Those eager and impatient people struggled to get out of the crowd. They lifted up their warm robes and revealed their white-on-blue-striped jerseys.
The first flag team showed their bravery here. They first gathered into a group and drew a line with other spectators, and then lined up neatly under Arik's order.
A flag regiment is divided into four squadrons, which are actually four centuries.
The centurion restrained his men. The group of blue feathers stuck in the leather helmets on the heads of the four men became the most eye-catching feature. Rick saw it clearly.
The originally quiet scene became a little noisy. Rurik stretched out his hands to signal everyone to be quiet.
How can orders be accurately conveyed to the people gathered?
With a sullen face, Rurik asked his wife to step back, and he stood alone on the platform, letting the wind blow his ponytail.
He pointed at Connuson and ordered him to come to power.
What can Conuson do? I couldn't help but feel embarrassed when things were not done well, so when I saw the Duke, I apologized: "Sir, I didn't expect that all the residents of the city came and made you see the chaos. I am guilty."
"It's true that you did something good. Bu Zhou, go and ask the idle people to go home. You can command some men and ask them to persuade others to leave. Tell the people that what happened today is only related to the First Flag Team."
"Yes!"
Conuson stepped back, and Rurik pointed accurately at Carlotta, who was obviously coming to watch a show.
The girl hurriedly walked up to the stage with a smile on her face and wanted to talk, but what she didn't expect was a stern reprimand from the man she loved.
"Did I... let you come? All the people who brought you back! Hurry!"
"Ah? I..." Carlotta was at a loss for a moment and reluctantly explained. : "I told the people about it. Everyone praised you as the greatest person, and they came here specially to look at your face."
"My mouth was covered with honey." Rurik's mood eased slightly. , "Are you all satisfied now? Let them retreat, stop staying in the cold outdoors, and be careful of diseases."
Rurik didn't want to get entangled with the rest, because a contracted person inside the palace The scene has been set up, and there are temporary maids and personal guards guarding the place.
He watched Carlotta return to the Ostara people's team, and watched those people leave reluctantly.
Now that a group of people had left, the other spectators felt bored, and because of Conuson’s persuasion, some people began to go home one after another.
Many people's faces were filled with disappointment. Women sternly scolded their children for running around and went home, while some complained about why their elderly husbands were timid enough to go to war. There are also the New Rus from Sweden and the Slavs from the south who have joined the group in recent years. They really regret the different treatment by the princes, but what can they do? This is the territory of the Principality of Rus. The old Rus are the most noble, nobler than other Varyags. Among the old Rus, the youngestThe light warrior is the noblest of nobles.
The sun is rising high, and most of the coldness in the early morning has disappeared. There is still no sign of snow melting in the whole world, and the city of New Roseburg is also completely white. As a result, the soldiers of the First Flag Team have put on wooden-framed sunglasses. Combined with their jerseys, it is indeed a beautiful scenery, even a little more Bizarre.
The rest of the crowd retreated, and Rurik reiterated his opinion.
"Brothers! I will fulfill my agreement! Every one of you! One by one, you are entitled to farmland of 100 stika in length and width! You all have the right to grow wheat on your own land. You Everyone has the right to lead their family to live a good life of eating wheat every year..." Everyone already knows these things, and now that the prince is preaching it again, it is another confirmation of it.
"Brothers! I will sign a contract with each of you! Everyone will enter my palace and sign a written contract with me face to face. This sacred contract will be recognized by Odin. In the future, you will The good days will also be blessed. Attention, First Centurion! Bring your men into the palace, everyone’s contract will be signed before noon!”
The people burst out with amazing shouts. The contract has not been signed yet, and their own land has not even been stepped on. Their faces are already filled with the joy of the harvest.
The once chaotic scene was restored to order, and the soldiers of the First Flag Team majestically entered the prince's "Winter Palace" for the first time.
A table was placed in the rather spacious hall, and a large number of contract documents were stacked. The beating flames of dozens of oil lamps made the entire hall extremely bright and at the same time brought a comfortable warmth. When the 100th team entered, the soldiers looked left and right.
This is the palace of the prince. It is not spacious and even a little simple. This is very different from the description in the legend. The prince's palace should be decorated with bear heads, decorated with a lot of gold and silver, and there should be a throne studded with precious stones, but there is none here.
