Rise of Rurik

An unexpected encounter had unexpected results. The Ross Cavalry won too easily, and everyone felt that the victory was inexplicable.

After all, the brothers had fought another encounter with the Frankish regular army at the beginning of the operation. The enemy was as hard as stone, this time as soft as mud.

Is the man wearing the golden crown really King Ludwig of the Franks?

Fisk and his brothers had not met Ludwig in person, and now they were at least certain that the captured man was either rich or noble.

As long as you remove the clothes that this person is wearing to keep out the cold, you can see that this person is quite well-dressed. The waist belt is inlaid with rubies, and the clothes are mostly made of soft fabrics, with elegant plush sheepskin to keep out the cold. The man's boots were neat, his breeches neat, but of course he had no underpants.

What surprised Fisk most was that this man owned a Ross steel sword.

This is no ordinary Ross steel sword. First of all, it was indeed made by the great blacksmith Klavason. The materials used to make the steel sword are quite exquisite. Its bright white blade is deliberately plated with gold patterns, and the hilt is made of rubies and gold. and silver decoration. It is a short sword, and its combat significance is far less than its decorative significance.

"Could it be that the swords we sell to foreign countries can still be exported to Frank? Have the Klavassen and Kawei families really sold such gorgeous swords to foreign countries? How could it be obtained by a Frankish noble?"

Fisk pinched his beard and was puzzled. He could only wait for the captured man to regain his energy.

The corpses of men and horses were left hanging on the Roman road. The weather was sunny today, but the cold temperature quickly took away the remaining warmth of the corpses, and they were soon as cold as stone.

Therefore, Fisk ordered his men to meet with the baggage troops in the rear during the cleaning of the battlefield. After informing each other of the situation, they took the captured trophies such as weapons and hurriedly left this unfortunate place.

After a while, a small group of cavalry turned back, and their Turkic horses with extremely strong manes were tied not far away.

They brought axes and chopped the legs of the dead horses, tied them with ropes and dragged a large number of legs back.

There are not many opportunities to eat meat in the ice and snow. Although the taste of heavily bruised horse legs is far less than that of carefully chopped meat, some of them are good to eat now, and the brothers are not picky. Just avoid being seen by your own war horse when doing this. Of course, the breeds of horses are quite different. If the war horses have empathy and cause fear, future battles will be troublesome.

All this was said by the Pechenegs in the team, and the Russians and Slavs completely believed it.

At night, a large number of bonfires are lit in the snow campsites on the roadside.

People unloaded the seized pottery jars, shoveled the snow, boiled water, and then just cooked the wheat.

There are also brothers who put the horse meat in the hot water after boiling it, boiled the blood from the horse meat over a low fire, then put it on their own swords and put it on the bonfire to smoke...

The woodland was full of cavalry horses. They were all relieved of their burdens to save their strength, and fed a large amount of oats to restore their physical strength.

Bonfires were also lit around the horses to give the hard-working horses life-saving warmth.

The snow in this area was melting rapidly due to the bonfire, and Fisk and his brothers were also eating boiled wheat and barbecued meat here.

Even the physical fitness of the five captured Franks was recovering quickly.

The guy with the golden crown on his head had his arms tied behind his back, and he was led to the campfire. Fisk immediately sent someone holding a wooden bowl to stuff boiled wheat into his mouth.

He chewed instinctively, but the warrior stuffed horse meat into his mouth.

After a while, the man who was captured unconsciously while suffering from hunger and cold showed a huge improvement in his sluggish spirit.

He finally regained consciousness, and when he saw the current situation, there was surprisingly no shock or fear, and only a long sigh.

"Are you awake?" Fisk kicked the man with bad Frankish vocabulary and asked in Latin: "Can you speak Latin?"

"A little bit."

"Your identity? King of Frank? Ludwig?"

"it's me."

Ludwig's answer was quite plain. He admitted this personally. The soldiers who were very concerned about the situation all came over and were already laughing and celebrating.

The laughter of the Ross cavalry was the greatest ridicule to Ludwig, but the man showed no shame at all. Instead, he suddenly said shockingly: "I know you are Ross people. I really know the detailed identities of you people. Kill them." I, let this end.”

"What did you say? Speak slowly."

"Kill me." Ludwig looked at the flames with his eyes. Although his face was heated, his whole body was already disheartened.

