After leaving the mouth of the Volkhov River, Arik's squadron searched for the correct west bank in the huge Ladoga Lake.
The Mercury led many longships straight to the west. After a day of sailing, on a new morning, when the fog on the lake was dispersed by the sun, the dark green and long and narrow shoreline of the lake was in sight.
The fleet landed and set foot on this unexplored land.
Could it be that the mysterious Karelian people can be spied near here?
The warrior with a crossbow was ordered to explore the nearby woods.
Leather boots rustled on the soft pine carpet, and with keen eyesight, they noticed some agile pine trees jumping among the treetops.
Suddenly, an arrow flew past!
Those were the Kewen archers accompanying them. Shooting down pine trees with bows and arrows was already their specialty. The one who shot this arrow was none other than Tyravis!
"Good job, boy!"
The Russian soldiers praised him one after another, and the boy also stepped forward with a smile and put away the arrow stuck in the pine tree. He didn't have time to deal with the little hand immediately, so he tied its tail with a small rope and hung it on the belt around his waist.
He is almost fourteen years old, a little older than Rurik. Even with his height, based on his bloodline, he is obviously unable to look like a golden bear like the strong man Ross.
He has a slightly flat face, and his hair and beard are both brown.
It is said that the language of the Karelian people is similar to that of the Kovin people. It is for this reason that the young man led his tribe and was temporarily incorporated into the First Flag Team to participate in this armed investigation.
Towards noon, the forest exploration team returned during the warmest time.
"Have you found any suspicious traces?" Arik asked in a slightly anxious tone.
"No, there are quite a few squirrels. This is for you." After saying that, Terravis untied the loot and threw it away.
European red squirrels are very big, and the Nordic red squirrel's tail is even more outrageous. Such a large tail is helpful for climbing and jumping in the forest, and this is also a favorite of hunters.
This pine tree has a broad tail that is almost half a stika. It is really not small. Arik almost held this huge capture in both hands, which also attracted everyone who was resting in the camp to watch.
The brothers gathered. Arik stepped on a thick rotten tree, holding the squirrel's head with one hand and its tail with the other, showing off in public.
"You have all seen it! Our hunter made a big capture from this! There is no one else in this place, we can make a fortune here first!"
Everyone guessed Ali to some extent! They all raised their hands and cheered.
Arik is such a person. He has a noble status and a painful experience. His complicated and contradictory life experience makes him care about the feelings of his brothers very much. He is not a greedy person, nor does he deliberately give charity. He has made a lot of wealth through hard work, but he is also interested in grabbing new ones.Monopoly of wealth and lack of ambition.
The huge red squirrel moved his heart, and so did the soldiers of the First Flag Team!
Are squirrels easy to catch? Are the pine forests here filled with these little jumping beasts?
Even if they do not have a clear awareness, huge amounts of loot and hot money have poured into the Russian society, and the once rare silver coins are now nothing. Although prices are skyrocketing, everyone still has a lot of money! The Duke even provided many labor opportunities for everyone, and even disabled people had the opportunity to save some silver coins to buy surviving wheat.
The price of once cheap squirrel skins has increased. Those small squirrel skins are not valuable, but the large ones displayed in Arik’s hand are worthless! This piece alone can make a rat skin hat that is warm, comfortable and gorgeous at the same time. The price of unprocessed rat skin is two silver coins.
It’s still early, and besides, the brothers need to explore the area at this location. If they really find the Karelian camp, wouldn’t it be a huge fortune for the brothers to launch a raid? ? !
Besides, it’s a worthwhile trip just to plunder squirrels, ferrets (brown fur in summer), and foxes.
He gave his brothers three days off, which actually allowed him to start his own profession as a hunter.
Don’t look at the first flag team being young people from the principality. Each of them is an excellent hunter and fisherman.
They are not as capable as the Covin people who travel with them to shoot down the turtle doves directly on the treetops. Their archery skills are not good at all. The crossbows on hand make up for their technical disadvantages, and it is easy to aim and kill.
The wooden arm crossbow is not very lethal to armored enemies, but it fully demonstrates what it is like to be a crazy weapon for hunting small beasts.
Vigilant foxes swayed among the fallen leaves in twos and threes, and the sudden flying crossbow arrows completed the hunt silently.
