Vikings: Lords of the Ice Sea

Chapter 54: The Marauders

Frequent wars in Northern Europe led to an influx of Viking immigrants into Tynburg. In April alone, 600 Viking farmers settled there.

For these people, Vig followed the old practice of allocating land to them, exempting them from taxes for two years, and requiring the implementation of the three-field system.

In addition, many Vikings were unwilling to farm and clamored for Vig to take them out to raid.

"How about this, I'll introduce you to Ireland. Ivar is currently short-handed and needs energetic warriors like you."

To send these jinxes away, Vig ordered two shield bearers to take them west to Derwent, and then by ship across the sea to Dufelin.

"It's finally over." On the western watchtower of Tyneburg, he watched the departing figures of the crowd and couldn't help but sigh.

Just then, Herigef ran over in a panic, shouting, "Beacon! Someone's attacking!"

Vig turned around and saw a plume of black smoke rising into the sky from the east. Not long after, the Temple of North in the central area of ​​Tyne Town began to ring its bells frantically. The once bustling market was thrown into chaos. Merchants weighing salt overturned their scales, and fishermen threw down their repaired nets and ran home. The whole town was filled with an atmosphere of impending doom.

"Sound the bugle and assemble the troops." He gestured to the soldiers beside him to sound the bugle. Within minutes, forty-five shield guards ran out of the barracks and assembled in the open space.

"What's the panic? There's only a plume of smoke, which means the enemy numbers no more than a hundred."

With a grim face, Vig reprimanded several overly flustered young men before leading his men out of the east gate of Tyneburg. Accompanied by the anxious gazes of the residents along the street, forty-five armored soldiers traversed the entire town and arrived at the unfinished eastern wall.

Currently, Tyne Town has two hundred households and a population of over eight hundred. According to tradition, if the town is attacked by an enemy, every adult male is obligated to help defend it, totaling three hundred and forty armed civilians.

To be on the safe side, he deployed 100 militiamen to guard the breach in the eastern wall, while the remaining militiamen were distributed along the four sides of the wall, and 45 shield guards served as reserves.

Vig climbed the eight-meter-high watchtower and looked out over the river to the east, but he did not spot any enemy ships. He sent five shield guards out on horseback to scout, and half an hour later, the scout team returned with news that the enemy was looting villages downstream, and there were only about sixty or seventy of them.

"This is outrageous! How dare such a small group of people cause trouble in my place?"

Vig headed to the dock to board the ship. In addition to his shield guards, he hired fifty civilians to fight alongside him. The civilians were poor fighters and unsuitable for close combat, so they were all used as crossbowmen.

Leaving the dock, the three longboats sailed downstream with the westerly wind, covering the fifteen kilometers in a flash. Vig stood at the bow, gazing at the large plumes of black smoke rising in the distance, occasionally turning his head to look at the dense bushes growing on both banks, trying to find traces of the ambush.

"Sir, they're over there!"

A sharp-eyed shield guard pointed to the left front, where two longboats were moored on the rocky riverbank, and ragged raiders were carrying grain back and forth.

Before the enemy could react, Vig ordered his crew to row hard, blocking them all on the riverbank. "Crossbows nocked, await my command!"

At this moment, a tall, thin, bald man stepped forward and declared himself the lord of Vasa, willing to give up all the spoils of war in exchange for a chance to live.

Vig asked the people around him, "Vasa? Have you heard of that place?" "It seems to be a place name in Finland."

Finland?

Vig rummaged through his memories and determined that this man was just an insignificant nobody, so he ordered him to surrender, "I am the Lord of Tyneburg appointed by Ragnar, and I command you to lay down your weapons immediately, or you will be killed without mercy!"

Sensing the undisguised killing intent, the leader panicked. "Hey, Chosen One, is this really necessary for a few Anglo civilians?"

"You've heard of me? You dare to mess with my place? You even dare to kill the people I protect? Do you think I'm some nobody?"

Without another word, Vig swung his arm, and dozens of crossbow bolts shot out, instantly felling a large group of people. Although the leader was wearing a tattered iron scale armor, he could not withstand the volley of four heavy crossbow bolts and died on the spot.

Faced with a relentless barrage of arrows, the remaining raiders were forced to huddle together into a shield wall, and anyone who dared to leave would be shot dead.

At the same time, the guards jumped off the ship's side and quickly surrounded the raiders' rear, forcing forty-three men and women to surrender.

Gazing at the large pool of blood spreading along the shore, Vig sighed deeply: "Joren, return the grain and livestock to the surviving villagers. By the way, if they want to move to a safer place, I will allocate land to them on the south bank of Tyneburg."

"Yes, my lord."

Looking at the dejected prisoners, he suddenly realized that the days ahead would be very difficult.

King Eric ignited war in Norway, forcing many people to flee their homes. Their primary destination was naturally the temperate and fertile British Isles. If the Vikings had chosen the northern route to Britain, they would have inevitably passed the eastern coast of Tyneburg.

"Starting from the west coast of Norway, passing through the Shetland Islands and the Orkney Islands, then the desolate northeast coast of Scotland, and the more prosperous Edinburgh region in the south, and further south are Tyneburg and Tees." As long as the war continues, a steady stream of Viking immigrants will pour into Tyneburg, which is going to cause a lot of trouble.

After returning the supplies, the fleet returned to Tyneburg. On the way, Yoren asked what to do with the prisoners, and Vig lazily replied, "Incorporate them into the construction team to build the wall. There are still a bunch of projects waiting to be started, so it's a good way to make use of them."

Subsequent events confirmed Vig's conjecture: by mid-May, Tyneburg had been plundered three more times, each time by fewer than a hundred people.

He blocked two groups of people, bringing the number of special laborers in the construction team to 160. The last group of looters was relatively cunning. Seeing that things were not going well, they immediately ran away, showing no attachment to the looted goods, which made Vig curse loudly.

However, from another perspective, this wave of immigration also had its benefits. The number of Viking residents in the territory exceeded three thousand, and the number of Anglo residents approached ten thousand. In addition, the population of Tyne Town successfully surpassed one thousand, finally bringing a rare sense of liveliness.

In Vig's memory, urban residents in medieval Europe usually accounted for 5 to 15% of the total population. If the number of town residents continued to expand, the food produced by manors and rural areas would not be able to support them.

Therefore, he intentionally limited the population size of Tyne Town, and ordered people to spread the word that he was withdrawing the preferential policies issued last year and would no longer provide land for free, except for rare high-tech talents such as blacksmiths and stonemasons.

(End of this chapter)