At the end of the Tang Dynasty, it was a feudal town, but in Western Europe

After a few breaths, the Viking warriors rushed to the wall. The leader, Olaf, tensed his muscles suddenly. He jumped high, his whole body bent like a crescent moon, and suddenly swung the big ax in his hand.

"boom!"

An ax tip popped out of the two-inch-thick door panel, and the young men stabbed the Vikings with spears through the gaps in the fence or from the top of their heads.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The sound of the big ax slamming the door seemed to be knocking on the hearts of everyone behind the door. It became more and more dense and louder. Finally, when three or five Viking warriors slammed into each other with their round shields, the door was smashed into pieces. Fragments all over the place.

Then, the blood and screams jumped again.

"Count Glore." A Saxon leader with a traditional Saxon knife walked slowly to Glore. "We are now in the northeast of Bremen. As long as you bypass the forest, you will be at the Cathedral of Bremen."

"Is the internal response you said really reliable?"

"Of course it's reliable, you only need one-third of the manpower to capture it!" The Saxon leader vowed.

"Oh——" Glore elongated his voice, "Okay, since that's the case, Olaf, you take 500 people to attack the city, and we will plunder nearby!"

"Then let me go together." The Saxon nodded, and was about to tell his subordinates, but after the reflection of the fire, he could feel a silver light roaring towards him.

The Saxon was also an old man, and his reaction was astonishing. He turned sideways in an instant, and unexpectedly blocked the slash of the big ax with his left hand, but the price was that half of his left hand fell straight to the ground.

"Are you crazy? Glol!" the Saxon leader yelled in disbelief, clutching the wound on his left hand.

The one-eyed Glol smiled like a vulture. He swung the blood on the axe: "Am I crazy? Vidukind is crazy. We Norse have helped him so much, but he actually joined forces with outsiders to harm us. Who is crazy?"

"No, you, who told you? This is a pure lie!" The Saxon leader was surprised and angry.

"Ha!" Glol let out a short and piercing laugh, "Lie, when we all die at your hands, it will no longer be a lie."

"Pfft!" A long sword pierced the Saxon leader's back and protruded from his chest, and he fell powerlessly to the ground. The one who stabbed the sword was his deputy, a thin Saxon with a red nose.

"My lord, what should we do next?" Olaf kicked a round bald head and came to Glore.

"Isn't that easy?" Glol couldn't help laughing, "You and the red nose led 500 people to Bremen to rob, and the battle was quick, so don't let that Avar catch it, but those in black , kill less, they are all dead, not only will no one come to this land, but also no one will spread our reputation."

"What about you? Stop the Earl of Hamburg? I heard that the Earl of Hamburg is not easy to mess with."

"I heard that the Avars plundered countless villages and even small lords last winter, and even broke Kiel... His territory must be very rich." A horrible expression appeared on Glore's hideous face. Smile, "When the Earl of Hamburg receives the signal to rescue Bremen, I will take the remaining 500 people to attack his Hamburg, tsk tsk, I don't know when his bamboo basket is empty, What would you think?"

Chapter 56 Pop! Pop!

"Pip! Poof!"

Under the burning of the flames, the sound of firewood breaking and steam erupting was perfectly mixed together, hot white steam came out of the grass shed, and the billowing steam coiled around the crossbow making workshop.

In the somewhat dark crossbow making workshop, nearly a hundred craftsmen are working in full swing.

Standing by an assembly table, Feng Sen picked up a pine crossbow arm, put on the bowstring, and pulled it gently. The bow moved from the half moon to the full moon in an instant, but before the full moon was reached, Feng Sen stopped his hand and gently put the bowstring back.

"Can this pull be increased?"

"It can't be added anymore." The crossbow craftsman Zhang Li'er shook his head and said, "This kind of crossbow arm made of pine and oak can only withstand a pulling force of less than 50 kilograms at most, the pulling distance is about one foot, and the lethal range is 50 steps. , it should still be enough when the enemy is lightly armored and unarmored."

Zhang Lier is an ancestral hunter, but he has been in the army since his father's generation. He has a lot of experience in bows and crossbows. Although he can only make hunting crossbows, he has at least seen pigs running. It is difficult for him to make military crossbows. , but something is better than nothing.

Feng Sen nodded, and handed him a sack of iron pedals produced by the Mars Workshop at his feet, and squatted aside to observe their crossbow making process with great interest.