They even hunted a miniature herd of reindeer, carrying eight deer back to the lakeside camp.
Some hunters went there for two days. Although they were on a hunting expedition in an unknown forest, their sufficient hunting experience prevented them from getting lost.
With the camp at the landing point as the center, the soldiers of the First Flag Team explored the lakeside forest with a radius of about 20 kilometers. They gained a lot from this trip. When everyone came back and took a roll call, they confirmed that no one was missing. Everyone showed their prey to each other and ate the half-cooked meat. They quickly came to an obvious conclusion - this is a place where no one is missing. Human area.
They were originally iron-clad old warriors, and they had a lot of equipment for killing enemies. They never imagined that they would now become wilderness hunters, so that the protective chain armor became a complete burden.
There are foxes, squirrels, wolverines, martens, and reindeer here, among which squirrels are the most caught. Whether directly shooting or making a net trap, each warrior has at least one squirrel skin to hunt. Some good hunters, such as the masters of hunting among the Kovin people, can have ten squirrel skins scraped around their waists.
Young Telavis is exactly that kind of personThen, he tied the squirrel's tail and limbs with a rope, until it was completely unfolded, and carefully peeled the skin with a steel dagger. The meat was naturally roasted and eaten, and the remaining subcutaneous fat in the leather was scraped clean by him with great care. Simple processing, this untanned leather will not rot after being dried in the shade for a long time.
He had thought about it. After completing this mission, he would immediately sell the leather in New Roseburg for money.
They got back on the boat, and everyone had an unexpected gain. They are not satisfied at all. Instead, they regard unknown enemies as wild animals running around, eager to be hunted by them.
Soon, the squadron advancing along the west coast of the Great Lake passed the mouth of a river that entered the lake.
What kind of river is this? No one knows.
Aric admired Terravis's superb shooting skills. He was on the flagship Mercury, patted the boy's shoulder and asked casually: "Do you know what kind of river this is?"< /p>
"Me? I have no way of knowing."
"Strange, you Kewen people have never set foot in this area?"
Aric's question is really retarded. , Terravis was too embarrassed to scold him, so he had to say: "If there are people moving here, they are also Karelians."
"Really? I think this is clearly no man's land. For three whole days God, my men have surveyed a large area. Everything that moves is small animals. There are no living people or even bears. This lakeside forest is a good place."
"How about we enter the river. Go upstream to investigate?" Taravis asked kindly.
"Forget it. My brother said that the Karelians should be active in the north of the Great Lakes. It's strange. If it weren't for the cold, clear fresh water, I would have thought I was swimming on a new ocean. "Where is the north shore of the great lake?"
"Maybe this is a freshwater sea..."
Arik shook his head and did not answer any further questions.
The river they passed was actually the Burnaya River. This river was extraordinary. As long as they joined the current and followed the correct waterway, they could reach the core area of the Suomi allies in Finland. But in the maze-like upper lake area, how easy is it to find an extremely tortuous waterway? Without a map, ships entering the upper reaches would have to make mistakes here and there. Even if the correct waterway is found, it is bound to be a very tortuous and time-consuming voyage.
The glacial lake area in central Finland nourishes thousands of rivers, which turn into large rivers that either flow into the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Bothnia, or into the sea-like Lake Ladoga.
Abundant water resources nourish dense pine and fir forests, where squirrels and marten jump freely, and also support large beasts and people.
But the forest is not a place to raise reindeer. The original meaning of Karelia is "herders", and they will not be stupid enough to graze in the forest area.
There is a large amount of grassland in the north of the Great Lake, which is a good place for natural grazing.
However, it is not just the Karelians who live around the lake, but also some other people.Small ethnic groups speaking similar languages are also living their own closed and indifferent lives.
Even the leaders of small tribes must recognize the authority of the Karelian Tribal Alliance, serve them, and provide tribute to the Karelian leaders.
An unnamed offshore island appeared in front of him, and Arick knew from his feeling that this was another uninhabited island.
Uninhabited islands often have their own resources. For example, some birds use them as habitats. Hunters can pick up a batch of bird eggs and put them on the hot stone slab to make delicious fried dishes. Eggs are really a great item for picnics.
