Chapter 66: Driving Civilians to Assault the City

Margaret was fast asleep on the ship, dreaming that she was wearing traditional Han Chinese attire, strolling through the pleasure quarters of Chang'an, and visiting the vegetable market execution ground. Her curiosity fully satisfied, she was even invited to attend a banquet hosted by the Emperor of the Great Tang.

In her dream, she relentlessly boasted of her achievements: commanding millions of troops, conquering over a hundred small "nations (settlements)," and terrifying their rulers so thoroughly that they hurriedly summoned their ministers for consultation.

Following negotiations, they voluntarily married off their princess in an alliance, allowing her family to successfully acquire the royal bloodline of the Chinese Li-Tang dynasty.

Saliva trickled down the corner of Margaret’s mouth as the fleet sailed across the sea at an average speed of 16 knots.

At the break of dawn the next day, before the sky was fully light, she was gently awakened by Ralph.

"Is something wrong?" she asked sleepily.

She looked at Ralph with a sense of helplessness; after all, she had finally managed to drift off to sleep and had prepared herself mentally for half a month of life at sea.

"We have arrived," Ralph replied with a smile. "Our ships are magnificent!"

"Oh~" Margaret acknowledged lazily, then pulled the blanket over her head, intending to resume her rest.

She had thought it was something important—was she really woken up just for this?

Hmph~

Wait, no!

Suddenly, she violently jerked the blanket off and was shocked to find that the fleet had already begun to decelerate. "Huh? What the f***!" she blurted out a curse in her West Coast accent.

How could this be? The situation seemed somewhat wrong.

According to conventional procedures, shouldn't they be drifting on the ocean for half a month, enduring all kinds of hardships and perils, and finally stepping onto land and kissing the long-missed sand just before coming down with scurvy?

Margaret felt bewildered; everything seemed entirely different from what she had imagined.

So fast? How could this be? Impossible! Doubt filled her mind.

What she did not know was that Gotland, where they had started, is located at 57° N and 18° E, whereas the East European coastline lies between 55°20' and 69°04' N and 11°08' and 24° E.

The straight-line distance between these two locations is only about 577 kilometers. At an average speed of 16 knots, it took less than a day to reach the destination.

She had prepared half a month's worth of food for this, only to arrive in less than a day? Margaret felt both surprised and somewhat helpless.

The warriors began to drop anchor, and the ships slowly came to a halt near the shore.

As the ships lurched from the drag of the anchor, Margaret, still in a daze, lurched forward. Fortunately, Ralph, who was gripping the gunwale behind her, grabbed her in time, lifting her securely like a little chick.

The warriors on board leaped into the water, stepping into the shallows, and began unloading supplies from the ships onto the shore.

Each of them carried an item, and within a short while, all the supplies had been transported.

Numerous bonfires were lit along the coastline, and the warriors began erecting tents on the spot, chatting and laughing as they started cooking food without concealing their movements.

Meanwhile, the Housecarls' Brigade was ordered to fan out, serving as the eyes and ears of the army to explore and secure the surrounding area.

All the lords gathered around, awaiting Margaret's tactical deployment.

However, her mind was currently a complete blank, with no ideas whatsoever. She could only wait for the scouts to return and map the terrain before taking action.

Gaining vision before fighting—that was the rule.

Before long, a scout quickly returned, reporting that a village had been discovered not far away.

Margaret immediately marked the coordinates of the village on the parchment and recorded its distance from the landing point.

As the other scouts returned one by one, the nearby geographical layout gradually became clear on the parchment.

Margaret made a swift decision, dividing the ten lords into five groups of two, and dispatched them to the village to capture townspeople.

She appointed the Housecarls to coordinate between the groups and instructed them to rendezvous near the town they were about to capture.

With her deployments complete, Margaret mounted her mule, leading more than twenty lords and two thousand soldiers straight toward the town, leaving only three hundred soldiers behind to guard the fleet.

She looked back and saw the Viking warriors advancing in a single-file formation, orderly and disciplined.

Margaret chatted and laughed relaxed with the surrounding lords, appearing quite at ease.

After marching for about an hour, conserving their physical strength as much as possible, they arrived at the town, which was located four kilometers away from the landing point.

This town was massive, with residential houses densely packed together, and its walls already bristling with vigilant Curonian soldiers.

