In principle, the Viking world did not have an organized cavalry unit, but horses are not rare here.

Consignment horses have always existed in the Danish world, as in Bergen and in Norwegian regions like Oslo.

The Rus people who once lived in the far north of the Viking world were actually a group that rarely saw horses. However, they were also the first to have organized cavalry.

The Russ cavalry was apprenticed to the steppe Pechenegs, and it was reasonable to use steppe-style rogue tactics.

The fundamentals of the tactics are "picking soft persimmons", looting the weak, looting on horseback and looting by boating. The Russ cavalry easily found the commonalities among them, and quickly matured in this war.

Those young warriors grew up quickly in the one-year war, and the long campaign did not cause them to tire of war.

On the contrary, they witnessed too many novelties, felt the vastness of the world for themselves, and made a fortune in war.

Each cavalryman had some gold and silver in his pockets, and another sack with a great deal of grain.

They were like no one in the East Frankish territory, looting everywhere in the form of horse bandits, and this kind of thing was unimaginable for the Franks in the past.

Until the snow dispelled the cavalry's intention to loot further, Fisk, who had already made a fortune, decided to stop.

Because of the raids, the cavalry's horse line-up swelled to more than three hundred.

The world was pale and cold after the snowfall, and the Frankish villagers preferred to stay at home. Often a knight master controls multiple villages as fiefs, and most of the villages are resident priests to maintain the order of production and life.

The monastery, no matter how humble, is the heart of the village. Each villager family must pay eleven taxes to the monastery, either in silver coins or the equivalent of grain. The monastery is almost a village money box, and also has a public property as a granary.

Fisk and his group of Ross cavalry, who had been looting for months, knew the structure of the Frankish village very well through actual combat, so the looting became extremely precise.

A team wearing white bearskins walked on the desolate Roman avenue.

Looking around, there are no living people, and there are gray-white forests all around.

It is not because of their excessive looting that the population withered, but the population of all Europe in this era is really low. The East Frankish region they plundered was also the least populated in the kingdom. Villages were mostly concentrated near large settlements, roads, and rivers. Finding villages was like hunting.

Their current actions are also lacking in hunting.

Another successful loot, and after the massive snowfall, Fisk and his gang were well-supplied.

They looted monasteries, executed villagers everywhere, and drove some into icy forests to fend for themselves.

They didn't think there was anything wrong with it, so they cooked the wheat and fed the horses in the village.

The bonfire crackled, and they snatched the hens that the villagers had kept in their cages, and are now roasting chicken on skewers over the fire.

"The next step is to return to Cologne. If we can, we can loot again. Ah! I really want to hit the city and **** all their gold!" Fisk couldn't hide his desire for wealth.

Immediately, someone shouted: "Then go for a sneak attack."

"However, we are just this few people, and we can't break into the city at all."

"Continue looting in the villages outside the city. At the very least, we're going to take a lot of food and more horses."

The brothers talked about how to rob, and no one ever considered whether there was a risk here. In the final analysis, everyone is still thinking about the legendary wealth of Cologne. If it is possible to get a fortune, you should try it.

In the end, Fisker stomped his feet in the face of his brothers' booing: "Then let's do it! No one can stop us from acting!"

So they revised their course of action.

The cavalry, who had been returning with all their strength after the snow, decided to try their best to loot the gold and silver near Cologne, and the operation had already begun.

According to the inherent ten-man squad, Fisk organized them into two squads to form up to five independent action teams.

He himself led the remaining ninety brothers to control a large amount of loot, and acted as the main robbery step by step.

Facts have proved that when the cavalry rushes into the village to launch a raid, the opponent's resistance will be quickly smashed by the well-trained cavalry, and the rest is killing. To deal with a Frankish village, you don't need many cavalry at the same time, twenty cavalry is enough.

The Kingdom of Ross never thought of expanding to the Bishopric of Cologne to rule here, so Fisk's new round of plundering operations has no scruples.

The cavalry team went straight to Cologne in the open forest and snow field. Fisk suddenly raised his arms and the team began to disintegrate.

Five special operations teams broke away from Fisk's home team, each holding a small map of the area, even if it was extremely crudely drawn. Each team has a looting area, with the Ross flag, the bullhorn and the sounding arrow as contacts.

"Let's go! See you in five days!"

Riding hardy prairie horses, the special operations team headed straight for their raiding zone.

Their whereabouts have been seen by the city patrolmen standing on the wooden and stone city walls of Cologne, and the city immediately sounded the alarm.

Cologne is a center of faith, with many monasteries in the city and a pure wooden cathedral. The ringing of numerous bronze bells caused a loud noise, and all the Ross cavalry passing around the city heard it.

