Rise of Rurik - Chapter 1100

The soldiers of the Koblenz garrison who forcibly rappelled abandoned their armor and fled, only the helmet and the sword were always worn as the last dignity of the soldier.

Ten people fled in disgrace, knowing the disgrace and comforting themselves on the way.

They first climbed the mountain behind the fort, and then went straight to the village behind the mountain. They demanded some food and water, and alerted the locals: “Flee! The barbarians have taken Koblenz. They will kill anyone they see. We are the last ones to escape.”

Of course this is not the case, but these fugitive fighters fully believed in what they believed in. From their perspective, the guys who wore the flags of the Baron of Nassau and the Eastern King were always Normans who did no evil, and those people were equivalent to Satan’s apostles. brutal.

By persuading the villagers to hurry up and flee, the fugitive fighters were able to comfort themselves.

“At least, we can save a lot of innocent people.”

There are not many villages near Koblenz, they are more concentrated near the Moselle.

After all, the Moselle River Basin was the activity center of the old Alemanni tribes in Germany. After being annexed by the expanding Frankish tribes, it became the core territory of the Franks, and the locals also turned into authentic Franks. The narrow riverside area sandwiched between low mountains is a rare settlement suitable for farming. Most of the local area belongs to the parish of Trier, and the three parishes of Trier, Metz and Reims are now managed together.

Archbishop Sinkmal of Reims controls the theocracy in a connected area, but behind this appreciation, the huge area is even the fief of Count Metz.

Theocracy and secular power have always maintained cooperation. The priests in various places are educating the people, and the feudal aristocracy controls the territory by force.

This area is already the core area of ​​the Franks. It is a densely populated area in this era, but it is not easy for people who are trapped in the mountains to find a village, even if the ten fleeing soldiers are already along the Moselle River all the way run upstream.

They were going to withdraw to Trier and inform the standing army stationed there, directly belonging to King Lothair, of what happened to them. They even claimed the disaster of the fall of Koblenz to anyone they encountered along the way, just to arouse the vigilance of the village.

On a normal night of flight, ten weary warriors fled to a small village. The villagers did not dare to provoke these ruthless people. The knight lord of the village gave them some black bread out of basic landlord friendship, and arranged stables for them to live in more considerately.

If these people were not wearing the standard iron swords of the standing army, the knight master would regard them as bandits, and they would have nothing to blame for taking the opportunity.

The simple villagers don’t care about what happened to Koblenz, and they have only heard a little about the name of this city. For the knight master, it is not his own fief, not to mention his own monarch is Count Metz. Now that Count Metz is a staunch supporter of King Lothair, knight leaders from all over the world will naturally stand in the position of King Lothair.

After all, they are standing army soldiers, and their military training is much better than the crooked melons and jujubes under their own.

The knight had only a small fief and held the temporal power of three small villages. If Count Metz felt that his existing troops were insufficient, he would have to ask for more minor vassals to send troops to fight.

“Those savage Norman mercenaries reared by the Eastern Kingdom destroyed Koblenz? This must be part of a huge civil war. It seems that the situation is very complicated and my territory is at risk? But you are all deserters, I know The king’s attitude towards such people. Even if you escape to Trier, you are likely to be imprisoned. When King Lothair learns of your situation, he will probably hang you all in anger! You should imagine that if you are loyal to me , as my squire, you can absolutely be safe…”

The civil war is an opportunity, and those enterprising knights deliberately seize this opportunity. If they can make contributions on the battlefield, they may be able to increase their fiefs, and even upgrade them to barons with a large fief.

It’s just that the knights, as low-level nobles, can mobilize not only single-digit elite squires, but also a handful of armed peasants with farm implements such as flails and sickles.

If you have a group of ruthless people under your own, the situation will be completely different.

The knight master was very reasonable, and the ten fleeing people had to tick each other in the stable.

“It is this kind of small noble, who is not worthy of allegiance to everyone.”

“Otherwise? What else can we do? Escape to Trier, I’m afraid we’ll still be hanged after giving the information.”

“Why do we hang us? You told the local defenders that we escaped in battles. Boss Fred has already died in battle. As long as your mouths are hard enough, no one will know that we fled voluntarily.”

“I don’t dare to gamble. We still have a long way to go after that. Who knows what the future will be like? It’s better to be a servant of this little noble now and wait until the situation stabilizes.”

“Forget it! Just pretend I’m dead. I don’t have a wife anyway, so I’m staying in this village. You can leave if you want, I want to stay.”

…

They did not reach a synchronism, and the next day, the five insisted on leaving, and the remaining five simply pledged allegiance to the knights.

Those who insisted on going asked the lord knight for a horse, even if his horse was quite ordinary.

