen men worked together to push and pull a massive stone roller, rolling it back and forth over the paved roadbed to compact it. The heavy stone roller produced a dull rumbling sound, smoothing the surface over and over until the roadbed became hard and level. The engineering corps acting as overseers occasionally used plumb lines to check if the foundation was even, ensuring the quality of the construction.

To prevent water accumulation, the road was slightly elevated above the ground level, with drainage ditches dug on both sides to guide rainwater into lower-lying areas.

Once the road surface was fully laid, the soldiers erected heavy granite milestones along the roadside. The inscriptions recorded the current location, the time of construction, and the designation of the military unit responsible, making it easy to hold them accountable in the future.

Once they moved past the initial adjustment period, the engineering team's paving speed stabilized. Wigg then shifted his attention to the southern shores of the Channel—to Flandre.

As early as the beginning of the rebellion's suppression, he had dispatched envoys to Flandre, demanding that the Earl of Flandre and the merchants provide an explanation for the matter. All he received was a dismissive, perfunctory response.

Since things had come to this, Wigg had to make an appropriate response. Otherwise, the outside world would perceive him as weak and easily bullied.

During a cabinet meeting, the Minister of War, Bafors, suggested launching a small-scale war to plunder Bruges and other surrounding towns.

"Small-scale?" Gorm immediately retorted. He wasn't skilled in battlefield command, but his vision on a strategic level was crystal clear.

"Once a war begins, who can predict how it will unfold? Supposing Charles the Bald and Gunnar get dragged into this, it will inevitably turn into a decisive battle involving tens of thousands of troops. We lack sufficient grain and military equipment, and the herds at our military stud farms have yet to multiply and grow strong. Rashly sparking a Third Viking-West Francia War will very likely repeat Ragnar's failures."

Seated at the head of the table, Wigg remained silent, stroking his chin as he sank into deep thought.

Having weathered numerous wars, West Francia had made significant advancements in tactics, army scale, and defensive fortifications.

During Ragnar's initial invasion, his fleet sailed straight down the River Seine to strike at Paris, annihilating the main Frankish army in a single battle. After the war ended, the Frankish King spent a fortune constructing the fortress of Le Havre at the mouth of the Seine.

The fortress boasted double lines of stone city walls and could garrison over two thousand soldiers, completely cutting off any Viking ambitions to attack along the River Seine.

Beyond the mouth of the Seine, great nobles everywhere were building stone fortresses of their own. At the bottom rungs, the barons and knights were desperately honing their martial prowess. Ultimately, during the second war, they utilized their sheer massive volume to drag Ragnar down in a war of attrition.

After a long while, Wigg decided to respond with a different approach. "The Prime Minister is right. It is currently unsuitable to deploy the regular army. However, Flandre must pay a price; otherwise, no one will fear us in the future."

He drew inspiration from strategies of later eras—issuing letters of marque. This would encourage private citizens to plunder Flandre's merchant ships and coastal regions, letting those foreign merchants taste the iron fist of Britain.

To consolidate their coastal defenses and avoid being counter-raided by Flandre, Wigg summoned representatives from towns like Dover. He ordered them to independently commandeer fishing boats and merchant ships to form coastal patrol fleets.

The patrol fleets' responsibility was to deal with small bands of enemies. If they encountered a large enemy force, they were to light the beacon towers and notify Londinium as swiftly as possible.