Rise of Rurik

The arrogant Ludwig suddenly surrendered, even he himself could not believe it.

The young King of Ross was standing in front of him, but as a man, Ludwig was inevitably a little timid.

This man is tall and strong, and most importantly, he looks young.

"Sit down." Rurik pointed casually.

In this way, Ludwig sat down obediently with his hands on the supplies, without any fear or flattery on his face, he just sat calmly.

Rurik immediately sat down and ordered the blue fox to continue acting as translator.

"You were defeated." Rurik looked at this guy's face and said quietly, "I particularly remember the curse you cast on me on the battlefield. You were defeated! I am the winner. You are the one who completely invalidated the curse and your army The whole army was also wiped out.”

"What's the point of repeating this now? Maybe, give me another chance..."

"Another chance?" Rurik smiled slightly contemptuously, "Your soldiers are dead! I heard that you sent more than half of your elite troops to conquer the north. Now that they are all dead, you have suffered a great loss in strength. You have not Second chances, the dead don’t come back to life.”

"I know. What I mean is..." Ludwig paused, "If I had a second chance, I wouldn't be so persistent. We can indeed have a good talk. What do you... really want?"

The two kings of the north and south looked at each other here, and Rurik got the question of his soul.

“What do we long for?”

"What do you Normans crave?! Gold coins? Food? Slaves? Land?"

"I want them all!" Rurik answered without thinking.

"Want it all? Greed! Then, even if I die, the war will not continue. The other Franks will avenge me, if that is what you desire."

"Of course this is not what I long for." Rurik shrugged and asked: "So, what do you think of us Normans? I hope you answer truthfully."

"How do you think about it?" Ludwig's dry mouth showed a contemptuous smile, "You are the devils crawling out of the snow nest. You are a group of pirates and now horse bandits. You plunder everywhere and believe in heresy. For Glory to Frank, my ancestors conquered you and controlled you. In fact, we don’t need to have war. As long as you convert to Christ and become civilized, everything will be peaceful.”

"Is this what you call peace? It seems that you are not a king, but a missionary. Do you not tolerate other beliefs?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?" Rurik shook his head and pointedly pointed out, "Actually, what you desire is land, population, and wealth. You are not fundamentally different from us northerners, except that you believe in God and we believe in Odin. Your Frank We are expanding, and now we in Ross and all the northerners are also expanding. This war is actually inevitable, and I don’t need to worry about who started the war."

Ludwig's mind was a little confused for a moment. He could feel the hidden friendship of Rurik. This man seemed to be restraining his hand holding the sword, and his attitude became more reserved.

"So, what do you Russians want to do? Now you are hanging out with Liudov, who betrayed me, and attacked my Flanders."

"It's a new order."

"New Order?"

"Not bad." After saying that, Rurik stood up and signaled Ludwig to wait. "I will send someone to bring a map. Before that, we might as well talk about home affairs."

Chatting about trivial matters in life may make Ludwig gradually relax his vigilance. Since most of them are men, let's talk about men's things in particular.

Showing masculine charm to the defeated is also an alienated military threat.

Rurik paced around here, constantly introducing how many wives and concubines he had, how many children he had, and even the general situation of the people's livelihood in the entire Rus Kingdom.

Regarding these things, the high-ranking Frankish nobles who were obsessed with fighting, hunting and enjoying themselves had no reason to pay attention to the daily lives of the people.

When Charlemagne was still young, he reshaped the kingdom's conscription system. The king was able to recruit troops from the country's yeoman farmers to a large extent, which made the kingdom's military strength reach its peak. The glory was gone, the charismatic king was no more, and the conscription system was rapidly falling apart. The power of the kingdom was quickly divided among the nobles from various places. The feudal system that once brought long-term stability to the kingdom has now become a source of unrest.

As a top nobleman, Ludwig not only controlled an astonishing standing army trained according to the ancestral conscription system, but if he needed more soldiers, he could only order the nobles loyal to him to recruit peasants to join the war.

Therefore, Ludwig really does not need to care about the daily life of the farmers in the noble territories, he only needs to pay attention to the generations of military households under his rule. To be fair, for Ludwig, who had the weakest overall strength, the military model he implemented was actually the most cost-effective and experience-saving.

Unfortunately, his standing army suffered heavy losses, and the royal power was bound to suffer heavy losses. Now he was very shocked. Rurik, the king of Rus, as a chief, had actually figured out the way to military victory - having more people.

In this era, the more soldiers a monarch controlled, the more likely he was to win. After all, Ludwig did not understand some advanced tactics, and as the supreme ruler of the newly conquered areas in the east, he always faced various Polish, Bohemian and Pomeranian tribes.

These West Slavic tribes fight as warriors regardless of gender. The people gather together and charge in a swarm with a variety of weapons. The enemy's tactical plan was "pig's sudden advance", which resulted in the East Frankish army never being forced to adopt advanced tactics. Precisely in this kind of battle, as long as one's own troops are piled up and the heavy cavalry countercharges vigorously, victory is almost easily achieved.

