Gold and silver cannot be used as food. The returning Russian army is still waiting for their leader to distribute the treasure. Their hunger forces them to immediately rush to the sea and row their fishing boats to start fishing.
During the war, we could not expect the women in the rear to row boats into the sea and catch a lot of fish, but the people in the rear did catch some fish. Even though they fished hard, there were not many fish left.
Not only because they are women who are naturally weaker in physical fitness, but also because there are too few labor forces in the rear.
It is already mid-September when the army returns, and the migrating salmon begin to rush towards the rivers where they were born.
The men of Ross are already gearing up. They have obtained extremely critical intelligence from Coven's allies, and are waiting to rush north after getting their own war dividends.
No one expects merchants from the Lake Mälaren region to provide materials. They are a group of migratory bird-like guests. They come in winter not to sell agricultural products, but to process and purchase the products obtained by the Russians. Leather for profit.
A group of businessmen have arrived and brought good news of a bumper harvest in the farmland on the shores of Lake Malaren.
Once upon a time, all kinds of fish fed the people of Ross, but now the scarce wheat is no longer expensive. In other words, it's because the clan members have more money.
The men of Ross are warriors, hunters and fishermen. Of course, they also naturally become pirates on the sea.
Pure war of plunder cannot sustain a large tribe stably. The risk of relying on trade for the future of life is huge. They must engage in production operations, which means desperately fishing and even hunting giant beasts in winter.
The men are going north, to the far north Ross town of Elon Olawa Castle, to catch the migrating salmon mercilessly. Some men have also made plans to stay here throughout the winter and wait for the right opportunity to continue their journey north in the winter to hunt rare small animals and obtain precious leather.
Of course there will be a "Northern Hunting" this winter, but Rurik doubts that those business travelers from Narvik Port will come back and even spend the winter in Ironburg.
The Northern Hunt is still in the future. Rurik urgently needs to solve the current material distribution problem, and then organizes a huge fleet to rush to Lake Mälaren.
Take away your principal and interest, which is one of eight hundred thousand pounds of wheat.
The second is spending huge sums of money to purchase various supplies.
Winning over local men and their families to immigrate is the third one.
Because problems that can be solved with money are not problems at all. Rurik hatched a plan to drain the salary of the Malaren people, which was to use profits as bait to move the Malaren people to New Roseburg. By then, their group of immigrants would no longer be Malaren people.
A few days before the army returned, almost all men, women, and children from the entire tribe gathered on the beach of the Rus.
A grand gathering to distribute the spoils is held!
Here is Otto and all his relativesAccording to the letter, everyone dressed in gorgeous clothes, took a hot bath, washed their hair with soap, and took a sauna in the steam room.
Russian flags were flying, and many people were still wearing the blue and white robes of the Russians.
Everyone was very neat. They fastened their belts and hung their steel swords on their waists. They talked and laughed with each other while waiting for the Duke's reward.
Anyone who goes on an expedition, regardless of whether they die in battle or not, will receive the most basic reward, which is one hundred silver coins.
In addition, each person who kills the brave flag team will receive fifty silver coins.
For those who died in battle, their legal wives would enjoy all the above, plus a pension of up to 200 silver coins.
How many enemies were killed in the war against Gotland? Rurik calculated based on ten thousand enemies for the time being, so he took out ten thousand silver coins and distributed them evenly among the brothers as "enemy bonuses."
There are also some people who work hard and achieve great results. For example, a soldier wearing heavy armor, no matter dead or alive, will receive the "Despite Care Award" of fifty silver coins.
Those warriors who have started the expedition since June will each enjoy an additional bonus of one hundred silver coins.
There are also some of the craziest warriors, those who followed Arik to explore and kill from the east coast of the island to the west coast. Only a few of these fifty people returned to their hometown alive, but they were almost Crazy bravery and the vital information about the enemy that he discovered deserved a very high reward. Or people, or family members of the deceased, will receive an additional reward of two hundred silver coins.
In this way, it is completely acceptable for a strong warrior who has worked hard to receive more than 300 silver coins, or three pounds of silver, today.
However, those who can only enjoy the spoils of war are the two warrior flag teams participating in the war, the Malaren flag team, and even some adult men in the shooter flag team. Although many people participated in the war, they either could not enjoy the dividends of the war, or they could only partially enjoy them.