Fisk, who was in control of the home team, couldn't help but feel a little worried, and someone asked, "Boss, will they send an army to challenge us?"

"Then kill them." Fisk bared his teeth fiercely. Now that all the special operations teams have been dispatched, he must start looting. "We continue to create terror."

Suddenly, a Pecheneg warrior in the team came on horseback: "Sir, should we use some tactics?"

"Strategy?"

"Since our goal is gold, maybe we can capture a group of prisoners and use it to coerce the city people to hand over the gold."

"Can this work? You think I didn't expect that? Those rich and famous are not willing to pay the ransom for ordinary farmers." Fisk shook his head.

"Could it be that those monks would open their eyes and watch us kill all the captives in front of them? If they were really cruel."

The Pecheneg warrior had a ferocious look on his face. After all, he was his brothers' riding instructor, and he knew how to fight on the grasslands.

Fisk thinks that this makes sense: "Alright, let's go catch the prisoners, and catch some more for them to take a good look at."

Because the Pecheneg people always like to use rogue tactics, it is precisely because of their poor weapons and equipment in the past, that frontal combat is asking for trouble, and it is natural to use various tactics that do not talk about martial arts. They make good use of a kind of grassland guerrilla warfare, often a small team of several people and several horses, taking advantage of the dusk and night to sneak into the enemy's camp, looting and killing, and evacuating quickly without fighting.

The so-called Ross Special Operations Team is an expanded version of this tactic.

It is not uncommon, this rogue tactic is effective in creating terror and disrupting the enemy's military deployment.

Five action teams have found their targets hidden in the woods.

Those villagers had known that horse bandits were rampaging outside the city some time ago, and earlier there was news of the robbery by the Norman fleet. After all, it's just some legends. They are busy farming and usually never leave the village for a day trip in their entire lives. Generally, they don't care about the outside world, and they only listen to the gangster attack as a horror story.

The priests stationed in the village claimed that the attackers were all Satan's apostles, and that King Ludwig had organized a crusade against the north, and that Frank, who had holy faith, would achieve a great victory.

Mostly a wonderful narrative of light triumphing over darkness, and the villagers continue to live a life of indifference to the world.

The path to the open world is now completely deserted, as the Ross cavalry was keenly aware of when it moved. Since there is a forest road, it must lead to a certain goal, they start to act, and immediately have a gain.

The five special operations teams did not know that Fisk later modified their tactics. They implemented the previous request, giving death to the village, leaving the corpse, and taking away the food and all the silver and copper coins they found.

Fisk's operation to capture the prisoners began in full. Except for those who resolutely resisted, those who were begging for mercy were tied up.

He even captured three priests, aged men with Mediterranean hair, who cursed "Demon on horseback, go back to hell".

Fisk did not get angry, but drew his sword and rubbed the back of the sword against the scabbard to frighten him.

He threatened again in Latin: "I won't kill you, just because I want you to pay Cologne for ransom. If you want to die, I don't mind burning some people out of anger."

The priests were stunned, they thought that the apostles who did not understand the devil knew the sacred language.

There was nothing to chat with the priest and other lower priests, they were all **** and given only a small amount of food to ensure that they lacked physical strength and dared not run away.

Since it was no longer necessary to hide their identities, the cavalry had in fact revealed their identities during the raid a month ago. Today's looting is a brace, and Fisker's flag of Ross, bluntly said, this is a glimpse of the whole battle. The Cologne area is a secondary battlefield, not the rear.

The priests and the villagers couldn't figure out why the ordinary villagers became victims of the nobles' war. They just wanted to live in peace, and no one wanted to provoke them.

They are still naive, completely ignorant that the core area of Rus Kingdom's ruling has turned into a whole war machine, and they don't know anything about the concept of "total warfare".

They are indeed very simple. As the leader of the robbers in their minds, Fiske Xu can only believe what he promised under the current situation.

In just five days, Fisk's main team was busy looting and capturing prisoners, and the five special operations teams were indulging in killing.

The last raid was to slash and burn well-identified villages near Cologne City, and now it is to comb through villages in remote woodlands.

The snow-covered forest suddenly burst into thick smoke, which was deliberately set on fire by the special operations team.

Smoke billows everywhere near Cologne, as if a huge army is coming.

For a while, rumors were flying in the city. Some people said that the cavalry exposed before was just the vanguard of the strange enemy, and some people said that a large fleet of Normans was already on its way.

The current situation is extremely unfavorable for Cologne. The city defense troops in the city loyal to the archbishop have followed the bishop to the north. Although there are as many as 20,000 people in the city, theoretically, at least 2,000 armed citizens can be organized.

