Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 390: The Legitimacy of the Roman Empire

The battle concluded. Frede returned to the outskirts of the city to report, and Wigg was highly satisfied, though he firmly rejected his second son's request to command the subsequent siege warfare.

At that moment, an artillery colonel arrived to deliver a report, stating that another ten bronze cannons had been scrapped. Counting these, they had already lost seventy percent of their artillery.

Wigg paled in shock. "This fast?"

Italy was littered with fortresses, and the locals possessed a fierce will to resist. They absolutely refused to submit to a ruler of a foreign culture and a foreign religion. Without cannons, they probably wouldn't be able to capture a city the size of Parma even if they spent a month trying.

"The barrel lifespan of each bronze cannon is three hundred rounds," the artillery colonel explained. "The battle is deadlocked, and the men truly had no other choice."

Wigg took a ledger that detailed the number of times each cannon had been fired in previous battles. Aside from the ruined artillery, the remaining twenty-four cannons generally had a barrel lifespan of just over a hundred rounds left.

In less than a moment, Wigg made his decision. "Send orders to Toulon to transport the naval cannons here. Since the navy cannot seize control of the sea, keeping those cannons is a waste."

Having spoken, Wigg's gaze swept past the heavily damaged city of Parma, looking far into the distance toward the Apennine Mountains to the south.

'Did I underestimate the difficulty of invading Italy?'

His thoughts drifted, moving from Frederick Barbarossa to Louis XII, and then to the later Francis I.In the original timeline's twelfth century, during the reign of Frederick I—nicknamed Barbarossa—the Holy Roman Empire reached the zenith of its power.

Coveting the wealth of the Italian region, Frederick launched six wars against it between 1154 and 1183, experiencing both victory and defeat.

In his most humiliating moment, Frederick's Empress, Beatrice, was captured by Milan. The locals forced her to ride a donkey, parading her through the city streets as a public spectacle. Later on, Frederick even had a falling out with the church and was excommunicated by the Papacy.

Overall, the situation in Italy during the Middle Ages was chaotic. The region consisted of numerous city-states that appeared weak, attracting repeated invasions from the powerful monarchs of France and the Holy Roman Empire.

However, the Italian peninsula was shielded by the Alps, which vastly increased the difficulty of logistical resupply for any attacker. Furthermore, the peninsula retained a massive number of stone defensive works, and the populace stubbornly refused to be subjugated. This made occupation incredibly difficult, turning the region into a quagmire that trapped invaders.

'Barring any surprises, there is a very high probability that Basil will join the battle personally. The small nations of the Balkans might also enter the Italian battlefield. Perhaps this war will drag on for a very long time.'

After contemplating for nearly half an hour, Wigg wrote a letter to the homeland, ordering them to issue a second round of war bonds and funnel more supplies and mercenaries to the frontline.

Following the capture of Parma, Wigg allocated the remaining bronze cannons to Butcherbird and Utgard, tasking them with continuing the sweep of the towns across the Po Valley.

After resting and reorganizing for two days, Wigg led thirty thousand men along the mountain roads toward the west coast of Italy to receive the naval cannons from the Royal Navy.

During the naval battle of Nice two months prior, the Royal Navy had lost two cannon ships. They had recently received a newly commissioned cannon ship, bringing their current total to three cannon ships and sixty bronze cannons.

Given the urgent situation, Wigg commandeered forty-two naval cannons in relatively good condition, along with their respective artillery crews, and advanced along the coast to attack the Tuscany region.

A thousand years ago, when Hannibal attacked Tuscany, the area was filled with massive swamps and the unsanitary conditions caused him to lose an eye. Thanks to long-term development, the size of the marshes here had drastically diminished, transforming the region into an important agricultural hub that produced an abundance of wine, olive oil, and marble.

At the end of August, the Great Viking Army breached Pisa, followed swiftly by Lucca and Livorno, before pressing upstream along the Arno River.

Serving as the lifeblood of the Tuscany region, both banks of the Arno River were dotted with farmlands and orchards. The early autumn vineyards were on the eve of harvest, and a small number of farmers, unwilling to abandon their crops, were still busy working in the fields and vineyards.

When the Great Viking Army arrived at the western outskirts of Florence, Wigg followed his usual routine of sending captives into the city to persuade them to surrender. Unsurprisingly, the offer was rejected.

After more than half a day of artillery barrage, the Viking soldiers breached the city. The local Earl adopted a strategy similar to the one seen in Parma, fiercely maintaining resistance within the city walls.

At three in the afternoon, the Viking soldiers pushed their cannons into the city, methodically clearing the barricades and houses one by one. They suffered over a thousand casualties to finally capture this key stronghold in central-western Italy.

From Florence to Rome, the journey spanned roughly two hundred miles. The route lacked any large towns, featuring only small to medium-sized settlements and castles. Based on the Vikings' rate of advance, they were expected to reach the city of Rome in four weeks.

On the night they breached Florence, Wigg held a grand banquet. Perhaps driven by a drunken impulse, he made a grand promise to all his soldiers:

The first man to break into the city of Rome, regardless of his status or rank, would be granted the enfeoffment of a Duke!

In just a few short days, the news that the Serpent of the North was about to attack Rome spread across all of Italy.

At this exact moment, Basil's army had just landed in Taranto on the southern peninsula. Upon receiving a plea for help from the Papacy, he did not reply immediately, but instead reflected on the events of the past.

For centuries, the relationship between the Papacy and the Eastern Roman Empire had grown increasingly delicate. This was especially true in the year 800 AD, when the Pope crowned Charlemagne as the "Emperor of the Romans," bestowing the jurisprudence and claims of the Western Roman Empire upon this Frankish ruler.

Upon hearing the news, Constantinople vehemently objected, viewing it as an unprecedented humiliation. What right did a Frankish barbarian have to inherit the legal tradition of the Roman Empire?

Subsequently, the Frankish Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire clashed in the Adriatic Sea. Following lengthy negotiations, the two sides signed a peace treaty in Aachen in 812 AD, delineating the borders between the Western and Eastern Empires.

In the eyes of the Eastern Romans, this was a humiliating diplomatic compromise. When signing the treaty, the Eastern Roman Empire only recognized Charlemagne as the "Emperor of the Franks and Lombards," rather than the "Emperor of the Romans."

Because of this incident, the Frankish Kingdom leaped to the status of an empire, standing on equal footing with the Eastern Roman Empire. The relationship between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Roman Papacy plummeted to rock bottom, and the political and religious rifts between the Latin West and the Greek East deepened significantly.

In recent years, however, the situation in Continental Europe had drastically changed with the lightning-fast rise of the Viking forces. Following the collapse of the Frankish Empire, the Papacy lost its most crucial supporter and protector, and thus began to mend its relationship with Constantinople.

After discussing the matter all night with a few of his closest confidants, Basil decided to commit his full strength to rescuing Rome.

"Tell them to hold on," he declared. "My grand army will be there soon."

From Taranto to the city of Rome stretched the ancient Appian Way, a route extending over three hundred miles. If they quickened their march, they were projected to arrive within twenty days.

The most ideal scenario would be for Basil to annihilate Wigg's forces in one fell swoop outside the city walls. He would then reclaim the various Frankish territories, snatch back the crown and jurisprudence of the Western Roman Empire, and fulfill the centuries-old ambition of the Eastern Romans.

When that time came, his moniker would no longer be "The Macedonian" or "The Usurper," but a title imbued with supreme glory and legendary prestige—"Restorer of the World."