If you were to ask the most famous emperors in Chinese history, many people would say that the Qin Emperor Han Wu, the Tang Emperor and the Song Ancestors, seem to be indistinguishable, but when it comes to the greatest king in British history, everyone unanimously recognizes it as Alfred.
From an early age, Alfred assisted his elder brother Ethelid against the Danes, and he struggled to maintain an alliance with Mercia against the Danes, but in 874, the Danish army invaded Repton (Repton was the center of Mercia at that time), and the history of the Kingdom of Mercia came to an end, ending britain's Seven Kingdoms era.
Faced with the mighty Danes, Alfred was left to fend for himself...
The first seven years of his reign were the most difficult period for the Kingdom of Wessex, and after the defeats at the Battles of Reading and Wilton, the north of the River Thames fell into the hands of the Vikings, and Alfred and his entourage were forced to flee to the wetlands of Atshery Island.
At this time of crisis, the army formed by various Cypriot nobles loyal to Alfred was called, and with capital, Alfred began to think about how to defeat the Danes, so he carried out the earliest military reforms in British history, mainly around three points:
1. Organize the standing army.
Until then, the fighting Wessex armies were temporarily conscripted, while the standing army is now made up of nobles, who are professional soldiers, granted land, and hereditary.
2. Build a fortress.
As mentioned earlier, the danish offensive characteristics would be unpredictable, and they could appear in any corner of Britain at any time with their leading warships, for which Alfred established a large number of defenses in Britain that had become "forts" at that time.
The fortress is actually a low-grade version of the Great Wall, which played an important role in resisting the Viking invasion.
In terms of combat effectiveness, at this time, Wessex, who had just come out of the Seven Kingdoms, was actually not afraid of the Danes, but the Danes came and went without a trace, often fighting more and fighting less, which made Wessex very depressed.
Now with the fortress it was different, and the Danes were faced with two choices at this time
1. Bypass these forts 2. Demolish the forts
In fact, both options are very painful:
Option 1, you will always worry about whether the people in the fortress will smoke coldly on your way back.
Choose the second one, it is even less cost-effective, you came to Britain to grab things, not to do the engineering team, so it is unlikely to carry the attack tools of the hammer, the ship is this big, and it can't be put down. If you fight with people's heads (the number of people in each fortress is not much), the casualties are too large, and when you fight down, the second function of the fortress appears, it has successfully delayed your invasion, and the defensive spell can calmly make you pounce on the air and dispatch people to block you.
Some Western scholars have commented on this defense system of the fort: "No matter how important Alfred's navy and his troops took turns, it cannot be denied that between 873 and 886, the fort was a key factor in driving the Vikings away from Wessex."
3. Set up a new service: the Navy.
Of course, the first two were purely defensive, and Alfred's ultimate plan was to expel the Danes altogether, so he had to strengthen his offensive forces. To this end, he personally designed ships and built a new type of ship, which was almost twice as long as other ships, equipped with 60 strips of pulp or more, and was specially designed to deal with the Vikings.
With this fleet, the Wessex could patrol the seas for defense and pursue Viking invaders. For such a feat of pioneering the navy, the Victorian British called Alfred "the founder of the British navy.".
After the military reform, the Wessex army was greatly strengthened, and at the Battle of Eddington, Alfred won the victory and defeated the Danes. But looking at the picture below, the students found that no, the battlefield was always in the territory of the Kingdom of Wessex, and the Danes still occupied a strategic advantage, but the leader of the Danes, Guslan, then found that the Kingdom of Wessex was really difficult to fight, could not grab things, and lost soldiers, and in desperation, he accepted the truce of Wessex and signed the Treaty of Wademore with Alfred.
The two sides ruled by the treaty, with the north-east of England under the Danes and the southwest still ruled by the English, and the Danes converted to Christianity. The original three kingdoms of Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia in the north no longer existed, and became the "Danish quarter" ruled by the Vikings, which was governed by Danish law, while the four southern countries, including London, were unified by Alfred.
The Treaty of Wademore marked the Danes' confirmation of British dominance, but from Wessex's point of view, it was "a benevolent redemption" in which they could recharge their batteries and recuperate in preparation for the complete defeat of the Danes.
Soon after the signing of the treaty, Alfred began to carry out reforms in internal affairs and justice.
1. In order to strengthen administrative rule, Alfred divided England into counties, and sent county chiefs to each region.
2. Promoting the development of British culture, after the war in Britain ceased, he immediately invited the most famous scholars from all over Europe to set up schools and educate the nobility. As the key to classical Christian culture, Latin is almost no one among the non-clergy in England can master, it can be said that Britain is a country composed of illiterates, who did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to invite famous scholars from England, Wales and the European continent to teach Latin, explain various knowledge and knowledge, and also organized scholars to translate Latin classical works into Anglo-Saxon.
3. In the construction of the judicial system, Alfred promulgated the far-reaching and first British code, the Alfred Code, on the basis of the comprehensive Wessex Code, the Kent Code and the Messia Code. Transition from the initial system of payment of compensation and fines to the enforcement of detention, sentencing and imprisonment.
While reforming the system, in order to show the courage of the Son of Heaven to defend the capital, Alfred moved the center of his rule to Winchester, which was the political capital of Britain for more than 200 years.
During the Norman Conquest in 1066, although King William the Conqueror had already held a coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London, it had to be held again in Winchester, showing the glory and status of the city as the center of England at that time.
Finally, let's look at how the English themselves said of Alfred: "Of all the names contained in the annals of history, only our History of Alfred in England is unblemished. His life was flawless. ”