Chapter 971： 1 huge army in Cologne

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The success of the continuous raids gave Ragnar unprecedented confidence, and his ambitions expanded to the extreme, and his eyes were set on Cologne, a big city not far upstream of the river.

Since the wealth of the entire region is enriching in Cologne, as long as the brothers can successfully seize the monastery, won't they be able to plunder a lot of gold and silver?

This is definitely not a hassle.

The brothers just need to act faster, as in the previous operations, quickly complete the looting after landing on the beach, then quickly evacuate, and retreat to a safe area before they can react.

No Vikings had penetrated so deep into the European hinterland before.

Or perhaps the Russian Blue Fox Gouldsson has accomplished the feat of exploration, and has even reached the Danube further south to float. At that time, the blue fox hid his true identity and always inspected as a priest in disguise, not a typical Viking.

So Ragnar didn't know anything about Cologne's intelligence, only that there was a lot of wealth there, and the brothers really sharpened their knives and moved on.

The direction of the river is favorable for the Danish longboats to sail against the current. The soldiers put the plundered belongings and prisoners in the middle of the boat, and everyone holds the wide blades and cooperates with the sails to achieve the fastest sailing speed.

The thirst for wealth swept away the tiredness of the elbows of the rowing oars, and they were approaching Cologne, singing the song of the north.

They even did another kill while traveling in China.

The fleet was in an area where a small river empties into a large river, and everyone saw a village impressively.

Just like the small snacks served before the barbecue dinner, the attack on this village can be regarded as the prelude to the attack on Cologne.

Ragnar landed strongly with his guys, and the village was captured by wind and clouds.

Although the villagers, together with the old and the young, could not find out the situation immediately, they first had to protect their own lives and the lives of their families.

The monastery in the poor village was naturally the main target of the attack. All the priests and villagers who had no time to escape were killed, and the building was set on fire.

In their madness, the Danish warriors sacrificed to Odin, whom they believed in, with fire and slaughter, and slashed and slaughtered the captive goats. As for the many goats and sheep that could not be taken away, Ragnar ordered them to be executed directly.

"We can't take it away, and we can't let the Franks have it any more. We Danes are the result of all the sufferings of these Franks, and we take extra revenge in this way."

What he said set a great tone for what could be called an inexplicable act of slaughtering animals.

As long as the brothers obeyed the orders of the king, all the captured livestock were killed, but it was like all the legs of lamb were cut off, and they quickly roasted them into cooked food as the follow-up dry food while there was plenty of time.

The village of their detail is in principle just one of a large number of settlements that have emerged along the Rhine, nothing special in nature.

It's just that its geographical location is very close to Cologne. If the fire is soaring here, the direction of Cologne will be able to notice the clues.

This village is Dusseldorf, and it is a purely Frankish village built by a group of Frankish immigrants when Charlemagne was alive decades ago.

Just west of Düsseldorf there are a large number of emerging Frankish settlements with different populations, the largest of which is Gladbach, Mönchengladbach.

Ragnar slaughtered here under the banner of revenge. According to this theory, the targets of persecution were indeed serious Franks.

The village is full of flammable wooden houses with haystack roofs. Although the autumn rain has spread here some time ago, the dry north wind has restored the houses to flammable dryness.

The Danes set fires and smoke billows everywhere, which is directly reflected in the "red sky" at night.

You must know that the straight-line distance from the village of Düsseldorf to the big city Cologne is only more than 20 kilometers.

It seems that this is a long distance, but the air in today's era is extremely clear, and every clear night is a gorgeous Milky Way across the sky.

The fire in the village turned the sky dark red, and the strange scene caught Cologne's strong attention that night.

For, a great man and his mighty army are now in Cologne.

The situation was unexpected, but not entirely unprepared, for Ragnar.

However, it was said that the two princes of the Frank who were caught in the civil war, Lothair and the main force of his Middle Kingdom were still placed in the southern part of the Strasbourg area. Due to the strategic advantage in the summer period, Lothair began to expect his two younger brothers to accept it. His own proposition, the so-called giving up most of his power, and living his whole life in peace in a small fief.

Compared with the powerful decree to cut down the vassal at the beginning, Lothair has made concessions. The two younger brothers can still hold the title of duke. Although the territory has been severely shrunk, their status is still very noble.

Such a determination is absolutely unacceptable to Ludwig of the Eastern Kingdom and Charles of the Western Kingdom.

But now that the autumn and winter are coming together, the civil war in the kingdom is coming to an end due to the weather. After all, they are all brothers, and the three parties are fighting **** the battlefield, and they have to continue to negotiate in private.

It was in this delicate atmosphere that Ludwig ushered in a thunderbolt.