Rurik wants to sort out this complicated and complicated thing. What is this called? This is called clear rewards and punishments!
In fact, compared to the gold and silver treasures plundered, what Rurik took out was only a small part.
How many silver coins’ worth of treasure did the Russians put in their “principal treasury”? The roughest estimate is more than 10,000 pounds of silver coins, and this is just the plunder of gold and silver.
But no one complained that the Duke gave too little. Compared with the previous spoils of war, each small Ross family received unprecedented wealth. Even for families whose husband died and life was suddenly difficult, the wife received the pension from the duke and the war dividends due to her deceased husband, so the life of herself and her children was not difficult. Because the Duke has guaranteed his honor and power, as long as there is food in the warehouse, every native resident of the Ross tribe, regardless of age or sex, can exchange a silver coin for ten pounds of wheat, and ten pounds of wheat is enough for a woman to survive for a month.
Wait a minute! Duke Rus, the great Rurik, is indeed a saint! The husband died in the war, and the children’s future living expenses have beenContracted by the Duke. Children will be trained to receive a life-saving meal every day.
They are fighting for the Ross tribe and are by no means ordinary mercenaries who only care about money.
They got the huge sum of money they deserved while laughing loudly. The woman who received the money on behalf of her husband and son who died in the battle cried with joy while holding the heavy linen bag, and even turned to Otto and Liuli. Ke knelt down on one knee and performed the warrior salute on behalf of her husband.
The soldiers received dividends, and the families of the fallen soldiers had no worries.
The sailors, elite mercenaries, soldiers of the Malaren flag, and allies of the Covin deer herders who participated in the war all received rewards to varying degrees.
At least they all received the huge reward of one hundred silver coins. As for the soldiers of the Malaren Flag, they even received their own commission of a mere twenty silver coins, which was nothing compared to the bonus.
The happiness of the Mellaren mercenaries does not stop there, because they have become Rus.
The dividend conference finally reached its peak of enthusiasm.
A batch of extremely special treasures are waiting to be distributed. As treasures, they have been waiting for a long time!
Yes, a select group of as many as 1,200 captured Gotlandic women, waiting to be assigned their new men.
Those women who were captured early and tattooed have been taken away by their returned new husbands. Rurik sent people to screen out the women who were not old enough and put them into the "Valkyrie Legion". The rest were separated from the older women and distributed all regardless of whether they had given birth or whether the children were around.
Of course, this allocation is free of charge, or they are equivalent to a currency in themselves.
Rurik was not willing to set up a slave market on the beach in accordance with Viking tradition. He did not really like this idea, although it was somewhat reasonable based on this era.
Rurik hoped for a bit of humanity, a nominal denial that these captives were slaves. Only in name only.
The captives were divided into different grades based on age, orientation, and whether they had children, and they were all sorted by the Russians within one day.
So the last "ninth class" was separated by the newly joined Melalen people. They were grateful in their hearts, just because it was difficult for them to get wives in their hometown. In the past few months, they had gone through life and death for the people of Russia. They had money and wives, and everyone had a bright future. The wise and powerful family of the Duke of Tsicuaros.
They took away their new women, and there was joy that night...
The Ross tribe seemed to have completely digested all the seizures, and the population also increased as a result, but these women Have you really integrated into your new life?
Rurik was a little worried, but fortunately winter was coming, and they would adapt to their new life well during the long winter.
The most critical event seems to be over. A large number of fishing boats are heading north. With Ke Wen as their guide, they carry a variety of fishing gear to plunder salmon.,sea bass.
For example, the Ellon River (the Kemi River), where the Elon-Olawa Fort is located, has a large lake in its upper reaches. The Ross explorers have determined that there are quite abundant freshwater fish resources here. The lake is not like the sea, it is calm. And before the exploration of the Ross explorers, this lake was as pure as a girl. It had not been developed in any way, and the resources in the lake were as if God had given them to the Ross people.
Nearly a hundred boats left first, and Rurik was also actively preparing to go to Lake Mälaren.
It is already late September.
A bad rain hit, and the whole world became extremely cold.
No one likes rainfall. If the sky must fall something, it would be snow. The autumn rain season has begun? The drizzle continued until the 28th of September. The only thing that made the Russians happy was that there was no strong wind, so the situation was not too bad.
Hazy and wet, Rurik was in an inexplicably bad mood.
