Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 265: Crescent Strike

The deep-water docks of Zaragoza, which were supposed to be a highly secure, logistical safe harbor held by Strategist Sun, had been completely compromised. Instead of welcoming parties and supply wagons, the waterfront had been transformed into a sweeping crescent of hostile, heavily armed cavalry.

Supreme Emir Badr ibn Ayyash sat perfectly still atop a black destrier, the undisputed focal point of the massive Andalusian coalition.

Badr was a man who understood the utility of terror. He did not immediately order his unified host to charge, recognizing that cornered, desperate men fought with highly destructive ferocity.

Badr guided his warhorse closer to the pylons where the heavy Tang gangplanks rested precariously against the masonry. He drew his Damascus steel scimitar.

"You foolish Easterners!" Badr’s voice boomed. "Do you really think we cannot kill you?"

To emphasize his dominance, Badr raised the polished steel to his face. Slowly, he ran his tongue along the flat of the blade, tasting the metal.

"Don’t you see, you ignorant Westerner, how sharp this sword is?" Badr continued, projecting his voice toward the Tang command deck.

"Don’t you see how blindly we believe?"

The traditional Andalusian military doctrine dictated a strict binary choice: submit entirely to their authority and convert, or face total eradication by the sword. Surrender was the only logical survival mechanism available. The Tang soldiers were suffering from severe malnutrition, advanced scurvy, and the trauma inflicted by Ragnar’s explosive artillery in the north.

However, before General Zhao Feng could vocalize a strategic capitulation to preserve his officer corps, the discipline of his broken army finally shattered.

Along the port-side railing of a secondary junk, a contingent of Tang archers acted without authorization. Driven to the brink of madness by the stress of the blockade, they drew their heavy composite bows.

These were the Tang’s prized gunpowder-loaded bows.

The archers ignited the slow-burning fuses and released their bowstrings. A disorganized volley of hissing, smoke-trailing projectiles arced over the docks.

Several struck the frontline Arab cavalry. The resulting deflagrations were visually spectacular, producing bright flashes and thick, choking white smoke, but they fundamentally lacked the localized kinetic overpressure required to shatter chainmail or penetrate shields.

Badr ibn Ayyash lowered his scimitar, his eyes narrowing into slits of cold fury. He gave a single, sharp nod to his horn-blowers.

The slaughter commenced instantaneously. The Arab heavy cavalry surged forward like a collapsing dam, sweeping across the docks with overwhelming momentum. The Tang infantry attempted to form their standard halberd walls, but the mass of the armored Andalusian warhorses shattered their defensive lines upon the very first impact.

Blood flowed freely across the cobblestones, pooling deep in the grooves of the ancient masonry. Lives were extinguished every second. The scimitars of the Andalusian riders moved seamlessly severing limbs and crushing skulls.

The Tang soldiers, trapped between the deep water and the charging horses, possessed no avenue of retreat. Within half an hour, the vanguard of the eastern fleet was reduced to a macabre tapestry of dismembered corpses.

General Zhao Feng, recognizing the futility of further resistance, dropped his blade onto the deck.

He, along with his surviving junior officers and tacticians, were quickly surrounded, aggressively disarmed, and forced to their knees.

The Andalusians did not execute the high command; Badr ibn Ayyash was a pragmatist who understood that high-ranking prisoners possessed immense political leverage and ransom value.

Badr ordered the thousands of surviving Tang prisoners to be bound with hemp ropes. They were aggressively marched away from the blood-soaked beaches of Zaragoza, their destination set for the heavily fortified inland stronghold of Madrid.

Behind them, the mutilated bodies of the fallen infantry were left to rot upon the sands, serving as a permanent warning to any future maritime incursions.

While the butchery concluded on the coastline, a completely different paradigm of crisis was unfolding within the highly secure citadel of Zaragoza.

Strategist Sun sat cross-legged behind an ornate desk, quietly reviewing municipal taxation ledgers. He had spent the last month successfully pacifying the immediate urban centers of northern Al-Andalus, establishing a fragile but highly functional bureaucratic grip over the city’s infrastructure.

He had absolutely no inkling that a massive Andalusian coalition army had bypassed his outer patrols, utilizing the complex mountain passes to strike directly at the harbor below.

The doors of the command chamber burst open. Three imperial spies, dressed in the inconspicuous garments of local merchants, sprinted into the quiet room.

They were breathless, their faces pale with shock.

"Report," Strategist Sun commanded, his tone calm.

"Supreme Strategist!" the lead spy gasped, dropping to his knees upon the woven rugs.

"The fleet... General Zhao Feng’s fleet has arrived at the docks. But they were ambushed! Tens of thousands of Arab horsemen materialized from the southern ridges. The General and his entire officer corps have been taken prisoner! The troops are slaughtered, and the survivors are being marched toward Madrid!"

Strategist Sun slowly lowered his ink brush.

"Do you really mean what you say?!" Strategist Sun asked, his voice chillingly quiet.

"The sequence of these events is entirely illogical... But why did they even return from England? A siege of that magnitude requires months of trench work, logistical starvation, and systematic dismantling of defenses..." 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

He tapped his index finger against his chin, "Did they lose to this Ragnar?"

Strategist Sun turned back to the trembling spies, "And then they come back to lose to reinforcements that I don’t know from what hell they came to the Arabs! How did the Umayyad emirs unify their fractured levies so quickly without our extensive intelligence network detecting the massive troop movements?!"

Sun was now trapped inside the citadel of Zaragoza with fifty thousand men, completely cut off from naval resupply, surrounded by a highly unified Andalusian coalition, and missing his supreme commander.

...

Thousands of miles to the north, completely detached from the bloodletting in Iberia, Ragnar sat comfortably in his private study within City Titan.

After securing the successful recruitment, training, and arming of his fifteen thousand-strong standing army, Ragnar had smoothly transitioned his focus from immediate defense to long-term economic expansion.

He was currently reviewing the architectural blueprints for a massive textile mill.

Lord Hakon entered the quiet study, holding a decrypted cipher. "Iron Father. Our deep-cover operatives within the Frankish merchant guilds have forwarded a priority intelligence report regarding the southern continent."

Ragnar did not look up from his blueprints, "Summarize, Hakon..."

"The Tang fleet that fled our shores attempted to dock at Zaragoza," Hakon reported, "They were ambushed by a unified coalition of Andalusian cavalry led by Emir Badr ibn Ayyash. General Zhao Feng has been captured and transported to Madrid. The remaining Tang forces are now besieged within Zaragoza."

Ragnar slowly set his compass down. He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers.

"Should we dispatch the newly constructed ironclads to harass their remaining coastal assets, Iron Father?" Hakon inquired, seeking to press the military advantage.

"No," Ragnar replied, "A prolonged war of attrition between the Tang remnants and the Umayyad Emirate is the optimal scenario for the Iron Empire."