Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 389: Deadlocked Warfare

Five days later, the Great Viking Army departed from the Po River, marching steadily northward to the Veneto Plain. They easily occupied the coastal docks, yet failed to capture a single ship.

"This makes things difficult."

Mounted upon Greywind III, Wigg stared out across the expanse of water—roughly four kilometers wide—and the countless vessels of all shapes and sizes dotting its surface. Any thought of laying siege to the city vanished from his mind.

In his memories, the Venetian Republic endured until the late eighteenth century. During that time, it weathered numerous sieges, but the main island of Venice never once fell. It wasn't until 1797, when Napoleon defeated the War of the First Coalition, that Venice voluntarily surrendered and subsequently became a territory of Austria.

As things stood, Venice enjoyed a harmonious relationship with the Eastern Roman Empire, amassing vast wealth from the Mediterranean Sea through entrepôt trade. The entire city was on a prosperous upward trajectory. They had absolutely no reason to willingly submit to a ruler of a foreign culture and a different religion.

In a certain sense, Venice's situation in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea mirrored that of Britain in Western Europe:

Even if their land forces suffered a catastrophic defeat, they could rely on their navy to stall for time. Ultimately, they would use their immense wealth to simply outlast their opponents until the enemy bled dry.

In contrast, mercantile republics like the Netherlands and Genoa were situated on the mainland. They were highly susceptible to being conquered by land-based hegemonies, making it exceedingly difficult for them to endure in the long run.

After lingering on the eastern coast for a day, Wigg found himself entirely out of options against the lagoon-bound city of Venice. He summoned his commanders and once again divided the army into three separate forces, aiming to attack towns like Padua and Ferrara in an attempt to conquer the entirety of the Po Valley.

While the fighting in Italy was incredibly fierce, the northern battlefield remained unusually quiet.The Viking faction's forces totaled sixteen thousand men, but only the Fourth Division possessed true field combat capabilities. The militias from Bavaria and Bohemia suffered from abysmal morale; their only redeeming quality was that they were fully armored, allowing them to hold out just a little longer in a fight.

The enemy boasted superior numbers. The Balkan states had dispatched thirteen thousand soldiers, which, combined with the King of Moravia's twelve thousand militiamen, brought their total force to twenty-five thousand.

In late May, the King of Moravia attempted an offensive, only to be soundly defeated by Douglas despite the latter's numerical disadvantage.

Following that clash, Douglas occupied western Moravia, also known as Bohemia, while the Balkan Coalition Army held the east. Neither side could manage to gain the upper hand.

Since the onset of summer, Douglas had written multiple letters back to the homeland, requesting an artillery regiment be assigned to his command. Every single request was denied. According to the cabinet's replies, the crux of the war lay in Italy. Douglas's mission was simply to pin down the enemy; there was no need for him to launch an offensive.

"Sigh, I've been stuck in Bohemia for half a year. Am I supposed to just keep waiting this out forever?"

With too much time on his hands, Douglas began organizing football matches within the army. This served to divert the soldiers' attention and prevent them from growing restless and causing trouble.

It did not take long for the sport to catch the interest of the local militia. Mimicking the rules of the Vikings, they fervently chased a leather ball across the grassy fields. Thanks to the intense physical contact of the game, the militiamen's stamina subtly improved over time.

Kotsel approached Douglas and asked, "My Lord, are we really just going to keep babysitting them like this?"

"Yes. We aren't exactly short on grain anyway."

Similarly, the eastern Allied Forces enjoyed Basil's financial backing, leaving them with no shortage of grain either. The nobles, bored out of their minds, mimicked the customs of the Franks and hosted knightly jousting tournaments to kill time.

On the eleventh of August, the Allied Forces received a letter from Basil detailing two main points:

First, supplies worth fifty thousand pounds of silver had arrived in Rijeka and were currently being unloaded.