A few craftsmen picked out a piece of oak from a nearby pile of wood. It was more than five feet long (about 1 meters), with no tangled tendons and straight lines.

Zhang Lier used charcoal, a ruler, and hemp rope to make a compass to mark on the oak, and then two craftsmen took out their saws and sawed the two-inch-thick oak board into a long strip that was thick at both ends and thin in the middle, and polished off the burrs and sharp corners with sand and rough stones.

This is the prototype of a crossbow arm, but if you want to put it into use, you must practice the bow.

The purpose of bow training is to make the bow recurve at the correct position and increase the pulling force, which is the same whether it is a bow or a crossbow.

The normal bow training method is to hang heavy objects on both sides of the bow arm, and then slowly relieve the stress.

But Feng Sen and the others don't have so much time to slowly train the bow. He needs to explode more bows and crossbows in a short time, so they adopted another method, that is, the water vapor method.

In fact, this comes from a biochemical knowledge. When the wood is in the water vapor above 100 degrees, the plant fibers in the wood will be plasticized and softened. At this time, the wood is in a gelled state, and it can be bent without too much force.

In the workshop of the assembly line, the two craftsmen at the top handed the finished bow materials to the craftsmen at the next link. They walked to a T-shaped pottery pipe, and directly below the pottery pipe was a pot of water and a stove.

Two craftsmen put the bow into the pipe, and connected the lower end of the T-shaped pipe to the top of the pot.

So, amidst the sound of gurgling and boiling, a huge amount of white steam poured in from the opening at the bottom of the pottery tube, and overflowed from the openings on both sides. After the temperature inside the pottery tube rose, the craftsman covered the outlet with a cover.

Feng Sen didn't have the mood to wait any longer, but walked to the next link of the assembly line, where a few coarse emissaries were struggling to wrap the bow around a stone, bending it with all their might.

Although the plant fibers in the bow have softened, softness and hardness are only relative, and they still need to use a lot of force to bend the bow.

After the bow is cooled, it needs to be placed, air-dried while the stress is relieved, and then placed in the pipeline again to steam, and then continue to bend, repeating the cycle.

Bow training is very slow in the first place. According to Tiangong Kaiwu, it takes at least ten days, but this method is much faster. The Middle Ages of the Carolingian era, which was not invented, is already a sharp weapon.

Normally, the output of this crossbow is not too high, but Feng Sen has a Martian workshop that can produce small accessories, such as pedals, so it is still much better than normal.

After looking at the room for a while, Feng Sen left Xingyefang and rode his horse towards Zhongyongfang.

On the large field outside Zhongyongfang, groups of Saxon or Frankish soldiers were training. They were either running in neat rows, or simply standing motionless.

In the queue, several Han instructors walked back and forth beside the Saxon soldiers in a posture of training young soldiers.

Some glaring sunlight shone on their faces, all tired and numb.

By the Ulster River, soldiers in gray turbans were running feebly with a large basket of stones on their backs. Behind them, a few undisciplined soldiers were tied to wooden sticks and held by the instructor The stick slapped his ass frantically.

This is Feng Sen's newly formed new militia, all composed of Saxons and Franks, a total of 600 people, divided into two battalions.

In fact, there were 800 people in the militia at the beginning, but during the training process, some crooked Feng Sen had to eliminate them, and a rat droppings could not spoil a pot of soup.

You know, on the battlefield, it's a bunch of guns poking in and out, and you don't have to turn around for a moment. Those mandarin ducks jumping in circles, sumo wrestling are useless at all, and they absolutely can't have the idea of ​​street corner fights.

On the battlefield, the most important thing is to obey orders. You must advance and retreat with your companions. You find someone who disobeys orders and go in. Once the blood is on your head, you will charge yourself. Oh, there is a big loophole in the formation. In front of the dense array of knives, axes and guns, a fleeting loophole is enough to kill!

Therefore, no matter what, do not do anything, this is the proper posture of a soldier, and these Saxons and Franks are more than brave but extremely poor in discipline.

This extremely poor discipline is not the discipline of the Tang army who burned, killed, looted and supported the chief officer at every turn. When the Tang army really fought on the battlefield, the formation was so tight and the discipline was so orderly that ordinary people could hardly imagine.

They do occasionally joke about the life of the general, but they don't joke about their own.

This group of militiamen wrapped in gray turbans is not like this. Feng Sen often sees them making fun of their lives, and if they can't stand still, they will be pigs out. What kind of play is this?