His eyes were opened wide when he fought against the Norman-Saxon coalition. He paid the horrific price of wiping out more than 20,000 troops, and finally learned some brand-new tactical knowledge.

If he could return to Regensburg and promote some farmers as a standing army, he would be able to organize an army of several thousand more at a reasonable cost. At that time, it is necessary to learn the tactics of the Normans using bows, arrows and spears on a large scale, and it is not expensive to popularize such weapons and equipment.

He was also quite surprised and even envied Rurik. This was the instinctive envy of men. Barbarian belief allowed multiple marriages, so Rurik took many wives and had many children. With this king as an example, the following generals and soldiers will do the same.

An entire group of Normans trying to have babies? This Rurik even organized a large number of boys and girls for military training?

If they have 100,000 women, the doctors can give birth to five children who survive to at least 15 years old, half of whom are boys. That's an army of 200,000! Ludwig was able to calculate this account well, and according to Rurik, everything was coming true quickly.

"Actually, my army is divided into three parts. The Normans who are the bravest, the Finns who are the best at archery, and the Slavs who are the most populous. Once we were fighting each other, but now all the northerners have made a truce. I established peace, I organized them as brothers. Now all the women are giving birth to children, and the children are trained when they are at least six years old, and the best among them will become my standing army. Our Rus is good at shipbuilding, good at making salt, and possesses iron. Mines, good at growing wheat, weaving and animal husbandry, that's why I can safely transport ten thousand warriors from the east and north to Saxony to fight with you. You can't do this..."

Rurik talked a lot eloquently, and Ludwig could understand part of it, but the parts he didn't understand were really beyond the scope, and he could only listen with sweat all over his body.

Finally, there was a sound of footsteps, and the guard handed the rolled up paper map into Rurik's hand.

It's like a rolled up blanket that's very thin when unfolded.

"Oh, by the way." Rurik suddenly thought, "I have written you a letter before, and the content was written in Latin. I must have deeply angered you with my words."

It was truly a matter of black humor. Ludwig could only smile bitterly: "Indeed, I am very angry. Otherwise, there would be no expedition."

"What do you think of the medium on which I write my letters?"

"Like parchment, like cloth."

"It's papyrus from the north. You should have heard of it. My Rus can make this kind of paper, and it's not expensive."

That being said, Ludwig, who had no need for writing, didn't need any paper and didn't care at all.

However, as Rurik himself spread the map drawn on birch paper on the table, Ludwig trembled with shock as soon as he saw the lines on it.

"Map! A map of the known world?!" He subconsciously muttered in surprise.

"It seems you understand?" Rurik was also surprised.

"This is a treasure owned by the kingdom. How can you have it? Where did you... steal it from?"

"Absurd. Why say stealing?" Rurik rolled his eyes at him, "I drew this myself." Then he pointed to his head and said deliberately: "This is the knowledge given to us by Odin, the great god of our faith. We just know how the world is. As a fellow king, maybe you know the meaning of the map very well."

"I...I understand." Ludwig was gritting his teeth when he said this. He could conclude that the enemy had a very accurate map, so he attacked his territory crazily.

Now it was no longer about where they got the map. He had devout faith in God and he was absolutely convinced that Rurik had received the favor of the barbarian god.

The map outlines the entire Mediterranean, as well as the British Isles and Denmark to the north.

The map owned by the Frankish Kingdom was a blueprint drawn by the ancient Greeks and later refined by the Romans. Except for the regions around the Mediterranean and Western Europe, which are described in more detail, the labeling of other places is almost a matter of guessing. The Baltic Sea in the Nordic world is drawn directly as a circle, but Scandinavia and Jutland are marked out. There is a gap between the two peninsulas marked as a strait. This way to the north and past is directly labeled as "the sea at the end of the world".

Their map marked the eastward direction very simply. Except for the clearly identified West Slavic tribes and all the grassland people represented by "Avar", it was a vast and unknown land.

The Franks did not have the ability to explore the East endlessly. At least Ludwig, King of the East Franks, frequently expanded eastward after obtaining the fiefdom, asking for living space from the West Slavs, so that the southeastern territory completely bordered the northwest of Eastern Rome.

The power of the Frankish Kingdom has now reached the edge of the Balkans, in the so-called "Osteria" area. In principle, this area is under the direct jurisdiction of Ludwig, but in fact it is also the remote control of the local Slavic tribal chiefs who surrender.

Looking at the map that King Rurik of Rus took out, Ludwig poked his head like a curious child.

"I can see it clearly! Is this the unknown northern world? Does the sea at the end of the world really exist? There is also the unknown east, but it is not actually unknown?"

"Of course." Rurik deliberately became arrogant, "What you call the unknown east is actually my territory, and many people there surrender to me. I have recruited many local soldiers, and you...have experienced their power."

The maps spell out words in Latin letters, which Ludwig could easily read.

