Rise of Rurik

Spring plowing is coming to an end, and overtired people will take a good rest for a while before continuing to work in various ways to gain benefits and improve their lives.

If major construction projects are to be carried out in the kingdom's major cities, these idle people will be the best migrant workers.

If the kingdom wants to go to war, they are conscripted as warriors.

In order to prevent the Smolensk people from attacking from the north, Rurik, who was on an expedition to the west, faced the dilemma of an empty rear and had to be merciful and fully arm the Slavic peasants in the Novgorod area. Poor quality but plentiful cast iron spears were widely distributed. They were not even edged and many had blades that were not wide. The sharpening and binding of wooden poles were handed over to the villagers, who were ordered to stick to their homes.

As a result, the war in the rear did not break out, and the spear fragments distributed now were not recovered.

To Rurik, a piece of worn cast iron was nothing, but to an ordinary farmer, it was enough to change a lot. With the iron spear, this group of forest residents suddenly had the courage to form a team and enter the remote forest area to hunt bears.

A newly peeled brown bear skin can be sold for at least twenty silver coins. The income from just one skin is enough to improve the hunter's life a lot. Bear meat is edible, but bear bones, especially the whole bear head, are sold separately.

There were more than thirty farms that were forced to relocate by the army. They left the forest and got a better life by the lake, but they could not really let go of their past lives.

Living in the forest, they had to build some low walls for the old camp to prevent attacks by wolves and bears. The tools at hand were mostly wooden and bone tools. Although they always won when facing crazy beasts, they failed every time. Someone will be injured or killed, and injury often means a more painful death.

Kamne, the blacksmith whom Rurik carefully trained, has become a man of his own and has become extremely strong. The skinny and short child became a square-jawed and bearded young man with strong and powerful arms that could hit a red-hot iron ingot a thousand times with a hammer.

Kamne's parents died in a bear attack. The simple idea of ​​the villagers teaming up to hunt bears is to eliminate this beast that feeds on humans in exchange for safety. Now that hunting bears has obvious benefits, why not do it?

Every standing army soldier should have an iron helmet decorated with a bear's head, and the upper jaw of the bear's tusks should be used as a sun visor for the soldier. The king had such a long-cherished wish, so the army had a large consumer market for bear products. Economic interests drove the Slavs with a large number of iron spears to rush into the forest.

Not only them, the new and old Russian warriors are better at hunting.

The collective "winter hunting" of the Russians in the past has become history. What appears in front of them is the vast Valdai Forest, and the broad view is the dense forest that stretches all the way to the Ural Mountains.

The vast world has not been developed. The so-called "hidden people" were found in large numbers and forcibly moved. After passing through Lake Valdai and continuing eastward, the only humans they can theoretically encounter are rare and lost Finnish tribes.

A large number of men entered the forest. They also carried a large amount of dry food and intended to stay in the forest for a while.

The straight-line distance between Valdai Lake and Yin Ermen Lake where Novgorod is located reaches 90 kilometers, and it seems that you have to pass through a dense forest to get there.

small book booth

Due to the past explorations of the "Hidden Man", there is a path in the forest that leads to the lake in the east in a more tortuous way.

Medved and his army, who entered the forest to carry out forced immigration, eventually followed this path to conquer the settlers of Lake Valdai. He did not take full responsibility for relocating the locals and allowing them to continue their current lives. He left after taking some tributes to illustrate the new changes in the Western Great Lakes region.

Farmland has been opened up in the villages of Lake Valdai, and the locals were forced to continue their journey because they failed in the power competition at Lake Yinlemen in the past. Living on the shores of Lake Valdai is hardly a paradise. What you have to watch out for here are almost all wild beasts, and there is nothing but a lot of available wood. They had no iron tools, and since there was no local stone, their tools were sharpened bones.

They were able to cope with the attacking beasts, but they cleverly surrendered without a fight against Medved's steel-armed warriors.

Nowadays, the village of Valdai Lake has been recognized by King Rurik as the easternmost settlement in the kingdom. This also proves that the more distant east has not been explored.

The hides of big animals and the tender skins of cherished small animals are what hunters yearn for.

But the roads leading there are not just forest paths pioneered by our ancestors.

Most of the old Russians immigrated to Lake Inelmen with their families, and then built large settlements on the banks of the Msti River east of Novgorod. That was the developed land of the old Pine Needle Manor, and Rurik himself had a large area of ​​official land there. Sitting on vast tracts of fertile land, continuing to explore along Msti and upstream is still the specialty of the Russians.

So, an adventure happened.

The river gradually narrows, which is not a problem for long boats with shallow drafts. They traveled in the opposite direction and finally drifted to a lake. The unnamed lake is still the channel of the Msti River to the east. It is better to enter the lake if you continue eastward rashly. The brave explorer turned his head to the south and found that the lake was extremely long and divided into many small lakes of different sizes, each with a wide width. Waterway connection. Eventually, they saw the settlement and met a guy standing on a raft fishing.

