Whether they are the Rus people or the Kovin people, due to the special geographical conditions of the area they live in, they naturally regard the complete polar night on the winter solstice as the end of the year, and the first light of dawn that breaks the darkness in the east as the end of the whole year. The beginning of the year.
When the sun lazily squeezes out of the horizon, it shines precious sunlight on the world for a very short time like charity.
In this way, time has essentially entered 831 AD.
In the Frankish Kingdom in the far south, the conflicts between the highest-level nobles over the issue of inheritance were so acute that they were on the verge of civil war. Louis the Pious made his eldest son co-emperor, and his second and third sons received Aquitaine and Bavaria. The empire was already showing signs of being split into three, and the king's nephew in northern Italy took the lead in raising the flag of rebellion.
The old emperor was mentally and physically exhausted, and saw that his three sons had begun to attack each other. He tried to bridge the civil war between his sons and decided to take some major measures this year.
The Frankish Kingdom was busy with civil war and the recasting of internal affairs, but a large food fleet stationed in the empty-defended Sicily and began to develop it.
The Franks had no time to expel these foreign invaders, just like their northern region, which was often attacked by the Danes and Wenderslav Pomeranians. The north of the kingdom had never been peaceful. The northern princes respected the emperor and made no secret of their pursuit of Pomerania's furs, oats and wool. Similarly, the penetration of the Danes from the land direction also made them miserable.
Perhaps the only advantage is that the military strength of the northern princes is stronger than that of the southern princes.
Of course, it’s just a little stronger.
Because of the Flanders region at the bottom, it has long been targeted by the Danes. Some Danish tribes have developed the idea of long-term occupation and rule, growing their own wheat and raising their own sheep, instead of simply plundering in the past.
There was a Danish baby boy who was born in the autumn of 830. Because he was born weak and his body was as soft as a ball of clay, he was thrown into the woods near the tribe by his biological father. Just as the Russians once abandoned their baby girls, the same thing happened in Denmark.
Baby boys and girls who were not wanted by their parents were discarded in this way. While limiting their population, objectively the babies with the best health survived.
But the child cried all night in the forest. He was not frozen to death, nor was he picked up by a wild beast.
When his father wanted to check it out, he was shocked that the child, who was regarded as a "boneless man" by the priest, was still crying in a weak voice. In this situation, who can't Emotional?
The boy survived with difficulty. He was indeed weak, but he also experienced his first Hanukkah in Denmark.
"Perhaps, he is favored by God." The boy's father asked his father.
“If a person who is born weak is also favored by God, he may receive some favors. Raise him up, but don’t expect him to become a great person.Big warrior. "The boy's grandfather has a pessimistic attitude. He is getting older and does not want his first grandson to be a "boneless person." "You have to continue to find the right woman to give me several strong children and inherit my power. "
No one could have expected that a Danish warrior would be born in this way.
Of course, the overlord of Denmark in this era, the leader "Lion" who lives in the north of the peninsula, Hafgen could not predict the future, such as who would succeed him.
Fortunately, Hafgen was still young and powerful, and the horrific acts he carried out on the territory of the Northern Alliance gave him a great impression. He has established his prestige and won the support of many Norwegians and Gotlanders, but he has also made enemies on the mainland.
It is entirely because this guy completely destroyed the agreed-upon war for the pleasure of revenge. Rules.
Because the captured women will be distributed among the participating tribes according to their merits. They will become the victors and will continue to live. However, in order to vent his anger, Hafgen actually They killed him.
The tribal leaders in Denmark showed respect on the surface, but secretly cursed the leader as a "stupid butcher", and the tribes would not form a coalition to defeat him. The leader's tribe, because this is unnecessary. After all, the tribes complained that they did not gain enough benefits from the last war against the north, and they had to continue living their lives.
Some turbulent changes are quietly taking place in Europe, which do not seem to have any impact on the residents of the Svealan Plain in the north of the Baltic Sea.
The Svea Tribal Alliance. Living their own lives, they are just slowly integrating tribal power and spontaneously upgrading to a feudal country.
That is, the Melalen tribe with the strongest population, military, and economic capabilities is expected to become. The new country is dominating, and its power is still increasing.
There are also huge variables here.
The Rus are rising rapidly, and the rulers of Rus have built many. A colonial settlement, and internal governance methods are being upgraded. The power of the tribe is rapidly concentrating on the chief family, and a centralized feudal country is almost ready to emerge.
However, Rurik and Ou. Thanks to these two people in power, especially Rurik, his current behavior is to actively explore new conquered areas. Regarding the competition for the highest power within the alliance, Rurik does not want to go everywhere to promote the ambitions of the Russians.
