Those experienced Russian and Danish warriors saw a brand new way of fighting. The Pecheneg cavalry and the Frank cavalry they had encountered were completely different tactics. The Frankish cavalry were brave because they dared to charge into the formation with cavalry spears and assassinate them openly. On the other hand, the Pechenegs shot arrows and ran away!
Smart people like Arik and Ragnar can realize the disgusting and cowardly nature of this tactic. The Pecheneg horse archers ran away as soon as they shot the arrows. In order to avoid the arrows, the warriors could only resist with shields. They just wanted to counterattack and the enemy fled.
Of course, Arik also thought of the soldiers in formation using crossbows to restrain them. It's just that both sides are good at archery. Does the Russian army still have an absolute advantage in bows and arrows? At least one thing is certain. If the Ross army were all infantry, they would be able to defeat them at best. It would be too difficult to complete the annihilation.
Only a few people realize the advantages of the Pecheneg cavalry, and the vast majority of people just watch the fun
The show will eventually end, and when all the performances are over, the gathered people The crowd dispersed.
On this night, the ten cavalry soldiers who gave a full performance were treated with great courtesy. They were just slave warriors in the tribe, but now they have become the guests of Prince Rus!
Naturally, their former master Kagan was in attendance again.
A small banquet was the beginning and end of today's work, and Rurik officially accepted these ten people as his subordinates.
Look at these ten cavalrymen kneeling down together to accept the instructions of "Ross Khan".
"You are all my servants now and will serve me in the future. You must do your duty well. If there is any betrayal, you will be hanged in public. As long as you fulfill your duties, you will get Stable food, clothing, housing, and a stipend. When you get older, I will reward you with women who will eventually become my herdsmen and breed more horses for me, and your sons will also serve me." /p>
This relationship is good, and brothers can get more by serving Prince Rus.
They all said yes.
"Very good. Just sit down! After drinking my wine in the end, you will be my warriors..."
The person who can be chosen by Kagan must be Pecheneg The elite among men, these ten people must be qualified to become officers.
They each reported their names. The various Turkic names really confused Rurik, and he learned the true meaning of them. There was nothing special about the names.
Some are called "wolf teeth", some are called "big arms", some are called "arrow feathers", and some are called "big eyes"...
People are like themselves Name, the warrior named "Big Eyes". Among the many sons of the grassland with small eyes, this man's eyes are indeed big.
They have a variety of names. Since they were all slaves, the right to name them theoretically belongs to the master's family, so naturally it is impossible to give them elegant names. In other words, the names of the Pecheneg people are generally chosen randomly, there are no rules, and they are quite random.
Kagan’s own nameThe word is quite particular, meaning "Khan's saber". This is like a Viking lord naming his son "Bjorn", the so-called "lord's attendant".
None of the Pechenegs have surnames, or their surnames have little meaning to them, especially for a group of slaves.
Even the concept of surnames lacks practical meaning for most people under the jurisdiction of the Rus' Principality. Only Rurik's coercive measures made it meaningful for the registered Slavs in the Novgorod region. A wide variety of surnames.
At least these ten people must have a surname to facilitate management after serving as cavalry officers.
When each other was half drunk, Rurik had an idea and pointed at the people clockwise according to their current seats and rewarded them with the so-called surnames.
"Your name is one, your name is two, your name is three... your name is ten. This is your attributed name (the concept of surname). When you call yourself a name in the future, you must add this at the end."
p>Rurik spoke in Slavic that they could understand. What choice could a group of slaves have? The new master could give him a surname and the brothers could thank him.
In the previous warm period, the city of Novgorod was undergoing a large-scale construction project, and the movement of building houses is still continuing to this day. You can get rewards for building a house for the prince, and you can even get enough food for a day at the most. Rurik spent a lot on this, thanks to this year's abundant grain harvest and the fleet's plunder of a batch of grain in Frankia and Britain, which helped to cover financial expenses.
It is undeniable that there are currently a number of good-quality woodcuts in the city that are idle. They were built to cope with future population expansion, and now they are just in use.
Each of the ten people will be a cavalry officer, and each of them will be assigned a wooden cell to stay temporarily. From this, they will live a better life than the regular mercenaries of Rurik, and they will also be with those Those who still live in barns have effectively drawn a line.
The temporary life of these ten people is still resting. They have the right to move freely in the city, and they do not need to spend money on three meals a day. Their personal weapons and armor are still impounded, and their mounts are still being impounded and raised.
In fact, all the Pechenegs are in a state of leisure. The people living in the barn will pay for themselves from now on. Their master Kagan is responsible for the living expenses. It's up to Kagan how he spends his money.
In his opinion, his Rurik brothers have done their best to benevolent and righteous. The subordinates live in the brothers' warehouse for free. What he asks to pay is the food for the remaining 40 subordinates and the 40 horses. Grain. Rurik had a steady supply, and the price of oats was stable at ten pounds a silver coin.
