Chapter 480: Have a lot of sunglasses

The sea froze and the world fell into a snowfield.

The sky is still gray, and the world seems to have fallen into dead silence.

The snow began to loosen, and some people emerged from their snow nests.

Rurik finally pushed open the thick wooden door. He stayed in the cave for a long time like a rabbit. When he saw the outside world, he felt incredibly dreamy.

The hibernating Russians appeared one after another. They were trudging through the waist-deep snow. Once the two met, they yelled and praised the pile for surviving the blizzard.

"The snow accumulation this year is really amazing. Rurik, you'd better go inside first and put on your hat." Otto, with a stupefied face in the room, endured the cold wind that poured into the warm "cave" and called for his son to breathe.

Rurik immediately put on another layer of leather, and finally jumped and was buried in the soft snow, disappearing without a trace.

Then he stuck his head out, his fair face was visible under the white velvet hat, and a snowball seemed to appear on the snow.

Russians do not like snow. What they like is always warm land where they can grow wheat stably, and a good harbor that does not freeze all year round.

The world is frozen, and people must survive in the ice and snow world.

Fortunately, unless Roseburg’s reserves of supplies for this winter are extremely sufficient, everyone will not have to worry about eating safely and will hardly have to worry about keeping warm.

Because of this exaggerated snow accumulation, people's winter life has encountered extremely rare and huge obstacles. Because compared to previous years, the snow cover is not as extreme as this winter.

Life still has to go on, especially winter hunting.

The gray world blew a sharp wind like a knife. There was almost no snow on the frozen sea, and all the snowflakes were blown to the shore. Snow hills were everywhere in Roseburg, and There are houses under the snow hills.

Wooden ridges are sturdier than the longhouses of the past. People are still worried that if there is another snowstorm, their houses will be crushed by the snow, and everyone will still be turned into ice sculptures in the severe cold. Besides, the snow at the door and in the intricate streets has made people's lives difficult.

After being frozen for a while, Rurik’s head completely sobered up.

Without any personal order from him or Otto, the Russians who reluctantly went out were already clearing the snow with wooden shovels.

If there are advanced large-scale snow removal equipment, the snow in Roseburg will be cleared quickly, at least ensuring that there will not be too much snow in people's living areas.

Mechanical equipment does not exist, and people can only rely on their own hands and simple shovels and rakes.

The native residents of the Ross tribe, various permanent immigrants from outside, and various powerful traders who live temporarily temporarily are the current residents of Rossburg. Its population has unexpectedly exceeded 9,000 people. ! Among them, there were three thousand captured Gotlanders and people from Lake Mälaren. The residents of Roseburg were forced to live cramped lives, and their lives became even more difficult after the blizzard.It’s cramped, but fortunately this bad situation will change immediately with the return of spring.

More than 6,000 of these 9,000 people have sufficient labor capacity (including most children). A snow clearing work was officially ordered and spearheaded by the Duke of Ross. It started on the first day after stopping.

On the roofs of the streets and alleys, there are people clearing snow everywhere. They first cleared a large number of paths in Roseburg. The road surface was covered with hard-trampled snow, and a large number of reindeer sleds were running on the bloody road.

Just near the shore, a snow mountain is forming!

Reindeer sleighs pull loads of snow here, unload the snow and immediately haul new ones. The reindeer herds that Rurik ordered to be bred and cultivated once again played their huge strategic role. In this era, they were the "truck heads" of the Rus' people.

There are not only reindeer here, but also more than a hundred well-tamed ponies captured from Gotland. Carrying snow is just a side job for these livestock that pull carts and sleds full-time. Soon they will have to go to Ellenburg further north to do the most critical work.

The snow clearing work will continue for a long time. In the first five days, Ross people cleared most of the snow in Rossburg and nearby areas.

More than 6,000 workers continue to work, even in the dark during the short daylight hours. A huge snow hill about twenty meters high appeared. It was a complete behemoth and quickly turned into a play place for a group of children.

