Hagrid had expected that he would be controlled by them, and he had always maintained a sense of luck. Faced with being locked in a wooden cage with his hands and feet tied like a sheep waiting to be slaughtered, Hagrid let out a long sigh.
When he asked what the Vakshe people would do with him, one of the armed guards shouted: "Choose a good day to sacrifice you."
Sacrifice? Indeed, they chose to attack the Rus with arms, and they did have to sacrifice something before going out.
He was already disheartened. His death was so confusing that his life had become a joke. The Governor of Jönköping was actually beheaded by the Växjö people in the end.
Since we are all going to die, it is better to just lie down and be pulled down while waiting for death in fear.
Those guards were just joking.
The next day, Växjö's main war faction specially sent people to come and said this to the imprisoned Hagrid: "We know that you are just a messenger, and killing you will make us stupid. We will send you
"Yes. If we send our own people to deliver the message, we might be killed by the Russians, so we plan to send you."
"Oh?! How should I convey the message?"
"You will then tell the Russians that we have decided to fight."
"Alright alright……"
Hagrid didn't want to say anything and didn't dare to say anything. After he agreed, he stopped thinking about it. As a bystander, he began to pay attention to the deployment of the troops of these Växjö people.
Any man has the obligation to defend his village, and the entire village alliance should assemble the bravest men.
However, the opinions of all parties in the Nordic Council were not unified. Some villages advocated negotiation, while others insisted on attacking.
Although the two sides are not evenly matched, the main militant faction does not have an overwhelming advantage.
Although the main fighting faction has gathered many men, those negotiating faction are not weak either.
Civil war did not occur, but there were many scoldings between the two sides. Due to moral principles, since most people advocated fighting back, those villages that advocated negotiation and those who were waiting and watching, symbolically showed up with some men.
"They are just here to make up the numbers, not to help in the fight at all. We are still the main force now, and we promised that the glory of the Russian people is also ours!"
A man named Olaf was elected as the most senior war chief by the main war faction. He was a Dane and a senior mercenary. He had fought against the Swedish army at Silver Castle and achieved some gains.
His record has become a heavy asset, and he is considered to have a strong will to fight because of his record.
Olaf had more than 20 old friends. After joining forces with other Danish warriors staying in Växjö, he assembled a Danish mercenary group of more than 300 people.
Danish merchants did contribute their own private soldiers and even freed a small group of slaves to join the army.
Only three hundred capable Danish mercenary regiments can agree? Without the support of the local Götalans in Växjö, Olaf would not want to go north to defend the enemy no matter how arrogant he was.
What is quite subtle is that the villages of the warring faction are also shouting happily, but they are all a group of farmers who are bound by agriculture. Farmers have their own small families and are also the most important labor force in the family. War means a strong man's life.
If you leave, if you die in battle, the family's financial support will collapse. Although the structure of Viking clan society still exists, the management rights of the family that lose the male head of the family are directly transferred to the head wife, who has all the power to participate in village politics.
However, it is difficult for any village to accept the economic loss of a large number of men temporarily leaving. What's more, this is a life-threatening war.
Most of the villages that took part in the battle surrendered between 100 and 200 people, including those who were just trying to make up the numbers.
As for the negotiators and waiter villages, fifty people is already the limit.
So it was a large village combined with many small villages. It was obviously the Växjö Village Alliance with a population of nearly 30,000 people. Together with the Växjötallanders, Danes and Gotland refugees, they finally pieced together a close army.
An army of two thousand men.
A few soldiers wore fine leather boots, and many were made of deerskin tied with hemp rope to make boots. Their weapons were uneven, mostly axes and spears, but each of them had a wide log shield. Not to mention these shields.
Regardless of the quality, at least they have shields and know how to organize a shield wall.
Only the Danish mercenary group was the best armed, with half of the people wearing chainmail and iron helmets. Their sponsors needed these mercenaries to protect themselves, so they were willing to spend money.
Now the mercenaries finally have a real use case, and these Danish mercenaries are eager to fight with the Russians again to wash away the defeat at Silver Castle.
So, they spent a day doing the basic assembly. Soldiers of all colors were required to bring their own dry food. Many soldiers were indifferent to the essence of the war. They did not want to fight. Since the enemy had already reached the other side of the lake, they had to fight even if they didn't.
.
The locals in Växjö didn’t have any special knowledge about war. They were mostly just a large group of people. The brothers formed a shield wall and pressed forward. After a chaotic fight, the battle was won by relying on the brothers’ concerted efforts.
They gathered many people, and the Danes and Växjö, who had been fighting among themselves, historically came together to form an army.
Two thousand armed men gathered together densely may not seem like a large number of troops, but based on their understanding, this is "a huge army as long as they have ever known it."
The people of Växjö were extremely confident, but Olaf, the supreme war chief, was not satisfied.