There are bear heads, but there are not many of them, and they are almost the only thing that shows the nobility of the prince.
Indeed, the "Winter Palace" in New Roseburg is currently Rurik's palace. Rurik likes this location, but does not like this retro longhouse-style building. Since Rus already had the capability to construct three-story buildings with wood, stone, and cement, the prince's palace had reason to be built tall, preferably as the first building in the new Fort of Rus, so that her monarch could overlook the entire city.
Princes need a splendid palace to show their majesty. Maybe it is extravagant and wasteful, but the current palace is indeed simple.
Put aside the pending construction projects here for the time being, Rurik has been daydreaming these days, that in this autumn, he can walk in the endless wheat fields, watch the wind blow the wheat waves, and Hands touching wheat ears.
Dreams can come true, and it starts with today’s “Big Contract”.
The soldiers did not appear shocked when they saw the paper and the densely written words on it for the first time., they are delighted and obsessed. Who is not curious about rare things? This cloth-like and wood-like thing completely surpassed their imagination. Everyone was mentally prepared to take away the wooden board full of words. Unexpectedly, there was no wooden board here, only neatly stacked things called paper.
Paper can be circled and tied with rope, and it can be folded without being damaged. Its only disadvantage is that it is afraid of water. No problem, fear of water is just a minor annoyance. Besides, if the charcoal ink is written on the wooden board, it will fade if it is stained with a lot of water. It is necessary to protect the wooden board of the contract from getting wet, so this paper must not get wet, otherwise it will not be able to use the runes neatly written on it.
Both the rune alphabet and the Roman alphabet are derived from the ancient Greek alphabet. There is even a contrasting relationship between the two sides, and they can be transcribed almost without any obstacles. Therefore, in theory, those Russians who understand traditional writing can accept Roman letters in a short time.
As long as you can speak and understand the pronunciation of the corresponding letters, you can spell the Western Pinyin text with almost any accuracy. If the monarch further regulates the spelling method, a text will be completed.
Every soldier of the 100th Team of the First Flag Team received a contract document.
Ryuri asked them to read the few terms and conditions, and stated that since this was a reward, the recipients had no right to argue. After reading it, they felt that the terms were acceptable and they would sign a one-on-one contract with him.
He did not force his men. This contract was not mandatory from the beginning. After signing the contract, you must pay the tithe tax every year. It doesn't matter if you don't sign, you can just continue to live your old life as a fisherman.
They can all weigh the pros and cons, and the land the Duke was rewarded all came from the rebellious Pine Needle Manor that was conquered. This group of people directly participated in the war, and they knew best that those fields were completely fertile!
One of the main goals of the old Russians when they walked out of the narrow fjords was to find warm and fertile farming land for two days. Before they knew the fertile black soil of Ukraine, Novgorod’s Pine Needle Manor was the hometown. The best fertile field!
After a short discussion, the First Hundred team signed one-on-one contracts with Rurik.
The soldiers used beautiful mallard feathers to write their names, their father's names, and their flag centurions on the paper.
Rurik also wrote his full name here: Rurik Ottoson Principoulos.
Nearly all the people in the Principality of Russia have no surnames, or attributive names at the end of their names. Surnames are necessary for small ethnic groups within to strengthen their status after an ethnic group develops to an advanced stage.
As they signed their names, this issue was highlighted again.
Just like the surveying of fields in Novgorod and the taking of a census, the Slavs of the White Tree Manor had the same problem with their names. At least some Russians will use something to strengthen their uniqueness and play a role similar to a surname. What's more, some large families are already using real surnames.
FateAsking people to give themselves a surname across the board seems to be something that cannot be rushed for the time being.
Rurik could not ask these warriors to invent a surname for themselves immediately, so he asked them to write down their identity information in more detail, preferably including their nicknames.
No, they were just like Rurik expected, a batch of domineering nicknames appeared on the paper.
"The skull-cracker", "the stone-crushing hand", "the one the Gotlanders feared", the "whale hunter"...
Each tradition All men in Russia have nicknames, and Rurik doesn't bother to give himself some weird names. He only has one name, which is "Princip", the only prince in Russia.