"Why did I kill you?" Fisk smiled from ear to ear. "You are just a piece of gold. I want to dedicate you to our king. So, where is your army?"

It seemed that this guy didn't understand. Fisk had to ask "Where is your army" three times in a row.

Ludwig actually understood. He kept silent because he didn't want to mention his bad luck.

"If you don't tell me, does that mean you have lost the battle? Maybe you have lost all your troops, and I no longer need to communicate with you."

…

The next day, Ross's cavalry continued north.

Of course Ludwig knew about this cavalry unit. A Russian cavalry unit once attacked the rear flank of the Franks and deliberately killed all the pack horses of the baggage carriages, causing the Franks' logistics costs to skyrocket.

Facing the instigator, Ludwig really couldn't bear to hate him, or maybe it was because he couldn't bear the pain of defeat and was disheartened.

A arrogant nobleman was now reduced to a prisoner. If the Catholic Church had not prohibited suicide, Ludwig would have drawn his sword and killed himself.

He asked Fisk to kill him not out of anger, but because he really hoped so.

Fisk was just a general. He had no idea about politics. He always applauded King Rurik's decisions and then followed his orders. Therefore, after confirming Ludwig's identity, he was too lazy to ask anything else and only thought about leading. The army completed its mission.

The cavalry finally reached the Weser River, across which lay the ruins of Bremen.

What is shocking is that there are large-scale ablation marks here, and there are ruins everywhere as far as the eye can see. The brothers knew that this was a glimpse of war, but the traces of excess were too new.

Only stone piers remained of the bridge, and the Weser River was completely frozen.

This year is a rare cold year. For the old Russians who have to face the frozen sea every year, the brothers do not find the scene in front of them novel. They even hope that there will be a glacier leading directly to the north, just like the brothers in the hinterland of the Kingdom of Rus, they can use the frozen Volkhov River, Lake Ladoga, and the Neva River as a thoroughfare, because the frozen waters are extremely flat and travelers can Move forward recklessly and quickly.

"Be careful, this is the south, be careful that the ice is not strong enough! Take care to protect our silver coins!"

Fisk directed the cavalry to cross the river, and everything went smoothly.

But after crossing the river, they passed through Bremen after the fire, and saw that there were a lot of strange dead branches here.

No! That's not a dead branch. But the charred human bones. Fisk thought that when they passed through Bremen, the wooden bridge had not been destroyed, but now the wooden bridge was gone, and Bremen had added a huge number of corpses.

It can be seen that a big battle was fought here, and it must have been caused by Arik's squadron.

The cavalry and navy who were ordered to go south had great results. Thinking about it, Fisk still felt that his results were the most legendary and glorious.

He asked again: "Keep an eye on King Frank, don't let him freeze to death!"

He especially entrusted the young Brody Haraldsson, who had made great achievements. "Brody! It's you! Keep an eye on your prisoners and dedicate them to the king. You will also be the war chief in the future."

"That's natural." Brody replied arrogantly with his chin almost facing the scorching sun.

The war gave countless people opportunities. Brody's father, Harald, was the first wave of old Russians to migrate to New Roseburg that year. Harald's family is just the most ordinary member of the old Ross tribe. Harald himself is a fisherman and a war fighter. He seriously lacks the courage to fight and his physical fitness is not good. Only then did he respond to the call of Old Otto, who was still the chief at that time. Ordered immigrants to open up land in New Roseburg.

Twelve years have passed! The young son has grown up, and it is entirely because he does not want to shame the old Rus' group, the highest level of the people's group in the Rus' kingdom, that he puts his son Brody into the newly formed cavalry.

In the end, Brody did not bring shame to the tribe, but achieved great glory.

Through the ruins of Bremen, the subsequent road has been very smooth.

To their surprise, the smooth Roman roads began to become more and more winding, and a large number of frozen corpses began to appear on the road.

The soldiers saw the white-downed snow fox eating the corpse. When the fox saw someone coming, it ran away.

As more and more frozen corpses were discovered, Fisk was absolutely certain that the Frank army had been completely defeated.

Finally, they passed a forest wooden fort with the Ross flag flying above it.

The morale of the soldiers was floating, and Fisk urgently ordered: "Everyone, show our flags to make sure there is no misunderstanding."

