Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 165 Ulster
Boudica immediately approached Orville and asked him for a task: "So what are we going to do? The first batch of warriors promised to you are already in place, and they are all ready to fight bravely."

"This Winchester city is not very big. Let your men charge at the two gaps on the south side, and my men charge at the remaining five. We will launch an attack on all seven gaps at the same time, making the enemy feel overwhelmed and unable to make mistakes. As long as one team of soldiers can continue to control the city wall, we will win the entire war!"

Orville's plan was simple and easy to understand, and Boudica readily agreed: "No problem, it's easy to do. But I have something else to remind you of. Those people with the crow flag seem to be heading south, and their target may be the Kingdom of Wessex. Your people had better be careful."

Boudica came from Wales, and there were also Celtic forces in the north of Northumbria. She was a little more informed than Orwell and had already known that Ella was defeated and executed. This meant that the Vikings seemed to have turned their attention to the Kingdom of Wessex or the Romans in the south.

Hearing this, Orville frowned slightly, then nodded to Boudica to express his gratitude: "I understand, I will take care of this matter, don't worry too much."
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There was one thing about the Vikings that Orville admired - although they looked backward, they were very willing to learn the necessary technology. Originally, Scandinavia or Denmark did not produce high-quality war horses, so they mainly used horses for plowing and carrying rather than fighting. But Britain had some war horses, and they quickly adapted to the environment after invading Britain and began to use cavalry in combat, and in a very short period of time they developed a powerful reconnaissance light cavalry unit.

Orville was still quite wary of mobile forces. In order to guard against these Vikings, he mobilized most of his cavalry to patrol around the city and legion camps. Anyway, these foreign allied cavalry were not particularly useful during the siege, and they could just be used as wingmen for early warning.

In addition, he also wrote a letter to Tia, who was far away in Gaul, asking her to transfer the volunteer army temporarily organized in Gaul. This would be a little help at least. A hundred people would mean a hundred more combat effectiveness. Even a small amount of money is still meat.

The person in charge of temporarily organizing the training of local people in the province of Gaul was the Gallic general Gilles de Rais. In history, he seemed to be a very cruel and gloomy general. In fact, many Gallic soldiers had a similar opinion of him. But in the process of Orville getting along with him, he was unexpectedly very active, and no one knew why.

Orville made some malicious guesses, thinking that the other party was so busy because he had captured Joan of Arc as a hostage.

Since ordinary infantry couldn't take down the city by force, he changed his mind and tried to use talented people to lead the attack.

There are not many talented people in Wessex, and there are only three or five people with super combat power. Now there are only Alfred and another general in Winchester City. With this number, Orville can use the advantage of numbers to bully the minority.

He planned to bring over all the gifted people he could mobilize and use the advantage in numbers to crush the Wessex people. Gil Dress was also a gifted person, and Orville mainly wanted him as a person rather than the hastily assembled army under him.

The prerequisite for achieving this is to maintain an absolute advantage in the number of talented people. The Vikings seem to have a lot of talented people, so they must be stopped and kept outside the city.

In addition to sending cavalry to intercept the enemy, he also ordered his fleet, which had been on standby, to sail, loaded with soldiers, to the mouth of the Thames, preparing to occupy it first and then block any possible Viking fleet on the sea.

The Vikings had mobility that was rare in ancient times, mainly relying on the ocean. Their light longboats were very fast, and the dual-purpose use of rivers and seas allowed them to quickly switch from ocean voyages to inland river voyages. With the help of the intricate network of rivers, they could almost appear and disappear like a ghost. Orville didn't intend to play hide-and-seek with them on the river. If he couldn't catch up with them, he might not be able to defeat them, which would be embarrassing. The best way was to block them at sea and prevent them from entering the river.

After half a year of hard work and the purchase of several second-hand ships from the Mediterranean Navy, Orville now has twelve Puntes (five-decker galleys) and twenty-five triremes. Together with the cargo ships temporarily requisitioned from Gallic merchants, he has about seventy ships of various sizes. This fleet is not small.

It sounds like the Vikings have more than 300 Viking longships, but in fact most of these ships are small boats about ten meters long. Dragon-headed warships, which are about the same size as Roman warships, are scarce, and only the most powerful warriors and warlords can afford them.

The two sides were barely opponents of the same level. If the Vikings attacked head-on, they would not gain much advantage. But if they swam around without being flexible and maneuverable, the navy led by old Trajan would be really helpless. They were strong enough to withstand direct attacks but had poor flexibility.
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Just as he was making his plans, Jeanne finally came back from Ireland with new news.

Ulster, a small country north of the island of Ireland, agreed to help the Romans fight the Anglo-Saxons entrenched in England on the condition that Orville would help them fight the Vikings.

Due to the limited land resources and the ever-expanding population, the Norsemen had only two choices: either reduce the population through endless internal friction, or increase land resources through external expansion. This was not a difficult choice, and under the leadership of Ragnar and others, many Vikings chose the former.

These are robbery and invasion, but there are more than just these two words in the Vikings' career, there is also the keyword "trade".

Led by Ivar the Boneless and his partner, the Norwegian Viking Olaf the White, the Vikings invaded Ireland, occupied a piece of territory, and established their own trading base there, reaping profits through the slave trade and the import of advanced crafts and ironware.

It's not that the Irish didn't resist. On the contrary, they killed a Viking pirate leader before Olaf, a big brother respected by both Danish and Norwegian pirates. Without this man to lead the way, the Danes and Norwegians fought among themselves for a long time.

But unfortunately, the infighting would not last forever. Ivar persuaded the Norwegian Vikings to join him in turning their spearheads against the Irish again. The protracted war with the Vikings made the locals miserable, and this is basically the situation now.

It is estimated that Jeanne used this method to persuade the King of Ulster to help the Romans. After all, the Vikings who were so close to them were more annoying than the threat far away in Ireland.

(End of this chapter)