This is no ordinary insect, it must be punched hard!Practice hard!Don't practice weapons, just practice discipline. If you are down, I don't care what you do. If you get up, you have to listen to me.

Because history tells Feng Sen that organization and discipline are the cheapest and most priceless weapons.

"Feng..." A voice stopped Feng Sen who was about to leave.

Feng Sen looked back, but it was Gisela. She was still dressed as a nun. At this moment, there were two little girls behind her, with a basket hanging on her arm.

"So it's Aunt Gisela, what's the matter?" Feng Sen dismounted, walked up to Gisela with a smile, "You haven't come to see me for a long time."

Hearing this, Gisela blushed a little for some reason, but was also a little angry. Her yard was next to Feng's mansion, and Arvo's movement was a bit loud. She almost listened to it all winter. .

How does this make her face Feng Sen.

Really, really shameless, even in the daytime... Thinking of the sound I heard recently, Gisela's body felt a little hot.

Shaking her head and putting these emotions behind her, she asked worriedly, "Are there going to be wars again?"

Feng Sen was taken aback for a moment, and then put away his smile: "I'm not sure, but I heard from the Danish businessmen and Oupolit in the past that the leader of the rebel army, Vidukind, seems to be preparing to rebel again, although I don't know if it is When, I have to be ready."

Gisela's fingers started rubbing the hem of the clothes again, and after muttering for a long time, she seemed to have made up her mind: "Fon, I have to tell you something, but please don't be afraid..."

"Are you trying to say that your father is Widukind?" Feng Sen smiled at her, "I already knew."

Gisela was caught off guard by him and opened and closed her mouth a few times, but didn't know what to say.

"Gisela, I know that you have experienced many things as a nun. I don't want to ask, because the love of the heavenly father surpasses everything. Even if Vidukind is your father, you don't need to bear his sins." Feng For the first time Sen did not add Mammy after Gisela.

Gisela didn't speak. She didn't seem to be interested in Feng Sen's chicken soup for the soul. After a long time, when Feng Sen was getting pimples because of Gisela's slow attitude, she finally said, "I have one thing to ask of you, if you catch my father on the battlefield..."

"You want me to spare his life?" Feng Sen frowned.

Gisela raised her head, her eyes were extremely firm: "No, I want you to kill him immediately, don't let him say a word, he is a devil, he can confuse you as soon as he speaks, he is capricious, he won't obey Any oath, he can fool everyone, even me."

Gisela took a deep breath: "Please, kill him!"

Chapter 57 The advantage is mine!

"In Bremen, there have been more than [-] large-scale and large-scale battles in the past ten years. It is hard to say whether it is right or wrong, but scholars have all noticed that it was this battlefield that determined the ups and downs of the conquest of Saxony."

It was still the familiar church hall, but this time, the old priest who squinted his eyes and was confused and forgetful had disappeared, and was replaced by Archbishop Willerhard, who built the Bremen Cathedral from scratch and was still standing after countless wars.

His eyes were wide open, his beard and hair were stretched, and he stood upright in front of the altar. The crutch he held with his hands crossed was like a knight's long sword, and his loud voice echoed in the empty hall.

"His Royal Highness King Charles ordered me to come here and go north to Friesland to preach. It was also in the outskirts of Bremen. I was fortunate to witness the [-] Frank warriors conquering the Saxon chief Widukind and winning a big victory!"

The crutch hit the ground heavily, stirring up a cloud of dust. Archbishop Willerhard's eyes flickered: "I don't understand why everyone is talking about the brutality of the Vikings and the Norse, as if our heavenly father would not bless us.

Ten years ago, I came here to preach. Although the believers are poor and weak, the state of vitality and all things blooming is still in front of my eyes.After just ten years, has this place changed and become our burial place? "

Having said this, the monks who were secretly talking about escaping lowered their heads in shame.

"Our Bremen not only has the blessing and protection of our heavenly father, but also has elite soldiers and powerful allies. We have already sent pigeons to the Earl of Hamburg. I believe that the Earl of Hamburg, who defeated five thousand Saxons in Santer Mountain, will not be afraid of these thousand Viking pirates!" Willerhard roared with burning eyes, "No matter what, we have allies and strongholds. I have the advantage in this battle!"

After the encouragement before the battle, most of the monks withdrew from the hall, only a few elders and the chief priest remained.

"Officer Kelvin, you arranged those sentry towers and beacon fires, tell me about the actions of those Vikings."