Under the snow hills, the Russians set up some large pottery urns, in which porridge made of oats and various vegetables was always being cooked.

The people saw that the generous Duke of Ross gave comfortable meals to all those who dumped new snow on the snow hills. Clearing snow should be a matter of course, and once it becomes profitable, people's enthusiasm reaches its peak.

Finally, the Russians were able to walk freely in their home port. It was a pity that all the ships were sealed by ice. The sails of the great Avora were also unloaded, and she was embedded in the thick dock. In the ice, it is like a fairy imprisoned in the ice and snow. The coast is dotted with purposefully beached longships arranged in a dense matrix. No one is worried about them slipping from their fixed positions anymore, because they are also sealed by the ice-packed snow.

The winter life of the Russians has begun, and the strongest and most ambitious men are ready to take action.

Reminiscent of the winter hunting in the past few years, each hunt has essentially evolved into an expedition. Hunters work in groups. They hunt wild deer, bears, wolves, white foxes, ferrets and other animals, and they also actively discover other human strongholds. Discovery means war, war means getting rich, and it also means glorious fighting.

A group of men were once imprisoned in their own homes. In addition to desperately planting seeds for their women, they also relied on the soft light of oil lamps to constantly and meticulously repair their weapons. It seems to the women that their husbands are going on an expedition in the winter!

Forced to marry a RussianThe captured women of Gotland were already shocked by the shocking scale of the legendary Fort Ross, but now they saw their new men's actions, and they were confused and worried at the same time. Life has been like this, and most women have acknowledged the reality. They rely on their new men extremely pragmatically, fearing that the man sharpening his sword will accidentally die outside during the winter expedition. In the final analysis, they are worried about losing their asylum.

The sun has finally returned, sweeping away the haze of the world and making this world of ice and snow extremely dazzling.

The intense light caused Rurik to collapse, but times have changed after all!

Clavason’s blacksmith shop once again showed a lively scene, and all five blacksmith shops in Roseburg had their chimneys spewing thick smoke.

It stands to reason that blacksmiths like them have accumulated a lot of wealth in the past few years, so they don’t need to continue to work hard.

However, the Duke issued an order to work, and one order after another from the tribe forced everyone to be very busy.

Among all the blacksmiths, the elderly Klavasen can be said to be a versatile person. Now he is no longer a simple blacksmith, but a master of more than twenty apprentices.

He is indeed not a blacksmith, but he is the first Russian "engineering master" recognized by Rurik. Even if this person does not have many technical abilities, he has integrated the Nordic technology of this era. A range of abilities of the craftsman.

Rurik provided creative design and process drawings, and the Klavasen family was responsible for turning the drawings into physical objects. The cooperation between the two parties has been very smooth over the past few years.

Rurik brought several followers to place Klavason. He came here to inspect, and secondly, he asked the blacksmith to solve a small object immediately. However, this small object did not require Klavasen to do it himself. Rurik thought that his little buddy Kamne could do it himself.

The heat of the blast furnace quickly melted all the surrounding snow, so the blacksmith's mansion appeared to be in a very strange state. While other people's houses were still covered with some snow, only the Klavason family's houses were covered with snow. Class houses always have exposed gabled roofs.

The blast furnace has resumed operation, and the large amount of carbon blocks, mountains of ore, and piles of clay molds stored in it are enough for smelting and casting to last for a long time.

Kawei is already an engineer. He stood on a high ground and shouted at the hired workers to serve this magical giant furnace. At the time of Rurik's inspection, the second pot of molten iron in winter had been emptied of slag, and the casting of pottery molds was in progress.

What Kawei is supervising is the casting of a large number of axes. This wave of casting will consume the entire furnace of molten iron and eventually turn into as many as 200 axes. Such crazy efficiency would have made you run out of gas in the past. Anyone dares to imagine. But this batch of axes has a blade on one end and a hammer on the other. Although tools cast from pig iron are not suitable for making swords, they are just right for making axes.