Compared to people, brothers’ horses are the most important. In the hometown of the grassland, horses can still eat turf in winter. Even after such a winter, the horses in the entire tribal alliance are in an extremely weak state. It’s not that people intentionally mistreat their horses, it’s simply that the seasonal factors of pasture are insufficient. In addition, when the pasture is luxuriant, the horses have entered the breeding period, so inIn the opinion of many grassland people, troops must be raised and truce carried out in winter and spring. The best time to launch a war is in autumn, when the horses are most powerful.
It was precisely for this reason that Kagan and his cavalry set out in late summer and arrived in Ross in early winter. If it were another season, the war horses would have died of exhaustion...
Even so, the horses that arrived in Ross were very weak. Thanks to the large amounts of oats provided by the Ross people, the weak horses recovered quickly.
Everyone loves horses. In the past, Kagan had no ability, but now that he has money, he immediately buys oats to feed the horses.
In this way, Rurik directly negotiated with Kagan a preferential price for agency breeding. Each horse stayed in the stable every day and did not go out without any tasks. The standard food for each horse was five pounds a day. Oats, supplemented with small amounts of yellow root carrots and cabbage. Even if the supply of vegetables is included in the preferential category, labor costs and venue fees are exempted, and the hard expenses of 200 pounds of wheat for forty horses a day must be paid.
Two hundred pounds of oats a day? Isn't it just two pounds of silver coins for ten days?
I heard that the winter in this lake area will end in early March, and the brothers have to wear it here for the entire five months, just forty horses The feeding fee is a large amount.
Rurik is very reasonable and offers a fixed price of 30 pounds of silver coins for raising horses this winter.
In comparison, people’s food expenses are much less.
Taking advantage of the opportunity to rest, Kagan wandered around Novgorod without hesitation. He bought a new leather coat for himself, and even bought sunglasses for his subordinates, which was a lot of money.
He was fascinated by the glassware sold by the Russians, and he couldn't stop using the flower-scented soap for bathing.
After buying and selling, another fortune is paid out.
Even so, he still felt that he was making a lot of money!
Nowadays, due to the mass production of die-cast glassware, their original extreme prices have become much cheaper, so that you can buy a glass plate for five silver coins and a glass plate for ten silver coins. Only glass. Kagan hurriedly bought more, and immediately stuffed a large amount of dry grass into the wooden box to seal the stacked glass tableware.
As for simple colored glass bead pendants and necklaces, he also bought several sets, so to speak, taking them back as gifts to his mother, sisters, and beloved wife, and as a tool to win over alliance leaders.
In just three days, the one hundred pounds of silver coins for selling the horse had already been spent, which is seventy pounds!
He also ordered ten Russian steel swords, and even used ten gold coins donated by Rurik to have young local craftsmen melt the gold coins and plate them on the sword's tang.
The so-called silver coins are indeed a common accounting tool in Rus. Kagan’s income from selling horses was earned back by Rurik in a short period of time.
On the other hand, Rurik has already given the order to form cavalry, and he needs some time to wait for the selected people to assemble in Novgorod.
Of the one hundred horses purchased, ten will be the bestThe mares are fully used for breeding, and of the remaining ninety, eighty are pure war horses, and the last ten are noble mounts.
People such as Arik, Jevro, Medved, etc., all must learn to ride horses and learn to handle weapons on horseback.
Let’s talk about the eighty riders matched with the eighty horses. They cannot have a single source, and even the riders are selected and Rurik uses them as tools of control.
The Sixth Flag Team, whose members are all young, selected 30 people, 25 people from the most loyal White Tree Manor, no one from Ostara, and then from Calf and Fishermen. Each manor selects five people (including a son of the leader).
There are also ten traditional lakefront estates that have firmly submitted to the rule of Ross after the counter-insurgency war. Their boyar leader must hand over a son to join the cavalry.
Among the eighty cavalrymen gathered in this way, there are also age limits for the personnel. The so-called lower age limit is fifteen years old and the upper limit is twenty years old.
Thirty of them are boys from Rus' proper, and the remaining fifty are pure Slavs.
The cavalry unit should be considered an elite force. Of course Rurik wants to build a team composed entirely of Russians. However, the current situation dictates that the cavalry unit will not only be a mixed unit, but the internal language will also be Slavic. language.
The order has been issued long ago, and the selected people are required to arrive early, especially those manor owners who have handed over their sons to serve as cavalry. If they miss the date, it will be disrespectful and they will be punished.
The people of White Tree Manor were really happy about this, and the horseman looked majestic. If he had a choice, the boy would naturally prefer to be a cavalryman.
