In this glimpse of the battlefield, Rurik chose mercy. In other words, obtaining treasures and materials is always the goal, and killing is a necessary evil to achieve this goal.
All the enemies who fought bravely were killed, and there was no need to use strong measures to deal with the remaining women and children.
Let them withdraw peacefully from Tamworth City. This arrangement is also clear to Magnute.
Because those women and children are also resources that the Balmok Vikings need.
The barbarian army is just outside the city, and a "barbarian leader" who can speak Rurik Latin made a peace promise.
To be honest, the bishops and priests didn't quite believe it, but there was only one thing that everyone was sure of - not cooperating would mean a bloody disaster.
The priests immediately announced the conditions offered by the barbarians to the trembling people. People believed the priests, and women began to carefully follow the priests out of the city with their infant children.
All the city gates are blocked, and the debris cannot be removed in a short time by weak women and children. They also had to climb the city wall, walk down the literal mountain of corpses and sea of blood, and face the armed Viking army in horror.
The old, weak, women and children who left the city at first were not persecuted. Rurik ordered his own people to exercise restraint, and many Balmoks were forced to obey the requests of the heads of various families and stay where they were.
However, the army watched the people leaving the city at close range, paying special attention to the young women. The brothers laughed and said vulgar words to each other.
More and more people came out of the city, carrying very few belongings with them. They were forced to gather on the banks of the Tam River, looking at the anchored Viking fleet and sighing.
A large number of people were gathering, and Rurik was really shocked by the sheer number.
The entire temporary prisoner camp on the riverside became increasingly noisy, filled with whispers from the evacuated people, who together became a noticeable buzz.
Magnut was both surprised and frightened to see so many prisoners.
He approached Rurik and pointed with his big hand: "Who would have thought that there are so many of them? They would rather surrender despite their large number? Or are they hiding many swordsmen?"
"Oh? Are you worried about those women?"
"They are worthy of vigilance."
"Forget it." Rurik shook his head, "They are not at all Female warriors, their beliefs restrict them to working in the fields, and it is a sin to take out weapons to fight."
"Alas...is this completely true?"
"Yes. Yes, I'm sure."
Magnut smiled slightly: "It doesn't matter, we can verify it tonight."
"Do it to them?"
p>"Why not?"
"That's fine. You can throw these prisoners to Northumbria, or you can keep them for yourself." Rurik stared at Magnut eyes, "You are the king of the Kingdom of York. From now on, you need local people to give you tribute. I have nothing to doThat is, I only want the wheat in the city, and even gold and silver don’t matter. "
"Haha, your request is too low, or are you suspecting that I am not generous enough? Magnute patted his son-in-law Rurik on the shoulder affectionately, "Of course I will give you some gold and silver." Your soldiers are all exhausted, so I might as well find a hundred more women for your men. "
The sun is about to set, and the world is orange. Nearly ten thousand people evacuated Tamworth, and hunger and sleepiness plagued the people.
The bishop announced that the city was gone. People, pray to the Viking army for food? Of course it can be provided, but at what cost? The bishops and priests were screaming, the men of Balmok rushed forward laughing, and the surrendered women and children screamed and cried.
The bishop himself tried to find Rurik, who spoke Latin, and finally found him.
The old man knelt on the ground and cried bitterly: "Is this what you call peace? You deceived us! "
To be honest, Rurik felt a little sorry for these peacemaking priests. He thought for a while, put on an innocent face and said, "I didn't take action against your women. . You see, my army is resting and I haven't even let them march into the city to plunder. "
"This...this is sophistry! Those people are clearly..."
"Shut up! "Arik stood up and kicked the old pig's foot aside.
"Brother, please be patient. ”
“Bah. This old guy thinks he's a nobody? "
The old bishop clutched his chest and continued to curse. Rurik had no intention of defending anything and said bluntly: "Anyone who commits crimes is not my army. What you see is the army of my father-in-law. He is the king of York. You should beg him! Look, there are twenty Northumbrian women cooking wheat in my camp. Have I ever done anything to them? Instead, they were happy to give me a job. You asked the wrong person. ”
The bishop still felt that this was sophistry but had nothing to say.