The rear of the Eastern Kingdom suffered an incredible blow! The Normans invaded aggressively, and the Saxons ruthlessly backstabbed. If it was just this, it was not too serious a problem, but the elite heavy cavalry he dispatched ended up being wiped out.

Robert, the Earl of Layingau, who was given full command, was only spared. This mediocrity who lost three thousand cavalry has the face to come back and report the tragedy? In response to the great aristocrat who committed such a serious crime, Ludwig, who was in a hurry, immediately ordered him to be imprisoned. If it were not for political stability, he would have liked to directly withdraw his family's ownership of the Leyingau territory.

Reason prevailed, and he didn't want other nobles to see that his king was an idiot with a small stomach and easy to mess around.

He was shocked and annoyed by the letters written on special materials that were sent back.

When Ludwig was middle-aged, he always regarded himself as the supreme ruler of the eastern border of the kingdom, but he had a very bad shortcoming - he could not speak Latin proficiently.

Take a look at these so-called letters written by King Ross himself. The words are all in Latin. After being translated by the priests, the content of the words is really the most hateful provocation and threat.

Behind the provocative threat, Ludwig's eyes widened and his back froze!

betray! Traitors are everywhere. The Saxons betrayed, so wouldn't the Thuringians betray?

If the Saxons continue to grow bigger, there will be more unreasonable demands. This is more terrifying than the Norman invasion!

He began to regret the decision to send Ludov, Count of Westphalia, to Denmark, which now appears to be a complete sham.

What he couldn't believe was that he sent out a total of 3,000 cavalry troops to be wiped out. He knew the existence of the Rus Kingdom, but it was just a self-entertaining act of a Norman chieftain who proclaimed himself king. He arrogantly felt that this was not a matter, at most it was a northern chief of the same level as Chief Obertidet, but his main force turned out to be...

The civil war with the brothers is an internal affair of the kingdom, but the fact that a group of ferocious Normans invaded on a large scale is a challenge to the entire kingdom.

Ludwig wrote a letter to his eldest brother Lothair, the so-called request to suspend the civil war, and the Eastern Kingdom to send troops to crusade the barbarians who had invaded.

"In any case, we must suspend the civil war now. I will lead the army north to crusade all the invading Normans. Destroying the barbarians is a just and necessary move. Please look at the morality and do not cross our existing borders."

Lotaire himself received the letter. He felt that his brother was just looking for an excuse. In fact, he suffered a loss on the battlefield and planned to push it to the rear to cultivate.

Lothair made his own judgment. He believed that Ludwig was lying, but considering the status of his own team, he was unable to launch any offensive throughout the winter. Go on. This became illusory and the snake responded with a letter: "Since it is a barbarian invasion, please be sure to destroy it. I swear in the name of the king of all Franks, and I will not interfere with your great action against the barbarians."

In the reply, Lothair did not forget to reiterate that he was the real and only king, and added a "duke" suffix to his brother's name in the wording.

Ludwig had no time to do oral gymnastics with his eldest brother on the usage of specific vocabulary, and immediately praised him for his wisdom.

In Lotaire's view, this is indeed a signal of his brother's admission.

The army of the Middle Kingdom has indeed made visible measures. The army maintains a defensive state, and the garrison in some areas also dismantles and retreats. Lothair did not want to set up a palace in the field area, either going back to Aachen for the winter, or spending the winter in the Strasbourg palace. He decided to choose the latter.

Seeing these moves, after Ludwig placed some border troops to drive defensively, all the elites among them had been withdrawn.

Ludwig was recruiting troops in the Leingau area, especially in the villages near Wiesbaden, Mainz, and Worms. The autumn harvest has ended, and the slack of autumn and winter has arrived. Ludwig, who was in a hurry, ignored the persuasion of Robert, Count of Leyingau, who was imprisoned, and forcibly recruited men to serve in the north.

Even, including all the men in Nassau Village.

Because the Baron of Nassau was also part of the open rebellion, he even recognized Ludoff, the tyrant, as his monarch. In the name of the king, Ludwig abolished the baronial status of Nassau Village, downgrading it to the point where it was not even counted as a fief knighthood. Henry Nassau's entire family was imprisoned, and other male villagers were forced into infantry formations.

Even though some generals persuaded the king to fight north in winter was a foolish move.

The furious Ludwig couldn't listen.

His main force has been stationed in Mainz-Frankfurt, and he is recruiting heavily in the nearby Leingau area. With the exception of a group of elites who cannot move, he has rapidly expanded the mobile army to as many as 20,000!

A large number of peasants were forced to fight, and all the Sorbian slaves now joined the army.

He even sent messengers to rush the horse and go straight to the Marquis of Thuringia in the northeast direction along the inherent Roman avenue.

