Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 359: Paris, Harfleur, and Calais

Faced with the most heavily fortified stronghold in Francia, Wig had no choice but to lay siege, ordering his soldiers to construct numerous trebuchets and excavate tunnels outside the city walls.

On the fifteenth of September, Beauvoir sought an audience in the central command tent. "Your Majesty, this fortress is incredibly formidable. Perhaps we should persuade them to surrender?"

Wig set down his scroll and replied coolly, "Fine. As long as the garrison commander opens the gates and surrenders, I promise to enfeoff him as an Earl."

'What? I have done so much for you, yet you only gave me the title of Earl as well.'

Grumbling inwardly, Beauvoir lowered his head and walked away.

Half an hour later, Wig heard a commotion outside the tent. The next moment, Beauvoir walked back in, clutching his arm as he reported,

"Your Majesty, the garrison actually fired crossbows at me. Thank the gods I was wearing armor, or I would not have returned."

"Is that so?" Wig sounded slightly disappointed. It seemed this siege would drag on for quite some time.

That evening, he convened a meeting, assigning the Second Field Division and two garrison regiments to lay siege to Calais. The remaining seventeen thousand men were ordered to stay outside Harfleur until the fortress was thoroughly cracked.

At this point, the Viking army was split into three forces, simultaneously besieging Paris, Harfleur, and Calais. Now that the field armies of West Francia were completely decimated, dividing their forces actually improved the efficiency of their sieges.On the twentieth of September, a gentle breeze carried a hint of autumn chill. Dozens of towering trebuchets stood on the open, flat plains outside the city, hurling heavy stones at the walls. Unfortunately, the results were negligible. Whenever a breach appeared, the Franks would work through the night to frantically patch the gap with wooden stakes and sandbags.

Meanwhile, the sappers had excavated over a dozen tunnels, slowly advancing toward the city walls.

The Franks' countermeasure was to dig their own tunnels from within the city to intercept the Vikings'. They dispatched soldiers to slaughter the Viking sappers, leading to a series of desperate, bloody skirmishes in the dark, stifling confines beneath the earth. Occasionally, the defenders would even employ smoke or floodwaters to suffocate and drown the Viking engineers.

Seeing that the trebuchets and tunneling tactics were proving too ineffective, Wig decided to change his approach.

He left the siege camp and rode to a hill north of the city. Gazing into the distance, he noticed a small stream flowing southward toward Harfleur's northern gate. According to the locals outside the walls, this Lézarde River was the primary source of fresh water for both the garrison and the city's residents.

Hearing this, he grew thoughtful.

Upon returning to the camp, Wig summoned his unit commanders and ordered them to dam the upper reaches of the Lézarde River, cutting off the flow of water into the moat and the city's aqueducts.

A week later, the makeshift dam was completed. The water level in the moat plummeted, allowing seawater to flow backward up the riverbed with the tide. The garrison had lost their vital source of fresh water.

Realizing that this tactic was working, Wig intensified the assault. Sparing no expense, he ordered the trebuchets to launch two thousand fire pots in a single night, engulfing the entire fortress in a sea of flames.

Even so, the stubborn defenders held out for another week before finally, left with no other options, choosing to surrender.

There was a massive difference in treatment between surrendering willingly and being forced into it. Wig offered no leniency to these Franks, his face grim as he announced his decision.

The ordinary soldiers were thrown into captivity on the island of Jersey. The commander and his trusted aides suffered an even worse fate; they were sentenced to exile, sent to pioneer the Caribbean Islands. Given the blistering tropical climate, it was expected that none of them would survive past five years.

Having dealt with Harfleur, Wig traveled to Calais on the northeastern coast. The local garrison, their fighting spirit utterly shattered by a continuous stream of bad news, agreed to march out and surrender.

Finally, after a year and a half of war, Wig had successfully occupied Calais just as he desired. From now on, reinforcements and supplies could be shipped directly from Londinium, crossing the Strait of Dover to reach Calais, drastically reducing both the transit time and the perils of the sea voyage. Gazing out at the boundless expanse of the North Sea, many soldiers began to long for home, and even Wig felt a fleeting moment of wavering resolve.

"No, we cannot go back. Otherwise, our momentum will completely dissipate."

He took several deep breaths, forcibly banishing the distracting thoughts from his mind, before leading the army toward the outskirts of Paris.

It was now mid-October. The First Field Division had constructed sixty trebuchets on both banks of the river, bombarding the defensive fortifications on the Île de la Cité across the water, day and night without pause, for over a month.

Thinking back on it now, this seemed to be his third time attacking Paris.

Riding a gray horse, Wig ambled slowly along the southern bank of the River Seine. The calm surface of the water reflected the fiery glow of the setting sun, flowing silently and, in a trance-like daze, pulling him back to twenty years ago.

He had been so young then, merely twenty-three years old. After annihilating the main force of the Frankish army, he had strolled along the riverbank on a gray horse, setting up the siege camp, accompanied by Ivar, Bjorn, Niels, and Gunnar. The reflections of those tall, youthful figures had shimmered on the water's surface. The breeze had been warm, the horses' manes flying, and the sound of laughter and conversation had filled his ears. It felt as though the entire world had been open to them.

How time flew.

After a long while, he abruptly lifted his head. A pale, frigid moon had quietly crept up the eastern sky, unnoticed. The moonlight cascaded down silently, drifting upon the tranquil waters of the River Seine.

Wig's gaze crossed the river, settling on the Île de la Cité in the center. The blurred outline of Paris looked increasingly oppressive beneath the moonlight, and several gaping breaches in the city walls were starkly visible.

Suddenly, the trebuchets on both banks of the River Seine launched a volley of fire pots. The blazing fuses streaked across the pitch-black sky, the deafening clamor scattering his nostalgic thoughts.

The bombardment lasted for about ten minutes before over twenty longships quietly rowed closer to the Île de la Cité. Upon drawing the defenders' fire, the fleet scattered in an uproar, swiftly retreating out of range.

This was not a true assault, but rather their nightly routine of harassment, intended to terrify the garrison and deny them any rest.

Over the next half month, more trebuchets were completed, and the damage to the walls of the Île de la Cité grew increasingly severe. The defenders had originally planned to stall until winter, hoping the bitter cold would break the Viking army. However, the Vikings had not been idle. They felled timber from the Forest of Fontainebleau, constructing sprawling, orderly blocks of barracks, warehouses, bathhouses, and drainage ditches along the riverbank.

From a distance, it looked as though the Vikings were building entirely new towns on the northern and southern banks, fully prepared to maintain the siege for half a year, or even a full year if necessary.

As time slipped away, the garrison inside the city could no longer hold on.

They could endure the ceaseless, day-and-night bombardments, but they could not extinguish the despair festering in their hearts. Francia had consecutively lost two decisive battles, and the minor nobles—the barons and knights responsible for leading the troops—had suffered catastrophic casualties. The total number of those killed in action, captured, or dead from illness exceeded three thousand. At this stage in the war, even if the King managed to conscript more militia, he would never find enough military officers to command them.

In early November, the Paris garrison announced its surrender. Wig did not make things difficult for them, promising neither to execute the prisoners of war nor to ship them off to the New World to cultivate sugarcane.

As the first snowflakes of the year 868 fell, Britain accomplished its strategic goals for the year—annihilating the field units of the Frankish army and conquering the northern regions of West Francia.