novelraw Chapter 97: Welsh
Chapter 97: Welsh
Ch 97: Welsh
Staring at the map for a long time, Ragnar called for Theodulf and appointed him as Vig’s second-in-command. As the Duke of Mercia, this man’s territory borders Wales, making him suitable for an auxiliary role.
Leaving the tent, Theodulf suggested recruiting more men. Vig nodded: “Since the Royal Family is fully covering military funds, I plan to expand to four thousand men, using absolute strength to crush the opposition.”
After more than two months of warfare, his direct troops dwindled to fourteen hundred. After dividing the spoils of war, only one thousand were willing to continue fighting.
Including the militiamen mobilized by Theodulf in his own territory, Vig planned to recruit another two thousand men.
Afterward, the two took a boat along the Thames River to Oxford, where Halfdan and his four hundred plus defeated soldiers were resting.
Next to the lord’s manor, a house with a strong scent of herbs permeated the air. Halfdan lay on the bed with his eyes closed, resting. His left arm was wrapped in a thick bandage, and two maids stood by the bed.
“What happened?” Vig dismissed the maids and inquired about the detailed battle situation.
Seeing the two figures, Halfdan understood that they were there to take over his work and responded listlessly:
“There’s nothing much to say. Æthelwolf and I led two thousand five hundred men into the mountains for bandit suppression. The enemy didn’t engage in a direct confrontation, they kept harassing us with bow and arrows. One day, they suddenly launched a large-scale night raid. I broke through the chaos and escaped, but someone shot an arrow into my left arm.” “Night raid? How many were they? Did Æthelwolf deliberately leak information and collude with the Welsh bandits?”
Faced with Vig’s series of questions, Halfdan remained listless, “The night was dark, and I couldn’t see the exact number of the enemy. Æthelwolf is a righteous man. If he hadn’t helped, I would probably have been killed by the Welshmen.”
This kid is interesting; he’s still speaking well of someone who betrayed him.
Vig suppressed the impulse to laugh out loud, told him to rest and recover, then went to the barracks of ordinary soldiers to inquire about the enemy’s tactics.
Mentioning the bandits, the soldiers were still scared. An officer summarized: “Bow and arrows, it was bow and arrows the whole time, flying everywhere. If you weren’t careful, you would be shot dead.”
Sensing distrust from Vig and Theodulf, the officer had someone fetch ten captured Purple-clothed Bows, with lengths of approximately 1.5 to 1.8 meters.
“My lords, their archers are extremely strong. They can shoot six arrows per minute without aiming, and twelve arrows per minute if they don’t aim. Their range, power, and accuracy completely overwhelm our archers.”
Vig picked up a Purple-clothed Bow and tried to draw it, finding the draw weight unusually large. Ordinary people would probably find it very difficult to draw. Combining this with the information given by the officer, he speculated that this Purple-clothed Bow was likely a prototype of the later “English Longbow.”
As the iconic troop type of medieval England, longbowmen could both directly aim and shoot volleys from the rear of the formation, with amazing lethality and significant advantages, but with equally prominent disadvantages.
Vig summoned thirty captured Welsh prisoners. At a glance, he identified five longbowmen among them—their spines were twisted, their left arms were noticeably larger, and their right knuckles were thick.
“How long does it take to train a longbowman?”
After hearing the Viking’s question from the translator, the oldest longbowman proudly raised his head, “Five years to master basic archery and physical fitness; top longbowmen need more than ten years of training. Judging by your silly appearances, you probably wouldn’t learn it even in twenty years.”
After hearing the translator’s relay, Vig nodded slightly. This man was right; training longbowmen was extremely time-consuming. In 1363, King Edward I of England issued a 《Decree on Archery》, requiring all men to practice archery on Sundays, prohibiting participation in other sports; violators would be severely punished.
With the help of this strict decree, England was able to patch together a well-trained army of longbowmen, with remarkable effects, but it was not suitable for the current situation.
After a long time, he sighed: “Longbows and heavy arrows have considerable power, but ten years is too long.”
Returning to his own barracks, Vig selected a small troop and had them escort the wealth and horses back to Tyne, bringing back all the crossbows in inventory. “Tell Cadfael that for the foreseeable future, all production capacity at the blacksmith’s shop will be used to produce crossbows until the Welsh War is over.”
Then, he wrote a long letter, asking Ragnar to procure at least six hundred sets of iron armor.
“Why do you need so much iron armor?”
To Theodulf’s question, Vig explained his tactics: using heavy crossbowmen and Welsh longbowmen in an exchange of arrows.
This inspiration came from the most popular mercenaries of the medieval period—the Genoese crossbowmen. They were equipped with iron armor and crossbows, carrying a large shield. Their combat methods were twofold:
One, turn their backs to the enemy to reload, then turn around to shoot.
Two, use a sturdy wooden stick to prop the large shield on the ground, and the crossbowmen would hide behind it to reload and shoot.
“Using crossbowmen against longbowmen?”
Theodulf neither agreed nor disagreed, focusing his efforts on procuring supplies. By July, when the army and supplies arrived, Vig organized training for the crossbowmen. After three weeks, he trained eight hundred usable crossbowmen.
In addition, there were more than five hundred archers in the army. Vig gave some of them iron armor and had dozens of handcarts built. Large shields were erected at the front of the handcarts to cover the crossbowmen as they advanced.
During the training, he took the time to inquire from small merchants, learning that the two largest forces in Wales were the Powys Kingdom and the Gwynedd Kingdom.
The former was located in eastern Wales, bordering Mercia; the latter was located in northwestern Wales. Vig planned to defeat Powys first, then attack Gwynedd, using this momentum to force the remaining nobles to surrender.
At the war council, he issued two guidelines to the commanders: build strong fortifications, fight protracted wars, and prioritize psychological warfare over siege warfare.
“Based on my combat experience, the loyalty of the lower-class peasants to their lords is limited. As long as outsiders do not encroach upon their property, most peasants do not care about changing masters.”
To reduce the looting within the army, Vig sent a message to Londinium, requesting Ragnar to grant funds to pay all the soldiers’ wages.
“Combine suppression and appeasement, use heavy crossbowmen against longbowmen, and pay all soldiers’ military pay,”
Ragnar was very troubled by his subordinate’s series of fanciful ideas.
Currently, Ivar had returned to Dyfflin to continue dealing with the chaos in Ireland, day after day, endlessly. Gunnar was busy negotiating with the Franks and couldn’t be spared in the short term.
Besides these two and Vig, the remaining nobles lacked the ability to complete this task. Of course, in a worst-case scenario, Ragnar could personally lead an expedition to Wales. However, this approach had significant drawbacks, easily leading to domestic political instability.
After sighing for a long time, he finally accepted Vig’s plan.