He feels that one of the strategies of the Ross people in the next two to three years is to absorb the forces of the Kovin people and let them know that they can get benefits from following the Ross leader. Then it will be positive to continue to build Iron Castle.
The Julian calendar has officially entered January, and people can clearly feel the increase in daylight hours.
Still in Roseburg, the Hanukkah sacrifice is like this. It's a prelude to the new year's winter hunt.
Due to the great success of the winter hunt the previous year, 10,000 squirrel skins entered the leather production, processing, and sales market in Roseburg. The strong commercial interests deeply stimulated the nerves of the young people.
All the Covin people have surrendered. After the Russians who robbed them are captured, they will be designated as "heinous criminals" by the leader.
Ordinary people understand that the people of Kewen surrendered to the chief family, and they will not touch this bad luck. They were eyeing the mountains and forests owned by the Corvin people, where there were a large number of squirrels, ferrets, owls, and even bears and wild boars.
The once mysterious "Eastern Land" has been explored very carefully by the leader and two hundred brothers. There are a lot of unexploited resources there!
What’s more, this time the tribe owns Ironburg!
No, Otto issued an edict, and more than five hundred strong men decided to bring their own weapons, dragging the sled they had just made, and carrying some dried meat and wheat cakes. Following the leader's footsteps to the north, there are many young people who are participating in hunting for the first time.
They don’t need to be afraid of the severe cold, because Ironburg is a huge settlement. The towering wooden walls will withstand the terrible wind and snow and protect everyone. In the future hunting, everyone can be protected by Ironburg. It is said that if there is a snowstorm, everyone can have an absolutely safe refuge.
The hunters no longer have anything to worry about. With the settlement of Ironburg, some fur traders are ready to follow suit.
More than five hundred people decided to walk on the ice and head north to pursue their dreams of wealth. There are more than twenty merchant families, totaling nearly a hundred people, joining the team, including the Gould family. Gould sent one of his sons and more than thirty servants to ride north in six reindeer carriages. They are not only buying furs at low prices for the first time in the fur origin, but also trying to explore new business opportunities.
The first ray of dawn shone on Fort Ross. A huge army walked toward the east facing the rising sun. After walking out of the frozen fjord, the dark team gathered into a group and continued along the coastline. Go north.
Finally, the team led by Otto himself arrived near Ironburg on the night of January 2 in the Julian calendar. When everyone saw the flames lighting up in the distance, they realized that their long march had come to an end.
Many Russians have never seen a towering wooden wall, and their concept of a "city" is very vague.
Rosberg is a densely populated city. Unfortunately, the internal buildings are scattered in a disorderly manner, and there is no city defense system.
When the young warrior saw the huge wooden wall, as well as the mottled snow on the wooden bars and the thick snowdrifts under the wall, he not only lamented that it was impossible for someone to conquer this place by force. thing.
At the frozen dock, the long ships frozen on the shore were clearly visible, and the towering masts seemed to be frozen and integrated with the earth.
There are still a large number of obviously processed logs piled on the shore.They all had their bark stripped off and were neatly stacked together, forming a number of even more peculiar wooden walls. What are these logs used for? The first thing many people think of is building a house.
Isn’t it about building a house?
Six extremely long logs were lying on the ground. They had also had their bark peeled off, and their white and extremely thick wood cores were exposed to the rays of the winter sun. They were lying on the dry snow. , is slowly drying out. Rurik deliberately placed them so that they could dry naturally and the moisture inside would sublimate as much as possible, making them easier to use when actually processing the mast.
Some old hunters are very knowledgeable and know that this object is actually fir, while other woods are mostly pine. Fir can grow very long, but as the main beam of a house, it is still inferior to oak.
Extremely long oak is difficult to find, but extremely long fir seems to be easy to obtain?
Overall, the condition of Ironburg is beyond imagination. Especially after entering the wooden wall, the Russians who looked around had to sigh that this city is so orderly. For example, the houses inside are all carved out of the same mold. While they are regular, the stone chimneys are always emitting green smoke, and the air inside the wooden walls seems to be intoxicating.
After all, more than 600 people suddenly visited, and together with the previous group, the population of Ironburg temporarily exceeded 1,200.
This has basically reached the limit of the current carrying capacity of the settlement.
A group of open spaces reserved by the settlement are temporarily filled with tents set up by Ross hunters. Some of the vacant buildings were owned by Rurik himself. He did not hesitate to rent the buildings to businessmen who came from afar and charge a higher rent.
Businessmen can also set up tents, but where are the comfortable wooden houses with fireplaces, thick wooden walls, and even beds covered with leather? Rurik also directly issued an order, requiring the merchants to either rent a house or withdraw to Rossburg with their sleds. If they did not pay the money and deliberately kept them, they would be evicted by force.
Withdraw? You have come, why should you leave?
