Outside Florence, the Eastern Roman army repeated the same methods they had used before.
They felled trees to construct trebuchets while engineers continued digging siege tunnels.
At this point, one officer proposed a new plan.
"Send light infantry into the Apennines and cut off the mountain roads leading back to the Po Valley. If we seal those passes, we'll trap the Vikings in Tuscany."
Basil approved the proposal.
Eastern Roman light infantry were generally recruited from the mountainous regions of Macedonia and Thessaly.
They wore light armor and carried small round shields and one-handed swords, while also being equipped with javelins and a limited number of bows and crossbows.
Compared with the Franks, the Greeks were far more adept at mountain warfare.
Using their numerical superiority, they steadily advanced through the mountains, forcing the Vikings to withdraw step by step.
By mid-February, the casualties among Vig's mountain infantry had exceeded expectations.
His supply lines were occasionally ambushed.
Meanwhile, the number of trebuchets outside Florence continued to grow.
Seeing the situation deteriorate, he ordered an early evacuation.
On February 18, before the enemy had completely sealed off the mountain roads, the Vikings crossed the Apennines from south to north and returned to Bologna on the northern foothills.
Basil had finally recovered Tuscany.
But before he could celebrate, grim news arrived from the northern front.
Brno and several other Moravian cities had fallen.
The main army there had been virtually annihilated.
Damn.
Basil still wanted to continue the offensive, but the mountain roads north of Florence were unsuitable for a major advance.
The Vikings could establish defensive positions one after another and delay him indefinitely.
At this point, he had two choices.
The first was to march north along the eastern coast into the Po Valley in search of Vig's army, though he expected the Viking emperor would simply refuse battle.
The second was to launch an amphibious invasion of Provence, striking directly into one of the enemy's weakest regions.
Surely the Frankish population would rise in support.
The strategy resembled Rome's campaign during the Second Punic War, when it invaded Iberia to sever Hannibal's lines of support.
After long consideration, Basil concluded that the second option offered greater returns.
A week later, two hundred ships sailed toward Marseille.
Near the waters off Genoa, they were intercepted by the Royal Navy.
This time, the Vikings fielded five gunships and forty-seven conventional warships.
More than fifty large vessels formed an imposing line across the sea, creating an overwhelming sense of pressure.
The two fleets faced each other in silence.
Suddenly, a powerful northwesterly wind swept across the sea, putting the Eastern Roman fleet at a disadvantage.
After several minutes of hesitation, the admiral ordered a retreat.
His deputy looked at him in surprise.
"Are you certain?"
On paper, the Eastern Romans possessed two hundred warships—roughly four times the size of the Royal Navy.
But the overwhelming majority were small and medium-sized vessels.
Many belonged to Venice, Naples, and other allied states.
The admiral had little faith in those allies.
"Yes."
"Withdraw immediately."
The Eastern Roman formation slowly turned away.
The Royal Navy made no attempt to pursue.
It simply maintained its intimidating battle line, like an iron wall stretching across sea and sky.
Only after the final Eastern Roman sail disappeared beyond the horizon did thunderous cheers erupt from the Viking fleet.
Duke Jorund rested a hand on the rail, still shaken.
Beginning this year, the empire's saltpeter reserves had become critically low.
Most available gunpowder had been allocated to the army on the front lines.
The navy had received only a tiny share.
Each naval cannon carried enough powder for merely thirty shots.
Had the Eastern Romans charged directly into battle...
the Royal Navy would have been the one forced to flee.
After returning to Livorno, the admiral explained his reasoning to Basil.
"The risks of a naval battle are simply too great."
"Even victory would likely be a Pyrrhic one."
"If we lose too many ships, the Moors may seize the opportunity to strike, cutting the sea lanes between southern Italy and Greece."
"At that point, tens of thousands of our soldiers would be stranded in southern Italy."
"The Abbasid Empire could then invade Anatolia."
"The Empire itself would be placed in mortal danger."
With that, Basil's ambition of opening a new front collapsed.
He had no choice but to adopt the first plan instead.
Leading his army around to the eastern coast, he advanced into the Po Valley.
As the enemy closed in, Vig abandoned Bologna and Ferrara one after another.
The Viking army withdrew to the northern bank of the Po.
Another five thousand men remained in a temporary fortress on the southern bank.
Heavy river chains stretched between the two banks, preventing Venetian ships from sailing into the middle and upper reaches of the river.
The southern fortress stood about five meters high.
Its thick walls consisted of stone blocks stripped from nearby city walls surrounding a rammed-earth core.
The structure was sturdy enough to support artillery on top.
One officer suggested a plan.
"Have the men dig trenches and slowly approach the fortress."
"That will reduce their exposure to enemy cannon fire."
"At the same time, send troops to hide downstream."
"They can cross the river by surprise and attack the Viking camp on the northern bank."
Basil approved.
After more than twenty days of labor, the Eastern Romans had dug a dense network of trenches across the southern bank.
The nearest trenches lay only one hundred and fifty meters from the fortress.
By then, the Welsh longbowmen atop the walls could shoot directly into the trenches, greatly slowing further excavation.
Not wanting to waste more time, Basil ordered a general assault.
The Eastern Romans deployed numerous small trebuchets behind the trenches.
They hurled jars of Greek Fire at the walls.
Archers fired from cover, supporting the infantry's advance.
On the walls, Viking archers and crossbowmen shot from behind the battlements.
The bronze cannons switched to grapeshot, blasting the fan-shaped killing zones before the fortress.
At the same time, the long-awaited Venetian flotilla finally set sail.
As the ships entered the mouth of the Po, Viking scouts lit signal beacons.
Soon, groups of Viking cavalry appeared along the northern bank, shadowing the fleet.
At nine in the morning, the Venetians landed four thousand Greek soldiers.
More Viking cavalry soon arrived—including one thousand mounted longbowmen.
The mounted archers spread into loose formation and began raining arrows from two hundred paces away.
The Greeks were forced into shield-wall formation, greatly slowing their movement.
More mounted archers continued to arrive.
Before long, the Greek infantry on the northern bank found themselves completely pinned down.
Not far away, another one thousand heavy cavalry waited atop a hillside, ready to charge at any moment.
By ten o'clock, Basil realized neither battlefield had produced any progress.
Reluctantly, he abandoned the operation he had spent so long preparing.
Later, he attempted another landing farther along the eastern coast using Venetian ships.
But the shoreline was lined with beacon towers and constantly patrolled by Viking light cavalry.
The slightest movement was quickly reported.
The Vikings always knew they were coming.
The stalemate continued until mid-April, when the four northern field divisions finally returned to the Po Valley.
Overall, the northern campaign had been remarkably easy.
The enemy lacked any meaningful field army and could do little besides hide behind fortifications.
Under relentless artillery bombardment, cities such as Brno fell one after another.
The remaining fifteen fortresses, cut off from the outside world and stripped of hope, eventually surrendered.
With the northern front secured in a decisive victory, Vig began preparing for a counteroffensive.
At the beginning of the year, scattered rebellions had begun breaking out across much of Europe.
The Cabinet urged him to end the war as soon as possible.
The garrison forces left behind were already stretched thin trying to suppress unrest.
The longer the war continued...
the more frequent those uprisings would become.
Time was no longer on the Viking Empire's side.
—------------------------------
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