This night was the ultimate joy for the people of Balmok and the Mercia of Tamworth People are really a disaster.
Magnut did not feel that he had deceived this group of Mercians, and his people did not kill again. But in the eyes of the Mercians, barbarians attacked women. It was not much different from the killing.
In the early morning, a hundred young and delirious women were sent to the Russian camp.
Magnut came in person. A gift is given.
“My son, accept this gift. Next it's time for us to go into the city and plunder. "
"Is it them? Rurik glanced at the group of women who were in a trance and said, "Did your people take action against them?" Maybe you should keep it. "
"No. How could I lie to you? "When he said this, his face seemed to prove that he was lying. After saying that, he clapped his hands, and a brown-haired girl was pulled outCome.
"Who is this?" Rurik was a little confused.
"It seems to be a noble woman."
"It doesn't matter." Rurik waved his hand and pulled the detained bishop over.
But when the bishop saw the girl, he immediately exclaimed: "It's Mary, Her Royal Highness!"
"Princess?" Rurik became a little interested.
"Does he seem to be a member of the royal family? Wouldn't it be nice to give it to you?" Magnut then signaled to his subordinates and pushed the dazed girl to Rurik's side.
The woman slumped down on the grass. When Rurik lifted her chin, he noticed the tears in the woman's eyes. In the end, she actually suppressed a sentence: "Quick! Kill!" Me."
This is what it says in Latin.
"Kill you? No. You are from the Mercian royal family? You can speak Latin. Now, you are my woman!"
Rurik was very surprised. However, Tamworth has been destroyed. This is a royal city, and the nobles of the royal family should have suffered the pain of subjugation.
But it was really different for him to get a princess who could speak Latin. He still doubted the identity of the girl at first, but all the priests said frankly that the girl Mary was the beloved daughter of King Wiglaf, and The priest also said that the king's love for his daughter was the ultimate.
There seems to be something in there? Rurik felt that some priests seemed to have a look of contempt in their eyes when describing this. It doesn't matter, it's not appropriate to expect them to be like pugs wagging their tails when facing the Viking conquerors.
Another priest described that many years ago, the Bathing King of Wessex obtained the surrender of Mercia. At that time, he also mentioned a marriage request, but Wiglaf refused because his daughter was too young. .
She is only fourteen years old and is the younger sister of Botwulf who died in the war.
She is pampered and her beauty is far better than that of ordinary peasant girls. The person can speak Latin and must have received a good education. As a princess who lost her country, she still wants to die. It seems that this woman is not mediocre.
A poor princess is just a small noise to the whole war. Rurik is not in the mood to deal with the matter of the princess Mary. There are ninety-nine women sent by his father-in-law Magnute. They are also under control.
There is one important thing that Rurik must do personally, which is to find the granary in Tamworth.
The Balmok army first walked through the slope of flesh and blood, and then began to move away the debris in the city gate cave under orders.
More than two hundred strong men worked together and after a lot of effort, the closed wooden door was opened, and the long-awaited army broke in.
They began to loot, looking for all kinds of useful things.
Biyongni and his men rushed straight to the palace to find the warehouse where gold and silver were stored. The monastery was another key site of looting, with gold and silver vessels being plundered.
The Balmoks are enjoying the pleasure of making a fortune, but Rurik and his people are in a different attitude.
Thirty two-wheeled trolleys became the best transport vehicles, LiuliBrothers Gram and Arik entered the city with more than 300 people.
"There are many war relics here, all made by our arrows." Arik admired the twists and turns of the streets, and arrow feathers like wheat ears could be seen everywhere.
"Let brothers collect arrows, we will need them later."
"Yes. But I also want to get some gold, brother, what do you think about Balmer?" It’s so good that you don’t let us plunder it.”
“Just gold and silver?” Rurik said with a sullen face, “In my opinion, gold and silver are the most meaningful. We can’t eat it. Our hometown has a large population. If we don’t get enough wheat, everyone will go hungry.”
