Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 232: Starvation Siege

While the ironclad fleet maintained its impenetrable blockade of the harbor, Bjorn shifted his intellectual focus toward the psychological deterioration of the enemy command structure.

He reached into his leather coat and retrieved his collapsible brass spyglass. Extending the precisely ground lenses with a click, he raised the instrument to his eye and focused on the shattered epicenter of the Tang encampment.

Through the magnified glass, the brutal reality of the morning was laid bare.

Jiedushi Shen, the rogue warlord who had crossed an ocean to forge a new empire, awoke not to a kingdom of subservient barbarians, but to an apocalyptic wasteland of his own hubris.

The problem facing the eastern general was mathematically insurmountable. Bjorn watched as Shen frantically inspected the perimeter of the inner bailey. The primary grain silos, which had held the stolen harvests of three conquered Scottish fortresses, were nothing but heaps of glowing white ash.

The medical tents, crucial for treating the thousands of men shredded by the iron fragmentation shells, had been utterly consumed by the chemical fires.

Through the spyglass, Bjorn observed a high-ranking Tang officer approach Shen, dropping to his knees in the soot-stained mud. The officer’s posture screamed of hesitation and despair, likely delivering the catastrophic casualty reports and the absolute zero-sum reality of their food reserves.

Shen’s reaction was immediate and entirely visceral. The warlord drew a curved, ornate steel sword and, in a fit of unrestrained panic, decapitated the kneeling officer before the eyes of his surviving imperial guard.

A sadistic smile etched itself across Bjorn’s scarred visage.

Execution was a valid tool of military discipline when applied with justice. However, executing a subordinate out of sheer terror achieved the exact opposite effect.

By murdering a hesitant officer in broad daylight, amidst the ashes of their starving camp, Shen had publicly shattered his own aura.

"The head is severed from the body, even if the general still breathes," Bjorn murmured to himself.

Torvi, his chief artillery officer and favored shield-maiden, approached the helm.

"Commander," Torvi reported, "The mortar tubes have been swabbed and allowed to cool. We are prepared to execute the second phase of the bombardment at your command."

Bjorn turned to her. He let his fingers linger against her jawline for a fraction of a second, offering her a wicked smile.

"There will be no second phase today, my dear, we have destroyed their medical supplies and their food reserves. Bombarding them now would simply grant them the mercy of a quick death. We will let starvation do the heavy lifting."

Torvi leaned slightly into his touch, "You intend to let the forty-one thousand survivors turn on each other?"

"Precisely," Bjorn confirmed, "Secure the naval perimeter and establish a rotating watch. We wait."

...

Three days passed.

The Scottish winter was unforgiving, and without the shelter of the destroyed infantry tents, thousands of wounded eastern soldiers succumbed to the biting frost.

While the temperature plummeted, a far more insidious enemy took root within the crowded, shattered fortresses. The meager, partially burned food rations that the Tang quartermasters had managed to salvage quickly began to rot in the damp, freezing mud.

The lack of medical supplies meant that gangrene and infection spread through the survivor camps like a plague.

From his elevated vantage point on the command deck, Bjorn routinely monitored the internal decay of the enemy host. By the afternoon of the third day, the spark of rebellion had undeniably ignited.

Through his spyglass, he observed localized brawls breaking out near the polluted water wells.

Lower-ranking officers, whose loyalty had been purchased with promises of wealth and glory, were now openly muttering sedition in the muddy courtyards.

They were starving, freezing, and dying of infected shrapnel wounds, all while their supposedly divine warlord barricaded himself within the only intact stone keep.

The situation had reached a critical threshold. Jiedushi Shen, recognizing the impending mutiny brewing among his desperate infantrymen, was forced to execute a highly risky logistical gamble.

"Commander," Torvi called out from the forward observation deck, "Movement in the western mountain pass. The enemy is deploying."

Several lightly armored scouting parties, comprising roughly fifty men each, were attempting to slip out of the besieged valley through the narrow, treacherous mountain paths. They carried empty woven sacks and crude foraging tools. Shen had dispatched them to scour the barren Scottish highlands for any remaining wildlife, edible roots, or hidden Pictish grain caches.

"Torvi," Bjorn commanded, "Calibrate the forward siege mortars for the western mountain ridges. I want fragmentation shells dropped directly onto those mountain paths!"

"Understood, Commander," Torvi replied.

Within moments, the iron cylinders were angled skyward. The crews sparked the fuses, and the Viking ironclads roared to life once more...

The shells arced gracefully over the coastal cliffs, entirely invisible to the desperate Tang scouts picking their way through the freezing rocks.

The fragmentation shells detonated high above the narrow mountain passes. A lethal rain of jagged iron shrapnel tore through the scouting parties.

Because the paths were narrow and flanked by sheer rock walls, there was absolutely nowhere to hide. The Tang soldiers were shredded instantly, their broken bodies tumbling down the steep, frost-covered ravines.

Bjorn did not order a massive barrage; he simply ordered single, precise mortar strikes whenever a new scouting party attempted to breach the quarantine zone.

Unseen Viking mortars hunted the eastern foragers down one by one, erasing them from the mountainside.

After securing the perimeter and ensuring that not a single grain of food would enter the valley, Bjorn leaned against the iron railing, his arms crossed over his chest plate.

By the evening of the third day, the degradation of the eastern expeditionary force was complete.

Through the lenses of his spyglass, Bjorn witnessed the final consequence of his total blockade.

The starving, desperate soldiers, driven mad by the freezing cold and the hunger, turned their butchering knives upon their own cavalry. They were forced to slaughter and consume the rotting, diseased carcasses of their own warhorses just to survive another freezing night in the mud.

It was a pathetic sight, completely devoid of the military glory Jiedushi Shen had promised them.