The Coastal Fortress of Wessex
Six thousand elite Eastern soldiers had already been butchered in the opening days of the siege, now, the remaining forty-four thousand imperial invaders had established a massive encampnt several miles inland.
They had precisely calculated the maximum trajectory of the Iron Empire’s heavy siege mortars and entrenched themselves just beyond that invisible boundary.
Looking down into the courtyards of the fortress, Ragnar analyzed the two thousand traditional Wessex infantryn who had been mustered to defend their ho. The sight deeply offended his sensibilities regarding resource managent.
These local levies were a haphazard collection of undernourished farrs and desperate tradesn. They wore hardened leather tunics that would barely stop a rusted knife, and they carried splintering ash spears or crude iron axes.
There was no uniformity, no standardized equipnt, and absolutely no industrial efficiency in their ranks.
Ealdred, the Saxon caretaker, stood a respectful distance away.
"Ealdred. The composition of this local militia is a catastrophic failure of basic economic theory. You have placed your core agricultural workforce on the front lines, ard with weapons that belong in a museum. If these n die, who harvests the autumn wheat?"
Ealdred nervously wiped his ink-stained fingers on his robes. He explained the political maneuvers of the local nobility.
The regional lords had issued a desperate decree to the surrounding villages. They had promised every surviving militiaman a trendous bounty of pure, minted silver and exclusive access to the imported Abbasid silks that currently flowed through City Titan’s booming mariti trade network.
In the ninth century, such exotic imports were restricted solely to the highest echelons of royalty. The promise of unimaginable wealth had drawn these desperate peasants into the at grinder.
Ragnar processed this information with total emotional detachnt. He did not offer a comforting smile or a word of reassurance regarding their bravery.
"The nobility fundantally misunderstands the concept of currency circulation," Ragnar stated flatly, his voice devoid of any romantic military idealism. "Silver and silk are useless to a corpse. By bribing the illiterate peasantry with luxury imports, the lords are actively destroying the foundational tax base of this territory. This is entirely unacceptable. I will not allow the Tang army to slaughter my future factory workers."
Ragnar began issuing rapid commands to completely restructure the defense.
He ordered the one thousand elite cavalryn to remain strictly behind the reinforced iron gates.
They were an expensive, highly mobile asset, and deploying them against forty-four thousand entrenched spearn was a statistical waste of superior horseflesh and Besser steel armor.
Next, Ragnar commanded the two thousand Wessex infantryn to abandon the primary parapets entirely. He relegated them to secondary logistical duties inside the city walls, utilizing them to haul ammunition crates and extinguish fires.
He deliberately removed the fragile, traditional elents of the ninth-century world from the direct line of fire.
The defense of the walls was handed exclusively to the industrialized backbone of the Iron Empire. Two thousand five hundred Viking Grenadiers took their positions along the crenellations. They were identically equipped in blackened steel breastplates, completely silent, and overwhelmingly disciplined.
Above them, perched on the highest architectural ridges of the keep, stood five hundred specialized riflen. They held the heavy, primitive prototype matchlocks. The siege mortars were locked into their reinforced firing brackets, their heavy iron barrels angled toward the distant enemy lines.
...
Out on the distant plains, the Tang expeditionary force finally began their second major offensive. They did not charge blindly with ladders and battering rams. The Eastern generals had learned from the initial massacre. They understood that marching into the explosive radius of the Viking mortars was strategic suicide.
Instead, the Tang commanders adapted with the terrifying ingenuity of a true superpower. Tens of thousands of imperial archers advanced in perfect synchronization, halting just outside the established blast periter of the Iron Empire’s artillery.
Ragnar raised his spyglass, observing the enemy formations. The Tang archers were not nocking standard broadhead arrows. Instead, they were utilizing a terrifying new application of their alchemical knowledge. Strapped securely to the shaft of every single arrow was a small, hollowed-out tube of bamboo tightly packed with highly volatile black powder and a slow-burning chemical fuse.
The Tang Dynasty had successfully scaled down their gunpowder weaponry. They intended to unleash a massive, rocket-propelled barrage of incendiary explosives, raining chemical fire down upon the wooden structures of Wessex from a completely safe distance.
Down in the courtyards, the displaced Wessex infantryn realized what was happening.
Thousands of local Saxons dropped to their knees in the mud. They tightly clutched their wooden crosses and silver amulets, weeping openly as they prayed to the Almighty, begging for divine intervention to save them from the wrath of the Eastern dragon.
They believed the end of the world had arrived...
Up on the primary battlents, the demographic shift in theological belief was stark and absolute. The Viking Grenadiers did not drop to their knees. They did not pray to Odin, Thor, or the Christian God.
Over the past few years, the Iron Father had systematically replaced their religious superstitions with the undeniable, tangible miracles of heavy industry.
The Grenadiers simply checked the fuses on their cast-iron fragntation explosives and adjusted the straps of their standardized armor. Their faith was placed entirely in the tensile strength of Besser steel and the chemical reliability of their industrialized munitions.
A suffocating silence fell over the battlefield as the Tang archers elevated their bows toward the heavens.
Standing a few paces away from Ragnar, the veteran Vanguard officers did not exhibit a single ounce of fear. Captain Hakon leaned casually against the stone parapet, crossing his massive, armored arms.
"They intend to burn the city around us..." Hakon observed aloud,
"The ash is going to severely tarnish the polishing work my quartermasters just completed on these breastplates. It is incredibly tedious to scrub sulfur stains out of the steel joints."
Another officer laughed darkly, treating the impending apocalyptic firestorm as a re inconvenience.
Ragnar ignored the banter of his subordinates. He did not offer any rousing speeches to his n, nor did he attempt to soothe the screaming, praying Saxons in the courtyard below.
Empathy was an inefficient use of his cognitive bandwidth during a tactical engagent.
He was not worrying about the survival of the city. He was simply waiting to ti the exact flight duration of the enemy’s rocket-arrows. By calculating the precise arc and speed of the incoming projectiles against the wind resistance, he could mathematically deduce the exact firing positions of the Tang archer divisions.
Once he had the coordinates, he would recalibrate the elevation screws on his heavy mortars and systematically erase the Eastern army from the map.
A shout echoed from the distant plains, carrying faintly on the ocean breeze.
Instantly, forty-four thousand chemical fuses were ignited. The sky above the Tang army illuminated with a blinding orange glow. A massive, deafening hiss of igniting black powder tore through the atmosphere as tens of thousands of rocket-propelled arrows launched into the air, transforming the morning sky into a descending canopy of explosive death.
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