Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 379: Naval Artillery

In November of 871 AD, Wigg took a carriage to the arsenal south of Londinium to inspect the latest model of the bronze naval cannon.

Returning to the same grassy field they had used the previous year, ten draft horses hauled in a heavy bronze cannon. Its target was a set of thick wooden planks positioned roughly a hundred meters away.

The craftsmen methodically loaded the gunpowder charges and an iron cannonball. Using a sharp iron rod, they pierced the powder bag, inserted a fuse, and ignited it.

Boom!

A deafening blast tore through the air. The massive bronze barrel violently recoiled, plowing a deep trench into the earth as flocks of birds scattered from the distant forest in a panic.

Once the smoke cleared, Wigg hurried over to inspect the damage. The front line of wooden planks had been utterly shattered. Although the scarecrows positioned behind them had not taken a direct hit, they were riddled with holes from the lethal spray of jagged wood splinters.

The target for the second volley was another set of wooden planks, though these were slightly thinner, mirroring the hull thickness of a medium-sized warship. This time, a terrifying, jagged hole was ripped straight through the front planks.

The results of the two test firings proved that these bronze cannons were more than capable of penetrating the hulls of small and medium warships.

Engaging the heavy Roman dromon warships would be a bit more challenging. Against such vessels, the gunners would need to target the bow, stern, and upper deck. These areas were relatively thinly armored, allowing the naval artillery to punch through with ease.

For the next phase, the craftsmen tested the artillery's destructive power against stone city walls. The relentless bombardment dragged on for about an hour until Wigg's patience finally wore thin, prompting him to head to the mess hall for lunch.After devouring a large plate of shrimp pie, he reclined in his chair for a midday nap. A good while later, Wigg returned to the proving grounds. The artillery fire was still ongoing, and the entire area was shrouded in a thin, acrid veil of white smoke.

Suddenly, he noticed an unusual, muffled grating noise hidden within the roar of the cannon. He walked over to investigate and discovered numerous scratches, some shallow and some dangerously deep, scoring the inside of the gun barrel.

The craftsmen exchanged uneasy glances. They carefully loaded another round and inserted an extended fuse into the breech. Once it was lit, everyone immediately scrambled for cover behind the nearby earthworks.

This time, there was no deafening roar. Instead, a terrifying, ear-piercing shriek of tearing metal ripped through the air, sounding exactly like the death wail of a dying behemoth!

A jagged, twisted crack violently ruptured down the center of the bronze barrel. Thick white smoke and a shower of sparks spewed from the fracture, instantly igniting a small patch of dry grass nearby. The cannonball tumbled out of the muzzle with agonizingly low momentum, flying only a short distance before dropping limply onto the turf.

"How many rounds were fired in total?" Wigg asked.

The supervisor wiped his brow, answering awkwardly, "Two hundred and ninety rounds, Your Grace. We can continue refining the design. We will absolutely meet your requirements."

"There is no time for that. Put it into mass production based on the current model," Wigg ordered. A single three-masted sailing ship could carry twenty naval guns. Wigg decided to commission one hundred and twenty cannons to outfit a fleet of six gunships, a necessary preparation for the war in the western Mediterranean Sea that could erupt at any moment.

His inspection concluded, Wigg returned to Londinium. To accommodate the city's booming population, the Cabinet had assembled a massive engineering force of six thousand laborers. They were currently hard at work constructing new stone city walls in the eastern and northern suburbs to greatly expand the urban district.

Before construction began, the Cabinet had proposed a wall height of twelve meters. Wigg deemed such towering heights completely unnecessary and slashed the blueprint down to a mere seven meters. The future belonged to firearms and artillery; a towering wall simply presented a larger target for enemy cannons, making it highly detrimental to a modern defense.

Historically, defenders built walls as high as humanly possible to prevent enemy infantry from scaling them. The fatal flaw in this archaic design was its vulnerability to sustained artillery fire, as tall, rigid walls could be easily battered down. Drawing upon the fortification theories of the gunpowder age, Wigg completely abandoned the traditional pure stone high walls in favor of a hybrid structure of earth and stone:

The core was packed tight with rammed earth, which would excellently absorb the kinetic shock of incoming cannonballs. The exterior was then heavily clad in thick masonry to protect the vulnerable dirt layer from torrential rain and natural erosion.

