Before the fleet appeared a string of islands at the mouth of the Rhine. They are the so-called Zeeland, and today this area is uninhabited.

At least, the people with excellent eyesight designated to ride on the mast can't see the shadow of the nearby village at all.

The fleet will not get lost, all the islands of Zeeland are too low and flat, and eyes from high places patrol the sea and land.

The fleet used the most primitive and quite effective navigation method of human eye detection to find the legendary big bay. As long as the fleet rushed in, Antwerp, which was the target, was not far away.

The weather is neither good nor bad, the sky seems to be raining because of the haze.

All the ships dashed madly in the rather undulating waters.

The sails have been opened, especially those large warships, and even the bow of the ship has been pulled down.

The Russ ships in the coalition were pulling away from the Danish oars at a speed visible to the naked eye, and Rurik had no intention of accommodating his allies.

A tall, blond man stood at the bow with his eyes squinted, and the ups and downs of the boat had no effect on him. His eyes are aimed at the big bay that has already shown the phantom in front of him. As long as the current high speed is maintained, there is no need to plan to launch an attack tomorrow, and he can act this evening.

Following the simple actions of the semaphore soldiers, Rurik's order to the ships was only one sentence: "Go to war today."

That's why the fleet took advantage of the cold north to sprint with all its might. The warriors were so high-spirited that they stayed in the cabin, busy checking their weapons, and talking to their comrades about how to make a fortune in the next battle.

Because the king has ordered that all soldiers are free to act against the city of Antwerp. "Freedom" is absolute freedom, they can kill everything and take everything.

Although Ross has no grievances against the Earl of Flanders himself, Ross is not an unknown teacher. Count Baudouin is legally a vassal of East Frank. Since Ross has unilaterally declared a state of war with all Frankish countries, attacking Flanders is a matter of course.

Not being able to kill the Quartet in the new expedition, the soldiers will inevitably be too embarrassed. After all, in the battle with the Frankish heavy cavalry on the banks of the Elbe River, the coalition paid more than 1,000 casualties. Ross also lost a large number of veterans and even many young fighters who fought for the first time this year.

Everything is the fault of the Franks, so all Frankish vassals must die.

The attack on Antwerp became entirely an act of revenge.

A large group of ferocious sea wolves are about to land, like death, and all the residents of Antwerp know nothing about it.

Of course, the first thing to see the strangeness is the small fishing village in the bay.

The wind and waves were a bit big, and small fishing boats couldn't stand the waves. Fishermen who were supposed to be fishing were busy working from home. The man added haystacks and wooden stakes to reinforce the sheepfold, and packed the grass that had been cut in advance as much as possible for winter use. Women and children are busy repairing fishing nets and doing crafts.

Their life should have been an idyllic pastoral, although life is quite hard, it is still passable.

Now, it's like a large number of small islands floating in the bay.

Looking closely, it turned out to be a boat? !

The fishermen on the shore had never seen the big Ross, the double mast and the lying bowmast, they had never seen a gigantic vessel of this style.

But they are not stupid.

"A Norman?!"

"It must be a Norman."

"God! These demons from **** are here again!"

Not only were people busy lamenting that the disaster came with the bad weather, someone suggested: "Hurry up and ride to the city, hurry up and inform the baron. Let's get off the coast too!"

The fief knight of the village was alerted by the villagers, and the knight himself could easily see the mighty fleet.

Because many years ago, pirates from the port of Durist robbed Antwerp. The perpetrator was Horrick. At that time, he was still a rogue who stole the port. He gathered thousands of exiles. He was really powerful, but he had no name.

The robbery of Antwerp by soldiers was more for political reasons. With this attack, the real earl was directly forced to admit his counsel, and he had to cede land and pay for peace.

The looting of Antwerp did make a fortune for Horlick, who, seeing how weak the earl was, simply claimed to be the real earl of Flanders.

This self-entertainment is unrecognized, and for this reason, he hopes to take the Danish throne and sweep away the shame of being expelled.

Years have passed, and now Horrick has become a "sacrificial fat pig" kept in a cage by King Ross, waiting for the right time to sacrifice to the gods.

The two made the exact same choice - looting Antwerp.

After all, no one has trouble with wealth.

Entering the southern region, this is the essence of the huge Flanders.

In today's era, the urban class only exists in theory, most of the population exists in the village, the core city always originates from the residence of the great aristocracy, a large number of auxiliary craftsmen, squires and private soldiers and their families, these people constitute the main population of the city . Accompanied by some itinerant merchants, an early medieval Western European city is full of this pattern.

Antwerp, after all, has experienced brutal looting, and when pirates evacuated, people built the city from the wreckage. In order to avoid new raids, the baron did not hesitate to build the wall.