It is already a top product sold by the Russian people, and the price closely follows the market price.

Of course Rurik knowsThe Glan tribe in the kingdom is also producing and selling its own ironware, but they are still using extremely primitive methods to make it, and their production capacity is really low-level. They are not worthy to be the competitors of the Ross people, or in other words, the iron production capacity of the Viking tribes in the entire Nordic world cannot compare with the earthen blast furnace in Rossburg.

The Russians have upgraded their iron smelting technology to the steel frying method, and now Rurik sees the blacksmith apprentices he ordered to train, and they are working exactly like blacksmiths.

More than twenty people gathered in a shed. Under the shed were a large number of small stoves. They worked together in pairs, with one person responsible for turning over the pig iron and the other responsible for continuously pumping air with a leather bag blower. Although they are all children around ten years old, Rurik has rewarded them with excellent meals by name in the past two years or so. These Slavic boys were destined to live a hungry childhood. In Roseburg, they did have meat every meal, and now there was a constant supply of wheat porridge and barbecue.

After all, they are Europeans, and a ten-year-old child who gets such high-quality food has shown that he is different from ordinary people in strength.

In other words, all the children who received the benefits from Rurik became stronger. This remarkable feature made people of Roseburg's age full of praise.

Clavason himself was not idle either. The workers he hired continued to turn a wooden turbine blower, and the small stove in front of him was blazing with flames. He was still doing his job, making the carbon steel sword embryo into a good sword.

Rurik is a distinguished guest!

Klavason suspended the work at hand, recalled Kawei who was overseeing the work, and Kamne who was frying steel, and invited Rurik to a comfortable mansion.

The warm wood carvings are illuminated by a bright matrix of oil lamps. Klavasen and his old wife are sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor, while his daughter-in-law Lilia is holding her son Kuzneslav, who has just learned to walk. Kawei smiled like a fool, and Kamne was very reserved for a while when he saw his master Rurik again.

Rurik highly praised the blacksmith for resuming work immediately after the snowstorm, which reflected the strong support of the Klavassen family for the development of the strength of the Principality of Rus and was a manifestation of loyalty. He was highly concerned about the future production of all types of metal implements and gave verbal praise to all apprentice blacksmiths.

All these are correct polite words, but to be honest, the scene of them actively working is by no means an act. They are indeed actively producing, and Rurik took a reassurance.

"I'm very happy now! I think you all know what will happen in the future."

Clavason proudly shouted: "Go hunting in the north! Many orders for steel swords Guys, they said that the Duke planned to hunt down a group of white bears and let a group of elite warriors use the tusked heads of the bears as helmets. Such a gathering would definitely scare the enemy, haha! ”

"Of course, but I encountered a little problem."

"Oh? What problem can you have?" Klavason poked his head, "You are a hero recognized by everyone, can youIt is my honor to solve your problem. ”

“It’s not a troublesome thing. Rurik shrugged: "I need some special stained glass." ”

In the final analysis, what Rurik needs is sunglasses.

After his dancing explanation, Klavasen, Kawei and Kamne, the three of them have understood . Because these three people have long been supporters of Rurik's "atomic theory". They believe that this is Odin's wisdom. With the help of "atomic theory", they not only look at the various minerals at hand. With new ideas, they also began to consciously "do things".

They have directly bypassed the alchemy method and gone straight to chemistry.

Adding ruby ​​​​to the glass liquid will eventually turn the glass into a light red color. Following this routine, the Klavassen family, the only designated glass manufacturer in the Principality of Ross, accepted Rurik's new task, and this time it was no longer a simple one. Stained glass.

A pair of black lenses for the eyes of travelers in the land of ice and snow!

Klavasen actually had this idea after he first discovered stained glass. , after all, the glass with a large amount of lead becomes black as a whole, and it seems that the more the glass is added, the darker it becomes.

As the glass continues to darken, wouldn’t it mean that the sunlight on the snow will no longer be dazzling?

