If there was a choice, several tribes of the Kovinsuomi people would prefer to live their lives in the forest and lakes forever and safely.
They know that they are from the south, but because they have no knowledge of history, almost all the tribesmen have forgotten that they are very closely related to the Finns, Tavastians, and even the Karelians. relationship, treat each other as brothers.
Due to the competition for furs, ores and other supplies, the Kovin tribe finally had an irreconcilable conflict with the Tavastian people who settled in contemporary central Finland.
The population of the Corvins was too small. Compared to the overwhelming strength of the Tavastian tribal alliance, they had to retreat to the north.
The Kewen people discovered a river with ferocious floods in summer. Because of the abundant salmon resources in the river, it became the key to nourishing the tribe's survival.
In this era, both the Finns and the Tavastians began to gradually give up their old life of fishing and hunting. They began to cultivate wheat in the lakes near the settlements, and gradually entered agricultural life.
Having lost control of the relatively warm areas in the south, the Covin people had to continue their life of fishing and hunting.
In a relatively barren land, in order to compete for catches and furs, internal disputes among the Kewen people have also become serious.
They seem to live in a small universe. They are the masters of a large forest and lake, and then bully the more backward deer farmers in the far north.
Finally, a large group of black figures moving on the glacier broke the tranquility of the Kewen people's lives.
The Russian army has been marching up the frozen Oulu River. They stepped on the ice without concealment, as if conquering the settlements of the Kovin people was similar to going to Novgoro. Virtue collects taxes.
After leaving the mouth of the Oulu River, the warriors were in a good mood. Everyone was dreaming of getting rich. They even hugged two local women and became big winners.
They never thought that if there was a conflict, they would be injured or even killed.
Because in everyone’s mind, Kewen people are a bunch of fools.
There are Kevin hunters who hold bows. They go deep into the forest and use long arrows with bone arrow clusters to kill the snowshoe rabbits that occasionally pop out of their caves to watch the wind.
There are even fishermen who dig holes in the glacier and lower their hooks to try to catch some fish.
Kewen people are used to winter, and they also know that they can still catch some animals while immersed in a world covered by ice and snow.
Even tribal warriors used their hands to assassinate a few wandering white bears.
These hunters were keenly aware of the unusual vibrations. After they hid, they gradually saw a large group of figures appearing on the glacier.
The hunters' eyes widened. In the short daylight, they suddenly saw the reflected light that must come from the metal.
A group of unknown people, they all wear metal hats!
No! They are actually...
The Kovin people are not purely isolated from the world. They are worried that their neighbors, the Tavastians, will come north to rob their hunting grounds. They are also even more worried about the group of Varangians on the west side of the sea, crossing the ocean to capture slaves.
The Covin people who are good at doing business always take the peeled squirrel skins and transport them to the Finnish territory in the south to sell them in exchange for locally produced wheat kernels and flax. During the trade, they also learned a lot of news.
Especially about the situation in the west of the sea.
Those hateful Varangians, wearing metal helmets and holding precious swords in their hands, rowed long boats to raid the coastal villages of the Finns and plunder the local population as slaves.
The young Covin people grew up listening to these stories, which made them have an abnormal fear of the seaside.
Young people don’t know what “Varyags” are. In short, they are a group of scary guys, all wearing metal helmets.
Now, the strange people appearing on the glacier are not Varyags or what?
Suddenly, a feeling of impending disaster came to the hunter's heart.
The work of the Kewen hunters came to an abrupt end. They put away their bows and ran towards the village.
Today should have been a normal winter day.
Women make linen or sew leather in their semi-underground homes, and children play without worries. They hid in a warm room, and only some men carried axes and went to the nearby woods to cut wood and burn firewood.
The Kewen people already know how to burn iron ore into sponge iron, and how to further beat it into usable tools. Simply due to the extremely limited productivity and the huge difficulty in mining ores, they did not have many iron tools.
Even so, the Kewen people have a huge military advantage over the deer farmers in the north.
But in the eyes of the Russians, these advantages are simply not worth mentioning.
Many hunters ran back to the village in panic, yelling: "The Varangians have appeared, let's take refuge in the mountain fort."
At the beginning, the village People can't believe it.
Everyone knows that the Varangians exist, but no one has actually seen them.
Some hunters who insisted on hunting encountered a bear and were frightened out of their courage and had hallucinations.
However, the situation gradually deteriorated, and a large number of hunters and fishermen fled back, reporting the same information in unison.
The hunter ran back to his home, first ordered his wife and children to pack the valuable things at home immediately, then carried them on his back and evacuated towards the nearby mountain fort.
The hunters were the first to evacuate, gradually causing a commotion throughout the village.
This Covin tribe, with more than 700 people, began to fall into chaos.
The leader of the tribe is an old guy over fifty years old. His name is Kaihas. The name change refers to "spear" in the language of the Kewen people.