He ordered the Marquis of Thuringia to do everything he could to mobilize the Thuringian warriors to immediately enter the Saxony area and gather in the direction of Hamburg.

Ludwig did not expect the Marquis of Thuringia to be very cooperative, which was actually a test. The Marquis of Thuringia and their people were incorporated into the Frankish kingdom by a family, very similar in nature to the actions of the Flemish and Burgundians, that is, they were not incorporated into the kingdom through large-scale wars. In exchange for political exchange, the local nobles had Huge autonomy, in fact, the princes of one place.

The status of the Thuringian nobles could not be destroyed by the move of "vacating the cage for the bird". The local nobles were loyal to Ludwig, and there was indeed no tendency to rebel in the past. Only now with the third national rebellion in the history of the Saxons, Ludwig's attitude towards the Thuringians has become very ambiguous. Whether Thuringia sent troops, how many troops they sent, and whether they worked hard to suppress the rebellion became the standard means of testing their loyalty.

He values ​​his own strength more.

Five thousand elite infantrymen, ten thousand local service militiamen, and nearly five thousand Sorbian slave soldiers. The former 15,000 people are the main fighting force, and the latter 5,000 Sorbs are mainly escorting logistics materials.

There were also a thousand heavy cavalry led by Ludwig himself, a thousand light cavalry organized by various horses and people who knew how to ride, and two thousand cavalry.

Thanks to the large army stationed for a long time in the Mainz area, the area leads to Cologne and this flat Roman road.

The gathering of 22,000 people can be described as extremely fast, after all, most of the soldiers have long been entrenched in this place.

Just because he was worried that the three parties of the infantry, cavalry, and carriage convoy would be out of touch, Ludwig personally led the army to keep the mighty army advancing towards Cologne.

Of course, although the entire journey was only about 150 kilometers, it was advancing along the ready-made road. Such a huge army moving at the same time was still a huge challenge to Ludwig.

Cavalry and elite infantry have arrived in Cologne one after another.

At this time, Bolt, Archbishop of Cologne, not only learned of the tragedy in the north, but also wished that a brave noble would organize a rebel army to attack the barbarians.

The archbishop and all the priests believed that Ludwig was a good man blessed by the archangel, and the huge army would surely wipe out the Norman wildlings in one fell swoop. To this end, Cologne immediately provided a large amount of its own taxes to finance Ludwig with real food.

The city of Cologne, built in the era of the Roman Empire, with a total of six kilometers of stone city walls, has ushered in a king's entry into the city.

Ludwig took the leading soldiers to worship in the cathedral in the city, because this war was a crusade against the barbarians who were addicted to killing, even if the priests felt that they could stop some killings by sending missionaries to persuade the barbarians to convert. , Obviously the past actions all ended in failure, and the Archbishop took the lead to authorize Ludwig to kill the enemy.

The Archbishop of Cologne anointed the forehead of Ludwig, who was kneeling in front of the icon, and then declared: "The Lord forgives your sins! The Lord authorizes you to slay the demons of the north with a sharp sword, and those apostles of Satan will be punished by you. give death."

Even the Archbishop of Cologne supported this righteous move, and the morale of Ludwig's army was unprecedentedly high.

What made him even more happy was that those Franks who had fled from the north were the subjects of the Eastern Kingdom under Ludwig's rule.

The blood of the Franks was not lost, they saw a huge army with Charlemagne style.

Ludwig has the same beard as his grandfather Charlemagne Everyone says that this king can inherit Charlemagne's military power, just like half a century ago when he conquered Saxony and the Norman world , now the glorious history will repeat itself.

Ludwig was delighted to receive such accolades, and he had no trouble recruiting up to two thousand Frankish militiamen with their own weapons and horses in Cologne.

Even the Archbishop of Cologne made up his mind to go to the north in person after some thought. Because it was reported that Esquil, the saint of the north, was not dead, but this high-ranking man actually mingled with the rebels. Whether it was being coerced, or whether the old guy had his own opinion, is unknown.

The archbishop was still hesitating, however, whether it was Bishop Hardbolt or King Ludwig of the Eastern Kingdom, and even the people and priests of Cologne, they all saw the red-hot sky in the northwest.

The priest felt that this was a celestial warning, or a revelation from God.

But Ludwig, who was extremely sensitive to the battlefield, directly denied all the speculations of Bishop Hardbolt: "Is there any bandits near Cologne? That is clearly something that burns on a large scale and illuminates the sky."

The bishop didn't know a thing, and Ludwig was robbing him in the hesitation: "If there are bandits, you will be looking for death. The bishop doesn't need to panic, my army will go after dawn to find out."