"Okay." Zhenhui nodded, and said to the rest of the senior priests, "From the current actions of the Vikings, they are not just looting in the countryside, but are advancing along the Weser River all the way. Judging from the marching route, the ultimate goal of these robbers should be our church in Bremen."

"Overestimating one's abilities." Willerhard snorted coldly, "How many of them are there?"

"According to the information we have so far, there are about 1000 of them, but it is not accurate. I suspect that there are actually more of them, and..." Zhenhui paused, "I heard that among them there are Saxon."

"Are you sure?" Fields frowned.

"Widukind?" Archbishop Willerhard asked a name, and then he said with certainty as if he had found the answer, "Widukind! Fields, hurry up and send someone to Minden, ride a horse, and tell His Highness Charlie that Widukind is about to rebel again, and the time will not be later than July."

"Yes, Archbishop."

After pondering for a while, Willerhard cast his oppressive eyes on Zhenhui: "I asked you to investigate the spy and traitor these days, did you find it?"

"No." Zhenhui shook his head helplessly, "It seems that I am not pious enough, and the blessing of the heavenly father has not been bestowed on me."

"The time is still too short." Archbishop Willerhard suddenly took the initiative to walk towards Zhenhui. With tears in his eyes, he held Zhenhui's hands tightly, "Kelvin, you have 150 elite soldiers who have defeated the Saxons in your hands." Soldiers, and the strength I can muster is only 250, I need your help."

"This is what I should do." Zhenhui also held Willhard's hand and said with emotion, "Please rest assured, Archbishop."

"Thank you for your dedication, Priest Kelvin." Willerhard gently wiped away the tears that did not exist in the corner of his eyes, "Master Kelvin, I need you to be responsible for repairing the castle wall and training soldiers, and I will put you in front of you." At the east gate of the robbers, please guard the glory of the Heavenly Father!"

With a fixed gaze, Zhenhui twitched her eyebrows, and replied solemnly: "Heavenly Father testifies, I will not let any Viking robber step on the wall of the Eastern Fortress." Because they will come in through the gate.

"Elder Fields." After thinking for a while, Willerhard ordered without hesitation, "Go to the surrounding area and inform the nearby farmers to hide in the forest or inside the church, and collect food along the way."

"...Elder, you are in charge of taking the cavalry to patrol around the Weser River. Once you find a Viking warship, come and report to me immediately."

"...Elder, take a few monks to calculate the food and weapons in the warehouse. I want to hear your report before evening."

"..."

"Marovinus...Officer, go to the countryside to find free people who have served in the military, and hire them here with money, as many as you can."

With the order of the archbishop, the monks either mounted horses, or took quills, or even put on chain mail, and left the church hall one after another. Only Archbishop Willerhard was left kneeling upright at the altar forward.

Zhenhui glanced inside one last time, the archbishop's back was a little bent when he prayed, and he seemed to be panting.

........................

Xiao Agui sat cross-legged on the stone slab, wiping the horizontal knife in his hand. He leaned against the parapet of the castle wall, and in front of him was the endless plain forest and the sparkling Weser River.

Looking down from the top of the city, outside the walls of the Bremen Cathedral, countless Franks are lining up and slowly entering.

Numerous farmers led their cattle, sheep and horses, and pulled their carriages crying towards the interior of the cathedral. The original clean avenue was now full of the stench of cow dung and salted fish.

They carried their children and grain, and although they were crying, they still scrambled towards the castle. As free people in the church land, although they enjoyed the convenience brought by the Bremen Church, they also had to bear the burden of Bremen. the dangers brought about.

Most of the fortresses at this time were used in this way. These fortresses were built in dangerous places, surrounded by large and small villages, and when wars broke out, the surrounding people would be moved in.

After taking a sip of the local grape wine, Xiao Agui scolded his mother: "It's all the same in the world."

"Hey, Saburo." Zhenhui walked over in a black armor, "Where did you get the grape wine?"

"When I went to fight that bandit last time, I passed by a family in the forest, so I came along." Captain Xiao Agui said without any shame.

Squatting beside him, Zhenhui took the skin bag from his hand: "Lend me a sip."

Facing the sunset in the evening, Zhenhui leaned against the edge of the parapet, located in the Bremen area on the banks of the Weser River. The terrain is almost the same as that of Hamburg. They are all large plains. If there is any dangerous terrain, it is probably only swamps and forests.

He tapped Xiao Agui's head: "How is it? Have you never thought of such a day? Go to a place that no one knows, and fight with a group of people you don't know at all?"