In fact, among the people, he already has a series of names such as "Son of God", "Wise Man", "Ruthless Butcher", "Conqueror of the Sea" and "Denmark".
If every name was turned into a medal, then Rurik would definitely have a pair of extremely strong fish scale armor.
The smart man realizes the great value of signing this contract, that is, he and Rurik are a community of destiny in every sense.
It is the contractor's obligation to pay taxes to the prince, and the contractor is also obliged to join the army and fight for Rus.
The prince also has his obligation, which is to protect the life rights of the contractor and his family members at all times. Even if there is a disaster, he also ensures that the contractor and their family members will not die of hunger, disease or freezing.
Over the years, the prince has taken care of all the children of brothers who died in the war, and even the vast majority of the children in Ross's headquarters have been raised by the prince.
The prince is young and promising, his reputation is guaranteed, and their contract was signed happily.
The four centurions completed the signing at a very fast speed, which made Rurik worried that they did not read the terms carefully.
They do, but there is no need to look at the terms in detail. There are not many terms written in black and white on the paper. The entire article is written in plain language. You can really understand the meaning after just a few glances.
People who signed the contract were asked not to leave because the prince wanted to announce a decision that would benefit everyone.
Rurik deliberately kept it secret, which really whetted the appetite of the brothers.
The noisy hall finally quieted down, and a large number of contract documents were harvested. Rurik knew that he had also done a census of the soldiers of the First Flag Team.
Judging from the names alone, there are really many of his most capable subordinates named after Bjorn, Harold, Ivar, Karl, etc. It is no wonder that these complimentary words are very popular. They are just too similar to each other. Fortunately, their nicknames are varied and even bizarre, and some of them are humorous.
They gathered outdoors and talked about it, but in fact many people had already learned the news.
The news was revealed by Arik that the co-author prince wanted to buy the squirrel skins in everyone's hands.
Up to now, no one in the New Roseburg market is willing to buy leather anymore, and the market here has been saturated. It's okay to force the leather to be sold.Yes, that kind of selling for almost no money can indeed get rid of all the leather on hand. But who would be stupid enough to do that? A silver coin cost fifteen or sixteen pieces. At this extremely low price, no one was willing to keep lowering the price.
Now the situation has become more responsible. Many people’s original plan was to transport the leather to their hometown after the ice and snow melted, or to transport it to Tombstone Island and sell it directly to local merchants, even if it was difficult to get a silver coin per piece. The price of the leather will definitely not make you less.
But now that the contract with the prince has been signed, everyone cannot go to the West now. Moreover, the fathers of some brothers also signed another contract with the prince, so he could not leave.
There are many reasons not to leave. As the current backbone of the principality, the First Banner Squadron has to go to Novgorod to cultivate their own land, and they must always accept calls and wait for opportunities to attack Karelia. A man.
If the prince buys everyone's leather for some reason and sells it at such a low price, many people will weigh it again and feel that this is a helpless move.
Because many squirrel skins are simply peeled off from the meat, there is too much leather, and the fat layer under the skin has no time to be scraped off. Such leather would begin to rot, smell, and turn into useless filth within a few days during the warm season. Fortunately, it was freezing cold now, and the leather was as hard as stone slabs. Objectively speaking, because the leather is frozen, it has a certain freeze-drying effect, and the leather loses water and becomes more durable.
New Roseburg lacks the processing conditions for tanning leather. The veterans of leather processing are all in their hometown, and the necessary Glauber's salt is mined from the stone piles in the mountains of their hometown.
What is very bad is that the most lacking thing here in New Roseburg is stone. There is not even a mountain in the nearby area, only endless forests and endless squirrels.
Without Glauber's salt tanning, all leather becomes worthless as the weather warms.
This was all part of Rurik's plan. He deliberately did not mention the purchase of leather before all the contracts were signed. According to the agreement, the brothers of the First Flag Team should pack their bags and sit down. We took a reindeer sleigh to Novgorod to wait for the spring plowing. Rurik promised them that since the large-scale immigration project will be carried out this year, their wives and children will board the fleet and fight from their hometown to reunite with the Novgorod family. As husbands, they want to build a new home in Novgorod and welcome their families with their babies.
It becomes very important to immediately turn the wealth obtained from hunting into silver coins that can be easily carried.