“But we obviously grabbed a lot of wheat.”
“It’s not enough at all. ! When you are hungry, you never complain about the abundance of wheat."
"Oh? Are you mocking me for being full now?" Arik smiled again. "Forget it, I still listen to you."
The granary is in the inner city of Tamworth. It is an inner castle. When the city's defense completely collapsed, the door to the inner city was wide open.
Rurik quickly found the granary. There were mountains of burlap sacks in those stone buildings, and every room was filled with the aroma of wheat.
"The Qi system makes me feel comfortable. I'm even hungry." Arik said with enthusiasm on his face.
Not only him, but all the Ross warriors present were salivating.
To be honest, if the soldiers cannot make enough wealth, everyone will be strongly dissatisfied even if they don't say it.
Rurik immediately shouted: "Brothers, let us empty these granaries! All of you, return to your hometown and share five hundred pounds of wheat for everyone!"
Five hundred pounds wheat? Everyone's surprise forced Rurik to shout again, and the answer was still this.
Ordinary soldiers in Ross have only started to eat a lot of wheat in recent years. Although eating oats tests one's bite strength, the comfort after eating wheat rice is far better than eating fish. Once you have this This kind of comfort is just impossible to stop.
However, Rurik, who sells wheat at a fair price, is standing here. The limited wheat is sold in limited quantities, which actually maintains a balance in Roseburg.
Even if ordinary people have a lot of money, they can buy up to one hundred pounds of wheat in one winter. It is only in the last year that they can buy two hundred pounds of wheat throughout the year.
Five hundred pounds of wheat is enough to feed the soldiers and their families for half a year! And when wheat is on sale in winter, you can also take your money to the official sales point of Duke Ross to buy cheap wheat.
"When you are hungry, no one will dislike the abundance of wheat in your home." Ordinary soldiers take this statement seriously.
Rurik shouted again: "Brothers, those Balmoks don't know the deliciousness of wheat at all. They think it is useless, so we will move all the wheat away."
Everyone started to move with a roar. A large number of heavy sacks were thrown onto the two-wheeled vehicles and the transportation out of the city had begun.
At first, Rurik and everyone took it for granted that it was all filled with wheat. When the hemp rope at the girdle of a sack accidentally came loose and the wheat inside rolled out, Rurik was pleasantly surprised to see that the shape was different from that of slender oats. of wheat grains.
"Haha! It's actually wheat!"
No one knows why their Lord Rurik suddenly shouted excitedly because of wheat grains.
Arik didn’t take it seriously, but his brother came directly in front of him.
"Hey, did you mistake wheat for gold?"
"This is wheat! Brother, this is wheat that is more delicious than oats, and it is the best wheat."
But Arik still didn’t understand his brother’s excitement.
Rurik was indeed very excited, entirely because in the traditional trade of the Nordic world, spring wheat trade only existed in theory.
At this time, special cold-resistant spring wheat varieties could not be grown in the Baltic Sea region. The wheat that existed was imported from other places, which was rare and naturally extremely expensive.
Wheat is ground into powder, steamed to make steamed buns, and baked to make noodles.
Looking at this mountain of wheat granary, Rurik was already fantasizing about eating noodles. In fact, he knew that with his current skills, he could make noodles with sauce immediately.
Rurik never underestimated the amount of wheat stored in the royal city of Mercia, because any king in his right mind would understand the relationship between food reserves and national stability.
The amount of wheat was still beyond his imagination.
Throughout the day, the Balmoks first searched for gold and silver, and then for civilian items such as pots, pans, and cloth.
Rurik was frantically moving wheat.
He estimated that a bundle of sacks contained a standard one hundred Roman pounds of wheat, and measured it using a captured scale, which was basically the case.
There are no ball bearings, and Rurik's subordinates are unable to downsize the roller bearings. These two-wheeled vehicles have all hard contact bearings and rely on a large amount of grease to relieve friction.
It was a bit reluctant to pile fifteen sacks of wheat on a car, but there was still a car that was crushed by two hundred sacks of wheat.