So Rurik pointed out the names of settlements such as Novorosberg, Novgorod, Smolensk, and Kiev. He deliberately ignored some things, such as complacently pointing out that Smolensk was also in Rus'. within the territory.

In this way, the eastern part of the map formed a line, which ultimately connected to a great existence-Eastern Rome.

Because Rurik was very intentional about marking Eastern Roman Black Sea cities such as Constantinople and Sevastopol (Sevastopol), and even Odessa and Khersonus.

What makes people think deeply is that they will not mark these terms for no reason. Since they are marked, it can only prove that the Russians really had direct contact with Eastern Rome.

Ludwig could no longer imagine the rest. He had made a horrifying misjudgment of the Rus among the Normans.

They are not ordinary barbarians, but the most ferocious barbarians.

They belong to the north of the kingdom, and they still belong to the east! There is also the island of Britain, where there are also small kingdoms established by the Normans.

Too much knowledge penetrated Ludwig's mind, and even though the temperature was cold, he was so shocked that his whole body was steaming.

"You...are you just relying on the map to intimidate me? I thought the most terrifying enemy was my brother Lothair. Are you telling me that the most terrifying enemy is actually you? Why is your Rose Kingdom everywhere?"

What Rurik wants is this kind of cognitive effect, and "cognitive operations" are also part of war.

"This is the fact, and my kingdom is still expanding. Only in Saxony, I think our expansion can stop here."

"Oh, thank you for restraining yourself."

Rurik shrugged: "After all, killing you will do us no good. If you die, your eldest brother Lothair will occupy the entire Eastern Kingdom. By then, your younger brother Charlie will be unable to survive alone in the Western Kingdom, and you two brothers will be defeated. Frank It will be completely unified by Lothair. This is definitely not a good thing for us Normans. Your eldest brother will definitely take the initiative to attack the north just to imitate Charlemagne."

"Haha, are you still afraid of him? You can destroy more Frank troops."

"It's time to stop. Even if you arrogantly rejected my messenger and humiliated me. But for my country, I can ignore your rudeness. In fact, we can unite, and you don't want Lothair to Can you defeat him who is greatly weakened? We can be allies."

When Rurik proposed an alliance, Ludwig couldn't believe his ears.

It was Lan Hu, who was a conscientious translator, who emphasized it many times before he believed that King Rus had the intention of forming an alliance.

Instead, the victor announced his intention to form an alliance, a fact that staggered him. However...if the war has such an outcome, it is indeed a decent way to end the war.

"But what's the price?! You are the winner! You can never ask me to form an alliance unconditionally."

"I'm just waiting for you to say that. You do have to pay some price." Rurik pointed at the map seriously: "Saxony must become independent and use its status as a principality as a buffer zone between you and the north. And Flanderssburg The country, at least Flanders north of the Rhine, should become independent and exist as a brand new country of the Netherlands. Note! This is just the attitude of our Rus. Maybe Duke Liudolf of Saxony has his own opinion, he may want to Get his Westphalia back.”

"This... greed! Too greedy."

"You can talk about everything! I have mercifully told you Ross's bottom line. Face the reality! Ludwig, do you still have the ability to control Saxony and Flanders now? Go back to your Alemany And Bavaria, meet these demands and I can promise not to attack you again.”

Ludwig fell into deep hesitation. He felt that there would be no problem if he just lost Saxony, which he couldn't control anyway, and Flanders, who had been sitting on the fence since ancient times, but he was too embarrassed to say it yet.

Seeing his hesitation, Rurik suddenly placed a big hand on the map, covering the eastern part of Bavaria and the affiliated Osteria region.

"Look here. Bohemia, Poland, mainly Moravia. You lost some territory, why not continue to expand to the east? And my Rus Kingdom is also actively expanding in the east. The news I got, this This area is all the territory of the Moravians. You can ignore them, but my kingdom will also expand from the eastern land to the west. One day, the Moravians will be merged into my Rus. , our two countries will eventually border directly."

"Crazy ambition, this world is too big, you..."

Ludwig subconsciously thought this was too absurd, but according to the map Rurik took out, it was not impossible.

"You think it's impossible? Do you think I'm arrogant in calling myself Augustus? We can obviously join forces to divide Poland, Bohemia and Moravia in the future. Our two countries border on Central Europe. As long as we are sure Territorial borders, wars can be avoided.”

"I'm afraid this is not something that can be accomplished in one generation."

Rurik laughed. He himself knew that the possibility of success was unlikely, and said deliberately: "If I can't do it, my descendants can do it. Maybe you just hope that your East Frankland is just a small country."

Ludwig was deeply stimulated and no longer wanted to say anything. This Rurik was indeed an arrogant person, and his ambition was like Alexander, or indeed like Augustus.

On this young king's mountain, Ludwig suddenly felt the pioneering and enterprising spirit that his grandfather only possessed.

It’s a pity that this man doesn’t even believe in God! A barbarian no matter what.

Only peace talks and alliance matters must be carefully discussed. He just wants to get out of this ghost place in Saxony as soon as possible.