"Surround it! Leave three sides besieged! The remaining side will be handled by the Housecarls in ambush, but do not expose yourselves. Not a single enemy must escape!" Margaret gave the decisive order, and the lords quickly executed it.

Instead of rushing to attack, they began chopping down timber nearby, and with the assistance of carpenters, they constructed riot shields and scaling ladders.

Meanwhile, the lords sent to the village to capture slaves had also returned and converged, with the captives being herded and guarded in an open clearing.

Margaret had no intention of calling upon the opposing lords to surrender, knowing full well that claiming this territory would inevitably lead to conflict with them.

If she persuaded them to surrender, would she be expected to hand the territory back to them intact later? That was obviously impossible.

However, according to custom, she decided to go through the motions of demanding a surrender first, though the terms would naturally be set a bit harshly.

The terms: surrender the territory, surrender the army, and become her prisoners!

"Impossible! Tell those pirates I am willing to offer treasures and beg them to leave!"

"Tell him: surrender, or die!"

The enemy began bargaining with her in broken Old Norse. Annoyed by the chatter, Margaret simply upended the table.

She had never intended to let them stay alive anyway; she had a crowd of subordinates waiting to become lords, and killing the opposing lords was far better than accepting their surrender.

"Begin! Drive the captives forward first! Feign attacks on the other two sides! The first man to scale the city wall shall be made a Jarl!" Margaret waved her hand and stood alongside the lords to observe the battle.

At the same time, Margaret began instructing them on how the Chinese conducted sieges, giving these bumpkin lords a small taste of the Chinese art of war.

The captives, regardless of gender or age, were each handed a sharpened wooden stake, burdened with scaling ladders and shields. Driven by the warriors, they wept and cried as they ran toward the town.

Although this strategy effectively minimized casualties for the attacking force, it inflicted immense harm upon the civilians, often resulting in massive civilian deaths. Consequently, this tactic has been historically controversial and is widely regarded as a cruel stratagem.

"War can be fought this way?" Hearing Margaret's explanation, all the Viking lords looked at each other in astonishment, their expressions gradually turning excited as they realized what they had learned.

In Margaret's view, there was no such thing as the descent of the Ziwei Emperor star followed by multitudes; no one is born knowing how to fight. Great generals are forged by fighting many battles and making fewer mistakes.

The emergence of ancient famous generals does not rely entirely on talent or mystical forces, but rather on gradual growth through long-term practice, study, and the accumulation of experience.

What she needed to do was to enable the lords to stand on their own as much as possible, training their command experience rather than having everyone charge forward in a disorderly mob.

The Viking warriors followed closely behind with shields raised, showing no mercy and executing any captive who attempted to flee or refused to move forward.

Should any slave discard their shield or scaling ladder, the warriors would pick up the siege equipment and continue advancing toward the town.

The slaves running at the front cried as they reached the town walls, begging the defenders to open the gates and take them in.

A benevolent commander cannot wield an army; Margaret understood this principle deeply. Although her methods appeared cruel, this approach protected her own warriors from harm to the greatest extent possible.

In this world of the survival of the fittest, other people's tears were always better than the wails of one's own people. Her soldiers still had families waiting for them to return home.

She had to take responsibility for the lives of her soldiers rather than being shackled by humanitarianism; a bleeding-heart saint was never suited to be a general.

Such people were far too easy to deal with. One only needed to capture a batch of civilians, execute them one by one in front of the opposing armies, and force these saintly generals—who loved the people as their own children—into surrender or suicide.

Witnessing the unstoppable spectacle of the ant-swarm siege, the hostile lord turned pale with terror. "What are these despicable pirates trying to do? They are actually driving my own subjects to attack me?"

"My lord, they want to use the captives to deplete our arrows!" The officer was horrified, having never witnessed such a vicious tactic.

"Shoot! Shoot quickly! Kill them!" Seeing the captives drawing closer while the archers remained idle, the lord shouted anxiously.

"Did you hear the leader's command? Shoot quickly! Don't let them in! If the walls are breached, we're dead!" officers shouted anxiously.

"My lord, open the gate quickly, I see my family! My lord, I beg you! Save them!" a soldier cried out, pleading with the lord.

The defenders on the city wall hesitated, their faces filled with sorrow, for these slaves were their compatriots.

"You dare interfere with the military?" Furious, the lord drew his longsword and stabbed the soldier to death. "Shoot! Fire quickly! Anyone who does not shoot will be executed!"