Rurik had to maintain the efficiency of transporting 1,500 pounds in one vehicle to transport food to the camp. A group of soldiers also carried a bundle of sacks all the way to the camp.
The Russians could carry nearly 50,000 pounds of wheat back and forth.
The Russians and even the mercenaries who stayed in the camp were soon ordered to join the operation.
What kind of crazy robbery is this? Rurik sometimes felt that he was really a villain. The food they stored was to supply the entire royal city residents, and food was another manifestation of the royal wealth.
By the time the sun went down, the Russian army had carried it out for as many as twenty-one times. While they were moving, they were doing simple statistics at the rear camp.
One cart of wheat weighs about 1,500 pounds. Twenty-nine carts of wheat are continuously transported. The continuous transportation has accumulated to more than 600 trains, which is more than 90Thousands of pounds!
Other soldiers carried back another two thousand bags simply by carrying them on their backs.
Even so, the Russians were carrying wheat at dusk...
Many Russians were panting and staying on the riverside outside the city to guard their camps, a total of one hundred and twenty. The female prisoner immediately accepted the comfort of the captured old priest of Lindsay Abbey and was cooking wheat for the Ross army.
They are all ordinary peasant women, and many are actually domestic slaves of nobles.
When they saw that the king's youngest daughter was captured, some of them were not sad, but rather happy.
I have been a humble servant since I was born. Aren’t those who were born noble now also serving as slaves to barbarians?
Perhaps, being a servant of a barbarian is no more miserable than being a servant of a noble.
You can’t say that the Russians are kind and good people, that’s not the case at all! They collectively suffered from Stockholm Syndrome and cooked for the barbarians. They themselves were qualified to eat a lot of wheat and even more qualified to eat a lot of salt.
The king did not protect his people, and the barbarians were not the terrifying demons described by the priests.
Those women behaved quite submissively, but they were still uncertain about their future.
On the other hand, Princess Mary is already in Rurik's camp.
She was wearing only cloth clothes and huddled up.
Rurik wiped his body with boiled river water and used soap that was made with chrysanthemum water and honey. When he washed his whole body, he had a strange floral fragrance.
He walked into the camp and saw the nervous princess.
"I heard that you are Mary? Mary, the princess of Mercia?"
The girl Feifan did not deny it. She stood up, clenched her fists, and roared in Latin: " You are all evil!"
"Do you think you are a female warrior?"
< p>But Mary still clenched her fists and hit her.“Absurd!”
Rurik tripped him up, then raised his knees to his waist and completed the chokehold with his arms.
He moved his face closer again: "You can speak Latin, I need you. You are still the princess of Mercia, and I am the Duke of Ross. Your father's kingdom foolishly chose war, and I Raise troops to attack according to the agreement with Northumbria. This is all your father's fault, and you have to pay for your father's stupidity."
"He...he is. What a bastard!" she growled.
Rurik was a little surprised: "You? Are you actually insulting your father?"
Prince Mary was speechless and choked at first, then asked: "What do you want to do with me? You, obviously just a child, dare to call yourself a Duke."
"Of course I am the Duke of Ross. You are only two years older than me. I want you to be my woman. I am a kind person. "
"You...can this be considered kindness? What is the difference between you and those villains now? You men are all villains! Besides, you are obviously just a child, an arrogant child."
"Really? I heard you were mocking me. Do you think a man can stand this kind of ridicule?" Rurik smiled and said, "Now let me show you..."
That night, the guards on guard heard the woman's shouting. The sound was so special that they knew what was happening in the camp.
It just so happened that Arik came back exhausted. He still took advantage of the chaos and looted some pots and pans with his brothers, which were of little value but of great use. He just wanted to tell his brother that he had moved the granary cleanly. When he heard the movement of his brother's tent, he opened the curtain with a smile.
"Yo! You're such a good boy."
Rurik was surprised and angry, "You! Brother! Close the curtain!"
"That's fine. You kid conquered a princess? You are indeed a man." Arik shook his head, and the curtain was covered.
