Chapter 276: Bjorn’s Company
September 28th in the year 869 AD
After hearing the vocalized bid of one hundred thousand gold coins submitted by King Donald the Second for the iron hand cannon, the crowd of commoners standing outside the stone building reacted immediately to the numeric value.
This specific amount of currency equated to the total material output of multiple populated regions combined over several decades of continuous labor.
The crowd of people outside the building began to shout and move their bodies rapidly, creating a loud noise that traveled through the air and penetrated the glass windows of the auction hall.
They reacted this way because they understood that such a massive transfer of wealth would alter the balance of power among the kings and provide the Iron Kingdom with an immense surplus of resources to fund future wars and construction projects.
In his mind, King Donald II remained seated on his wooden bench and calculated the exact methods he would use to extract this specific amount of gold from the lords and landowners who occupied the territories under his control in Scotland.
To fulfill this specific financial obligation, King Donald II knew he would need to assemble a massive convoy of wooden carts pulled by oxen.
He would also need to assign hundreds of his best spearmen to guard the transport routes, ensuring that bandits or rival armies did not intercept the currency before it was delivered directly into the secure vaults of the Iron Kingdom.
Furthermore, the auctioneer’s staff would eventually melt a portion of the coins to test the purity of the gold.
...
September 28th, 869 AD, at the royal palace in Baghdad
Inside the walls of the royal palace, Bjorn sat on a wooden chair positioned next to a long wooden table.
He was currently dressed in Arab attire, which consisted of loose linen garments and a light cloth head covering, instead of his traditional heavy armor.
Bjorn consumed pieces of cooked lamb meat from a flat metal plate using his bare hands. The lamb had been roasted over an open fire by the palace servants.
A messenger had arrived at the palace earlier in the day, having traveled a great distance on horseback.
This messenger was sent by Emperor Basil I.
The explicit purpose of the messenger’s journey was to broker a formal treaty of peace between Emperor Basil I and the military forces commanded by Bjorn.
After all, such a treaty involved writing specific territorial boundaries on pieces of animal parchment and sealing the documents with melted wax stamped with a royal insignia.
The terms of the peace treaty required the Byzantine forces to remain behind their designated geographical boundaries and cease all their previous attempts to encircle and attack the territories that Bjorn had recently captured.
Bjorn stopped eating his lamb and laughed a loud noise from his throat.
"The Emperor sends men with paper instead of men with swords!" Bjorn said, looking directly at the governor of Baghdad, Hassan ibn Malik.
"His power is diminished..." Hassan replied, resting his hands on the flat surface of the wooden table.
And so, Hassan and Bjorn had developed a mutual relationship of friendship over the past months of occupation.
This friendship was formed because Hassan observed Bjorn’s lightheartedness during times of rest and his highly honorable nature during times of conflict.
Hassan had provided significant assistance to Bjorn during the recent military campaigns by supplying his army with accurate maps of the water wells located in the desert and providing fresh riding horses for the scouting units.
Hassan was currently engaged in the complex logistical process of organizing the provisions and the men required for Bjorn’s impending return journey to his homeland in the north.
The meat had to be heavily coated in salt and packed tightly into wooden crates to prevent it from decaying, and the water was stored in large wooden barrels sealed with pitch to ensure the soldiers did not die of thirst while crossing the open ocean.
Another man sat at the wooden table who held the rank of lieutenant general in Bjorn’s army, and his name was Astrid.
He had greatly aided Ragnar during the raids. Because of his proven record of power, courage, and reliability in warfare, Astrid was considered to be Bjorn’s right-hand man, meaning he was the second individual in the chain of command and held the absolute authority to issue orders to the soldiers if Bjorn was absent.
Despite the presence of many capable warriors in the army, the specific decision to assign Astrid to this role of lieutenant general was made by Leofric.
In addition to Astrid, the second lieutenant general of the army was also present in the room, and the name of this man was Gunnar.
Despite his high rank in the military hierarchy and his responsibility over hundreds of soldiers, Gunnar was widely considered by his peers to be the most foolish man in the command structure...
Gunnar hit the table with his closed fist, "We should take the boats and hit the water tomorrow!"
Gunnar stated, looking at Bjorn with a facial expression that clearly demonstrated a complete lack of complex intellectual thought or patience for administrative duties.
Bjorn liked Gunnar very much because Gunnar possessed an extremely high level of brute strength.
After all, the regular foot soldiers who marched in the dirt and slept in the cloth tents respected Gunnar deeply because he always fought in the front lines with them.
Gunnar shared their basic desires for direct combat, adequate food, and physical rest, and his constant readiness to engage the enemy generated a very high level of morale among the common troops.
Bjorn, Hassan, Astrid, and Gunnar reviewed the final shipping manifests. They were now preparing to set sail together.
The plan required them to march their forces to the nearest river docks, load their men and provisions onto the flat-bottomed river boats, and travel downstream until they reached the deep-water harbor where their large ocean-faring transport ships were anchored.
Once the men and the supplies were transferred to the large ships, they would utilize the wind and their cloth sails to travel across the sea, returning to the northern lands of the Iron Kingdom where Ragnar awaited their arrival...