“It’s greedy! You don’t want to give allegiance to me and take away my horse? Why? It’s my great kindness to give you food for your escape, maybe…”

The five people who made fun of themselves stopped saying anything, and hurriedly carried the sackcloth to continue their escape.

The fate of the remaining five people has indeed changed. They have no worries in their hometown, and all of them are quite young and unmarried. Standing in the position of this knight master, he picked up five treasures. With these five young squires from the standing army, his crooked melons and cracked dates can receive some formal military training, so that his family can get the future. possibility of development.

The core area of ​​this knight’s collar is in the middle and lower reaches of the Moselle River. It is like a peninsula. The largest village has more than 200 men, women and children, relying on the good natural environment here. Live a poor and boring idyllic life. In fact, this knight’s territory is vast and sparsely populated, with three villages and a small group of people scattered on the hillside, totaling more than 500 people.

Koblenz is just downstream, and its fall only worries the Knights of the future.

But when the fugitives left, life here returned to its former serenity. Nothing changed except for the addition of a few new squires by Lord Knight.

And in the conquered Koblenz, the local situation changed suddenly, it has been incorporated into the Barony of Nassau, but it has not been recognized by King Ludwig for the time being. And this is one of the things that Blue Fox will do in the future. Because there is an opportunity to expand the results in front of you, which is like a business opportunity to do business. Once the opportunity is missed, it will never be obtained again!

The fort was there, and the Rus army completed the conquest under the name of the Baron of Nassau. Soldiers from northern Europe moved the Koblenz fort cleanly, and all kinds of granaries and armories were put into everyone’s pockets. Those who were looking forward to making a fortune basically satisfied their thirst. By taking off the enemy’s chain mail, many warriors changed the opponent’s armor and increased their armament.

Entering a house stacked with heavy boulders, the blue fox saw neatly lined sackcloth pockets. The soldiers were busy carrying them, and the blue fox stopped everyone for the time being.

“Don’t be impatient, let me see what’s here.” He stabbed a sack with his sword, only to see dry rye flowing out like grit.

“Of course this place is a granary.” Heihu complained a little.

“I know. It seems that this place is the only place that cannot be looted by brothers.” Lanhu thought for a while, and arranged for his cronies to block the place. As for the food that had been removed before, he would not pursue it, but the rest would be the army’s stockpile.

In this siege of the Russ army, two unlucky people died with their skulls smashed by stones, in addition to ten people suffering from skin trauma that did not get in the way.

The fact is that the losses of the defenders were not many. The battle was a pot of porridge, and the heavy armored soldiers on both sides were in a group. It would take some time to kill a heavy infantryman in a cramped place.

More than 60 defenders died, and more than 100 prisoners were captured. The prisoners of war were all injured to varying degrees, and since they could not be killed, they had to spend money to support them temporarily.

Together with his own people and prisoners of war, the black fox has to solve the problem of eating for as many as 800 people for a long time.

There is a batch of grain in the fortress, and some oak barrels hold a lot of drinking water. Obviously, this is the capital of the logistical reserve that the defenders have the courage to stick to. Lanhu estimated that if he couldn’t capture the fort for some reason, and adopted siege tactics and depleted the defenders, even if the opponent was destined to be exhausted, it would be a long time later.

This batch of grain has solved the military ration problem for a period of time, but it is far from enough.

The Koblenz fortress still flies the cross flag with black lines on a white background, but it has raised a Rus flag for the first time in history.

The blue fox continued to tell the two priests that this was the “St. Andrew’s Flag”, representing the Norman army under him “always believing in God”.

Could it be that the barbarian nobles of the north were more devout than the native Frankish nobles, Father Bachbert took the temporal power of the new Baron of Nassau with the little parish of Koblenz, and as he saw so far, these armies remained impossibly benevolent .

They did not persecute the captives in the slightest, and even provided them with food after disarming them all.

At the beginning of the period, the captain of the flag guard, Fred, was extremely uncooperative.

If the blue fox is a hot-tempered old soldier, but to vent his anger, he will hang up the garrison general and send someone to whip it. He didn’t do it because he knew exactly what he really wanted.

Lanhu has always brought his younger brother Heihu by his side, and he is spending all his time educating his younger brother how to get more benefits from the prisoners of war.

First of all, it is impossible for the Nassau Baron to take in these prisoners of war, and trying to keep them will eventually leave a group of scourges. Since the Baronies of Nassau had become a de facto area of ​​Rus’ control, it was a great humiliation to try to have a standing army of Franks lead the Norman Rus. It would be wise to pass them on to Ludwig for money.

Blue Fox was not suitable to come forward directly, so he arranged for priests Bahbert and Conrad to persuade.