"What's going on? Varyag? I think you wereThe bear is scared! Ulosivi, you should have the ability to hunt bears instead of telling me that you are a coward. ”
Obviously, the leader Kaihas not only distrusts the words of his own people, but also has great disdain.
The leader said this, and the hunter Ulosiwe panicked: "leader! Really Varangians. Please step out of your warm residence and take a look at the situation outside. Everyone is already evacuating. "
The leader glanced at the family members in the room, and then at his men. He pushed aside the thermal insulation curtain and stood on the snow. What he saw was a group of people carrying their belongings to evacuate. The tribesmen.
His eyelids began to tremble, and his tribe was frightened to death by the unidentified news!
What if the "Gray Squirrel" tribe was at this time? When those guys came to attack, did they still suffer huge losses?
The tribesmen were all saying the same thing: the Varyag army was marching on the ice. < /p>
In this case, leader Kaihas was also panicked.
He hurriedly asked the hunter: "Do you swear what you saw was a Varyag?" "
"I swear! "The hunter simply knelt down on one knee to prove to the leader that his words were true.
"Did you see any other details? "
"Varyags? ! I saw those guys, all wearing metal helmets. Just like the legend goes, they came from the west and must have destroyed our village. Chief, we must defend our homeland. "
"Bah! I don’t need you to teach me this! "The leader's mood now is like an ant on a frying pan. He anxiously ordered his family first: "Take the children and run! Take your valuables to the mountain fort on the hill! "
"What about you? "The leader's wife asked.
"Of course, prepare to fight! Even if the Varangians appear, we must defeat them. We have no way to retreat. ”
The leader Kejas put on his own leather armor, a piece of leather armor purchased from the Norwegians by a previous expedition. He also took care of his own dagger purchased from the Norwegians and became A majestic old warrior.
In their concept, the Varangians refer to the madmen on the land on the other side of the sea. However, their hunting expeditions have already visited it many times. The Norwegian territory conducted some trade with the Norwegians, and even some men in the tribe knew a little bit of the Norwegian language.
The expedition actually followed the northern land route, crossing the mountains and Narvi. They never thought that the Norwegians and the Varyags were the same ethnic group and had the same language. Maybe it was just because of this. The Covin people do not understand the geography of Northern Europe at a macro level. In their concept, the world is flat.
This winter, the tribe did not send an expedition team. Instead, the gray squirrel tribe next door did.An expedition team, so-called exploring the outside world, looking for a new living space.
If the actions of the Gray Squirrel tribe had not been unexpectedly attacked by the Rus, I am afraid that they would have gradually moved to the mouth of the Tornio River and gradually become a tribe born out of the Finnish people. Another new people - the people of the Tornio Valley.
The Russians unexpectedly planned this natural historical process, but history will continue to develop in another form. Because of that river valley, Otto, the leader of the Ross people, focused on the unexpected mine. He was determined to build a new settlement - Ironburg.
Kehas, the leader of the Kewen tribe, quickly gathered more than 200 men.
Hunters with bows and fishermen who speared fish gathered first, followed by a large group of teenagers who could hold short spears.
The leader stood on a snowdrift and announced his "war mobilization" in public.
“Men, a group of strange guys are calling now. They are probably Varangians. They are coming to destroy our village, kill all the men, and take away all the people. Women!”
Hearing this, the bloody warriors were excited.
"Can we make them succeed?" Kejas asked deliberately.
"No!" Someone shouted first, and the others roared one after another.
Seeing that everyone's morale had improved, the leader reassured: "We have gained an advantage in the past in the fight against those Gray Squirrel guys. How can our hard-won advantage be destroyed by the Varyags? Men, you have defeated the Gray Squirrel tribe, and now the Varangians are coming. You can defeat them and take away their excellent weapons.
I don't expect that we can defeat them on the ground! We lured the Varyag people to the mountain fort and shot them with arrows! Just like our hunter team, we can shoot the most dangerous white bear, and shooting Varyag intruders is not a problem."
In this way, the leader adhered to his past experience and determined that the intruders were relatively weak just like the nearby neighbors.
The leader did not feel that he had an absolute advantage. Looking at the tribesmen at hand, they could easily kill hundreds of intruders, which was really difficult for others.
The only thing the village can rely on is the whole tribe of men, women, old and young who come together to build a "towering" circular city wall with a large number of stones and wooden piles. It is the so-called mountain fortress, a defense system built by the Kovin people, and even all the Finns and Tavastian tribes, due to their tribal life.
The mountain fort has only one main entrance, or the opening of the city wall. It is like a giant turtle shell that can protect the village residents. When the enemy invades, everyone can retreat to the mountain fort. They sealed the opening with prepared stones and then organized all the men to guard it.
In a sense, the mountain fortress is not just a shelter for the village, it is also the village's granary and material storage place.
The leader Kaihas plays the last one againOrder: "Owners of Salmon, we all retreat to the mountain fort. Take all your bows and arrows and prepare your javelins. We don't have to fight with the enemy, just shoot them with the bows and arrows at hand. Don't worry, no matter how fierce the enemy is, they can't break it. Hill Fort."