But the priests as a whole are opposed to any act of war. It is precisely for this reason that the diocese has only organized a patrol of hundreds of people to maintain public order. In fact, there were no soldiers in the city to defend, and the priests who stayed behind were faced with a large group of lambs with no masters.

The monasteries all over the city were crowded with people who knelt down and prayed to the gods.

But what is the use of prayer, the miracle people expected did not appear, and the strong city wall was still protecting everyone.

In this critical time, the priests elected an acting archbishop to maintain normal affairs.

Hildwin, a loyal old man, has now taken over the affairs of the archbishop himself, which is not what he hoped.

Faced with a mess, the most urgent task now is to get the most basic armament together.

Therefore, the church summed up that at this difficult time, it must take out a sum of money from the treasury to buy mercenaries to serve.

The clergy held a meeting, and today they were not discussing a question of faith, but a purely urban defense issue. It is rare.

The bald and beardless Acting Archbishop seemed impoverished, and his flamboyant robes attested to his nobility.

As a political entity, the core of the Archdiocese of Cologne lies in the city of Cologne. The priests in the city determine some affairs through parliamentary discussions, all of which are imitating the old Roman Senate. Even if you are an archbishop, the issue of right and wrong must be discussed and determined by the senior priests, such as the plan to open the treasury to recruit mercenaries.

"Those Satan's apostles have come again, and they have exposed their flags and are undoubtedly Rus. The Rus are the Normans, exactly like the Normans who came by boat last time. Now the king is leading the army in the north, and the archbishop is also in the north. We Cologne is now defenseless, and we cannot fully count on the protection of the city walls. We must open the treasury to recruit mercenaries, otherwise the Holy Land will be defiled.

The priests had long been holding back their words.

"A month ago we spent money to recruit a group of mercenaries, but they were defeated. The enemy is very dangerous, and the money we spent is meaningless. Can you guarantee that we will spend money this time to ensure safety?"

"Yes. As long as we keep the gates shut, everything will be fine."

"But those thugs attack the village outside the city, and if we do nothing, the people will insist on us! Lord, also punish us for our blasphemy."

They discussed at length, and the devout servants of the gods had major disagreements over spending money.

At least they have good cultivation on the bright side, and there is no room for noise and quarrels in the sacred cathedral. However, with their calm performance, these senior priests can hardly hide their inner anxiety and fear.

Suddenly, a high priest said: "Once, the Pope gave Attila the Huns a sum of money, and the arrogant Huns evacuated Rome. If we also give a sum of money to the barbarians who looted and killed outside the city Did they withdraw the money? Gold is what the barbarians need."

"No! This is blasphemy!" Someone suddenly stood up, and although the words were softly spoken, the anger was written on their faces.

"This is also a way." Someone else agreed.

They started a new round of discussions again, but nothing came out of the discussion.

However, when the next day dawned, people standing at the front of the city continued to see the thick smoke coming out of the performance forest, which was evidence that the village was burning. People in the city continued to panic, and some people began to question the inaction of the priests. More The people still crowded in the monastery to pray, and the traveling merchants who lived in the city for the winter were already hurrying to build iron to protect themselves.

So the Rus cavalry of Fisk set fire to loot and captured the prisoners outside the city, and the priests who were the rulers in the city continued to discuss how to defend the city.

Acting Bishop Hildwin was almost suffocated by the enormous pressure. Over the night, he knelt in prayer in front of the statue of **** and held a new meeting with bloodshot eyes.

This time, he finally couldn't stand the endless discussions.

"We still have to open the treasury and recruit some brave men with gold and silver. We won't let them go out to fight the barbarians, but we will protect our walls as new patrols. I plan to recruit three hundred people."

As soon as the words fell, a group of senior priests in black robes with Mediterranean hair wanted to "discuss" again, and Hildwin immediately stopped them.

"Don't discuss anymore~www.mtlnovel.com~ Words can't convince the other side. Let's vote! The minority obeys the majority, and our decision is to win or lose everything to God. I still hope you support my proposition, so that we only need to By insisting that the king and the archbishop win, the crisis in Cologne will be lifted. Remember! There are 20,000 people in our city, and sometimes we have to make sacrifices for their safety. If such an assertion leads us to be punished by the gods , I'd rather go to **** to atone for my sins."

It is equivalent to saying that the acting Archbishop Hildwin is trying to abandon the people who are still stranded outside the city. After all, horse bandits and pirates were already rampant before the snowfall. Many villagers took their families and fled into Cologne, and a large number of people fled to Aachen to the southwest. Those who did not escape put themselves in danger and were attacked. It's self-inflicted.

Hildwin would not speak so cruelly, all the so-called actions are to protect the remaining 20,000 people in Cologne City.

Now, they're raising their hands to vote...

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