In early April, having settled various matters, Vig arrived in Oxfordshire with 2,500 men and a large amount of weapons.
"At last you are here."
During these days, Ragnar sent a small detachment to reconnoitre the area and captured almost 600 prisoners, but there was no news of Aethelwulf.
Having distributed 300 men to guard the city, Ragnar led the remaining troops to Winchester and accidentally encountered the retreating Ivar. He was carrying a large group of war horses, and a thousand-strong Anglo-militia was following him.
Having routed the pursuers, Ragnar asked about the progress of the battle: "What happened?"
Ivar sat down on the ground and muttered: "Aethelwulf is alive. He has returned to Winchester to reorganise the defences. He heard that the military horse farm had been attacked and reinforcements had arrived immediately. Ha, fortunately I fled quickly.
Including Ivar's forces, the Vikings numbered 4,000 and they had arrived at the northern suburbs of Winchester along the road.
The city is surrounded by the River Itchen on the east and south sides. Commanding the siege, Vig rode around the walls of Winchester and pointed out the direction of attack from the west and north.
The war had entered its most boring phase of building siege camps, cutting and transporting timber. By mid-May, the coalition forces of the remaining four English-speaking countries had arrived.
When scouts told Ivar the number of enemy troops, he was elated. "More than 2,000 men dare to come to their deaths?"
Confused by so many details, Vig could not leave and could only watch as Ivar and Gunnar marched east to intercept this loosely organized militia force.
…
After a month and a half of intensive training, Gunnar's cavalry had increased to 200 men. He took advantage of Ivar's frontal attention to attract the enemy's attention and led the cavalry to the hillside behind the enemy and began the attack from the heights.
The Anglo-Coalition's tactics were backward, and there was no awareness of the need to defend against cavalry flanks. After this crushing blow, the monarchs of Sussex and Essex were killed outright, and the King of Kent was seriously wounded and died within a week. Only the King of East Anglia fled faster than anyone else and barely escaped with his life.
In less than half a day, the four small Anglo-Canadian states in southeastern Britain had suffered heavy losses. Ivar ordered his men to gather weapons, armor, and flags from the various countries and pile them up outside the city of Winchester, which seriously undermined the morale of the city's defenders.
As Ragnar watched the Viking horsemen boasting of their might, he sighed and addressed those around him:
"Times have changed. From now on, cavalry will play a key role in the outcome of battle. Perhaps I should follow the example of the Franks and knight some of the Viking warriors so that they can practice martial arts in peacetime and answer the call to war."
Determined, Ragnar asked his men to find the captured Frankish knights and questioned them in detail about the knightly system, including the size of the estate, military service, taxes, and the education of the knights' descendants...
Ragnar devoted all his energy to studying the Frankish feudal system, leaving the affairs of the camp to the siege commander Vig. Ivar, Gunnar, and the others were responsible for clearing the area and intercepting small reinforcements from all sides.
In June, the Vikings won more than ten victories in a row, completely ending the idea of local loyalty to the king.
However, no matter how many victories they won, they could not raise the morale of the soldiers. After more than half a year of fighting, the army's morale was low, and men were leaving the unit every day. Vig asked Ragnar what he thought, and he replied: "You can handle it."
In order to maintain military discipline, Vig had to become a villain. He divided Gunnar's cavalry into twenty detachments and rode out in turns to catch deserters, barely holding back the soldiers' flight.
One day, a horseman came across Vig's tent: "Sir, we have found a very strange place, you might be interested."
Putting down his book, Vig hurried to the place and found the horsemen whispering near a cave.
"I suppose this is a rich man's treasure cave."
"I don't think so. The atmosphere is strange. It must be the nest of some monster."
...
At that moment, a tall, thin man emerged from the cave, smelling foul. The man had sparse short white hair and he excitedly shouted to his companions:
"I crawled into the cave for a long time, and the entrance was blocked with mud. I hit it twice with an iron axe and picked up the ring!"
The white-haired man pulled a gold ring out of his hands, which caused the riders to shout and ask for a treat.
"Quiet!" -
Vig called his men, ignoring the stench coming from him: "The entire cave is made of brick and stone? Does it extend all the way to the city?" -
"It looks like it."
The white-haired man scratched his itchy skin and said that he had accidentally discovered the cave while patrolling. He mistakenly thought that deserters were hiding inside, so he endured the stench, went inside and finally took out this precious gold ring.
"What is your name?"
- "Gray-haired Oleg."
Vig stretched and was in a good mood. "I congratulate you on the grace of the gods, gray-haired Oleg, follow me to His Majesty."
…
On a hill in the northwest, Ragnar and his beloved Aslachi were hunting there. Vig rode his horse straight to the outskirts: "Your Majesty, I have found a way to enter the city."
Releasing his beloved, Ragnar threw his bow and arrows to the nearest guard: "What do you want to do?"
Vig pointed to a gray-haired rider nearby: "This man is very lucky. He found an abandoned sewer leading into the city. The Angles live sloppily, clogged it and left it abandoned. In four hundred years or so, they probably forgot about it. We can clear the sewers and send a small group to infiltrate the city." "
Okay, go ahead, do it. Do it in a month. If you wait a little longer, the number of deserters will only increase."
With Ragnar's permission, Vig set up an additional camp in the western suburbs of Winchester and erected a huge tent on top of the cave to hide the results of the excavation.
After twenty days of persistent night labor, the sewers were cleared, and two hundred carefully selected warriors entered the city through the corridor.
To distract the defenders, the catapults in the camp in the north of the city were fully prepared, stones whistling past the city walls. More than a dozen siege towers slowly advanced, attracting many archers to shoot.
Finally, when everything was ready, Oleg carefully descended to the ground. Fortunately, this was not a busy marketplace, but a long-abandoned mansion.
In time, the two hundred Vikings gathered. Leaving a small group to guard the courtyard, Oleg led the others out of the courtyard, determined the direction, and ran as fast as he could towards the western gate.
After a bloody battle, the Vikings defeated a hundred warriors at the city gate and together raised a heavy pillar.
Seeing this, the cavalry, which had been waiting for them for a long time, rushed to the attack. The distance of hundreds of paces flew by in the blink of an eye. They burst through the city gates and crashed into the crowd, swinging long swords to destroy the defenders who had arrived as reinforcements.
To buy a precious three minutes, a large number of light infantry finally broke into the city and repelled the Wessex counterattack, having an overwhelming numerical advantage.