They found some wooden sticks or captured short spears, hung up a small area of ​​Ross flags, and the cavalry passed through the fortress grandly to meet the oncoming warriors.

In this way, the cavalry team, which was already in a constant state of fighting abroad, suddenly appeared. What Fisk received was not a welcome from friendly forces, but an inexplicable ridicule.

"Where did you go? You completely missed the final battle."

"Brothers are already killing people like crazy, but you are wandering in a fugue. Just wait for the king to get angry!"

…

The words made Fisk seem to have done something wrong, and he immediately retorted: "Is this the enemy's fortress? You have been living here. Now you take a good look at my team, and I tell you, all the sacks carried by the horses, There are shining silver coins inside. The king will not criticize me harshly, he will only praise me. And..."

He originally wanted to talk about the Ludwig he captured, but now he thinks about it.

The cavalry chose to speed up because they were very close to the frozen Elbe River.

But after the war, the coalition forces cleaned up the battlefield on the ice. All the Vikings who died in the battle were cremated, and the ashes of the dead were collected in categories as much as possible, only to be buried in the "Hermon Valhalla" cemetery in New Roseburg. .

The Vikings from multiple ethnic groups formed a coalition. Under the command of Rurik, they had the best equipment, fighting skills, and the best coordination of various arms. They came well prepared, and Rurik also successfully predicted the tactics of the enemy commander Ludwig. The Viking army suffered very few losses, but the overall coalition army still suffered 3,500 deaths.

Some died directly in battle, and some died of serious injuries afterwards. Most of the dead were poorly trained Saxon peasant soldiers. It is undeniable that the battle was largely a revenge battle for the Saxon ethnic group's "blood debt". The Saxon army, composed of refugees from various villages, fought like mad dogs and had inferior equipment. But not afraid of sacrifice.

They indeed paid a staggering loss, but surprisingly no one paid attention to this on the battlefield. Because Liudov, Duke of Saxony and a descendant of the great hero Vidukind, continued to fight even though he was wounded, and the heroic behavior of the soldiers was endorsed by the saint Eskil of the Northern Church, this battle has unparalleled sacred significance.

The hatred between the country and the family, the blessing of faith, and even a very simple logic that "once we are defeated, we will be retaliated and exterminated by the Franks", the Saxons won with a mortality rate of 30%, together with their Viking allies.

It wasn't until they won the battle that they finally realized the horrific losses they had suffered, which is scary to think about.

On the side of the defeated, stripped Frank armor and ordnance piled up in mountains, and all their logistics supplies were seized.

The French army was so completely defeated that they didn't even have a chance to survive as prisoners.

The ice and woodland were littered with Frankish corpses, and the corpses had to be disposed of even though they were stiff.

How to deal with the enemy's dead bodies is a problem, but our own dead must be dealt with properly.

As the victor, Duke Liudolf of Saxony would never bother his allies to handle the follow-up matters for him. He also had nearly a thousand previously captured Frankish people on hand, and now these people just brought tools to dig holes in the snow.

Liudolf chose a relatively soft soil area in the main part of Hamburg to design a cemetery for the war dead.

The bodies of the Saxons who died in battle should have been washed and put on decent clothes according to traditional and Catholic etiquette, then wrapped in linen and placed in wooden coffins made of planks, and buried in the dug pit. This process must be witnessed by priests throughout the city, and a passage of scripture is recited in Latin.

In special circumstances, things had to be handled simply. The prisoners were forced to dig some straight trenches, and the war dead were directly laid flat in them and then filled in collectively. Then a large number of wooden crosses were placed on the ground.

Eskil has been witnessing the burial process. He is in a very bad mood. Coupled with the cold weather, he became seriously ill, and now he has to stay in Hamburg to recuperate.

He even felt that his illness was a punishment from God, because this war could have been avoided. As a saint, instead of preventing the war, he induced the decisive battle to break out.

Liudov did not feel that he was guilty at all. The Franks would rather go on a winter expedition for the sake of war. This kind of militaristic behavior was seeking death.

They all died because of their benevolence. As a victor, Liu Doufu was determined to give the enemy who died in battle the last dignity.

If the Russians were cleaning the battlefield, these dead bodies would be thrown on the ice and ignored. When the ice melts and the snow melts, the dead bodies sink into the river and are naturally washed to the ocean to be fed to fish. There is no need to collect the bodies for the enemy.