The cheapest material for dyeing lenses into grayish black is black copper oxide. Rurik thought of a chemical method for preparing copper oxide in large quantities using current materials and equipment. The core copper material, It was a large amount of copper coins seized.

Although the steps were a little more complicated, it still took Clavarson one day to make enough black coins to fill a small cloth bag. The substance, which has a strange metallic smell, is essentially a special kind of patina. Indeed, in terms of coloring materials, copper oxide is the glass coloring agent that the Russians can now produce efficiently, and compared to lead, it is. It is not toxic.

They started working, Klavason was responsible for mixing the raw materials, and Lilia and Kamne had already taken on all the remaining work.

The viscous glass liquid. Cast on a piece of extremely polished iron ingot, the hot red color dissipates, and the dark glass piece shows its clues, which are darker than the previous stained glass.

Luri! Gram didn't even need to experiment further. He took the cooled irregular glass piece and stood outdoors, seeing the dark world of ice and snow. No matter how bright the sun was, it wasn't just that, it was also Rurik's mind. It also reminds me of the huge business opportunities.

It is not troublesome to polish the lens into two square pieces of glass of about the same size, and it is also not troublesome to create the wooden bracket and hanging ears to hold the glass pieces.

“Do you like it? "Clavason asked knowingly.

"It's wonderful.Awesome. "Although Rurik felt that the sunglasses were a bit heavy, he was completely relieved after considering how wonderful their practical use was.

A group of people gathered at the blacksmith's house again, and everyone felt extremely comfortable.

Wearing sunglasses, Rurik has completely changed his temperament. The viewers feel from the bottom of their hearts that he is made more heroic by the sunglasses. It seems that anyone who wears them, men become handsome and women become heroic. Sassy.

Facing her future brother-in-law, Lilia was generous, but the dark circles under her eyes revealed many things: "I am already a woman who is good at making glass. I have been working all night long. Now I have created a batch of black glass. Rurik, I can guess what you're going to do. ”

“That’s great. Don't force yourself either. Rurik nodded and looked at Klavasen again: "Yesterday my father had a discussion with some people in the tribe. This year everyone must go to the north for hunting. The day of departure is not far away." I also went to the Hotra family's shipbuilding workshop to have a look. You are also very aware of the situation there. Two large ships are in urgent need of installing new masts, and the materials must be transported from the north! ”

“So, you need me to make a batch of eye protection sunglasses with excellent performance before people go out? "Klavasen asked with a smile.

"Exactly! This is my request. "

"Oh, don't be like this, your order is very important, I will complete it no matter what. "Clavason slapped his chest again, as if he was determined to win.

"That's really great. Making the frame requires carving wood, which is a somewhat delicate job. The winter hunt is scheduled to start on the 20th of November, and I want to order at least a hundred pairs of sunglasses. Mark my words, order. "

"Really? "Klavasen completely understood Rurik's intention: "So the buyers are the people from Beishou? How do you decide to price? "

"This...I thought about it, a pair of sunglasses costs twenty silver coins. "

"Huh? "Klavasen was a little surprised, "Is it..."

"My price is too high? I think it's already a huge favor. It's still the old rule, your family will get a corresponding proportion of the money. The share I got was all put in the big money box of our Russian people. After all, my mission is to lead the Russian people to become bigger and stronger. What I care about is not the money. All the money will eventually be used for everyone. ”

“Oh, you are such a great person. "

Rurik curled his lips: "This sounds a bit like a question. "

"I dare not. ”

“Then do it quickly. Soon I will go to Ironburg in person, Kawei, you should go with me. And you. Rurik pointed again with his little hand: "Kamne, you are going too. We are coming back before the Hanukkah sacrifice on the winter solstice. We have to bring back a large amount of shipbuilding wood and a large amount of chromite ore! Good job! Make sunglasses, so people who own them don’t have to squint all the time during the long journey across the ice.”