Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 253 - 44,130 men

Back on the battlements, the 2,000 traditional Wessex infantrymen gripped their wooden spears.

When they saw the sheer mass of tens of thousands of men charging at them, their knees began to knock together.

The Wessex soldiers felt their fear slowly melt away, replaced by a deep trust in this strange king from the north. He was a smart, hard-working leader who clearly had a plan to protect them.

"They are charging, Iron Father!" shouted the Viking Captain of the Grenadiers, tightening his grip on his repeating musket.

"I see them, Captain," Ragnar replied. "They don’t realize that closing the distance just brings them into a new range of trouble."

Ragnar raised his hand, gesturing to the highest ridge of the wall.

Standing there were 500 men, holding the primitive prototype rifles. They were simple iron tubes mounted on wooden stocks, but they were about to change the history of infantry warfare forever.

"Riflemen!" Ragnar’s voice boomed across the courtyard. "Present arms!"

The 500 men stepped up to the stone crenellations in unison. They leveled their iron pipes, pointing them down at the charging mass of Tang soldiers.

"Light your matches!" Ragnar ordered.

Five hundred glowing embers flared to life.

The Tang army was sprinting across the open field. They were fast, they were brave, and they were completely exposed. Because they had spread out to avoid the mortar shells, they had abandoned their overlapping shield walls. They were charging with their chests completely unprotected.

They were exactly one hundred yards away.

"Fire!" Ragnar commanded, slicing his hand downward.

The 500 riflemen pulled their levers, pressing the burning slow-matches into the touchholes of their primitive guns.

A rolling thunderclap ripped across the walls of Wessex. A blinding cloud of white smoke instantly erupted from the battlements, completely obscuring the defenders from view.

Five hundred spherical lead balls tore through the air at incredible speed.

Down on the field, the front ranks of the Tang charge simply folded in half.

Because the Tang army was charging so aggressively and in such massive numbers, the 500 riflemen didn’t even need to aim carefully; every single shot found a target in the dense crowd.

The charge violently faltered. The Tang soldiers tripped over the suddenly falling bodies of their comrades, their battle cries turning into absolute confusion and pain.

"Mortar teams!" Ragnar yelled. "Shorten the fuses! Drop the angle! Fire at will!"

The twenty heavy mortars on the towers roared to life once again. This time, they fired their high-explosive shells directly into the middle of the stalled infantry charge on the grassy plains.

Explosions ripped through the center of the Tang army. Shrapnel shredded their ranks, tossing men into the air.

"Grenadiers!" Ragnar shouted to the 2,500 Viking soldiers standing on the primary walls.

"Show them the power of the Iron Empire! Throw!"

The Viking Grenadiers unclipped the cast-iron fragmentation grenades from their belts. They pulled the brass pins, wound up their incredibly muscular arms, and hurled the iron spheres over the walls.

Two thousand five hundred grenades rained down upon the leading edge of the Tang army that had managed to get close to the gates.

A continuous wave of explosions completely engulfed the base of the city walls. The concussive blasts physically shook the dust from the stones of Wessex.

When the smoke finally began to clear, blown away by the ocean breeze, the absolute devastation was revealed.

The great Tang charge was completely, undeniably broken!

The grassy plains before Wessex were littered with the fallen. Nearly five thousand elite Tang soldiers had been blown up, shot down, or severely wounded in the span of just a few terrifying minutes.

The trauma of fighting an enemy that could unleash such explosive fury was too much for even the most disciplined medieval troops to handle. They dropped their ladders, threw down their swords, and ran.

They ran as fast as their legs could carry them, sprinting back toward the safety of the sandy beach and their massive ships, leaving thousands of their brothers behind in the smoking craters.

General Zhao Feng stood on the beach, watching his army rout in humiliating terror. He had never lost a battle in his life, and he had just lost five thousand men without a single one of his soldiers even touching the enemy’s stone wall.

Up on the ramparts, a profound silence fell over the defenders.

The 2,000 traditional Wessex infantrymen looked out over the smoking battlefield, their jaws hanging open in disbelief.

They hadn’t swung a single spear, they hadn’t lost a single man!

Slowly, one of the local farmers raised his shield and let out a cheer. Then another joined in. Within seconds, the entire courtyard erupted into a massive roar of joyful celebration.

"Well..." Ragnar said lightly to the cheering Viking Captain beside him. "I think they understand the point we were trying to make. Let’s see if they are smart enough to get back on their boats, or if we need to reload."

He watched the grand Tang expeditionary force scrambling back to the sandy beaches.

Thus, the great eastern dragon was forced to tuck its tail between its legs and run.

He could not hear their voices, but he could easily read the situation.

What’s more, the reality of the situation down on the beach was a disaster for the eastern invaders.

The generals began to make the army go back to the beach to see what they were supposed to do next. They needed to assess the damage before making a single new move.

After some agonizing minutes of shouting, organizing, and tallying their surviving units, the Tang quartermasters counted themselves. The grand army of fifty thousand elite soldiers was now exactly 44,130 men.

In the span of just a few minutes, Ragnar’s weapons had wiped out nearly six thousand highly trained warriors.

Moreover, absolute confusion was the only true summary of the Tang command tent.

The proud officers were currently engaged in a massive argument.

Some of the younger, more terrified generals immediately panicked.

"Let’s get back to our ships!" they cried out.

However, other, more hardened veterans quickly responded.

"Are you fools? We cannot retreat! If we sail back in defeat, the Emperor will murder us all! He will execute our entire families for the shame we have brought to the celestial army! Otherwise, we might as well fall on our own swords right now!"

