Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 318: Andalusian Horses

In mid-July, over a hundred students from the Army Academy passed through Luton town. Among them was the second prince, Frede, who eagerly sought out his elder brother's residence, only to be greatly disappointed.

"You actually have the time to plant corn and pumpkins? Is your workload really this light?"

Fridleif set down his hoe and replied in exasperation, "A light workload is actually a good thing. It means the district is stable. If I were overwhelmed with work, it would only prove my incompetence."

Frede rolled his eyes, tossed out a few sarcastic remarks, and dodged to the side to avoid getting smacked. "Forget it, I won't disturb your corn planting. The summer internship is over, and we are heading back to Londinium. Do you have any messages for me to pass along?"

"I just sent out a letter yesterday, so there is no need."

Frede glanced around, finding the place terribly dull. He slipped into the kitchen and snagged five smoked chickens and a smoked hind leg of pork as an extra meal for himself and his classmates, then left with a yawn.

At noon the next day, Frede returned to the Royal Palace and recounted his experiences in Cambridgeshire. His internship had involved assisting the locals in building drainage windmills and constructing bridges. Before long, he shifted the topic to his elder brother's life, complaining that Fridleif looked no different from a village farmer when working the land.

"After I graduate, please do not make me serve as a local official. I could not survive that kind of life."

"What do you want to do?"

Frede declared, "Cavalry, of course!"The cavalry was indeed majestic. Wigg was not surprised in the least, but he had no intention of throwing his son into such a dangerous military branch. After pondering for a moment, he made a silent decision.

'Since this kid is good at civil construction, I might as well throw him into the engineering corps after graduation. He can specialize in building bridges, paving roads, and operating ballistas and trebuchets. I will let him hone his skills for a few years, then pick a suitable piece of land to grant him as a fief,' he thought.

Recently, the intelligence network had infiltrated the Livonia region. Information regarding the locations, populations, and resource outputs of various tribes flowed continuously to Gotland Island, where it was compiled and transmitted back to Britain.

In another two years, assuming conditions permitted, Wigg planned to confer the title of Duke of Livonia upon his second son. They would select a geographically advantageous port to build a town and slowly expand outward.

"The lands of Eastern Europe are vast, and their development potential is far superior to that of Norway and Sweden."

He jotted down a rough plan in his memorandum and resumed dealing with the backlog of documents.

The first document detailed a shipwreck dispute. Last month, Leonard's Knarr ship had been sailing to Winchester to sell goods, but it sank off the coast of Cornwall. Leonard suspected that the local lord had intentionally set up false light signals to mislead the Knarr ship into the hidden reefs.

"Another shipwreck?"

From what he could recall, this was the fourth shipwreck in Cornwall this year. Wigg penned his reply at the end of the official document, demanding that the lords of both involved parties come to Londinium, while simultaneously ordering the Minister of Justice to dispatch investigators for an on-site inquiry.

The second document recorded a petition from the wealthy merchant Harry.

His textile workshop had recently achieved a technical breakthrough, enabling them to apply a much more durable red dye to their fabrics. At the same time, the workers had creatively invented a double-dyeing process: first dyeing the cloth yellow with weld, then dyeing it again with woad, ultimately producing a vibrant green fabric.

Unfortunately, Harry discovered that a competitor had swiftly begun selling the exact same red and green cloths. Suspecting that his rival had stolen his technical secrets, he pleaded for the King to uphold justice.

Harry's dyeing patent was valid for ten years. Wigg wrote his reply, instructing the Minister of Justice to handle the matter in accordance with patent law. Undoubtedly, relying on these two dyeing techniques, Harry's textile workshop would expand rapidly and completely surpass all other competitors. However, Wigg had no intention of interfering, preferring to let the market develop on its own.

Flipping to the third document, he found a report detailing recent horse trades.

A British merchant ship had traveled to Lisbon carrying furs, strong liquor, whale oil, amber, and dyed cloth. On the return trip, the spaces taken up by spices and olive oil were relatively small, leaving the vast majority of the cargo hold empty.

At the beginning of the year, the Minister of Naval Affairs had negotiated a deal with the Governor of Lisbon. Britain would provide them with much-needed iron ingots in exchange for permission to purchase warhorses. Upon the merchant ship's return journey, the vacant cabin space would be used to transport these warhorses, alleviating the domestic shortage.

This procurement plan looked excellent on paper. It was only when the first batch of Andalusian horses was transported to the port that the Minister of Naval Affairs realized the severity of the problem.

The Kingdom's three-masted merchant ship had a cargo capacity of three hundred tons. When departing from Lisbon in early June, the merchant ship had procured thirty warhorses in excellent condition.

Suspended by thick sailcloth slings, they were hoisted unsteadily over the ship's rails amidst the shouts of the crew and the creaking of pulleys. They finally landed in the temporarily converted livestock pens below the main deck, their uneasy neighs and heavy snorts echoing through the cramped space.

Leaving the coastal waters of Lisbon, the vessel sailed north along the coastline. A week later, it encountered a storm. Surging waves battered the hull, and cold, salty seawater flooded into the cabins. The livestock pens became slippery and muddy. The biting cold and violent pitching mercilessly ravaged these land-dwelling creatures.

Soon, a young stallion fell ill. It began to refuse food, its once glossy coat rapidly losing its luster. Its eye sockets grew sunken, and every breath it took sounded like a battered bellows.

To prevent the remaining horses from being infected, the captain ordered the crew to work together to drag the severely ill warhorse to the edge of the deck, then shoved it into the rolling waves.

Throughout the subsequent voyage, the merchant ship endured two more torrential rainstorms. The lower deck grew damp and putrid. The hooves of some warhorses rotted and became inflamed, rendering them unable to stand. They could only lie on their sides in the filthy, sodden hay. As time went on, their health deteriorated, and they were successively thrown into the sea by the crew.

After a month-long voyage, the merchant ship docked at the pier in Londinium. The surviving warhorses were carefully lowered to the ground by a treadwheel crane. Only eighteen remained.

Having grown accustomed to the rocky environment, the warhorses found it difficult to adapt to the solid ground at first, their four hooves trembling slightly. Their coats had lost their former silky sheen, caked with filth and hardened salt crystals. Their ribs were starkly visible beneath their sagging skin.

Seeing this miserable sight, the veterinarian who had rushed over upon hearing the news let out a heavy sigh. "They will need at least half a year to recover. I expect that some of these horses will never fully heal and can only be used as training mounts or breeding studs."

Overall, the attrition rate for this batch of warhorses reached forty percent. Factoring in all the various expenses, the Kingdom had to pay a cost of seven pounds of silver to acquire a single warhorse.

"Wasting all this money, and the result is only eighteen emaciated horses—and it is not even certain yet whether they can recover. This is absolutely absurd!"

Wigg was utterly speechless at this transaction. If those seven pounds of silver had been used to produce military equipment, they could have acquired ten sets of standard brigandine armor.

Judging from past battle records, the effectiveness of a single heavy cavalryman was roughly equal to three heavy infantrymen. Right now, the cost-effectiveness of procuring warhorses from Lisbon was simply too low. It would be far better to produce armor and equip more heavy infantry.

Clutching the document, Wigg paced back and forth across his office. After a long while, he returned to his seat, smoothed out the crumpled piece of paper, and wrote down an order to reduce the cost per warhorse to under six pounds of silver; otherwise, the trade agreement was to be canceled.