The Russian army did not stay long. They continued to line up on the grassy plains by the lake and continued southward.
They quickly saw clearly the fleet of ships that had been moored on purpose, and also saw the village that suddenly sprung up in front of them.
Rurik was in a good mood and asked his brother Arik: "In the village ahead, where are the people who left the forest?"
"They are there. Only part of it... There must be more yet to be discovered."
"I understand. It depends on Medved's future work."
Rurik doesn't know. Yes, Medved and his army, who were ordered to do this, were also rushing along the lakeside. The two armies were heading towards each other, and their encounter with each other was already certain.
The Russian army was the first to arrive at the first village. At first glance, the people who were watching admiringly gave Rurik the first impression of their poverty.
Even the young children in the team have an absolute advantage in height compared to the villagers.
The villagers resemble a group of dwarves, and the males among them are short and thin. Can such people be trained into qualified soldiers? Rurik had some illusions about them, but now his illusions are half shattered.
The Slavic flag soldiers stationed in the village paid a warrior salute to their prince, and immediately brought a man and pointed out that this man was the leader of the village.
The leader?
Rurik raised his chin and looked down at the short man who nodded and bowed: "Are you the village chief? Are you really from the forest?"
The village chief was speechless for a moment because of nervousness. Come, he just kept staring at the completely uniformly dressed Russian army, feeling that this was the army of God.
"I have a question for you!"
After a loud shout, the village chief hesitated to explain his identity and the situation of the entire village.
They also spoke in Ilmenoslav dialect, and Rurik naturally understood them completely.
"Your name is Zaitz (Rabbit)? Your village is called Pig Tooth? That's weird."
The village chief just smiled and remained silent for the time being.
If this group of people want to be obedient to the people, their current behavior is indeed somewhat obedient. Rurik looked at the faces of men, women, and children. He could not see any anger. Everyone looked at them with smiles and curiosity.
So Rurik directly ordered: "Let your people stand still! I want to check it carefully."
The village chief did not know why, under the absolute military power, I had to do it.
They were gathered into a group, and the curiosity they had just turned into uneasiness now. Rurik looked at them in circles with his hands behind his back. He was looking for girls with beautiful faces among them, just to satisfy the needs of his young warriors.
He was a little disappointed with a group of "chaihuo girls". Fortunately, they were still young. When the food was improved in the future, they would still have the beauty they should have.
In front of them, Rurik suddenly stood up, spread his legs and pinched his waist, and announced in Slavic: "I! Rurik! Prince of Rus! I willI am your greatest leader, now you all surrender to me! Your surrender is the most correct decision in your life! I promise you that you will not be slaves. As long as you give me tribute every year, I will guarantee your life safety. Any enemy who harms you will be annihilated by me. However, if you betray me, you will be mercilessly killed! ”
Is he the Prince of Rus? He is really a young man as the soldiers said. But is he really a Varyag? Why can a Varyag speak our language?
There are still many questions in the people's minds. At least everyone understands the words and simply believes in the safety promise.
After that, Rurik casually handed over the man named Zaiz. The village chief called to his side.
The village chief immediately asked: "Your Majesty, as long as... we remain absolutely loyal, can we always have your safe protection? ”
“Of course. You will also become more prosperous than ever before. Surrender to me and I will give you a beautiful life in the future. ”
“Oh! Then you must be the divine messenger sent by God to save us. "
Rurik shrugged this compliment: "I am the son of God and the spokesperson of God in the world. Now you have to make some gestures to prove your loyalty! "
The village chief hesitated for a moment and then said: "It's up to you. ”
“Okay. Ask all the unmarried girls in your village to come forward and I will make a selection. "
"Huh? ! "
"You hesitated? "Rurik's eyes became sharp.
"This matter...the soldiers had taken away several women a few days ago. Do the princes still want to..."
"Of course. "Rurik was fully aware of those circumstances, and he fully supported them, so he deliberately asked: "I said before, the woman we took away cannot be a slave. Do you think the Rus warriors are not worthy of having your women? ”
The powerful army was close at hand. Although the village chief was reluctant, he could only lower his head and ask the villagers to hand over the girls first.
This village barely reached 200 Among them, the number of girls gathered together was actually very small, only about twenty. In comparison, there were more boys in the village.