The debate raged on, growing louder and more desperate. Strategist Sun, trying to maintain his calm reputation, offered a different perspective.

"Listen to me! Their weapons are powerful, yes, but they are clearly using a limited supply of alchemical powder! Some say that the mortars will get out of gunpowder soon... They cannot possibly maintain that level of explosive fire forever!"

"Exactly!" another general agreed. "They are hiding behind a stone wall. They cannot grow food on a stone wall. Let’s starve them to die! We will set up our camps perfectly out of range of their fire-tubes. We have enough stolen Arabian grain to last for months. We will simply block their ports, surround their walls, and watch them slowly starve to death!"

Confusion and fear clashed with immense pride. The Tang army was bleeding, but they were not entirely broken. They were an empire that had conquered countless nations, and their arrogance simply would not allow them to accept defeat from a small, coastal town of western barbarians.

Consequently, a dark resolve settled over the Tang generals. With that, it became absolutely necessary to take this town. They would not get out from this place unless they take this town and spill blood across this useless town.

Up on the ramparts, Ragnar lowered his spyglass.

"They aren’t packing up their tents," Ragnar noted aloud, speaking to the towering Viking Captain standing beside him.

Captain Hakon, a massive warrior with a blonde beard and a blackened steel breastplate, grinned.

"Are they truly that stubborn, Iron Father? They just lost thousands of men to our smoke-sticks. If I were them, I would be rowing back to the mainland so fast my oars would catch fire."

"They are proud, Hakon," Ragnar explained gently, "And pride is a very dangerous thing. What’s more, they likely think we will run out of ammunition, or that they can simply starve us out. They are currently convincing themselves that our factory-made shells are a limited resource."

Hakon burst into a hearty laugh. "Run out of powder? Ha?!"

Turning his back to the ocean, Ragnar looked down into the main courtyard of Wessex. The 2,000 traditional Wessex infantrymen were still gathered there, holding their spears and heavy kite shields.

Ragnar decided to walk down the stairs to the courtyard.

As Ragnar stepped into the courtyard, the cheering instantly shifted. The soldiers parted ways, creating a clear path for the Iron Father.

Ragnar walked through the crowd, making sure to make eye contact with as many men as possible. He stopped in front of a young, dirt-smudged Wessex farmer who was nervously clutching a simple hunting spear.

The boy couldn’t have been older than seventeen, and his hands were still shaking from the adrenaline of the morning.

"What is your name, lad?" Ragnar asked.

"T-Thomas, my King," the boy stammered, his eyes wide with awe as he looked up.

Ragnar reached out and gently pushed the boy’s spear downward, resting his hand on Thomas’s shoulder.

"You did well today, Thomas," Ragnar said loudly, ensuring the surrounding soldiers could hear him.

"You stood your ground when a massive army charged your home. That takes true courage. But I want you to make me a promise."

"Anything, Iron Father," Thomas replied, puffing out his chest.

"I want you to promise me that when this is all over, you will go back to your farm, plant your wheat, and live a long, happy life. Your job isn’t to die for me. Your job is to live for the empire." Ragnar said, offering a genuine smile.

The surrounding Wessex soldiers erupted into fresh cheers. Tears of relief and intense loyalty sprang to young Thomas’s eyes.

"I promise, my King!" Thomas shouted happily.

Ragnar gave the boy a firm nod before turning back to address the entire courtyard.

"Listen to me, men of Wessex!" Ragnar’s voice boomed, naturally commanding the attention of the 2,000 infantrymen, the 1,000 elite cavalrymen waiting near the gates, and the 2,500 Viking Grenadiers watching from the walls above.

"The enemy has retreated to the beaches, but they have not surrendered!"

"They still have over 40,000 men sitting on our shores. Moreover, they are angry, confused, and desperate. They believe they can simply sit just out of range of our guns and wait for us to starve. They believe that they can trap us inside our own home!"

A low murmur rippled through the Wessex infantry. The thought of being starved out by a foreign army was a deeply hated concept in medieval warfare.

"But they are entirely wrong!" Ragnar shouted, raising his fist.

"Because they do not understand the Iron Empire! We will not sit here and let them dictate the terms of this siege! What’s more, we will show them that every single inch of Wessex belongs to us!"

The men cheered wildly, banging their spears against their shields.

Ragnar turned to Hakon, who had followed him down the stairs. "Captain, the Tang army will likely spend the rest of the day digging deep trenches on the beach to protect themselves from our mortar fire."

"Then what is our next move, Iron Father?" Hakon asked. "Do we charge out with the cavalry and sweep their camps?"

"No!" Ragnar said, shaking his head. "A cavalry charge against forty-four thousand desperate, entrenched men is a waste of good horses and brave riders. If they want to sit on the beach and wait for us to run out of gunpowder, we will simply prove them wrong. Send a messenger raven to City Titan immediately."

Hakon raised an eyebrow, highly curious. "What message should I send, my King?"

"I have no intention of fighting a fair war, Hakon," Ragnar chuckled, clapping the Captain on the back.

"A fair war means my people get hurt. Let the Tang army sit in the sand and scheme about spilling our blood."

As Hakon ran off to dispatch the raven, Ragnar took a deep, refreshing breath of the ocean air. His relationship with his men, his emotional bond with the citizens of Wessex, and his unbreakable confidence in his own industrial goals were perfectly aligned.

The Tang army was confused, and determined to take this useless town.