The nearest fishing village sent a messenger to the city.

The knights of the fief immediately gathered the village elite and told them what to do next: "The man I have chosen, follow me to Antwerp! Bring weapons and weapons and we must move fast. The others, women and children, drive away all of sheep, goats and cattle, evacuated south."

The catastrophe came like a summer rainstorm, and people had no time to scream, but to do what the lord of the knights ordered. They all knew that this was the only way to avoid being killed.

There are more than 200 people in a village, and there are not many strong men and many children. The mortality rate of young children is always high, and any family is through mass births to ensure that the family has as much labor as possible.

So, if a boy is five years old and ready to work, when he is ten years old, he should be ready to fight.

The knight gathered a mere twenty warriors, and the remaining men and even boys, armed with weapons (essentially farm implements), escorted the whole village, young and old, and livestock, and began to move south, that is, in the direction of Ghent.

The first warning fief knight mobilized all the horses in the village. He had a strong sense of responsibility, and ordered his soldiers to move towards Antwerp as quickly as possible, either on horseback or in a carriage.

At the same time, the news is also communicated to the villages along the way. However, how could their speed be faster than the Ross Fleet who was riding the waves and taking shortcuts?

There are as many as twenty villages in the flat area west of the city of Antwerp alone, and the vast area is home to 6,000 people.

The villages living near the bay saw the mighty and strange army, and they were instinctively terrified, and concluded that it was the Norman army.

They have no time to think about whether their judgment is accurate. No one can forget the disaster many years ago. When someone speculates that "that is the Norman devil", it must be the pirate army.

The fief knights cannot escape, they must allegiance to their monarch, the Baron of Antwerp, and if they refuse to serve in times of crisis, they will also be punished by the earl in the future. Even if it is not a capital crime, it is also relegated to the common people.

Because the Baron of Antwerp is the count's brother-in-law.

Today's Western Europe does not have the title of "brother-in-law", some are collectively called "brother", and the wife's brother is naturally his own brother. Based on this relationship, after inheriting the title of his dead father, Count Baudouin arranged for his brother-in-law to be a baron and let him manage the important town of Antwerp.

The weather is not good today, and fishing in the city is put on hold today.

The appearance of the products produced in the nearby villages gathered in the city, and the baron's family was busy with rough processing the wool, and then dried the boiled and degreased wool, stuffed it into a sackcloth bag and put it in the baron's warehouse. Most of the wool is a tribute to his brother-in-law, and a small part is his own wealth.

The traditional trade routes of the Flanders region either go overland to Aachen, the capital of the kingdom, to sell wool, or travel through the Scheldt River to the south by sea.

Although the weather is not good today, there is no need to suspend the work of processing wool.

The baron felt that today was an ordinary day. At most, it might rain in a few days, and the weather would be colder after the rain.

He issued an order calling on his cronies to keep warm. And because it's already October, it's not far from Halloween on November 1st.

Halloween in the ninth century had nothing to do with entertainment. It was a very serious festival. All people living on earth would bless their ancestors who had ascended to heaven, and they also asked heaven to bless all mortals.

It would be a major mass, and the Baron himself would go to the cathedral in Ghent to take part in the festival. The daily life is dull and boring, and he has a lot of time to arrange festivals.

He ordered his tailor to make new clothes, so that he would have a proud felt robe for Halloween and a gorgeous dress for Christmas.

But here comes the Normans.

Rurik threw a large portion of Ragnar's army, and the capital ship had arrived at the docks in Antwerp.

The oar boats towed by the big boat immediately released the fixed ropes, and the sharpening knives on the big boat moved lightly, and reached the long boat along the thrown rope net.

The larger longships, and all the small lifeboats, the Ross released all ships for landing.

The most elite three hundred warriors wear leather helmets that cover half of their faces, and most of them have this bear head decoration, and carry swords and crossbows to launch strong attacks.

Such an offensive action is too obvious, and the Rus army is completely accompanied by the rapid ringing of the bell of the monastery in the city.

Those on the shore mending their nets, put their work behind them and rush to the city.

The people standing on the city wall tore their throats and called their own people to run away.

The shocked baron didn't have time to think, he hurriedly put on his armor and arrived on the wooden wall of the main entrance, stunned in the face of the mighty strange army.

"They? Are they really Normans? They are uniformly dressed, and they have the heroic appearance of the elite of Frank?"

A squire trembled and persuaded: "My lord, give up your illusions. Their boats have begun to move, and they are the enemy."

"Maybe, talk to them?"

The baron was not entirely sure that this was the Norman army, and even all the city guards thought it was strange.