It happened to be during this bad rain period that the Sorgon fleet led by Arik returned.
Arik successfully completed the acceptance of the wheat, and he even used the threat of force to extort more wheat from the Novgorod Pine Needle Manor. Because the men of White Tree Manor returned home with a large amount of iron weapons, and each of them also brought a captured buckler. After living with the Rus for several months and being trained as Varyag warriors, the men of White Tree Manor were completely transformed. When hundreds of them got off the longboat and gathered together, the leader of the manor, Ligus, could not recognize them for a while. Until the group was laughing and shouting Slavic.
With the support of hundreds of soldiers out of thin air, Arik's search went particularly smoothly.
He plundered nearly 300,000 pounds of wheat in Novgorod, and obtained a batch of agricultural taxes belonging to the Duke of Ross in Novgorod. Compared with the former, the so-called agricultural taxes (repaid according to the contract The amount of tribute given to Rurik) was much less. In terms of population alone, the population of the Slavs living around Lake Ilmen is larger than that of the Melalen tribe. Furthermore, in terms of their ability to forage wheat, the Melalen people are clearly superior.
It rained during the transportation, and the Ross people, shivering with cold, carried the partially soaked wheat to the shore and stuffed it into the Gould family's well-waterproof warehouse.
Arik returned home with his Asraqi. He excitedly introduced his new woman to his wife Peravina, and a family dispute began...
After fighting and fighting, the two women still have to get along.
Arik, he finally tasted the trouble of marrying two women. Fortunately, the two daughters finally made a stipulation that Peravina would be the head wife, and Askard, the eldest son, would inherit all of Arik's property. As for Aslaqi and the children she may have in the future, they will only inherit Arik's bloodline and not even a single copper coin.
So on the 28th day after the rain stopped, the elites of the Rus tribe gathered in the Rus people's meeting room.
This proposalThe shed in question has been around for a long time. It was originally a wooden shed and was rebuilt during last year's major construction work. I have only seen the Gotland people's grand council. Is the Rus' one too small?
It is really small, but its excellent design of the fireplace keeps everyone immersed in the warmth of their hometown when discussing matters. The brothers can talk about important matters without any scruples, and then serve them with meat and spirits. .
Unfortunately, there is only dried meat now and no strong liquor at all.
Otto presided over the tribal meeting as usual. This is the so-called Viking NORDIC meeting. The elites participating in the meeting naturally have the right to express their own opinions, but in the Principality of Rus, Rurik has essentially controlled military power, financial power, administrative power, divine power, and even the largest say. Rurik is the one who makes the decision. Become the well-deserved spotlight.
After experiencing an unprecedented victory, the Russian people are unprecedentedly proud.
Otto just started the meeting, but in the end it became Rurik's talk.
Everyone was chatting and laughing about the war period and the women who joined the tribe. The conversation turned to Arik, who had made great achievements in transporting tributes.
Hallo Zuosen said happily: "You kid, you are like a bear of war on the battlefield. You brought the food back, which really solved our big trouble. Now my family no longer has to worry about food." Worry."
Everyone was praising Arik for his promptness. After all, it was three hundred thousand pounds of wheat! This was a huge food reserve that was extremely rare in the past.
Aric was praised for being extremely arrogant, but Harold Johnson joked again: "I heard that the two women in your family once fought with each other? This is not good, you must control your Women."
Everyone laughed out loud and started to give advice to Arik, and then some people took Rurik as an example: "My Rurik, he already has more than ten women. You are truly a role model for us."
"It will take a lot of effort to prevent them from quarreling in the future," Aric pouted.
Rurik responded with a wry smile. He did not necessarily have to have so many women, but...
He knew that he could no longer escape this fate, and he was afraid that there would be more in the future. More women.
Everyone is talking about their women. They are all wild men. Their nature is to have more wives and more children. They also boasted that they were good people, for example, they gave formal family status to the captured female slaves, and the children they gave birth to were all Russians. Such high moral character was the highest in the entire Swedish kingdom.
The meeting room was filled with a happy atmosphere.
Taking advantage of this pleasure, Rurik clapped his hands to stop everyone from talking.
“Three hundred thousand pounds of wheat have been crushed from Novgorod, which is more than we expected. But we have to get more from the Mälarens. Now you all listen to me Order! Especially you, Gould!"