If you are really full of hatred for the enemy, chop off the head of the dead body and make the skull into a drinking bowl.

Whether it was water burial or cremation, it was against the Catholic faith. Even if they were enemies, they had the same faith. Liudov did not dare to act recklessly, so he had to dig a huge tomb to bury the dead body.

This is a huge project. Every day after the war, people would throw out the corpses that were fused to the ice, and then transport the dead bodies like lumps of ice to the prepared pits...

When Fisk's cavalry arrived at the frozen Elbe River, this was what they saw.

There are an astonishing number of corpses on the surface, and some people are hauling the corpses away. The battlefield still maintains the appearance of the fierce battle. These cold ruins silently tell the fierceness of the battle.

Fisk couldn't help but think of the taunts from friendly forces.

"Ah! I really missed the final battle."

His face was trembling, and he then ordered: "Brothers, let's cross the river quickly! Go to our camp outside the city, let's go!"

They began to march on the ice, even deliberately walking close to the remains of the battlefield. Ludwig's arms were still tied up, and even his feet on the saddle were tied with hemp rope to ensure that he had no way to escape. This was the place that broke his heart. He closed his eyes and refused to look. He simply pressed his whole body against the horse's neck and buried his entire face in the thick mane.

The figure of the cavalry is too conspicuous. It is a behemoth with horses whose weight has expanded to four white horses! This is a horse team that is a mixture of multiple horse breeds, but carrying a large amount of supplies makes it look like a large caravan.

Since Hanukkah is not far away and it is also the Saxon Christian Christmas, people from all walks of life around Hamburg are busy celebrating the festival.

A few months ago, Rurik fantasized about a triumphant return to Novorosberg and a festival in the capital to welcome the year 841.

Now, he can only spend the holidays in the Principality of Saxony.

Based on the tradition of Rus, a wooden tower built mainly of straight pine wood has begun to be built, which must become a burning torch to burn away the past year and usher in the new year in flames. Horik, the false king of Denmark who was captured and turned into a pig, must be reduced to ashes in this ceremony.

The northern saint Eskil and Duke Liudolf of Saxony had no objections to this matter, or in other words, no one had any objections. Even though Horik had converted, Eskil was extremely disgusted by his repeated leaps in faith.

If King Rurik was asked to be lenient because Horik was a Christian, even if he was beheaded rather than burned to death, Eskil had no face to plead, and it was really unnecessary.

On the contrary, Eskil, together with Liudov and the captured Baudouin, jointly sentenced Horik to death.

Even Count Baudouin of Flanders wanted Horik to go quickly. Even this guy once wanted to win the title of Count of Flanders, but he actually took a large piece of land. Baudouin's family was indeed cruel to the invasion of their territory by the Ross army and his defeat and capture. Baudouin also hated Horik and took the opportunity to call for the death penalty. By the way, this behavior was also a tribute to Ross. Wang Rurik flattered him.

Baudoin was such a versatile figure. Facing the defeated East Frankish army, he had to reconsider his position. He even considered being a vassal of Duke Liudolf of Saxony, which objectively could indirectly gain access to various Normans. Military protection of persons. As for those hatreds, his standards of dealing with things are the same as those of his fathers and grandfathers, very flexible.

So the northern saint Eskil set up a simple Northern Church Inquisition and sentenced Horik to be a heretic. This person is a heretic and a traitor to Odin. Burning him to death is no different in every aspect.

Everything was settled, Rurik was busy preparing for the festival, educating his de facto eldest son Reglaf, and doting on his two newborn younger sons.

The coalition forces were busy resting and counting their loot.

Rurik still has a concern in his heart. There is still no news about the cavalry he sent out. Where have they gone?

Until this day, the cavalry's appearance attracted thousands of people's attention. They walked on the ice too conspicuously.

Rurik also listened to the report from his subordinates, and when he stood on the wall of Hamburg, he couldn't help but feel happy.

"This is my cavalry? Where did they get so many horses? Ah! It's them!"

Rurik hurriedly descended from the city wall, walked to the frozen riverside surrounded by many soldiers, and went to personally greet the long-missing cavalry subordinates who looked very conspicuous in sunglasses...