Rise of Rurik

The real Qiu Yu gathering finally began.

After the Autumn Festival, when Rurik returned to Stockholm to prepare for the next phase of inspection work, a strong and biting north wind brought a cold rain to the entire world.

The low temperature is not enough to cause freezing rain. People at the dock are busy moving goods to shelter from the rain, and there is no one in the streets that are gradually becoming muddy.

The prosperous commercial port city seemed to be deserted, and the whole city came to a standstill. Every household closed its doors and windows, and even sealed the gaps with rags and scraps of leather to prevent the cold air from entering.

Only the towering chimneys spewed out smoke in the rain, and every family with the conditions lit a fireplace to use the heat brought by burning wood to dispel the humidity in the room.

Everything is peaceful in the Governor's Mansion. Due to the bad current situation, Rurik does not want his people to get sick due to the cold and rain, although some brave guys claim to ignore this problem.

The continuous rain interfered with Bai Hu's plan to deliver supplies. He also had a preparation plan. As long as the damn rain didn't last for two weeks, everything would be fine.

If it does, it will rain continuously until mid-October. Then this year's plan to transport supplies to the capital can significantly reduce the transportation volume.

There is only one thing that everyone is most worried about. As long as the time is delayed until October, Lake Mälaren, the Gulf of Bothnia and most of the Gulf of Finland will begin to freeze. When the waters begin to freeze, there will be ice for up to half a year. Expect.

Now that the ice is frozen, traffic is not completely cut off. All parties will organize reindeer sleighs to continue to maintain trade, but the transport capacity of their trade has plummeted and the overall cost has also risen sharply. In this way, trade will be tilted towards high value-added commodities. What is traded is no longer bulk grain, but salt, walrus tusks, rare bones and rare small animal skins, mainly mink.

Staying in the Governor's Palace Rurik will not be boring.

The fortress-like Gould Island has long been a fortress, and the warehouses inside usually accumulate large amounts of grain and flax stalks. The Governor's Palace warehouse in Stockholm also accumulates such bulk goods, because the capacity of Gould Island is limited.

With food piling up like a mountain, Governor Bai Hu decisively ordered some pottery urns to open an ale brewing workshop. This is his family's business, which also uses his own grain assets. He just borrows the Ross Winery belonging to the royal family to sell it to external parties to earn higher profits.

The more food there is, the more important it is to ensure its safety. No, granaries everywhere have reached the point where they have to keep cats.

Once upon a time, wild Nordic forest cats were hunted by hunters just for their fluffy and warm fur. Its ability to control rats has been discovered. It is a very cost-effective choice to raise some forest cats so that they can catch rats and ensure food security.

Velika had nothing to do, holding the cat of the Governor's Palace as a pet and playing with it. She would often put her face against the thick fur and laugh at the cat.

Osborne, who has reached the age where he likes running around the most, simply chases the cat, often causing the cat to scream regardless of the severity, and once made the cat scream very loudly.

As soon as the cat screams, the queen rushes to her. Cats have become a normal domestic animal in Novgorod. The number of families raising cats is gradually increasing. They use cats to protect their small granaries, but they also need to ensure that cats do not eat their own poultry.

Even if a cat is small and cute, it is still a little beast that is good at catching mice.

She chased her son, picked her up, and scolded him harshly, ordering him not to toy with the cat until it got scratched, and then slapped him on the butt a few times as a deterrent, which again made his son cry.

After all, the family atmosphere is really strong.

Bai Hu's sons and daughters have all started their own families. He himself is getting old, and his blond hair has naturally fallen out a lot from his fat head. If you look closely, you can see that part of his hair has turned silver.

Rurik enjoyed the noise very much. He met the queen who was holding her son hard and asked her to put down little Osborne.

"This kid! What should I do if my hand bleeds after being scratched by a cat?"

As soon as he was put down, the little guy hugged his father's thigh and was busy hiding his body before revealing his big blue eyes.

Rurik held the queen's shoulders and tried to persuade her: "If you are afraid of bleeding, you are not a real man. That's right. This kid has nothing to do with the cat. Just say a few words and don't do anything."

