Chapter 887： Rurik Fleet Intercept

For Rurik's sea troops, since the fleet entered the inland river, the tortuous journey tormented the blood of the warriors.

Theoretically, the fleet has entered the territory of the Gottarans.

The warriors were eager to fight, and they were prepared to fight against the interception of the Jotarans, or to discover their villages. After the soldiers landed on the shore, they charged quickly.

But along the way, all you can see are barren forests and lakes.

The oarsmen kept their guard up. They saw the woods sway and carefully identified that it was just the wind blowing by. Boredom plagues everyone, and the originally tense nerves inevitably relax.

Some people began to rumor that the Yermalen tribe in Sweden was nervous, and at most a small group of enemies invaded the north, and they were portrayed as terrible monsters by these guys.

The brothers fighting so much are not just to seek justice for the Yermalen people. This is a war to destroy the country. Like a giant python constantly twisting and advancing in the winding river, the Russian naval troops have been fighting boredom.

"I don't know what happened to Arik and the others." Rurik muttered.

Most of his cronies are on the flagship, and it is purely accidental that the Gurdot can be used as the flagship.

This ship is not much different from the Avrolla, except that she belongs to the Gould family in principle. With the character of the family members, this large ship is not only repaired frequently, but also very particular about the interior decoration.

The cronies naturally listened to the king's complaints.

I haven't seen each other for many years, and Kanuf has grown into an adult. He is shorter than Rurik, and he is just as strong among his peers.

"Big brother." Kanuf said so affectionately, "Although I also feel bored, I think a war is inevitable."

"That's natural. I'm a little worried that the morale of the soldiers will be destroyed by boredom. If we are attacked by those guys, will we suffer undue losses?"

"To keep our people on alert?"

"You don't have to be too nervous to see the situation." Rurik sighed, "We continue to sail. Brother, you are the man who is going to inherit the governor of your homeland. This time you have to make a contribution, chop off a few heads or shoot a few. enemy."

Kanuf laughed out loud for a while, then patted his chest, claiming that he must have done a great job.

There is no other reason why the sea troops will not get lost. The northern shore of Lake Wettern used to be the territory of the Swedes. Ten years ago, they were afraid of war and fled. The old guys of the tribe still have a clear memory of the waterway connecting the lake and the Baltic Sea after ten years. .

Although the journey was boring, the fleet always sailed in wider and deep water. The fleet avoided all the wrong tributaries and ran towards the entrance of the northeast Lake Wettern.

An order from the king was given, and the spirits of the soldiers who were sore and numb from rowing were cheered up.

Without him, because the guides patted their chests and claimed that the fleet was about to re-enter Lake Wettern.

Most of the Swedes or others in the army have never been here at all. They only know that there are two large lakes in the southern Gotaland area.

Finally, the cramped forest opened a huge opening, and in front of him was a very open near-shore marshland.

Is it possible to disembark and rest here?

The soldiers were disappointed again, because this was a big swamp full of cold mud.

The army needs a hard and open field as a large military camp. Not only is the mud swamp in front of you not good, the fleet must also enter the lake to form a formation, so as to do follow-up scheduling.

Like a hen laying eggs, the movement of the ships into the inner lake was really slow. The rowing longboat towed the big boat to form a sailing unit until it entered Lake Wettern. The big boat that was furling immediately lowered its jib, and then untied the longboat to tow its own cable, recovering its freedom in the wide waters and relying on the lake wind to sail freely. .

The swamp wasn't that big, and the people paddling also needed to rest. Rurik knew the difficulties of the soldiers. He stood at the bow of the boat and looked carefully, and couldn't help muttering.

"Damn, why didn't anyone tell me earlier that this place is full of near-shore cliffs?"

An attendant asked the king what to do.

Yes, when is it good.

"The order." Rurik made a firm decision, "Let the long ship approach the cliff and land on the limited beach to rest. The people on the large ship are not allowed to move."

The king gave the order, and even if Rurik didn't order it, his army had already done so of its own accord.

The fleet that was forced by the meandering river to sail against the current like a giant python, the first boat entered Lake Wettern in the morning, and it was already evening when all of them entered the lake. At this moment the most advanced boats in the lake have washed up on the narrow flats under the cliffs on the lake shore.

From the cliff to the lake, the width of the flat ground is only about 30 meters at the farthest. The cliffs are full of large black hard granite, and there are also some rubble scattered near the shore, which are constantly being beaten by the water waves. The so-called flat land is not flat, it is a weathered gravel beach with some bushes growing on it.

The cliff was not very high, and some soldiers struggled to climb up. These brave people faced the larger Nordic virgin forest, and the surrounding scenery was no different from Lake Mälaren.

There is an advantage to the forest above the cliff. Some small-sized pine trees were cut down or sawn off, crashed down the cliff, and then chopped to pieces by thousands of soldiers under the cliff, which was used as fuel for the bonfire.