The Principality of Rus pursues a simple citizen soldier system, and all men have the obligation to serve as soldiers. In this regard, the Slavs and the Vikings, including the Rus, have reached a complete consensus, but Everyone is destined to be infantry, but now cavalry has become a new option.
Medvedt was responsible for his share of twenty-five people and quickly selected qualified personnel according to the prince's requirements. First of all, they are young warriors in the Slavic Flag Army, with an average age of only twenty-one years old. Even so, many of them participated in the decisive battle on Gotland many years ago as a child, and they have also fought in many subsequent battles. There is participation. They are still young and loyal.
Although Fisk, the captain of the Sixth Flag Troop, could not step down as captain to become a cavalryman, he still followed the instructions to select personnel. In their settlement in Youth City, a competition within the flag team was immediately held. Although I don’t know what it means to form a cavalry team, at least the selected personnel must be strong. They competed in wrestling and archery in the snow, and in a milder way thirty boys competed.
Duchess Carlotta of Ostara served as five riders. She wrote a letter. The longship sailed on Lake Ilmen, where there were ice floes, and the letter arrived at the New Ostara Fortress. , five candidates were quickly selected. Even if this once extremely depressed tribe is seriously short of men, it is possible to gather five fifteen-year-old boys.of. Of course, Rurik also considered their practical factors and only asked for five people.
Calf Manor and Fisherman Manor stood firmly in the camp of the Prince of Ross in the counter-rebellion war. They enjoyed considerable post-war dividends. Now, when it comes to hiring cavalry, the two The leader had no worries at all. They didn't just hand over a son, they also handed over their nephew. The two men handed over a total of ten boys, each of whom was related to them, just because they did not want to let go of this shortcut that would make future generations prosperous.
But among the other ten manor owners, how many of them have such an awareness?
Due to geographical isolation, they only knew that a group of equestrians from the south had gone to the north, but they knew basically nothing about the identities of the equestrians. What does it mean for a prince to build a cavalry force? Probably for better control.
The prince forcibly handed over his son to serve as a cavalryman. The manor owner took it for granted that this was an act similar to that of a proton.
What else can be done? If you don't hand over a son of the right age, it will be bad when the prince's thunderous wrath comes.
The departure of the younger son means the complete loss of inheritance rights to the manor. Naturally, the eldest son of the manor owner is most happy about this. However, after much thought, the child's mother felt that her son would never come back once he left, and that he had become a slave-like existence who only took orders from the prince. She cried loudly when she said goodbye.
This kind of thing happened in many manors, and the boy who was eager to become a cavalry was panicked for a while, as if he was going through fire by boat to Novgorod.
The personnel have been gathered one after another, and they also have different expectations for their future.
Especially the sons of the manor owners, they came here trembling with fear, and what they saw and heard was not what they expected at all.
They saw a group of fat and strong horses, all equipped with saddles, bits and reins.
There is a group of prairie people on horseback standing majestically behind the horses.
Look! The blond man.
Who else could that be if not Prince Rurik? !
Indeed, Rurik was not afraid of the north wind and allowed his golden hair to be praised by the wind. Although the weather is good today, the wind is slightly strong, making the northern country desolate. Look at this group of Turkic horses. In addition to eating oats and carrots every day these days, their manes are also growing like crazy. They are supposed to gradually consume their physical energy, but instead they become stronger, completely different from their counterparts who spend the winter on the grassland and become physiologically sluggish.
While Kagan was shopping in the city, Rurik was busy improving his horsemanship.
The running-in period has probably passed. The mount I selected obviously has a high IQ, and the orders given are implemented very well. This horse got an elegant name, the so-called "Monkbjorn", the so-called "Black Guard", which is actually a domineering name in Viking culture.
It was Rurik who gave the assembly order. He saw the selected boys gathered in the open space outside the city in ignorance, blowing the cold wind. He lightly rubbed his feet against the horse's belly, and the horse walked slowly away.
King of RusThe Duke inspected his subordinates from an absolutely overlooking perspective and gave a brief speech.
He did not hesitate any longer and ordered: "All the gentle and powerful horses are here. Go and choose your own horse! Remember, the person who chooses the horse must swear to treat his own horse well. It is you. Your comrades-in-arms are your future family..."
An interesting horse selection meeting began. Under the watchful eyes of Kagan and other Pecheneg cavalry, a large group of young novice knights chose His own mount. Curiosity and joy were written all over their faces. They subconsciously stroked the horse's mane and hugged the horse's head. Those who had worried about the son of the manor owner must not immediately learn to ride a horse in order to have a majestic appearance like the prince.
In Kagan’s view, these young people must not have the talent for riding horses like Prince Rurik.
Next, Prince Pecheneg himself will serve as the chief instructor and train these yellow-haired guys into cavalry! By the way, I can also earn a tuition fee and buy a batch of supplies to take back to my hometown next year.