The explorers were surprised that the people were not afraid of them, so they rowed boldly and started a conversation in Norse.

So the matter has been found out, the upper reaches of the Msti River is in the Valdai Lake, and the so-called Valdai Lake is not a small lake, it is an extremely large lake area, even no less than Yin Ermen Lake, it is just a dense virgin forest Covering its true appearance.

Rurik's mind was once entirely focused on the war against the West, and until now he is still concerned about the kingdom's commercial expansion in Frankland.

After all, the leather, linen, ironware and other goods produced in Ross need a larger consumer market to be dumped, and the goods must be rushed to places with large populations. Exporting to Frank is currently the most cost-effective option.

The war suddenly took on the meaning of trade war, which made exploring the Valdai Lake area eastward unimportant.

The returning soldiers heard the news that many ferrets were found near the lake in the east.

The people in Mstisk were ready to take action, and Arik was also interested.

Although Rurik didn't have time to think about the Eastern expedition, he couldn't help his brother coming to find him with a smile.

After finishing the retreat, he finally choked out the most important chapters of "Roth Saga", and combined with other mythological stories compiled by Ella, a Nordic mythology system with the most rigorous logical chain as possible was officially created.

All that remains is precise proofreading, and then arranging for manual printing to achieve mass production.

He reappeared, and people who had been waiting for a long time rushed to him.

Since the triumphal ceremony had already been completed in the capital, the expeditionary force did not need to spend any more time in Novgorod. The overall performance of Triumphant Division is a bit low-key, but the large amount of loot does not lie.

Among the many people who were eyeing him was Vodgen, the director of the state-owned textile factory. This old guy wanted to eat all the Flanders wool. This idea was immediately approved by Rurik. Instead, he casually asked: "I I thought you would lead the people to unload the cargo after the ship docked, why haven’t you done anything yet?”

The old guy happily went to the temporary warehouse to move the goods, followed by some processing, and finally produced a large number of woolen sweaters. What is a monopoly? This is monopoly. There was only one textile factory in Novgorod, and the Vodgen family naturally enjoyed privileges as industrial owners loyal to the royal family. After all, it was a state-owned factory belonging to Rurik. It was expanded and changed the property rights on the basis of the old Vodgen workshop. The workers have a group of slaves, most of whom are female farm workers, including Ragna's tribesmen who work part-time.

The reason why Fordegen is so anxious is that in addition to his salary, he also gets dividends from his products. The cost of the factory's incoming materials is almost all paid by the royal family. He and his people are responsible for processing, and the labor compensation is in principle given by the king. Fodegen is a professional manager. He doesn't have to worry about business risks now. He has only one task, which is to expand production capacity as much as possible, so that he can get more production capacity dividends, which is a promising amount of money.

Voldegen's personal visit reminded Rurik of his promise to Ragnar.

"Yes, it's time for his people to go home."

Rurik knew that Kagan and Carlotta still had something to do, and the three of them should choose a day to discuss it in detail.

The day was set, and there was still some time before that, and two things needed to be resolved quickly.

It was a calm night, and there were only two brothers in the warm room. Rurik was not yet ready to act like a king to his eldest brother. But now Arik is ignored by his loving wife and smart Asraqi, and he has become more in awe of his younger brother.

However, as he drank some strong alcohol, that awe disappeared, and Arik loudly shouted his opinion.

"You know that our most eastern settlement is in Lake Valdai. Now many people have discovered direct waterways leading there, and the lakes in the east are already floating our fishing boats."

"Is there anything else?" Rurik opened his eyes wide and was surprised.

Seeing his brother's reaction, Arik couldn't help but slapped his thigh and continued shouting: "In addition to being warriors, we old Russians are also fishermen and even more hunters. Isn't the purpose of our annual northern hunt to catch valuable ferrets? Now, isn't it? There is intelligence that there are ferrets all over Lake Valdai.”

"This is real?"

"It's absolutely true! Brothers can't lie. So I plan to organize the brothers to go to the upper reaches of the river to see if we can capture a large number of ferrets. Wouldn't it be a huge fortune? What do you think?"

Arik leaned his head, his eyes seemed to have light bulbs. The desire to get rich was written on his face, and Rurik had no intention of objecting to this. He pinched his beard and had to think about it.

As a king, Rurik would not simply clamor to get rich like his brother. But it's a good thing that I think so.

In the past, when there were not many silver coins in circulation in Sweden, tanned ferret skins sold for as much as two silver coins. The color of ferret leather changes with the seasons. It is brown-black in summer and pure white in winter. People who don't understand will think that these are two small beasts, but smart hunters know that they are the same species and will focus on catching a certain color according to the season. White mink is the most popular, but black is still wonderful.