Although the place where the cones were standing was quite cramped, with an astonishing number of rowboats half-stranded on the lake shore, the pomp of the Rus army was enormous.

At night, the bonfire array leaned against the cliff to form a wall of fire. Soldiers laid out leather blankets around the bonfire, nibbling on fresh fish caught on the spot and cooking their own wheat.

For many days, their tiring paddling work can come to an end. Soldiers need a critical rest day, especially if they take a nap to replenish their energy.

Because everyone knows that when the army enters the lake, it is inevitable to find the Jotalan people to start a decisive battle. If there is a decisive battle, the battle will be a matter of the next few days.

Rurik finally boarded the island in a small boat, had a good chat with his cronies and Swedish nobles, and then returned to the big boat.

Ordinary warriors can relax their vigilance a little and enter the enemy's lake, but Rurik does not dare to relax easily.

Considering that there is a dense forest behind the cliff against which the army is leaning, and hunters must always beware of being tripped while walking in it, it is impossible for the enemy to launch a large-scale attack from the forest.

A small number of people are still placed on the cliffs as special sentries to ensure that there are no hidden dangers on land.

Rurik controls all the large ships here. Most of the main ships of the Ross fleet have entered Lake Wettern. Those torsion slingshots covered with oil-soaked sackcloth showed their true gods one after another, and the projectiles or javelins were placed on the deck. The soldiers of the night vigil implemented a rotation system, in case the enemy suddenly attacked at night and could immediately counterattack.

Although no one absolutely dared to invade the Gotalandite forces, Rurik took precautions this time, and made the big ship lit up with lights.

Don't let each ship light fuel lamps and torches so that they won't expose themselves?

This is what he wants.

Because the Jotalan people are here, they will fight if they want, and the Kingdom of Rus is fighting with them. This exposure is a deterrent and an invitation to war.

Of course, the Gottarans of Lake Wettern can also run away. Where else can they go? Ross's strategic goal is not simply to conquer the lake.

All the big boats have their lights on, and the lights are also fishing fires. As for the technique of burying large nets underwater to catch bass at night, if there is an opportunity, of course we should do it.

Some ships take on the special work of fishing at night, and their results will enter the belly of soldiers tomorrow.

Even a small amount of shimmer can be extremely stressful for the lakeside residents who are always facing the dark night.

What's more, the bright light in the distance is extremely abnormal and forms a dynamic band of light.

Speaking of which, Rurik's fleet had to rely on the platforms under the cliff to spend the night. Garg the Gotaland and his fishermen also needed these platforms to rest.

Since the "bonfire light belt" of the Rus army was very arrogant to expose itself, it attracted the Jotaland army to see them. Ross's sentinels could also see the flashes of fire in the distance, even if the lights were on for a while and then off.

It was the Yottaran fishermen who couldn't bear the loneliness and lit the bonfire. Although this behavior was discovered and stopped by Garg, all the bonfires were ruthlessly extinguished by the lake.

The Gotalandans still exposed themselves.

Some Rus soldiers who were part-time night fishermen as sentinels noticed the strangeness in the due north, and some hurried into the captain's rest day of the Gurdot, which is the current command post of Rurik.

At this moment, Rurik was sleeping soundly with Noren, one of his beloved wives in his arms. The noise of the sentry made him feel depressed for a while.

"What exactly is going on? Why panic."

The sentinel immediately knelt down halfway, and the moonlight through the wooden door only illuminated the vague shadow of the person: "Your Majesty, it is an unusual fire in the distance."

"Firelight? Firelight?!"

Rurik suddenly sobered up, and rushed out of the cabin wearing only a single coat. He stood on the deck and looked due south and saw nothing. At this moment, there was a lot of noise on the deck, and obviously everyone in the flagship saw something different.

All the people on duty and even the people on the nearby ships yelled at each other, and hundreds of people saw the flash of fire on the shore of the lake due south.

Noren was afraid that his man would catch a cold, so he grabbed a leather blanket with both hands and covered Rurik's body.

"It's about to start."

"what?!"

"They're here."

"They? The Jotarans?" Noren's heart was beating wildly, "Did they really come to attack at night?"

"They don't have the guts, but... am I lucky or unlucky?! There may be a war tomorrow."

Rurik was determined to mobilize the entire army, but it was definitely not now. The shore of the lake was full of tired soldiers, and now they woke up to announce that the battle was about to take place. Although it made them excited for a short period of time, can this excitement last until the next day? After being tossed around, people who are already tired can only be more tired.

If it was a simple surface battle, would the Gotarans be able to dispatch some Caravel-sized ships? If they were rich, they would send out a large number of slender warships with very low sides. If they were poor, they would send out a large number of sampan fishing boats that could only take five or six people.