They successfully passed the waterway between the island and the mainland. Until now, the entire voyage has been shrouded in boredom.
The rowers didn’t even have to exert any effort; many simply put away their oars. The Mercury and the longships behind it all had triangular sails, and they drifted slowly to the north, blown by the warm southerly wind in summer.
Enemies? Do the enemies really live on the shore?
People even began to suspect that the Duke had overestimated those unknown enemies and actually regarded the powerful enemies described by the Suomi and Tavastian people as really powerful enemies.
It has been ten days since I left the Novgorod people. Except for the familiar faces of the brothers, I really can’t even see anyone else’s shadow.
They start to become lazy, and often in this case, something abnormal suddenly appears in the distance.
Arik was awakened from his nap by the sailor. He hurried to the higher stern deck and indeed saw the boat floating on the lake in the distance.
"What is that? Is it a canoe?" he asked.
The sailor messaged: "After so many days, we finally saw other people."
"No. That is prey, we..." Arik wanted to say kill. But then they thought about it, they had been wandering in unknown waters until now, and they had no idea of the way forward. Who owned those boats? They were probably the Karelians.
"Let's go at full speed. Let's catch up with the boat before it escapes!"
Aric immediately gave the order, and the Mercury, which had a human-powered propeller, began to reach its maximum speed. .
The long boats took the order even further. They lowered their sails and extended their large oars into the water, like a giant water strider rushing through the water.
The brothers refused to catch anyone alive when the boss demanded it, regardless of the severity.
Looking at the canoe, the fishermen on the boat naturally noticed something unusual, and their instinct drove the fishermen to paddle quickly to escape.
Looking at the squadron that entered combat mode, the fleet was advancing at the fastest speed it could achieve. Soon, they saw a lonely canoe, and there were actually three in front of them, all of them running for their lives. .
The two sides have completely unequal strengths, just like a leopard chasing a rabbit, and the result is naturally the victory of the Ross Squadron.
The arrogant Russian warriors forced the canoe to stop. The warriors howled and even drowned the accompanying Kovin people.Questioning shouts.
The Covin people saw the frightened fishermen on the fishing boat. There were men, women and even children here. They were trembling with fear, but their appearance and appearance made the people of Kewen familiar and even friendly.
There was a canoe that was torsion slingshoted into the hull of a large ship. It fell silent quickly, and the person who fell into the water grabbed the dropped cable and was pulled to the Mercury.
The other two boats saw the situation, and the fishermen were completely helpless. They were easily captured by the Russians who boarded the boat, and they were tied up and twisted and sent to the flagship Mercury.
They were all frightened rabbits. The man looked calm, but in fact he was so scared that he was as stiff as a tree, with only his big eyes trembling. The woman was so frightened that she trembled and huddled up holding the crying child.
No one can expect Arik to have any sympathy for these people. If they started killing, he would not mind using an ax to chop them down. After all, he would become ruthless after doing this kind of thing too often.
After all, Arik acted very rationally on this issue. Even if he wanted to kill someone, he would have to wait until he got useful information.
He nodded to Terravis: "Boy, it would be great if you knew the language of these prisoners. I hope you can understand Karelian."
"I'll give it a try."
The face of Taravis made the prisoner feel a little bit safe. He sat down and asked casually, which pleased him. Although the other party's language was a bit strange, it seemed that Only some words have been modified.
Are you from Karelia? The prisoner denied it.
The woman and the child were still huddled together, obviously trying not to get these people to cooperate. Only the captured man claimed that he was not Karelian at all.
Who are they? A word called "Vipslane".
The Vipslenians? Are they on friendly terms with the Karelians?
The words of the captives were also very clear. They, the Vipslenians, or the Vips, existed as servants of the Karelians.
From this, Terravis accurately judged that the Ross Squadron finally officially entered the area controlled by the Karelia forces. The Duke's previous prediction was also very correct. The boats of the seemingly powerful Karelia people were also common canoes in Finland. Such boats, which were more advanced than rafts, would be like shaking a tree from a tree when encountering a large Russian ship.
Perhaps a young boy is trustworthy, and the prisoner revealed some very critical information that the entire squadron needs to understand most.
The prisoner explained it clearly, and when Terravis relayed it, Arik was overjoyed...