The locals are obviously not cooperating. Is it okay to let a group of peasants with almost no armor go to the battlefield? After all, the people we want to attack are the Russians! Those Russian villains have sufficient evidence to prove that everyone in them is wearing armor, not to mention that there are updates
Rumor has it that the Russians were "riding monsters".
The truth was quickly figured out. The Danish mercenary group learned from the merchants who escaped that the so-called monsters were horses. The Frank cavalry once attacked Denmark, and the Danish soldiers were defeated for a while. Olaf had heard about this.
. Now it is better to think about where the Russians got the cavalry from. Since they have it, it is not completely impossible to deal with the cavalry.
Olaf had heard of a way to hit many spears together, and rely on the advantage of the large number of infantry to organize them into a spear formation, so that they could confront the Frankish cavalry's lances. So the key was to prepare wooden poles to chip them.
Sharp, that's enough.
Olaf made some preparations in a short period of time. Since the number of troops was too large, he could only gather together and walk overland, advancing along the lake to the occupied villages in the north. He also thought of using long boats, simply
Because organizing various ships cannot fill the entire army at once, and the longships are almost all owned by merchants, they are unwilling to take out the longships that they keep to escape in times of crisis.
As for fishing sampans, let them go to hell!
Poor Hagrid was sitting in a cage. The wooden cage was placed on an ox cart. He endured the bumps with his eyes closed. He was surrounded by armed men on foot armed with spears, axes and their own dry food. He had already expected that these people would be pitiful.
future, but what does this have to do with yourself?
Hagrid just lamented that the Växers had made a decision that was indeed heroic but also very stupid. If the army in front of them was a large army they could muster, the Russians' partial division should be able to defeat it.
The Växjö people chose war. According to the character of King Rurik of Rus, even if his partial division won the war, the Rus army would come back one day and they would have to win another war. In the end, the Växjö Village Alliance suffered a tragic loss.
slaughter.
"I'd better take care of myself...at least Fisk won't chop off my head."
Therefore, Växjö's army actually set off on the fourth day as agreed, and this time point was already very dangerous.
Hagrid could conclude that because Ross General Fisk could not wait for him to return to report the news and the people of Växjö to surrender, he immediately concluded that Växjö chose war. I am afraid that Ross's partial division has already marched.
In fact, that’s exactly what it is!
Originally, Fisk was supposed to wait until the envoy from Växjö announced his surrender yesterday. As the saying goes, it was a whole day before dark, and he didn't expect anything for most of the day. Why did he have to wait until the evening if he couldn't keep it safe?
There was still nothing in the evening...
As night fell and the stars shone brightly, the young Ross warrior had no intention of waiting any longer.
The soldiers whispered about the battle. Fisk saw the attitude of the brothers and immediately called everyone for a meeting around the campfire.
Fisk stood high and raised his arms and shouted: "Brothers, we have given those people a chance! However, they refused to surrender with practical actions. What should we do next?!"
"War!" everyone said in unison.
"Yes! Do you still remember our slogan?! Ula!"
"Ula!"
The soldiers drew their swords and pointed at the stars, and some took off their hats and waved them high. Only the young warriors trained by Rurik were willing to use "Ula" as the new Viking war cry, and only they understood its meaning.
Not everyone can yell it, only the troops loyal to Rurik are qualified to yell this.
This partial division led by Fisk and Kanuf is the elite of the Russian army. The soldiers have unified their will, and the next thing will be easy to handle.
Kindness? Kindness, of course, but not now.
Those who refuse to surrender will be viciously killed in order to force others who do not surrender to surrender.
With this attitude, the soldiers have the freedom to rob, and they have already lined up to act!
The cavalry was in front and the infantry was behind. They walked along the west bank of the lake. When they started, no one knew that the Växjö people had also organized an army.
The Ross Army headed south, and the Växjö Army headed north. Both sides were advancing along the lakeside meadows on the west shore of Lake Helga. It was only a matter of time before they met.
So, not long after noon, the general's army was inevitably packed together.
Just look at the dark group of people in front (their clothes are mainly grey-brown), they are just a group of armed men.
Fisk saw the sunlight reflected from the spearhead, as well as the reflection of some armor.
"Brothers! The enemy is at the front! Prepare to fight!"
The cavalry mobilized quickly, and the columns quickly turned into horizontal formations.
A war was imminent, so Beyathil grabbed the reins and rode directly to Fisk's side. Her job was as a tactical advisor, and she had to join the battle in the current situation.
Although Beyathil is a female, Fisk has to fully agree with her as a female warrior.
"I estimate that the enemy's strength may be three thousand, and they are all infantry. What if they are you Pechenegs?"
Beyathil didn't quite understand what she heard. After being translated by fellow warriors, she took a quick look and gave her opinion decisively: "Just follow our grassland tactics! It seems they lacked armor, so the cavalry approached them to keep a distance and fired arrows frequently.