Rurik believed in good faith. The girl had already been plundered by the young warriors from White Tree Manor. In fact, he could also estimate that under the living conditions of very limited supplies, any family would give priority to raising their own sons. As for the son's future marriage, it was too far away. Far less important than the asset gain brought by a male labor force. These people live in the forest and are very likely to selectively disappear some girls and underdeveloped babies. If living conditions can be improved, this situation will disappear instantly. < /p>
What happened to the Russians will definitely happen to these people again.
Rurik must first satisfy his own life-long affairs, considering Fisk’s. In the sixth flag team, even if boys and girls are in the free groupThere are still a hundred people who can't get their wives for the time being.
According to Slavic tradition, a twelve-year-old girl will be betrothed to her parents for marriage, so the so-called girls Rurik could examine were all too young.
After asking around, only five of the girls were basically of age, but their short stature was a bit unconvincing.
Rurik pointed with his big hand: "These are the five girls who are now marrying my soldiers." Then he shook his head and asked the young boys in the army: "Come out five people and claim your real wives. "
At first, the boys of the Sixth Flag Team were busy laughing, and finally there was a push. Five of them were probably pushed out as a prank.
Looking at those girls who are like commodities, they have no right to choose their own marriage according to tradition, and they can only stand numbly after learning the situation.
Even if those boys came out because of the pranks of their companions, after all, they could solve their life-long event today, and they readily accepted the current situation in an instant. Those girls may not be beautiful, they may even look a little dirty and short, it doesn't matter at all.
The prince is fulfilling his promise. He has given such a great gift. If he doesn’t follow up, wouldn’t it be disloyal to the prince?
The five boys hurriedly grabbed the arm of the girl they liked, pulled her to their side and then pulled her into the military formation.
Rurik nodded with satisfaction and signaled the boy who got his new wife to immediately bring out his own dry food.
There are two types of prefabricated staple foods commonly used by the Russian army today: hard bread cubes and flatbread. In terms of carrying capacity and portability, everyone prefers to stuff pancakes into backpacks.
For a woman who is weak and belongs to him, a man's loving heart is completely awakened. They took out a piece of cake from their bag and handed it to their woman. The five girls were timid at first, but when they realized it was food, they started biting it like little wolves.
"What is going on..." The village chief and the villagers were stunned.
Rurik then smiled and said: "As I said, they are warriors who married me, they are not slaves, they deserve to have a good meal." After that, he pointed to the village chief: "Again I’ll give you some treasure.”
A moment later, a small cloth bag was thrust into the village chief’s hand, and the whole village was shocked as the hemp rope was opened.
"White particles? Could this be the legendary salt?"
"It is salt. Those of you who surrender to me, you must not get this at all in the forest. "Grow a baby."
Village chief Zaiz was crying while holding the cloth bag. He knelt on the dirt and mumbled a lot of words that seemed difficult to understand. It's all praise.
Although there are many ways for people to obtain sodium ions, even if salt is not available in life, they can still be obtained from natural foods. It’s just that compared to directly supplementing Baihuahua’s mineral salts, the efficiency of obtaining salt from food is too slow. These villagers are passively isolated from the world. In the past, the area around Lake Ilmen wasThe lakeside farmers took the lead in buying salt at high prices with the visiting Varyag merchants and Smolensk merchants Krivich. They bought the salt only for their own consumption, and there was no surplus salt to sell to the forest people.
The source of the salt they can obtain comes entirely from the shores of the Black Sea. Today, Crimea is still firmly controlled by the Eastern Roman Empire, and the military stronghold of Odessa is also in its hands. Local merchants boil seawater in pottery urns. After a simple separation operation, most of the bitter brine is removed, and the remaining salt is mainly sodium chloride and a small amount of potassium chloride.
Salt has been transported through layers, and it has become expensive to transport it to Lake Ilmen. Large farms must exchange large amounts of leather for it, and this transaction is not stable at all.
The situation of people in large farms is slightly better. On the other hand, in forest farms with a larger number and extremely dispersed distribution, their people generally suffer from hyponatremia and hypokalemia. If they do some high-intensity physical exercise Labor is bound to cause you to fall asleep for a while, or even die directly from pulmonary suffocation caused by hypokalemia. They didn't know the reason and could only appeal to their belief that the deceased was punished by the god of the forest.
Rurik still looks arrogant, and it is his arrogance that makes poor people only feel respectable.
"This is the reward for the loyal, salt will be given to you! In addition..."
Then there were ten mass-produced cast iron axes. On the ground: "These axes are also given to you."