"No, I think this kid is getting more and more naughty. His food doesn't taste good, so I have to forcefully stuff it into his mouth with a spoon. No, I have to give him a beating."

Thanks to Velika's obedient running over, she picked up her brother and hugged him before disappearing quickly. All that was left was Queen Svetlana sighing coquettishly as she was held in Rurik's arms.

The queen hoped that the prince she gave birth to would be calm enough, and she couldn't stand the naughtiness of her own life. As everyone knows, this naughtiness just proves the power of blood.

Because Lanna was also a naughty crazy girl at that time, Otto noticed this firepower, and after a few more years of observation, he chose her as his son's fiancée.

But it was said that Velika was hiding aside with her brother in her arms. After a while, the siblings were playing with the cat again. Trapped indoors to avoid the freezing cold outdoors, playing with cats has become the only exciting game.

After appeasing his wife, Rurik chatted with the governor who was watching the fun.

"If you have a cat at home now, will you have a dog in the future?"

"Hounds? I don't need them for the time being." What the white fox said was true. He changed the topic and pointed his right hand as thick as a bear's paw to the north: "If there is demand, there will be a market. There are people here in Malaren who breed hounds and sell them. They I thought it was profitable. The old Russians living in the north continued their specialty of hunting, especially hunting small animals. They took hounds with them for winter hunting. The hounds can not only pull sleds, but also catch ferrets directly. It’s really a good thing. Woolen cloth."

"Oh? Are there many people buying from the north?!" Rurik was a little ignorant in this regard.

"More and more. In my opinion, this is a good market. But I don't think you can make much money by investing in it. Some of the nobles of Mellaren are doing the breeding of hounds, and I don't want to get involved." , he winked at the king and smiled without saying a word.

"Why are you looking at me? I hope that the king will recruit some more people to set up a royal hunting dog breeding institution?"

"Oh! If the king is interested, this is not a problem."

The white fox gave a warning. Rurik thought for a moment and pinched his beard: "It's not impossible. You don't have to do this kind of thing just because it doesn't make money. You can try it. I think you can buy puppies after breeding them. East. I think those Slavs really need hunting dogs to help them live (to look after their homes). Now that they are getting richer, they should be willing to pay for them."

East? Hearing this word, the white fox couldn't help but feel his scalp tingle. His family was restricted by the king to develop in the East. Could it be that... the king continued to raise hounds and made a statement about lifting the ban?

Bai Hu tried his best to maintain his composure, showing that he was not surprised at all, as if he was indifferent to the matter, and said casually: "I'll just give it a try."

If a hunter raises hounds, he can only raise local ferocious dog breeds. Nordic hounds all have fluffy, thick coats with gray and black patches. Such fur is a perfect camouflage when placed in the forest snow.

It has the reminder of a wolf, and its face has a naive look. It can be commanded to hunt small animals, and its ferocity can also hunt small deer.

In the past, some people in the Ross tribe raised this kind of traditional Nordic hound. However, in that era when supplies were not abundant, hunters had to consider feeding their dogs fresh meat every day, and the cost of raising them was probably not worth the hunting output. This economic contradiction made Too few people keep hounds.

According to what Bai Hu said, the lives of residents in the north are getting better now, and a large number of people have enough assets to add a few special family members.

The long autumn rain that Rurik was most worried about did not come true. It finally stopped.

However, on the first night after the autumn rain, people were surprised to find thin ice appearing in the outdoor water tank early in the morning.

All those who could afford it wore furs, while the poor wore several layers of linen and inferior leather garments patchwork and stitched together with small animal skins. Everyone was dressed in a rather bulky manner, and both men and women wore furry hats that could cover half of their faces.

Rurik prepared huge white fox velvet hats for his two children, especially his prince Osborne. This boy was deliberately added with a golden ponytail, and a huge white fox fur was worn on his head. The white fox's big tail It actually covers half of the back. The next guy puts on a fur coat made of polar bear skin, and he looks like a little bear.

It's not snowing yet, and the royal family is all wearing polar bear fur clothing. The overall white tone is eye-catching no matter where they go. White clothes mixed with blue stripes are the characteristics of old Ross. His navy put on the prepared winter clothes, with woolen and leather jackets as linings, and the outermost layer was put on Ross's usual linen shirt, with blue stripes on the chest and back, and a deerskin armed belt around the waist. Heroic and heroic.