At least Captain Fred had respect for Bahbert. The comers are all priests, they don’t care about secular power, and it has nothing to do with the priests as to who is the lord. So when the two came to persuade them to surrender for the first time, Fred made a decent intimidation and invited them all away. Now seeing the two of them again, the defeated self has lost his spirit and has become very easy-going.

It was this easy-going attitude that pleased the two priests, who, after all, had offered them a way out.

“Then Koblenz will come under the Barony of Nassau. It will be part of the Eastern Kingdom, and your time here is over. You were defeated by the Barons of Nassau, and defeated by stronger armies, and as warriors, you You should not lose if you lose. You have already proved your loyalty to Lothair, what then?” Bahebert said, and he was hinting a lot.

Speaking of defeating Fred and still angry, he suppressed his emotions: “I really lost to the Baron of Nassau? If only that would be the case. You are noble priests, and lying is blasphemy. They are clearly Normans! , my grandfather and my father were both at war with the Normans! I know what the Normans are like.”

“Okay.” Father Conrad admitted that what he said was a fact, but stressed that it was not the whole truth. “But you have to be clear that the Normans have all converted to God. Just imagine if they were really as murderous as Satan’s apostles, how could you live? How can the farmers here live? The Baron of Nassau has gone to the West, he is on the road King Dewish has been promoted to earl, and his fiefs are in the west. He married his daughter to a young Norman! You must know how noble the person who defeated you is.”

“Me? Do I need to take a serious look at the defeated me?”

“Of course. I told you the last time I came here that they were nobles. I repeat, you were defeated by two people, a northern earl, and the new Baron of Nassau. They were Normans but converted, noble. Eskil, the northern saint, baptized these two Norman nobles and became their godfather. Think about it! What is your identity, and what is their identity!”

Fred thought about it carefully, and the two priests seemed to be implying that even though they were defeated, they were still honored.

He asked with a blank face: “So, how will we be treated?”

Father Bahebert continued: “The dead will be buried on the spot, and all of you who survive will be sent to Wiesbaden. Go allegiance to the Eastern Kingdom! King Ludwig will reuse you.”

Fred’s eyes trembled, thinking that this was indeed the result of acceptance.

“Maybe I should talk to them directly about these things. It’s not for you two noble people to drop your identities as lobbyists.”

“It doesn’t matter, because those two nobles respect you. They learned about your attitude towards the Normans, and they are afraid of a disagreement. Now it seems that you are willing to calm down and have a good chat. A meeting will be arranged for you soon. The two Norman nobles are proficient in Latin, but not very proficient in Frank. I will accompany you as an interpreter, please be at ease.” Father Conrad persuaded bitterly.

If the savage speaks holy Latin, and has completed the conversion, and guaranteed the lives of all captives, is such a Norman still a savage?

Fred couldn’t help himself. If the opponent was a Frankish noble, he could swear allegiance on the spot. Anyway, he had no face to exist as King Lothair’s standing army anyway.

Koblenz was originally the fiefdom of Charles the Bald in the West Kingdom, and King Lothair had the ambition to take it away with arms~www.mtlnovel.com~ Fred, who was ordered to be stationed here, was never at ease as an officer, this place is The land of the four battles, on the other side of the Lai Yin River is the Earl of Lai Yingao in the Eastern Kingdom. In his perception, Earl Ingol is loyal to the Eastern Kingdom, just like Earl Metz is loyal to the Middle Kingdom.

Now is the peak of the full-scale civil war, and in the nearby area centered on the North Vosges Mountains, King Lothair and King Ludwig are here to fight and fight. Fred, who was in the standing army, knew something. The town named Lauten Kaiserslautern was in the midst of a tug of war between the two kings. Even Count Metz himself led his troops into the war, and the battlefield was not very far from Koblenz.

Thinking about it, Fred had an epiphany—the army from the north attacking me was part of the civil war, part of the tactics.

As the flag captain of the standing army, he at least knew about the stationing of the standing army in the Count of Metz. There were few defenders in Koblenz, but more in Trier and Luxembourg. In addition, the defense of the region has become the business of the Count of Metz, and continuing to the south is the Duchy of Burgundy and the Duchy of Provence.

The main force of the standing army is mainly placed near Aachen and near Strasbourg. The former is the earl of Flanders who is on guard against the rebellion and the Norman pirates that exist locally, while the latter is led by Lothair himself to King Ludwig. The army fought for the area north of the North Vosges Mountains and west of the Lein River, and tried to capture Ludwig directly to force him to be only Duke of Bavaria.

The macro is like this, and the details are not worthy of Fred’s knowledge.

Under the civil war, all nobles must consider their own positions, and the officers of the standing army can imagine whether they can take the opportunity to become a feudal nobleman on one side. After all, in today’s world to continue to be a military household for generations, it is not as attractive to immediately transform into a noble lord to live a stable and good life.