Rurik began to lay out his plan.
First: Organize a huge transport fleet, headed by the flagship Avora, and rush to Gould Island in Melalen. Organize an army of 500 strong men and go to Mälaren to get 800,000 pounds of wheat belonging to the Duke. If King Karl refuses, the Ross army directly attacks Karl's mansion and declares that it will not fight fiercely with other families of the Melalen tribe.
Second: Prepare a large amount of money to purchase various supplies in Melalen and surrounding tribes, mainly agricultural products. In particular, try to negotiate with the local large landowning families and induce them to provide more wheat at a higher purchase price.
Third: Use money to redeem the debt slaves of the big landowners, and use money to induce the farmers, fishermen, and craftsmen of the Melalen tribe to immigrate.
Sitting here are Gould and his eldest son Snoleva. Based on businessmen’s intuition, they fully affirmed Rurik’s first plan and the first half of the second plan. Almost all the money plundered from the enemy belongs to Rurik, and it is of course up to him to use it as he likes.
But Gould couldn’t understand what happened next.
"Lord Rurik, there is something I don't understand."
"What is it?"
"We are businessmen, and businessmen should try their best to minimize the cost. Money in exchange for maximum benefits. Why do you want to increase the purchase price of grain? Wouldn’t this enrich the big landowners and farmers?” “Ah!” Rurik asked with a shrug. Said: "You really don't understand?"
"Me? I don't understand..."
None of the people present really don't understand, or in other words, they can't yet Understand Rurik’s deepest intentions.
"Everyone present is the elite of Rus. There will be no traitors among us. I might as well tell you. Me!" Rurik patted his chest: "It is to let the Melalen people decline, so we must Let the rich get richer first, and at least give them a chance to get rich."
This statement is still puzzling to everyone.
Seeing that people were curious, Rurik did not bother to speak obscurely, so he spoke in plain language: "I plan to discuss with the big families of Melalen only and agree with them on a high internal price of food." Purchase price. In order to get money from me, they will try their best to sell the grain in their hands, and this is just the beginning. They will find ways to get grain from ordinary farmers and sell it to us. There is a good harvest, but for ordinary farmers, life is even worse than last year. Those big landowners have made a fortune and received a lot of silver coins, but the farmers feel that they cannot survive. Will they find a way to leave? "
Otto pinched his beard and looked stern, just because he really didn’t understand.
Gould and Snoleva suddenly realized it, and they slapped their thighs vigorously. The fat on the faces of the father and son, who were as fat as seals, also swayed, and their excited smiles almost squeezed their eyes. Pressed until it disappears into the fat.
"All that leads to the third plan?" Gould said excitedlyasked.
Rurik nodded with satisfaction: "It seems you have understood."
"But, would those big landowners really do this?!"
"Yes, because their desire for wealth has no end. Tell me, would you refuse a mountain of gold and silver? In order to plunder a legendary mountain of silver, the Kingdom of Sweden organized a large army! This year he proclaimed himself king Olegin launched a final decisive battle for a silver mountain and finally lost his life." At this point, Rurik sighed: "Olegin at least pays attention to credibility, Karl... ...I have to be careful about his breach of contract. I plan to get at least another million pounds of wheat and bring back a group of immigrants. As for the future of the Melalen tribe, I only care about whether our Principality of Ross can use the huge amount of loot. Wealth is growing rapidly. High Priest Vilia told me that we were driven away by the Melalen people a few decades ago! Listen! ”
Rurik suddenly had an impulse, and he stood up: "Vilia will leave, and she will look at us every winter as the Valkyrie Speros, because this is Odin's order. Odin is the one who protects us. Ours, only we are real warriors, the Melalen people are not. God is encouraging me to take revenge on behalf of the people of a hundred years ago. I want to use this new kind of war, a bloodless war to destroy Melalen. The power of the people in Visby is just to stabilize the rhetoric of the leaders. Oh, by that time, there will be no Kingdom of Sweden, only the Kingdom of Ross."
"Ah, then I will praise you, King Ross!" Gould immediately praised the situation, causing everyone to stupidly clap along with the atmosphere.
The departure day was selected on the first day of October in the Julian calendar, and it was planned to arrive at Gould Island before the fourth day.
The residents near Lake Mälaren are impatiently waiting for the big Russian seller.