In this way, the night-time rotation of the main ships of the Ross fleet can be stopped and replaced by combat alerts.

Tomorrow, the dolphins will hunt the fish like crazy!

Now, Rurik has no time to contact his cousin and the land troops. The lake is very large, and looking northward from its current location, there is still a lot of depth. He estimated that the fleet made a lot of fishing fires as proof of identity. If the land troops are already nearby, they will definitely notice. In the same way, if the land troops also light the bonfire, the navy can also see it.

The situation was somewhat different from what Rurik had imagined.

In fact, when the Ross fleet lit up fishing fires on a large scale, Arik's land troops managed to see it. It was only due to geographical constraints that the third fishing village occupied by Arik was in a huge depression formed by the cracking of the cliff, surrounded by a large number of tall red pines. Although they lit a large number of bonfires, the total number of prisoners, including the Two thousand people, as a result, the existence was perfectly obscured by various obstacles.

Only the soldiers on the sentry in the distance noticed the strangeness of the lake in the south, and when the news came back to the camp, the pot was blown up.

The army swept across three villages, slaughtered a large number of Jotalan fishermen and accidentally let go a lot, and the army would face danger at any time when it penetrated into the foreign land. The highly vigilant warriors suspected that the intensive fishing fires represented a large Gotaland army, and they were fighting back north with a strong killing intent, and the land troops had to be on alert!

Naturally, there are optimistic views. If a large number of fishing fires can be made on the lake, the only people who are known to do this are the Rus.

I'm afraid that the king's sea troops have reached the lake, and those fishing fires are the king's people.

The two factions coexist, and Arik needs to decide. He compromised and ordered: "Tomorrow morning, we will send some cavalry to the south to check the situation. If it is the king's army, we will show the flag. If it is the enemy, come back immediately to report."

……

The enemy that I have longed for has definitely appeared! They were determined to attack in a very Viking fashion? But why are they? It was clear that his fleet had just entered Lake Wettern, not to mention that there was not even a shadow of an enemy along the way. Unless you are caught in their ambush. But is this really possible?

Although the more I thought about it, the more strange it became, but finally the enemy appeared.

Rurik knew neither the strength of the enemy's troops nor the status of their weapons and equipment. The Russ army, which was well prepared in these respects, could arrogantly call the enemy "dung".

He despises the enemy and hopes to solve the enemy of this lake in a short time.

But after this experience, Rurik never fell asleep again.

When it was just dawn, the soldiers sleeping on the shore were woken up by the very intensive sound of drums and horns.

The movement was so great that it seemed like the enemy was attacking, so the soldiers stood up in shock, clenching their weapons in their hands.

The soldiers on the shore noticed that the large ships of the fleet had begun to move, and even the standard armed cargo ships, as many as 30 large ships were actually lining up.

Decisive battle! People have come to think of this word.

On the other hand, the Jotalan army was already nervous, and they didn't care whether they were exposed last night, but the enemy must have been exposed.

Garg made a major judgment, and the soldiers boarded the ship early in the morning, a large number of ships gathered, and the soldiers listened to his preaching.

Gag pointed to the north with his broad-bladed iron sword in his hand: "The enemy who attacked our village has finally appeared! They look like a lot of people, but they will become your record. You will always remember! They are enemies, not monsters! They foolishly exposed themselves, and we dashed past in the early morning mist. Now let's go!"

As Garg said, the scale of his absolutely unknown enemy is definitely not small, and he might not be able to take absolute advantage of his huge army. He was convinced that it was precisely because the enemy had a large number of troops that he could quickly destroy each of the three villages. After all, in those three villages, the number of men who could fight in each village was only one or two hundred. It can also be destroyed and broken.

If it really turned into an evenly matched battle, Garg reckoned that even if he won, it would be a disastrous victory.

In order to avoid a tragic victory, the best tactic is to take advantage of the fog rising from the lake when the sun is about to rise to cover up his whereabouts, and a sudden attack on the enemy will surely gain an advantage or even a quick victory.

And this decision also had to meet the eagerness of the Jutaran armed fishermen to survive.

A large number of ships headed north, and they began to advance in increasingly rich weapons.

The Gotaland fleet maintained a dense formation, and a large number of small fishing boats opened the way in front, but the most powerful leading warships were behind.

Want to let Garg and his close comrades enter the dangerous land? It really makes no sense.

Those armed fishermen all want to win the battle and make a fortune, but they don't know that the more they rush forward, the greater the risk. After all, "Crazy Bear" Carl is a warlord tyrant, and his **** subordinate, the chicken thief, makes sense.

The fog on the lake constituted the fog of war. When the dense fleet of the Gotalans rushed northward, the "wall of ships" formed by Ross's battleships also twisted against the wind in the early morning southerly wind.