Second, he demanded that the Balkan states conscript an additional twenty thousand troops to reinforce the Italian battlefield and assist the Franks in stalling for time. Once the Eastern Roman Empire's army finished assembling, Basil promised to personally lead his forces across the sea to defeat these wicked, barbaric Vikings. Late August, in the southern Po Valley, Parma.

Wigg stood on the hills outside the city, his face expressionless as he observed the siege warfare unfolding below.

The artillery regiment expertly set up their firing positions. Aiming, igniting, swabbing the barrels, reloading, and firing once more...

After repeating this process several times, Parma's city walls finally collapsed. Two garrison regiments eagerly surged into the city. The remaining troops followed closely behind, clearing out the enemies along the ramparts before allowing the Welsh Longbowmen to seize the high ground, raining arrows down upon the stragglers within the city from above.

This was the standard procedure for the Great Viking Army's siege warfare. From the highest commander down to the lowliest foot soldier, everyone was intimately familiar with this operation. Whether it was Nice, Genoa, or Milan, all had successively fallen to these standardized tactics.

However, this time, the garrison seemed to have come up with a new trick.

From Wigg's vantage point, the roars of battle echoing from within the city showed no signs of diminishing. After over half an hour of fierce fighting, an increasing number of stretchers carrying the wounded were being hauled out through the breach in the wall and into the open clearing outside.

Leif and a group of staff officers sought out the injured men. Piecing together their accounts, they deduced that there were at least three thousand soldiers remaining inside the city.

The garrison's primary defensive focus was not the city walls at all, but rather the various defensive structures scattered throughout the city itself—such as barricades and upscale lord's residences surrounded by stone walls.

Faced with large contingents of Viking soldiers, the defenders opted for guerrilla tactics, harassing them with hidden arrows. At the same time, they dispatched their own troops to swarm the smaller Viking squads with triple the numbers, gradually turning the tide of the battle in their favor.

After listening to the staff officers' report, Wigg asked, "What are your thoughts?"

At this moment, the Second Prince was the first to answer. "Push the cannons into the city. Use solid shot to blow apart their barricades, and then blast the enemies to pieces with grapeshot."

Wigg gave a slight nod. He handed the frontline command over to his younger son, ordering him to capture the city before dusk.

Frede's tactics were straightforward. He selected the tactically flexible mountain infantry to enter Parma through its four gates and push forward along the main thoroughfares. Every detachment was equipped with bronze cannons. The moment they encountered the garrison's barricades or earth walls, they would obliterate them with artillery fire before ordering the infantry to charge.

After smashing through a barricade, he strictly forbade the mountain infantry from pursuing the enemy into the narrow alleyways, commanding them to instead press forward strictly along the main roads.

By three in the afternoon, the four detachments had successively reached the central plaza. Frede did not entertain the slightest thought of demanding their surrender. He simply ordered the artillery to bombard the lord's residence and other stone structures, proceeding to meticulously clear them out floor by floor.

"This is exactly how it should be done! I fought in the forests of Livonia for half a year, and it wasn't half as thrilling as this single afternoon!"

Watching the lord's residence slowly crumble to the ground, Frede threw his head back and laughed uproariously. His guards huddled tightly around him, raising their shields high, terrified that their reckless prince might be struck by a stray arrow.

"What are you so afraid of? Do you think this armor is made of paper?" Frede grumbled, his mood souring slightly as his line of sight was obstructed.

Barely ten minutes later, the Viking soldiers seized full control of the central plaza. Simultaneously, their occupation of the main roads effectively sliced the city into four isolated sectors.

Now that things had reached this stage, Frede surprisingly demonstrated patience. He concentrated his superior forces to thoroughly purge one sector at a time, having his soldiers slowly push the cannons forward to obliterate any obstacle in their path. The only downside was that the bronze cannons were far too cumbersome, causing significant delays along the way.

By six in the evening, the sky was growing dark. Frede had conquered three-quarters of the city districts. In a final act of desperation, the defending commander set fire to the warehouse he was holed up in. The flames rapidly spread, leaving the Vikings with very few usable supplies to plunder.