So, the name of this tribe is "Lord of Salmon". They are a relatively strong tribe of the Kovin people. They are not only different from the "grey squirrel tribe" that Otto intends to attack. Due to the overlap of the hunting grounds of the two tribes, there have always been conflicts between the two sides for the sake of interests.
But Otto couldn't bear that much. His trip was not aimed at the "Grey Squirrel" tribe, but he planned to attack the Covin tribe as much as possible so that the Russians could get as much benefit as possible.
Otto, who was marching, had no idea that the Russians’ unconcealed actions had already begun to put the nearest Kovin village on full alert.
It was another long journey, and the Ross army camped by the glacier again.
The long march crazily sapped the fighting spirit of the warriors. Gradually, everyone felt that the captive who led the way had impure motives.
Yes! In fact, Voyma Kashad, who led the way, did have impure motives. His only pure intention was to see the Russians fight against the "Salmon Lord", and it would be best for both parties to suffer losses. This is called borrowing the sword of the Russians to kill the biggest competitor of the "Gray Squirrel" tribe.
In this way, even if nearly fifty tribesmen died, the "Gray Squirrel" tribe finally gained a larger living space, which was also a benefit.
But Otto was really impatient.
Otto put a "dog leash" made of hemp rope on Woima Kashad and ordered him to lie down and imitate the barking of a hound. In the humiliation, Woima Kashad had to flatter and behave like a loyal dog, otherwise, he believed that if he did not cooperate, the hemp rope around his neck would become his own noose, and he would eventually become a corpse. Get up frozen corpse.
Because, the village of the "Lord of Salmon" will soon arrive.
The tribe warriors who imitated the dog's tricks made the bored tribal warriors laugh. Rurik couldn't laugh, but he didn't interfere.
Rurik unexpectedly noticed that the deer herders were very happy to see Woima Kashad humiliated. They even wanted to see this man excrement, and they even wanted to see the Russians. After attacking the village of the Kovin people, they started killing.
The deer farmers just wanted to vent their anger, so to speak, hoping that the Kovin people would suffer the same suffering, and then praise the Russian people for their brilliance.
Rurik didn’t want to say anything about this. After all, the men who followed his father were not his close confidants. In the days to come, he felt that after the Ross tribe under his control, these madmen would no longer be needed. The young children who are trained will eventually become the backbone of the Russian army. They will be principled and bottom-line warriors built in accordance with Rurik's wishes.
They will definitely not engage in such tricks to humiliate the captives. Rurik firmly believed.
With RossThe warrior keenly noticed that there were traces of being dug into the glacier. The warrior, who was originally a fisherman, subconsciously determined that this was the hole dug by the fishermen, even though it was covered with thin ice.
The news was sent back to the Russian camp and immediately attracted everyone's intense attention.
These, Otto completely believed in Woima Kashad's words, and realized that this person is still useful until now.
Beside the campfire, Otto summoned the prisoners who had taken off their dog chains.
"It seems that we are really coming to your village. Will your people kneel down and surrender to me?"
Woima Kashad hesitated in response to the question. .
Otto said arrogantly; "They should not take the initiative. Unfortunately, I am going to kill your people."
Woima Kashad listened. In fact, he was secretly happy. He deliberately said: "Anyone who is unwilling to surrender should be killed! I am willing to be your loyal dog."
Otto was amused and laughed, and then threw it away Next is a piece of roasted snowshoe rabbit.
"Eat! My loyal dog, lie down like a hound. I want to see you eat this piece of barbecue without using your hands."
This situation has already happened. There was no need for Jevlo to translate, Voyma Kashad knew what to do. He really did as he was told, so in Otto's heart, this guy really became a loyal dog.
On a new day, at dawn, the Ross Army began its final march. And this day was the ninth day of the agreement. It was obvious that Woima Kashad was not lying.
The Russians still used the glacier as their path. As they walked, after passing a bend, they saw village houses covered with snow on the riverside.
"This! What a big village." Rurik was a little shocked, but also felt a little strange, "It's really strange, why can't I feel popular?"
Rurik could not help but suspect that Otto, with his consent, gave the mercenary captain Jevro a very bold order, that is, to take all the mercenaries as pathfinders and set foot on the territory suspected of the "Grey Squirrel Tribe".
The mercenaries held loaded crossbows and, under the leadership of Jevro, cautiously advanced towards the enemy village. Behind them were thirty meters of melee warriors holding swords and shields.
Otto sent fifty scouts to explore the reality of the village. The warriors were very happy. The order they received was to take the risk and enter first. When encountering enemies who resisted, they immediately attacked and won. After dividing the spoils they get a little more.
Except for these fifty people, the rest were waiting for the good news on the ice.
Everyone is also prepared. If they notice that a fight is breaking out in a distant village, the rest of the people will rush over to help the scouts resolve the fight.