Back then, the robbery of Antwerp was full of shirtless blond men with hideous patterns on their skin, just like the so-called "Satan's apostles who crawled out of hell" described in the scriptures.

However, Rurik's vanguard was the ruthless men led by veteran Grund.

The Russ army built a landing beachhead without any bloodshed. Seeing that the enemy had closed the gate, the storm could not stop.

Grund looked up, full of contempt for the low wooden wall.

"If you build stone walls, I can still admire how you know how to defend. The thin wooden walls will be easily cut down by us."

He urgently ordered: "Crossbowmen! Kill those birds!"

He was talking about the nervous guard soldiers standing on the wooden wall.

The baron sent all the archers to the heights, and he boldly stretched out half of his body and shouted in Frankish, "Are you from the army of some great noble? We do not want to fight you."

However, the wind was a little louder, and Grund couldn't hear what the man was shouting. He only thought that the man seemed to be challenging.

More than 100 soldiers carried two types of crossbows, 30 steel arms and 70 wooden arms. Seeing that the enemy's actions were a little silly, the Ross Army completed the winding on the spot.

They even had time to line up, which was a fantastic show for the defenders.

After all, it is difficult for the baron to arrange his retinue soldiers neatly, but it is a good show to see the strange army formation in foreign countries.

However, the soldiers in the formation made strange movements, as if they were carrying some kind of equipment.

Immediately afterwards, the Baron no longer had to think about anything.

Because in the original history, until the first crusade, the Western European army brought the hand crossbow used by the Eastern Roman army back to the west after passing through the Eastern Roman territory, and it was the twelfth century when it was widely used.

Ross's military equipment is therefore quite advanced. The army in Flanders is the first to see the crossbow, and the first meeting is very expensive.

The baron was hit by two arrows from the steel-armed crossbow, and a stubby arrow pierced his eye socket quite coincidentally.

This was a fatal injury, and the baron died in such an inexplicable battle. He died instantly, and he died without pain.

Along with the baron were more than a dozen soldiers killed, and some others fell and suffered internal injuries after being injured.

The vanguard was the standing army of Rus, and they were instructed to spend almost all of their time in military training on weekdays.

"Crossbowmen keep shooting! Others, bring big axes and cut wood!"

The so-called "logging" is to destroy the wooden wall.

The baron died suddenly, and the guards were leaderless. With the sudden and precise arrow strike, the Rus army relied on the numerical advantage to suppress the defending archers and did not dare to show their heads.

A javelin slammed into the city with a low hum, an exploratory shot ordered by Rurik.

Due to concerns about the lack of range, the Rus Army did not launch shipboard fire support first. He never expected that the javelin in this experiment really fell into the city.

"It's the wind! The Fengshen embraces us!"

The Russ Army was in the north of the city, and the ship's side was facing the city on the south bank. The javelin fired naturally could take advantage of the north wind.

As a result, a large number of arrows fell from the sky, and they were given an impossible range by the north wind to hit the houses full of haystacks in the city.

Killing the enemy is secondary, mainly to create chaos for the siege.

The vanguard troops were smashing the gates and city walls, and the follow-up troops were still rowing boats to land one after another.

Henry Nassau's eyes widened in surprise, the fifteen knights of the fief, and the Baron of Groningen, their understanding of war was rewritten on this bad weather evening.

As the gate was smashed open, a wall collapsed inward.

At the same time, the defense of Antwerp had long since collapsed because of the sudden death of Lord Baron. The javelin that fell from the sky killed and injured some people, which directly caused the city to flee.

It's not that they are spineless, it's because Antwerp is a city built from ruins. People will never forget the looting and slaughter of the Normans in the past.

They opened the city's south and west gates, and they fled with their families when they didn't have time to bring Xi Ruan.

Although the entourage soldier has died, the baron's son is fine. In theory, from this moment onwards, that child will be the new generation of baron.

The retinues quickly evacuated with the brand-new Baron of Antwerp~www.mtlnovel.com~ rode their horses in carriages and ran away in the direction of Ghent. The main members of the baron's family managed to escape, and the slaves and servants who were left behind had no choice but to escape on foot.

Grund led the Rus army into the city resolutely. A group of white-robed and blue-striped warriors with bear heads on their heads attacked mercilessly in the face of a large number of panicked and fleeing people.

In the eyes of the locals, a large group of mad bears turned into people.

Grund smiled, the helmet covering half of his face couldn't hide his open mouth.

He held the steel sword to the front: "Brothers! Kill everything! Take everything! Follow me!"

Thus, in October 840 AD, the second Viking raid on Antwerp was brutally launched in this increasingly dark evening.

But unlike the last time, a considerable number of Antwerp residents had already fled on the road.

Because the count's main force was stationed there, only Ghent was safe.