When Edinburgh learned of the opening of the hospital, the Raven Speaker considered it useful for the spread of the faith and readily accepted it. Strictly fulfilling the Whig's demands, he also ordered the other shamans to keep it secret, lest the medical knowledge become the property of others.
After two days' rest, the army continued its march north.
After this battle, the Pictish coalition lost 800 men killed and wounded, as well as 1,000 prisoners. Together with the wounded and fugitives, the army was almost incapable of fighting. On April 29, the Vikings approached Edinburgh unopposed.
This wooden castle is located on a steep cliff on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth. At the foot of the mountain are many low houses in which about 400 families live.
The settlement is surrounded by a simple wooden wall without ditches. The surrounding fields are used for growing barley and oats, and a small part is left uncultivated for grazing sheep.
Having made sure that there was no ambush nearby, Vig ordered an attack.
With the support of crossbowmen, the Viking warriors easily broke through the wooden wall, killing the few Pictish inhabitants who clung to resistance. The settlement at the foot of the mountain fell.
"Attack the top, leave the civilians alone!"
Yorunn shouted to the soldiers trying to loot the houses, urging them to follow him up the slope and attack the wooden fortification at the top of the cliff.
A hundred paces from the fortification, the defenders rained down a barrage of arrows. Jorenn and the two hundred Vikings formed a shield wall, their speed instantly reduced.
Boom, boom, boom.
A hail of arrows whistled, hitting the shields with a steady, muffled thud. Every now and then, a stray arrow would crack, pierce a warrior's flesh, and elicit a shrill cry.
After two minutes of fighting, they approached the earthworks in front of the fort. Finally, the Pictish defenders began to throw javelins. After three rounds of javelin throwing, the Viking shield wall was riddled with holes, finally breaking into countless fragments and tumbling down the hillside.
Humiliated, Jorenn offered to let his men charge again, but Vig refused.
"The slope is too steep to use weapons like shield carts and battering rams. By the time the heavily armed warriors reach the top, their forces are already exhausted. Moreover, in front of the wooden fort there is a four-meter-high earthen rampart. Even if they break through it, they will still find themselves facing the surrounding wall, making an attack too difficult. Forget about it, let them stay inside. No need to waste the soldiers' lives." Sighing,
, he deliberately relaxed his command, allowing several civilians to escape to the wooden fort on top of the cliff. Then he ordered the soldiers to dig trenches and build walls at the base of the mountain, preparing for a long siege.
As a precaution, Vig built two concentric walls: an inner one to protect the defenders of the fort, and an outer one to protect against enemy reinforcements.
While building the fortifications, Vig approached Shrike to discuss a battle formation suitable for small-scale skirmishes.
"Mountain warfare is not suited to large-scale operations. To counter the Indigo Raiders, who are familiar with the terrain and excel in close combat, I decided to try a new tactic."
He sat cross-legged on the grass, picking up rocks and demonstrating the Mandarin Duck formation as he remembered it.
(The Mandarin Duck formation was created by Qi Jiguang during the Ming Dynasty to suppress Japanese pirates on the southeast coast.)
The unit consisted of fourteen men: a captain and two shield bearers, clad in iron armor. Then came four spearmen armed with three-meter spears, two armed with three-meter pitchforks with forked iron spikes (a substitute for a wolf), four experienced archers and an auxiliary soldier with a heavy spear.
"The main thing in this formation is coordination. Discipline first, military skill second. Try to eliminate the aggressive ones. In combat with the enemy, you can switch between vertical and horizontal formations, and even split into two smaller formations on the left and right..."
After listening to the lord's brilliant idea, Shrike was silent for a long time. It seemed that this formation was supposed to compensate for the weakness of the Moxia army in hand-to-hand combat, but the changes in the formation were too complex, and he was afraid that the local soldiers would have a hard time mastering it in a short time.
"My lord, I need two months, no, three!"
- "Yes."
Before setting out, Whig had drawn up a detailed battle plan, divided into two stages:
First, to capture Edinburgh, Stirling, Glasgow and other settlements. These settlements are located in the central lowlands of Scotland, with relatively flat terrain suitable for large-scale military deployment.
Second, after capturing the central lowlands, the offensive would move into the hilly southern region, suppressing resistance there before attacking the northern uplands. The northern terrain is characterized by rugged mountains and deep valleys.
At the current rate, capturing the central lowlands would take at least three months, six months at most – plenty of time for Shrike to train his chariot formation.
By the end of May, the two ringworks were complete. Whig left 800 men to besiege Edinburgh, Shrike became commander, and used the spare time to train his troops.
Following repeated instructions, Whig led 3,800 men northwest along the riverbank to the town of Stirling.
Stirling is located at the junction of the central lowlands and the northern plateau. Nearby are rich deposits of hematite ore, an easily mined source of iron ingots that supplies northern Europe and Britain. To Whig, the place is even more important than the two great cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
After a day and a half of marching across flat, open ground, Whig was suddenly approached by a scout.
"Sir, there is a stream ahead, and five hundred Picts have gathered behind it."
"Five hundred?"
Whig raised his left hand, signaling for his troops to halt. He steered his grey horse toward a nearby plateau. In the distance he saw a village with just over thirty houses ahead. A small pea stream ran through the village, and on the hills on the opposite bank a crowd of five hundred Picts were scattered haphazardly.
"What is this place?" he asked the local guide.
"Sir, this village is called Bannockburn."
Bannockburn - the historic battlefield where Robert the Bruce defeated King Edward II of England?
Vig suddenly burst out laughing, raising his whip and pointing to the marshes and woods on the other bank. "Here, here and here - perfect for ambushes. They are clearly trying to lure my five hundred men out of the hills and then attack my flank."
He had not expected this group to resort to such crude and primitive tactics. Did they think Whig
Tyneborough a simpleton?
Stretching, he did not advance, but instead ordered his men to light a fire and cook food.
While they cooked, Whig sent a detachment of archers to the stream to shoot at the Picts on the other side. He also sent horsemen to warn the fleet in the Firth of Forth.
"Remember: let the fleet enter the Forth, go upstream, and eventually reach north Stirling. We will deceive these simpletons."
After dinner, instead of attacking from across the river as the enemy expected, Whig set up camp where he was, stationing several squadrons at different points to create the illusion of building bridges.
In response, the Picts, hiding in the woods, remained silent. They waited patiently until the third day, when someone finally lost patience and started shooting arrows at the Vikings standing nearby.