An area of ​​leather the size of a man's thumbnail can contain 100,000 fine hairs. Mink fur is extremely smooth and extremely warm. Leather clothing made from it is extremely noble and extremely comfortable at the same time. Mink has always been a hard currency in the Nordic world. It is actually difficult to catch, but now Ross has more tools to make more and more advanced traps for hunting small animals.

So, will those Frankish nobles, big and small, want my mink?

"They definitely want it."

Rurik judged that even the village knight wanted a mink coat that felt extremely smooth. Of course, the gentlemen lacked cash wealth. All they had was the food they plundered from the people in the territory.

Food is always needed by the Kingdom of Rus, and no one denies having too much food.

Rurik paid attention to his elder brother's description. He had already figured it out and asked tentatively: "Are the soldiers willing? It's clear that spring plowing has just ended, and they plan to stop resting and continue to be hunters?"

"Who wouldn't want to have the chance to make a fortune? Besides, it would be nice to catch a group of mink brothers and make them into their own clothes."

"It's indeed very good. How many people do you plan to mobilize?"

"This..." Arik, who was dazed, made a conscious decision, "Let's not go to war this year, right? At least you won't take the initiative to attack?"

"Of course. I just want to get rich quietly this year."

"Well, I will try my best to mobilize the brothers and set off. I will also bring some young people from the Youth City, if they are willing. There may be five hundred people going to Valdai, and maybe we will spend the whole summer there. If I found a strange village during the hunting process, so I just attacked and captured some slaves. Haha."

"Okay." Rurik smiled and nodded: "How many mink skins do you think you can bring back? I am very concerned about your harvest."

"Maybe a thousand, maybe more."

"Do your best. Since you told me about this, I agree now. I... will also give you some conditions."

"But it doesn't matter."

"I will send my scribes to follow you."

"Oh?" Alik suddenly asked: "Is it possible that there is still a tax on the hunted leather? You can't do that."

"Hey! What are you thinking about! We agreed that this year will be completely tax-free, and I'm sure of it. My scribes are all proficient in drawing and writing. Brother, we should be prepared to explore the unknown world in the future. The team passed those rivers and mountains , try to draw the terrain. Also draw the strange animals you encounter. Also, write down what happened every day, what the weather is like, and what problems the brothers encountered. This will make it easier to summarize after the exploration. "

"This... is too troublesome. If something happens, can everyone just come back and say no?"

Rurik shrugged: "I am afraid that you will encounter too many things and forget a lot, so my scribe will record the things you encounter for you."

"Okay. One more person is not a problem, but I'm afraid your clerk won't pee his pants when everyone encounters a bear."

"Is this possible? If a bear really appeared, wouldn't you just shoot it with crossbows and arrows?"

"Haha, that's not the case. We will stab the bear's vitals with a spear. After all, only intact bear skins can be sold at a good price."

The action plan has been approved by the king, and the king still needs to deploy people to participate in it. The expedition to Lake Valdai was somehow a journey to make a fortune by hunting wild beasts. Rurik wanted to take the opportunity to conduct land exploration, even though such exploration was primitive.

Because Rurik also has a long-cherished wish.

He knew very little about the vast Eastern Europe, and he was no better than his own people. Now the Kingdom of Rus has basically understood the direction of the Dnieper River through commercial trade with the Pechenegs and Kievs, as well as the Smolensk tribal alliance that occupies the main channel in the upper reaches of the river.

Where is the very important Volga River? This big river is somewhere further east, and there must be a large number of tributaries that converge into the main channel. Ross's explorers did not have to insist on looking for the main river channel. Any river that flows eastwards has a high probability of flowing into the Volga River.

Rurik did know the Caspian Sea, the final mouth of the Volga River. What is certain is that the narrow riverside plain in the estuary area is now completely occupied by the Pecheneg Khanate.

It would be great if we could reach our allies through shipping, and the trade costs for both parties would be greatly reduced.

Thinking of this, Rurik made an updated request to his elder brother. "You try to explore as far east as possible. There is also a very wide river in the east. It is wider than the Rhine. I call it the Volga River. If you find it, we will establish a settlement where we found it. We will there To build a ship, go downstream.

"Where will we end up?" Arik asked casually.

"The territory of the Pechenegs."

"Ah! What a miracle."

Rurik had a serious face and did not mean to joke at all. His younger brother always predicted the unknown, and he often received revelations from Odin. The "Volga River" is completely inexplicable to Arik. Can he find it by exploring eastward, and then find a channel to directly contact the Pechenegs? It would be great if it worked.

Arik has always been willing to be an explorer and hopes to make more contributions to this end. He fully agreed to his brother's additional suggestions.