Vikings: Lords of the Ice Sea

Chapter 385 Entering Italy

That evening, Viger convened a meeting with senior management.

Instead of getting straight to the point, he mentioned a classic battle in history.

In 281 BC, Hannibal led tens of thousands of troops out of Iberia, attempting to attack the heart of Rome—Italy. At the mouth of the Rhône River, he was thwarted by the enemy and forced to detour upstream to cross the river. After crossing, due to a series of factors, Hannibal made an unexpected decision: to forcibly cross the Alps!

At that moment, Vig pointed the wooden stick in his hand to a certain area on the map.

"After fifteen days of traversing mountains and valleys, he miraculously entered the Po Plain, at the cost of losing nearly half of his army. This time, our target is the same as Hannibal's. The difference is that the Franks were well prepared and built a large number of fortifications in the Alps. For example, along this mountain road, they built three stone fortresses and eight wooden stockades, giving us no chance to launch a surprise attack."

Vig took a deep breath and moved the stick toward the Mediterranean coast, his intentions clear.

Nowadays, all routes have Frankish fortresses, so it's better to choose the relatively flat coastal route and push forward from west to east.

The following day, the army left Marseille and arrived at Toulon on June 11. After two years of construction, the port became a heavily fortified naval port.

In the recent Battle of Nice, the Royal Navy lost fourteen warships. The surviving ships sustained varying degrees of damage and are currently undergoing maintenance in the harbor.

The Emperor toured the port, not punishing the commodore, but simply ordering the fleet to regain its fighting strength as soon as possible. In the ensuing battles, the Royal Navy proved largely ineffective; the key role lay with the army.

Thirty miles east of Toulon lies a small Viking fortress on the border; further east, it signifies the formal entry into Frankish-controlled territory.

After walking for several days along the ancient and rugged Roman roads, the scenery suddenly opened up before us.

To the north lies the undulating, sparsely vegetated Alps, with steep mountains that resemble a natural barrier.

To the south lies the Ligurian Sea, a jewel-like blue, with a clear sky, seagulls circling overhead, and gentle waves lapping against the narrow, pebble-strewn coastline.

Directly ahead lay a narrow coastal plain, with a stone fortress built by the Franks perched on a hill. If the Vikings wanted to pass safely, they would have to destroy or capture this fortification.

"How is the artillery regiment doing?" Vig asked Leif.

"I just counted them, and only twenty cannons are advancing. The remaining sixty cannons are left behind and will probably have to wait for a while."

Vig rode his horse to a high point to observe the artillery regiment behind him.

Even with improvements to the gun carriage, the bronze cannons remained cumbersome and slow, requiring eight draft horses to pull them. Fortunately, the Mediterranean summers are hot and dry; otherwise, during rainy weather, even more cannons would have been lost.

Not wanting to waste time, he ordered the mountain infantry to clear the surrounding area, and twenty artillery pieces were immediately put into battle.

An hour later, the artillery advanced to a position 350 meters from the city wall, just outside the range of the defenders' catapults.

The artillery colonel roared the order: "Load!"

The gunners, shirtless, wore streaks of sweat on their bronze backs. Gunpowder charges and iron balls were fed one after another into the cold cannon barrel.

"Fire!"

Twenty cannons spewed out blazing flames, and heavy impacts came from the direction of the city wall. Stone fragments fell in a flurry, leaving shallow pits on the surface of the wall.

The bombardment continued until noon, the bronze cannon barrels becoming so hot they were almost untouchable. The bombardment ceased, and the gunners poured water to cool the walls, the hissing sound of the water evaporating constantly filling the air. The sea breeze temporarily dispersed the smoke, revealing the battered fortress, its walls riddled with craters and its battlements broken; only a few defenders remained steadfast in their posts.

Half an hour later, the bronze cannon had cooled down. The artillery commander squinted and observed for a moment before instructing the gunners to adjust their target and concentrate their fire on the most vulnerable section of the wall.

The final volley began.

The shells whistled as they crashed into the same area, each impact causing the city wall to tremble violently.

Finally, with an exceptionally deep and loud bang, a section of the city wall about thirty meters wide gradually collapsed, and the spreading dust obscured everyone's vision.

When the smoke and dust cleared, the dilapidated scene was revealed, with broken walls and ruins piled up to form a gentle slope.

Seeing this, the infantry regiments carrying out the assault rushed into the city, occupying key areas such as warehouses and barracks. The defenders did not resist; their morale had been crushed by the artillery fire, and they quickly retreated along the east gate, not even having time to set fire to their supplies.

The fall of Nice was just the beginning. Further east, there was a stone fortress almost every ten miles, some located in the middle of the road and others on the hills on either side.

In Vigé’s view, this was almost the limit that the Franks could achieve.

Assuming the Vikings continued using their previous trebuchets and tunnel tactics, it would have taken them at least a month to breach the stone fortresses. These fortresses alone would have been enough to hold off the Vikings for a whole year, giving Charles the Bald ample time to amass an army and launch a surprise attack.

Unfortunately, the Viking Empire entered the age of firearms, and the walls built during the era of cold weapons were usually only 1.5 to 2 meters thick, which was difficult to withstand artillery fire and was no longer suitable for the current environment.

Unless the Franks increased the thickness of the city walls to 4-10 meters, using an outer layer of brick and stone and an inner layer of rammed earth—which would take a considerable amount of time—it was clear that Vig would not give them any chance.

Subsequently, the Viking army used artillery to advance eastward, and stone fortresses along the way fell one after another, lasting at most half a day.

At the end of June, Vig arrived on the outskirts of Genoa.

At this time, the French army had not yet completed its assembly, and a large number of troops were scattered and stationed at key passes in the Alps. They never expected that the Vikings would break through the coastal route in just twenty days.

“Father, look at the guards on the city wall. I bet the Romans were just as panicked and dumbfounded when they learned that Hannibal had crossed the Alps.”

The second prince and his commanders chatted and laughed loudly, completely disregarding the city's garrison.

Soon, fifty bronze cannons fired in unison. Genoa's walls were slightly thicker, exceeding two meters in height. The bombardment continued until 2 p.m., leaving a huge breach in the walls.

Di~
When the whistle blew, two infantry regiments launched an assault. The French army relied on street fighting to put up a desperate resistance, holding out until dusk. Most of the soldiers escaped through the east and north gates, while a few fled to the docks and boarded warships to leave the port.

"So many ships," Vig sighed to himself.

At a glance, there were hundreds of warships floating on the sea, interspersed with the flags of the Duke of Naples and other forces.

Now that the Western Mediterranean Fleet has been crippled, it is estimated that twenty ships can be squeezed out from the mainland to come as reinforcements, including a fully equipped gunboat, which is expected to arrive around the beginning of August.

Even so, the Royal Fleet still could not gain control of the sea and could not use sea routes to transport supplies, which limited the mobility of the Viking army.

(End of this chapter)