Disrupt them and finally charge and kill them."
Fisk nodded: "If we don't contact them, our people will not be hurt."
So the unlucky Kanuf now had to be helplessly ordered to hold on because he was leading only infantry and escorting logistics supplies and non-combatants. Are you angry? Of course he is very angry. So what can he do?
In this case, Fisk did not draw his sword. He raised his recurve bow and called to his brothers: "Shoot them with your bow! Everyone shoots freely, but remember not to chop or stab. Now follow me!"
The cavalry began to take action, and their white uniforms were particularly conspicuous in the afternoon sun.
The color of the shirt immediately evokes the psychological trauma of the Gotland refugees in the Växjö army!
Ten years ago, a large group of Russian soldiers wearing white robes massacred Gotland, so thinking of those white robes made me think of death.
As for the flags held by the cavalry, they are quite familiar to the Danes in the Växjö army, or in other words, most Danes know what the white flag with blue stripes means.
The supreme war chief is not afraid of danger. He boasts that he knows some ways to deal with cavalry, not to mention that he has many people now.
"Don't be afraid, everyone, immediately form a shield wall to defend the cavalry!"
"Listen! That's not a monster! The Russians learned some strange things from the Franks."
"The cavalry is not scary. Soldiers with spears point their spears toward the outside. If the Ross cavalry dare to approach, you will stab them to death with your spears!"
Even so, this tactic is also a passive defensive tactic and cannot allow the numerically superior Växjö army to take advantage.
Olaf had an illusion that the Russian cavalry would charge up. At that time, with the numerical advantage of his elder spear-wielding men, he would knock all the cavalry off their horses and then kill them with axes.
But...
Suddenly there was a whooshing sound in the sky, and then a soldier lay down with a howl.
The soldier was hit by an arrow, and the arrow came from the cavalry!
Fisk and Bejahir were on the left and right, both of them were qualified and capable of commanding troops. They divided the 300 cavalry into two parts and launched an attack on the Växjö army.
The usual horseback shooting training showed extremely terrifying combat effectiveness at this moment! The cavalrymen stepped on the saddle with both feet, and tried their best to clamp the horse's belly with their legs. They turned sideways and used the rapid shooting method with arrow shafts on the right, and formed a dense formation.
The Växjö Shield was shot almost in the face.
They deserve to be considered elites, as they are all off-duty standing troops and spend a lot of time training every day. Spear thrusting and mounted archery are key training items.
The broad-bladed and barbed arrows shoot at the soldiers in the rear of the dense formation. The rapid-fire technique allows each cavalry to quickly fly past and fire three arrows.
The cavalry specially stocked up on arrows for independent action. A large number of spare arrows are at the rear and are currently being managed by Kanuf's infantry.
Just one round of passing cavalry fire caused more than 100 casualties to the Växjö army.
This is a very scary number. If their formation could be closer, the casualties would only be more serious.
Olaf never imagined that people on horseback could actually shoot arrows, but they were very accurate at shooting.
Is this still cavalry tactics? Can this be called cavalry?!
But Olaf could not care less about his anger, and the second round of cavalry attack began.
The battlefield by the lake suddenly became chaotic, as if the Parthian cavalry were besieging Crassus' Roman legions.
Even though the number of cavalry is far less than that of Växjö infantry, these infantry can only rely on bucklers to protect themselves. Any soldiers who dare to leave the formation will be shot first by the wandering cavalry.
The cavalry were ordered to shoot out all the arrows they had on hand, and when the quivers were empty, they would immediately retreat to Fisk to replenish them. However, all cavalry could not leave their posts. They had to keep a close eye on this group of troops who could not escape, and they had to kill and injure them slowly.
With their effective strength, when there were not many people left to fight, the cavalry drew their swords and charged and chopped.
Poor Supreme War Chief Olaf, his past experience of fierce battles with the Rus and Swedes has become a complete joke.
He was aggrieved in the past, with his mouth wide open, gesturing with his iron sword and shouting curses in Norse!
It was also a coincidence that some cavalrymen noticed that there were many leather armors among these Växjö armed men. When they encountered broad-bladed arrows, they were too ineffective against such people, so they immediately switched to conical armor-piercing arrows, which were specially designed to deal with chain mail.
An armor-piercing arrow was deliberately shot. When Olaf was still yelling at the opponent for his lack of martial ethics, the arrow flew into his mouth in an extremely ungrateful manner. The arrow penetrated the bone and exited from the mouth.
It entered and stabbed directly through Olaf's cerebellum, killing him instantly...
From now on, the Växjö army that kept crowding inward had no idea that its general had been killed in the battle. Their lines were not yet in chaos. The Ross cavalry continued to shoot arrows, just like a large group of piranhas tearing apart.
Bite a wounded cow that fell into the water, and you will continue to cause damage to me one bite at a time until you win.