Rurik immediately collected a fairly good rent, which totaled more than a thousand silver coins. In other words, a merchant charges half a pound of silver coins and rents the house for three months, which is the theoretical maximum sustainable time for winter hunting.
They may not be able to come up with the money immediately. The accounts are in arrears, and those who do not come up with the rent immediately will have to make up for it in the future. Rurik regarded this as a special commercial tax. These businessmen only learned about the wonderful sanctuary of Ironburg, and then went to the far north for the first time. They could pay extremely low prices. Price purchase, they enjoy a lot, naturally have to pay the price.
Ten pounds of silver were easily collected by Rurik, which surprised Otto who came here again.
The hunting operation has not officially started yet, and everyone needs to settle down in Iron Castle.
On a rather lively night, a group of people who had not yet found a suitableThe tribal women who are suitable for men are looking for those fledgling young hunters among the newly arrived Rus. To put it bluntly, this is blatant seduction. They are looking for young and energetic men so that they can use their youth to give birth to healthier children.
Otto no longer cared about these things. At the moment, in the dimly lit meeting hall of the leader's residence, the linen cloth spread on the floor was covered with a large number of silver coins that reflected a strong metallic luster.
"You got a new tax so easily? Boy, this is greed!" Otto said in surprise, "We arrived at Ironburg in less than two days!"
Rurik laughed out loud: "Dad, I asked all my mercenaries to move out of those wooden houses, and now all the people living in them are businessmen. This is the rent they provided, not a tax. We will still have to collect their commercial taxes in the future, and we will not charge less because of today’s incident.” Otto’s mind has not yet thought that he can make money by renting a large number of houses, and he was equally shocked. There is also Mechasta.
Especially Mechasta, it was hard for him to imagine that Rurik could easily obtain so many precious silver coins. In his opinion, every silver coin is precious, but in Rurik's eyes, the value of the silver coins circulating in the Roseburg System has substantially shrunk, and the internal silver coins are no longer precious.
Due to the wear and tear during trading and the trouble of recasting, gold and silver coins have a natural deflationary nature. The economic system of Rossburg has become complicated. The copper coins that were once the most widely circulated are no longer so strong. Silver coins have become common in daily transactions, entirely because until now, ordinary people in Ross still have a large number of silver coins in their hands. To put it bluntly, Rurik was using various means to get the tribe's silver coins, and finally used him to purchase the tribe's labor.
The large-scale purchase of food from the Melalen people caused a serious outflow of silver coins. Those lost silver coins will be earned back sooner or later. For example, right now, among the businessmen renting houses, some are from Mälaren! Collecting rent is a means of collecting silver coins.
A thousand silver coins for the rent is only a small amount of money after all. This time the father and son reunited, the two did not waste much time praising their family ties, and there was no need. Two powerful men sitting together, supposed to be talking about real matters.
Otto soon learned of the major events that had happened in Ironburg during his absence.
Some big things are obvious, such as the disappearance of a large forest and the large amount of wood piled at the dock.
Mechasta is also eager to show off the saw and longbow he owns, and once again swear his loyalty.
Can a longbow as tall as a man shoot a relatively light arrow 200 stikas away? As tempting as it sounds, it's strange that Otto didn't take it seriously.
Otto knew that his son was trying every means to build a big ship, and one of the goals of staying in Ironburg was to find excellent ship materials.
The wood placed on the dock has a reasonable explanation.
Otto stroked his beard subconsciously. Under the dim oil lamp, he looked more and more cunning: "Those fir trees may be good materials, but they look too long and must be very heavy. Rurik, what are you planning to do?" How to transport them back?"
"Use a sled." Rurik responded with a smile, his face full of confidence.
Otto subconsciously felt that this was not appropriate: "Those timbers look extremely heavy to me. How do you carry them to the sled? Those longest timbers, you plan to use them as masts, Is that possible?"
"It's possible!"
"You...you just believe in the power of warriors?" Of course Otto didn't understand. With a beard, Otto said, "Those masts are made of too heavy wood. I can organize a hundred people to pick them up together."
As he spoke, Otto suddenly slapped his head: "Oh, why don't you have to To put it on a sled, you just use the reindeer herd to drag the wood across the ice. You should understand that the frozen sea is a stable road."
Sounds like a good idea. Rurik still refused the solution.
"Why? Are you so upright?"
Rurik simply clenched his fists and made a banging sound, obviously gearing up to do something big: "Dad , Just look at me. I will make a brand new thing. I call it Crane, which can carry very heavy wood on the sled. This thing will have many exciting functions in the future.
Otto shook his head. He didn’t know what it was. Looking at his son’s worried look, he still said: "As long as what you want to do is a good thing, I will support it. Tell me. , how many fighters do you need, I will organize them for you..."