The damp wind stuck on his face, and Rurik wiped his wet beard. At this moment, he was wearing armor. Behind him, on the deck of the Gurdot were not only soldiers manipulating torsion slingshots, but also a group of soldiers holding crosses. Warrior with bow.

Five capital ships in front, Avrora and Gurdot in the rear, with four planetary sail cruisers on each flank.

The ship went south in the fog, until the fog could no longer cover the tracks of the two armies that were constantly shortening the distance.

The fog was thin, but because the two sides were walking towards each other against the cliff on the east bank of the lake, and they were close enough to each other, they were both surprised by the appearance of the other.

Rurik was king, but his scalp tingled with shock at the sight in front of him.

"Brothers! Hold on tight and prepare to take the hit!"

Rurik was watching the large fleet that suddenly appeared from a bird's-eye view. The battle came unprepared, even extremely hasty.

Those small sampans faced the tall bow, and their boats were directly smashed by bronze rams and then crushed by oak keels.

With powerful potential energy, the ships of the Gotalans were smashed into drifting sawdust by the Ross ships one by one. Many of those who fell into the water were knocked unconscious by the bottom of the big ship, and even fractured, and finally drowned in the lake.

Each of the Ross ships kept a distance from each other, and these gaps were enough for some lucky people to travel together, but they were immediately attacked by the condescending bows and arrows of Ross soldiers.

The torsion slingshot directly pierced the bottom of the boat, and the arrow shot and killed the fishermen of Gotaland who were stunned.

Even if there are lucky ones who continue to drift, they are violently sunk by the follow-up armed cargo ships.

It's not "dolphins hunting fish", but "a baleen whale swallowing a whole school of krill."

The armed fishermen of Gotaland lost a lot of sampans and stopped the offensive of the Ross fleet with huge sacrifices.

fight? ! Pooh!

"What's going on? What are they?! Let's go! Brothers, let's retreat!" Garg shouted in despair.

The leading warships turned their bows one after another, and more sensible fishermen had already fled.

Is a group of boats running around a good target?

Rurik noticed the dragon-headed warships, which were both familiar and unfamiliar in style, and generally recognizable—they were large compared to other ships.

"Warriors! Leave those boats alone! Give me all my power to sink the longboat!"

The king's order was delivered by the heart-wrenching cry of the soldiers. The fleet had the main target to attack, and the battle turned into a siege and hunting.

Garg and his close comrades rowed frantically, but all the leading longships were targeted. Now time is also extremely unfavorable for the Gotaland people. The sun has risen, and the fog is dissipating at a speed visible to the naked eye, and soon it will become impossible to provide any meaningful cover for the fleeing people.

All of the Gotaland ships were within the range of the torsion slingshot. The javelins, projectiles, and even arrows fell from the sky. Although the turbulent pursuit was not accurate enough, it still caused constant damage to the fugitives.

Even more than ten years ago, these Gotaland warriors and the Danes had never fought such a one-sided battle. Garg couldn't figure out that it was a battle.

So, he died.

Garg died, or the entire ship he was on survived.

Since the distance was already very close, the port side slingshots of the large ship Sperosville launched a salvo. This round of salvos was unusual. The cast iron projectiles fired by the ten slingshots on the side side cut no less than three holes in the longship~www .novelhall.com~ The cave gushed out like a spring with cold lake water.

The crossbowmen on the deck of the big ship fired deadly arrows, and it was precisely because of Garg's striking appearance that he became the target of public criticism.

What is the use of chain mail? Three short armor-piercing arrows from his body fell into the lake with a bang, and sank to the bottom of the lake at an extremely fast speed...

All the leading long ships were not spared, the ships were sunk, and the people on the boats would die if they fell into the lake wearing chainmail.

The battle came to an end in this way, and Rurik couldn't even laugh if he wanted to. He didn't have the joy of winning, and he was even surprised that he won so easily. He couldn't understand that the Jotalans really made such a big noise, and they were killed by thirty large ships in their fleet. Is the enemy really this level? Even if there is no decent resistance, even if there is a generational difference between each other, why is the enemy's will to fight so clumsy.

Some of the sampans ran too fast for Rurik's fleet to catch, and more sampans were unable to escape.

A lot of drowning people on the lake were crying while holding ship debris, and the salvage work for these people has already begun.

Indeed, there is no need to beat the Reservoir Dogs now. It makes more sense for Ross to capture these guys as slaves than to kill them hastily now.

When the golden light of the sun graced the world, the Ross fleet smashed a lagoon fleet of the Gotaland people in the Lake Wettern region.

This victory Rurik deserved to be confused, and the prisoners were all taken out by simple intimidation.

At this point, Rurik fully understood the reason for everything.

He pinched his beard and looked towards the north: "Arik, it seems that you have gone too far, which led the Jotalans to organize a fleet to try to annihilate you. Thanks to me, it was easy to kill them."