What else can the villagers say? If they ask for a bride price for a girl to marry, these axes and salt are already huge wealth in everyone's view of wealth. They all knelt down and cheered, praising the prince as a good man.
Eating salt can help you survive, and the new ax will improve production and life. Rurik was using what he considered to be inexpensive things to win over people's hearts, and it seemed to be working.
The name "Pig Tooth Village" always made Rurik feel a little indecent. He quickly understood the origin of the village's name. The large tusks of pigs were used as spearheads, and the smaller tusks were polished into arrow clusters. Apparently, in the Valdai plain of Eastern Europe, where stones were scarce, animal teeth replaced stones as weapons as a matter of course.
Rurik gave them a very simple and even boring name "New Village", which was shortened to Novotin in Slavic.
The Prince of Rus has fully demonstrated his authority in this village and seems to have gained a group of new fans.
The group of people did not stay any longer in Xinyi Village. The five selected lucky girls also followed the team after eating the pie. To be precise, they followed her man.
The flag signal came from the lake. The fleet, which had rested for a while, immediately pulled anchor, and the sailors basking in the sun resumed maneuvering the ship and continued southward.
It didn’t take long for the team to reach the second village. Rurik repeated his old tricks, preaching again, asking for girls, and giving salt and iron tools. Everything went well, and the villagers felt that they were getting a bargain and were willing to believe in a bright future.
The second village was named "New Second Village".Pronounced Novotva in Slavic. Then there are the "New Third Village" and the "New Fourth Village"...
Rurik is inspecting his new subjects. The prepared salt and iron tools are being given away, and his young boys are also there. The constant acquisition of women has led to the expansion of the entire team.
Those girls were still weak after all. They were allowed to sit on carriages and deer carts, and the girls saw this mighty team from a completely new angle.
They saw many girls carrying bows and quivers on their backs. Their beautiful faces and blond hair looked like fairies in the forest. Those female warriors are also Varyags! With what they saw with the naked eye, these Slavic girls who left the forest felt that the Varyag conquerors were not at all as terrifying as their parents said. They even heard the saying: If you marry us, you become us.
After Rurik completed his inspection, the entire team could stop and rest.
Just when we met the seventh village, a wonderful encounter happened!
Two armies marching towards each other, both carrying Russian flags, collided with the armies of Rurik and Medvet.
What a wonderful chance encounter it is to see the prince personally leading an army for inspection outdoors? !
For this reason, both armies paused and shared intelligence with each other.
When he learned that the prince was taking a tour around the lake before the autumn harvest, Medved asked for a good report. He proudly claimed that he had pulled out eleven villages from the forest at once, and that this work would be expanded until next spring.
The army rested in place, and a team of a thousand people was entrenched in the seventh village. The villagers here were both curious and afraid.
"One thousand", this number is a very big number in the villagers' concept, and the army in front of them is clearly invincible!
Medved also understood the prince's policy towards the new subjects. He was a little surprised. They were obviously a group of poor people, so why did the prince reward them with salt and axes? The prince has his own purpose, but his stupid head still doesn't understand it!
"Are you going back to prepare for the autumn harvest?" Rurik asked knowingly at the last moment.
Medved nodded: "Exactly. I still have a lot of information to report to you, but..."
"You don't need to say more. There is nothing to do now. Preparing for the autumn harvest is more important. Your people should go back quickly. After the autumn harvest, I will collect grain taxes from the lake according to the list. I will need your help then. "
The two teams met each other, rested for a while, and then parted ways. Through the other party's brief report, Rurik had a better understanding of all the new subjects.
The team advancing by land and water rushed to the eleventh village, which was the village that was only two days and nights away from the forest.
The building of the house has just begun and the raft has just been completed.
The strong village chief lamented the fertility of this land and thanked him for not planningPermission to live by the lakeside of the Prince of Rus.
They never imagined that in just two days, the army of the Principality of Ross would arrive!
At first, people subconsciously fled into the village, until the village chief saw the flying flags clearly and believed that this did not mean danger.
The fleeing villagers came back one after another, and Rurik also happened to enter this huge building and large construction site.
"Why are you running away? Are you afraid that we will bring killings?" Rurik's words were very straightforward. The village chief was strong and aware of current affairs, and he honestly explained his concerns.
"Indeed, our army has killed many enemies. But for those who surrender to me, this army is the most trustworthy backer..."
That's it, Rurik Another move repeated ten times.
So far, there are no new villages ahead. Is this the end of the parade? This was but the end of the parade to the newly surrendered populace.