Rurik finally came out again. He ordered four centurions to form a matrix formation around the rammed earth platform in the square, so that his preaching could be accurately heard by everyone.
"I heard that you have caught an amazing number of squirrels, but there are not enough buyers here. Now I am here to buy all your squirrel skins and other leathers! I have them in my hands now Ready-made silver coins! You can bring the leather this afternoon and I’ll charge it at the price of fifteen silver coins.purchase! ”
Rurik has no intention of saying anything else. Anyway, after the weather gets warmer, these soldiers who cannot go to the west cannot let the leather rot.
So what Rurik has on hand is really Do you have a lot of cash?
Of course not. The boxes containing a lot of silver coins are all in Roseburg. Rurik does have a lot of wealth in New Roseburg, which is abundant in the granary. Oats.
There is indeed someone who has a lot of wealth, and that is Aslaqi’s family.
Her father, Harald, has been actively reviving the family, Aslaqi. The mill business brought new impetus to the family's revival. The largest leather buyer in New Roseburg was Old Harald. He was doing this kind of business in Gotland. Now he is just returning to his old business, but he has lost too much. Due to practical reasons, it is no longer possible for him to process a large amount of leather in a short time. Besides, the processed leather still has to be sold. It is impossible for Old Harald to consume all the silver coins on hand to stud, even if the price of leather is extremely low, because he still has to sell it. When the amount of Glauber's salt was exhausted, he announced that he would stop buying it, which further caused the market price to drop.
Their family still had a lot of silver coins.
Perhaps the brothers still had it on hand. Twenty thousand pieces of leather are unsaleable? As a prince, Rurik ordered Aslaqi to give out fifteen pounds of cash. He was indeed forcing his second sister-in-law to do this.
But Aslaqi. It’s not a loss. Rurik paid the price by promising to provide 15,000 pounds of dry oatmeal, and another thousand pounds of oatmeal was regarded as additional interest.
How much can the oats be paid for? The sky was in place again, and Rurik got the money that day.
In the afternoon, thousands of people gathered in Harvest Square again, and they saw the warriors of the First Flag Team carrying the money. The wooden poles came with an astonishing amount of frozen squirrel skins and sled skins tied to hemp ropes.
Everyone paid one hand for the goods, and everyone saw the great Prince of Rus making a fuss. When purchasing leather, the afternoon sun was very gentle, and the onlookers saw with their own eyes the smiling faces of the soldiers holding the silver coins, and the brilliant light reflected from the silver coins.
It was not like they were just hunting. There were a lot of Slavic immigrants who came to the city in the early years. They were all human beings. After mixing with the Rus for a long time, the hunting skills of this group of Slavs also improved.
By the evening, Rurik arrived. He had already planned to close the stall, but it turned out that more than a hundred Slavic men were dragging their sleds with some unsalable various leathers on them, begging the Duke to be merciful and buy them.
This was not what he expected. , his guards also wanted to expel these people on behalf of their master.
If it would be harmful to his own prestige,
Rurik could ask in Slavic: "What if." I'll give you some oats, will you? Ten pounds of oats are exchanged for one silver coin, and the exchange principle I have established is just and stable. ”
Everyone nodded one after another, hurriedly offered their leathers, and smiled and sighed, “The gods will always bless you.”
Rurik expected to purchase 20,000 pieces of various small animal hides, but the results did not meet expectations, but in fact it was basically completed. The price was very low, and this and 18,000 pounds of oats were consumed overall.
If all these leathers were processed, wouldn’t they be shipped to the Danes for two silver coins each? No! If a large amount of leather enters, the local leather market will be in chaos. They all have to sell it at a low price.
There is no harm in dumping. Even if the price drops to one silver coin for two pieces of leather, he will still make a huge profit.
Is this considered a prince acting as a profiteer? Rurik didn’t think so. Business was the Vikings’ specialty. He is well aware of the core reason why he can make a lot of money from it - the powerful Ross fleet has the best water transportation capability in Europe in this time and space.
The acquired leather will be transported back to the hometown with the entry of the Russian Navy. It can be tanned in a short time, will not decay in its lifetime, and can be turned into cutable leather clothing materials.
The efficiency of logistics determines the success or failure of business and is equally applicable in this era.