Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 258: Siege of Wessex (3)
General Zhao Feng stood before his grand command pavilion. The total collapse of his specialized archery division was an undeniable reality.
Thousands of his men were fleeing back toward the main encampment. The vanguard was completely shattered, and the panic of the routing survivors threatened to infect the remaining infantry divisions.
If the burning archers crashed into the frontline spearmen, the entire expeditionary force would disintegrate into a stampede. The general required an immediate barrier to halt the retreat and reverse the momentum of the battle.
He turned his attention to the heavy imperial shock troops stationed in the reserve lines. These were the elite halberdiers. They had not yet witnessed the true horror of industrialized ballistics, and their discipline remained entirely intact.
Zhao Feng simply delivered an ultimatum to his subordinate commanders. He decreed that any routing archer who crossed the designated reserve line was to be immediately executed for cowardice.
Furthermore, the heavy infantry was ordered to march directly forward, utilizing their physical mass to absorb the fleeing vanguard and forcefully push the front line back toward the Viking riflemen.
Tens of thousands of armored boots struck the earth in unison. They lowered their long polearms, creating a bristling wall of iron that trapped their own retreating comrades.
Faced with the blades of their own countrymen, the panicked archers had absolutely no choice but to turn around and join the forward march.
The immense weight of the fresh heavy infantry physically forced the entire Tang formation back into an offensive posture.
The massive, unified block of tens of thousands of imperial soldiers began to rapidly close the four-hundred-pace gap between themselves and the five hundred exposed Viking riflemen. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢
High upon the primary ramparts of Wessex, Lord Ealdred witnessed the seemingly endless tide of armored eastern soldiers recovering from the blast.
"They are not breaking!" Ealdred screamed, "Our unarmored men are still standing in the open field! They cannot possibly reload those iron pipes before the Easterners reach them! We must send the local levies out to protect them! We must intercept the charge!"
Ragnar offered no comforting words, nor did he attempt to explain his grand strategic vision to a man incapable of understanding it.
Reassuring an inferior required an expenditure of emotional energy that Ragnar simply refused to budget for during a live tactical engagement.
The riflemen down on the plains were incredibly disciplined, but they were bound by the physical limitations of their early industrial weaponry.
Swabbing the hot barrels, pouring the corned powder, seating the lead ball, and applying the ramrod required nearly a full minute of highly coordinated labor.
As the Tang halberdiers accelerated into a terrifying sprint, Ragnar mathematically determined that a second volley was a statistical impossibility. The gap was closing too rapidly...
Furthermore, the secondary defensive line in the outer courtyard was entirely unreliable. The two thousand traditional Wessex infantrymen, who had been tasked with hauling ammunition and securing the outer gates, were currently witnessing the approach of a unified military machine.
These local farmers had been promised imported silk and minted silver by their lords, but the reality of human nature dictated that wealth was entirely useless to the deceased.
As the massive wave of Tang shock troops crashed into the outer perimeter of the Wessex defenses, the psychological collapse occurred.
The local Saxon levies realized that their splintering ash spears and crude iron axes were useless against the heavily armored eastern tide.
The pressure of the Tang halberdiers shattering the outer wooden barricades completely broke the morale of the agrarian militia. Driven entirely by the basic instinct of self-preservation, the Wessex infantry abandoned their assigned posts.
They dropped their heavy kite shields, discarded their weapons, and began fleeing toward the inner city walls, desperately attempting to save their own lives.
Ealdred watched his kingdom’s entire military infrastructure evaporate in a matter of seconds. He dropped to his knees on the ramparts, weeping openly as the Tang soldiers began to flood the outer courtyards.
The traditional infantry had depreciated in value the moment they dropped their weapons, and Ragnar would not waste valuable resources attempting to salvage a failed investment.
However, his five hundred highly trained riflemen were premium industrial assets. They represented thousands of hours of specialized labor and irreplaceable technological knowledge. Their preservation was the highest priority.
Ragnar raised his hand, signaling the designated master of ordnance standing by the heavy siege mortars.
"Initiate the secondary extraction!"
Down in the muddy field, the foreman of the riflemen heard the note.
The five hundred men instantly ceased their reloading procedures. They slung their heavy iron matchlocks securely over their shoulders and executed a pivot.
Simultaneously, the two thousand five hundred Viking Grenadiers positioned along the upper crenellations unclipped their specialized fragmentation munitions.
Upon the barked command of their captains, they hurled a continuous barrage of cast-iron grenades directly into the gap separating the retreating riflemen from the advancing Tang halberdiers.
The resulting explosions created a wall of shrapnel and concussive force.
The advancing Tang vanguard was halted, forced to raise their shields and huddle together as lethal fragments of iron tore through their front ranks.
The smoke generated by the blasts served as a smokescreen, completely obscuring the withdrawal of the Iron Empire’s most valuable infantry.
Operating under the protection of the Grenadiers’ explosive barrage, the riflemen marched back through the reinforced iron gates of the inner keep.
Once the final rifleman crossed the threshold, the heavy iron portcullis was immediately dropped, permanently sealing the inner fortress.
The eastern invaders now occupied the lower levels of the city, falsely believing they had secured a major tactical victory by breaching the outer perimeter.
They were entirely unaware that Ragnar had deliberately ceded the territory. By allowing them to pack tightly into the confined spaces of the outer courtyards, he had funneled forty thousand men into a perfectly measured kill box entirely devoid of any safe retreat paths...
"Redirect the First Grenadier Battalion to the eastern catwalks!" Ragnar instructed without inflection,
"Transfer the secondary rifle division to the elevated scaffolding above the main gate. The firing arcs must intersect at precisely forty-five degrees to maximize projectile saturation."
