Ragnar studied the map in silence for a long time before calling for Æthelwulf, assigning him as Vig's deputy. As Duke of Mercia, Æthelwulf's lands bordered Wales—making him the ideal assistant for the campaign.
Once they left the command tent, Æthelwulf advised, "We should recruit more men."
Vig nodded. "Since the crown is covering all expenses, I plan to expand to four thousand troops. We'll crush them with overwhelming force."
After more than two months of campaigning, Vig's personal army had dwindled to 1,400 men, and after dividing spoils, only 1,000 were willing to keep fighting.
Counting the local militia Æthelwulf could raise, Vig planned to recruit another two thousand soldiers.
They sailed up the Thames to Oxford, where Halfdan and his four hundred battered survivors were resting.
The air inside the house next to the lord's residence reeked of herbs. Halfdan lay in bed, eyes closed, his left arm wrapped in thick bandages, with two maids standing by.
"What happened?" Vig asked, dismissing the maids and demanding a full account.
Seeing the two men, Halfdan understood they had come to replace him. His voice was dull, listless:
"Not much to say. Æthelwulf and I led twenty-five hundred men into the mountains to hunt down the bandits. They wouldn't meet us in open battle—just harassed us with arrows. One night they launched a massive ambush. I escaped in the chaos, but took an arrow to the arm."
"A night raid? How many of them were there? Was it possible Æthelwulf leaked our plans—colluding with the Welsh?"
Halfdan barely reacted.
"It was dark; I couldn't see their numbers. And no, Æthelwulf's a decent man. If he hadn't come to my aid, I'd be dead."
Vig couldn't help but smile. He gets played and still defends the man who let it happen.
Suppressing his laughter, he told Halfdan to rest, then went to question the rank-and-file soldiers about the enemy.
At the mere mention of the Welsh mountain raiders, the men's faces went pale. One officer summed it up:
"Arrows. Always arrows. They fly from everywhere—blink once and you're dead."
Sensing Vig and Æthelwulf's skepticism, the officer had ten captured yew bows brought over—each between 1.5 and 1.8 meters long.
"My lords, their archers are terrifying. They can loose six arrows a minute with aim—or twelve if they just fire blind. Range, power, accuracy—all far superior to ours."
Vig picked one up and tried to draw it—the pull weight was tremendous. Ordinary men couldn't even string it. Based on what he saw and heard, he realized these Welsh yew bows were likely the prototypes of the later English longbow.
In medieval England, the longbowmen were a hallmark of warfare—able to shoot both direct volleys and high arcs, devastating at range. Their advantages were great, but they took years to train.
Vig ordered thirty Welsh prisoners brought forward. A single glance was enough to identify five longbowmen among them—their spines twisted, left arms thicker, and right fingers swollen with calluses.
"How long does it take to train a longbowman?" he asked.
When the question was translated, the eldest prisoner lifted his chin proudly.
"Five years to master the basics. Ten to become elite. Looking at you fools, maybe twenty—you'll never manage it."
Hearing the translation, Vig nodded. The man wasn't wrong. Training longbowmen was slow and costly.
He recalled that in 1363, King Edward I had issued the Statute of Archery, mandating all men to practice archery every Sunday—or face punishment. Only such harsh laws could produce England's famous longbow corps.
But that solution was centuries—and a stable kingdom—away. It wouldn't help here.
After a long silence, Vig sighed.
"Longbows and heavy arrows—formidable indeed. But ten years is far too long."
Back in camp, Vig chose a small detachment to escort his treasure and horses back to Tyne Town, with orders to bring every crossbow in storage.
"Tell Kadel," he added, "for now, every forge in the smithy works on nothing but crossbows—until the Welsh war is over."
He also wrote a long letter to Ragnar, requesting at least six hundred suits of plate armor.
Æthelwulf was baffled.
"What do you need that many for?"
"To pit heavy crossbowmen against their longbowmen," Vig explained.
His inspiration came from the famous Genoese crossbowmen, the most sought-after mercenaries of the later Middle Ages. They wore plate armor, wielded crossbows, and carried large pavise shields. They fought in two ways:
Turn their backs while reloading, then spin and fire.
Plant the pavise upright, hide behind it to reload, and shoot from cover.
"Crossbows against longbows?" Æthelwulf muttered, neither agreeing nor arguing. He focused instead on securing supplies.
By July, the troops and wagons had assembled. Vig spent three weeks drilling eight hundred usable crossbowmen.
There were also five hundred archers in the army; some were equipped with armor, and Vig had carpenters build dozens of handcarts with tower shields fixed in front, to provide cover as the ranged troops advanced.
During the training period, Vig gathered intelligence from traders. The two dominant powers in Wales, he learned, were the Kingdom of Powys in the east—bordering Mercia—and the Kingdom of Gwynedd in the northwest.
His plan: crush Powys first, then strike Gwynedd, using that momentum to force the remaining lords to surrender.
At the war council, he issued two strategic directives:
Build strong fortifications and fight steady battles.
Conquering hearts is better than conquering cities.
"From my experience," Vig told his officers, "the common folk have little loyalty to their lords. As long as we don't plunder their homes, most won't care who rules them."
To minimize looting, he sent word to Londonium, asking Ragnar to allocate funds so that every soldier could be paid wages.
"Pacify as we conquer, use armored crossbowmen against longbows, and pay the troops properly…"
Ragnar rubbed his temples. Vig's unconventional ideas were giving him a headache.
At present, Ivar was back in Dublin, trapped in the endless turmoil of Ireland, while Gunnar was entangled in negotiations with the Franks.
Aside from those two and Vig, none of the other nobles were capable of leading such a campaign. Ragnar could, in theory, go himself—but that would risk destabilizing his own realm.
After much sighing and brooding, he finally relented and approved Vig's plan.
~~--------------------------
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