For a moment, Queen Mary gasped and sobbed and murmured: "I am just a miserable toy. It doesn't matter to me if you are with your brother. I am just a despicable woman."
< p>"Why do you depreciate yourself? I also want you to be one of my wives and give birth to a little nobleman for me to fight for the power of Britain.""You...you are obviously a young man , How can I have the ambition of a hungry wolf? I am a despicable princess and a plaything. I am not worthy.”
Rurik has actually heard that this so-called noble Mary is in the court of Mercia. There are many more stories.
"Since you are a plaything. Then be my personal plaything, and I will take you away."
This night, the princess was tortured to the point of losing all her strength. Rurik was extremely surprised. After early morning, Mary's temperament changed drastically. She didn't have the violence she showed yesterday, but was as docile as a lamb.
She murmured: "You... are more of a man than my father. You are Rurik of Rus. If the secrets between me and my father and brother are exposed, the priests will hang me. You... ...Maybe you can really help me."
"Oh? Could it be that you and your father..."
Mary was a little numb when she said this unspeakable thing. He moved his legs closer to Rurik and whispered something in Latin.
"Is that so? I've already guessed it."
But Mary's face was filled with tears, and she begged again: "Either you kill me, or you take me away. I never want to come back again. This cursed Tamworth."
Rurik nodded. Although things were very bizarre so far, he did feel a sense of protectiveness. Of course, for rational reasons, this woman knows Latin and she can teach it to others. This is her greatest value!
Rurik walked out of the camp, and everyone saw that Mary was holding his arm. She was staggering, and they knew what had happened at the first sight.
PoopThere was a rumor that the Russian soldiers liked to hear. It was said that the Duke had obtained the surrender of the Mercian princess, and that the Duke's concubines had increased again.
Rurik was not shy either, so he brought the princess Mary, whose mood had changed drastically, to the parliament together with the Balmok family leaders, Magnute and others who had completed the initial plunder.
Rurik’s performance is really surprising.
Magnut laughed casually: "It seems you like the gift I gave you very much."
"Yes, I like this pet very much."
Rurik specifically used the word "pet", which made everyone laugh again.
He deliberately used this word, or Princess Mary also defined her identity in this way.
"Friends." Rurik said again, "You should all be rich. What are your plans for the future?"
As soon as he finished speaking, someone shouted to return to York to prepare. winter.
Magnut shook his head: "We won. In my opinion, the Northumbrians haven't arrived yet, and the King of Mercia hasn't been captured yet. It's obviously not appropriate for us to leave. I... ...I also want to completely defeat the King of Mercia. You all know that I am old and I want to continue to have the glory of victory."
"I also want to win. The king is a villain, and I want to kill him! His army must also be completely defeated," Rurik said with gritted teeth.
"Hatred against the enemy? Very good." Magnut said.
"Yes! Now I have hatred for that Wiglaf. I plan to wait for the Northumbrians. My captain of the guard hasn't come back yet? Besides, you and I both need time statistics. Captured and shipped."
Magnut looked around, and everyone nodded in agreement.
"I propose that I wait for them for three days, and they will definitely arrive within three days." Rurik said, "We also need to prepare for battle. In case Mercian reinforcements arrive, we have to Fight them. So your people must not be ripped off by those women." Rurik said seriously, and everyone laughed. For example, Biyongni also shouted: "You want it too. Take care and don’t let your new woman drain you. You have to save your energy to take care of my good sister.”
Vikings’ values and views on chastity are indeed very strange, or maybe they are. Very open-minded. Rurik knows that these are concepts forced out by extreme circumstances. Rurik has now followed the Romans.
He nodded and said: "I want to give food to those prisoners, let them clean the battlefield, cook and wash for us. Our coalition forces are recuperating and regaining their strength. I always have a hunch that we will There will be a decisive battle with Mercia. Even if we destroy their royal city, the battle will still continue." Magnut nodded and looked at the brothers present: "The climate here is better than Noson. Bria needs to be gentle. We need to have a big battle with them to defeat them and make room for us Balmoks to survive.. ”