During a siege, even if an enemy's guns shattered the outer stone facade, the inner slope of compacted earth would still effectively halt an infantry charge and soak up subsequent artillery fire. The Cabinet had not put up much resistance to this eccentric design. Building walls to these new specifications would cost a bit more coin, but the Empire was currently overflowing with wealth. There was no need to anger the Emperor over such a trivial matter.

Once the new walls were completed, the city's total footprint would triple in size, allowing Londinium to comfortably house up to a hundred and fifty thousand residents. Following the wall's completion, the engineering brigades were slated to pave the streets. These roads would be constructed with a slight crown in the center and drainage ditches flanking both sides, ensuring that heavy rainwater and sewage flowed smoothly down into the underground sewer system.

The sewer system itself utilized classic Roman arch architecture, measuring four meters wide and three and a half meters high. The subterranean tunnels were incredibly spacious, wide enough for a small boat to navigate through, making future maintenance and dredging a breeze.

At the same time, brilliant minds from Lundinium University had poured over ancient texts to reconstruct the advanced surveying instruments and water levels once utilized by the Romans. This ensured that the entire sewer network maintained a precise, gradual slope, keeping the wastewater constantly flowing until it safely emptied into the downstream stretches of the River Thames.

The final major public works project was the installation of wooden tramways down the center of the city's main avenues. These wooden rails drastically reduced wheel friction, allowing draft horses to haul substantially heavier carriages. This innovation skyrocketed transportation efficiency while simultaneously alleviating the crushing congestion on the main thoroughfares.

Within Wigg's memories of his past life, horse-drawn trams had dominated European and American cities during the mid-nineteenth century. They operated on fixed routes with strict timetables—a logistical model almost identical to modern buses and subways, right up until they were eventually rendered obsolete by electric streetcars.

Due to severe manpower shortages in the royal ranks, the construction of residential housing was contracted out to private guilds and civilian construction crews.

These residential apartment blocks followed a uniform template: they stood three stories tall, with the street-level floors partitioned into bustling shops and workshops, while the second and third stories served as living quarters. Since the average commoners could not possibly afford expensive glass panes, their windows were fitted with sturdy wooden shutters to ward off the elements.

As evening fell, Wigg concluded his daily inspections. En route back to the Imperial Palace, a peculiarly strong aroma suddenly drifted into his carriage. It was a rich, bitter scent deeply intertwined with an earthy, exotic fragrance.

He gently rapped his knuckles against the carriage wall, signaling the driver to halt, and leaned out the window to survey the darkening street.

Not too far away, two sailors were huddled together against the biting chill, squatting around a battered copper kettle. The small fire beneath the pot flickered and danced erratically in the freezing wind. One of the men was vigorously grinding a handful of dark beans in a heavy stone mortar. He dumped the pulverized grounds directly into the boiling water, brewing a thick, dark brown concoction.

"Miracle tonic from the New World! Selling for cheap! If it doesn't taste like heaven, you don't pay a single copper!" one of them barked out to the passing crowd.

A curious, bored youth accepted a clay bowl from the sailor and took a tentative sip. "Devil's bile!" he gagged, coughing violently and nearly spitting the dark liquid right back out. The surrounding populace erupted into unabashed roaring laughter.

The younger sailor let out a heavy sigh. He fished out a solid lump of brown sugar, tossed it into the boiling kettle, and stirred it vigorously with a wooden spoon. Once it dissolved, he poured himself a small bowl, threw his head back, and chugged the steaming brew, his Adam's apple bobbing sharply with every gulp.

Lowering the empty bowl, the young sailor exhaled a long cloud of white steam. An almost sacred, reinvigorated glow washed over his weathered face. His bone-deep fatigue and hunger seemed to vanish into thin air, instantly replaced by a burning, energetic light in his eyes.

"Those native high priests weren't lying! This truly is the nectar of the gods!" he declared. "I can feel a ball of warm fire burning straight down my throat and into my belly, pumping raw strength into every inch of my body!"

However, no matter how passionately the young sailor pitched his product, the wary locals refused to spend their coin on this bitter hot cocoa. That was, until a heavily armored royal guard wrapped in a thick black cloak strode out from the shadows, tossed down a heavy leather pouch of coins, and purchased the entirety of their unsalable cocoa beans on the spot.