The fleet will continue to go north to inspect the land of Longxing in Rossburg. This time Rurik will no longer have three ships. He will be followed by five armed cargo ships. This is the cargo fleet sent by White Fox.

Bai Hu himself also wants to lead a team to Tombstone Island. He knows that his father is dying, so he will try his best to take his family to guard Tombstone Island.

After inheriting almost all the family property, Bai Hu felt obligated to die for his father. In particular, he had to take his old mother to wait on the island, and he had to convince her to stay calm first.

Gould, an old guy, still kept female slaves in his later years. Because these women gave birth to children, he gave them a dignity because the children were freed from slavery. The white fox didn't know that his father had already applied to the king for the opportunity to become ordinary Russians for these slaves, and was approved.

Was Gould kind in this regard? But his wife, the old lady who gave birth to "four little foxes", was so angry that she did not dare to criticize her husband directly. In recent years, she simply lived with her eldest son Bai Hu as a protest with practical actions, but this only made Gu Ed retired more comfortably.

The fleet entered the sea and could reach Tombstone Island by deviating slightly from the lane. Rurik did not want to waste time. The thin ice on the outdoor pottery urn was a dangerous signal. In this era without any weather forecast, people could only learn from some details. When predicting the future weather, unnecessary signs are always magnified and interpreted. Rurik is afraid that this winter will be a cold one.

Eight boats bravely headed north against the wind with their triangular sails raised.

Bored people hid in the warm cabins. Along the way, the fleet encountered the northern fleet, which used the north wind to rush south before the sea froze. Those armed cargo ships met Rurik's small fleet from a distance, and each had their own tasks. They had to hang pennants with special patterns on the cables and piece together phrases that could be interpreted, so Goldlund could The person who learned about the other party was the royal fleet who wanted to send urgent supplies to the capital, that is, his subordinates.

The strong winds made the sea conditions a bit bad, and Velika and Osborne were tortured to the point of not thinking about food. People suffered from the violent ups and downs of the sea waves. At certain points, the fleet felt like a roller coaster. Rurik even felt a little weightless. .

He himself has experienced hundreds of battles, and his body is very adaptable to harsh sea conditions. This is a pain for his wife and children. Even if Svetlana wants to endure it, the seasickness will make her stomach churn, and she will avoid the embarrassment again. , she simply fasted tactically during the final voyage.

Finally, the familiar Roseburg Fjord appeared in front of the fleet!

The sea conditions are not good today, but the situation in the fjord is not bad. However, there are not many sheltered ships in the harbor, because smart people have rowed their ships on a large scale to the northernmost point of Ellenborg and the town of Kovenstad on the eastern coastline of the Gulf of Bothnia. People have only one purpose, just like the white bears and brown bears in Northern Europe who guard the river channels in autumn to wait for salmon, people also do the work of bears.

The fishermen, mainly the old Russians who stayed behind, worked hard to weave a huge linen net. It was deliberately made narrow and long so that several kings could temporarily put it together to block the river and catch all the migrating salamanders.

If the Finnish Kevin tribe in the old days was still very particular about not fishing all the way from the lake, Ross was completely on the contrary. Everyone just wanted to harvest on a large scale. No one cares that the tight nets they have laid may make the salmon population scarce. A real problem faces all northern settlers - we want more food.

Workers involved in mines, smelting workshops, cobbler workshops, and even large-scale hunting operations need enough food, and the best supplement here is fishing. Autumn is an opportunity. As long as you catch some salmon like crazy, the suddenly cold air will quickly freeze these salmon, which are rich in fish eggs, to a porcelain solid state. They will deliberately collect the fatty fish roes and pickle them. The fish meat will be cut open and placed next to the fire to dry.

Those fish that had no time to deal with were frozen solid, so they simply stacked on top of each other to form a "fish wall" and became a food reserve.

We asked ourselves that since the autumn of 839, we had regularly returned to issue conscription and war preparation orders to the people, and this time it was already the second anniversary.

A large number of technicians came out of their hometown in Fort Ross. They were already excellent blacksmiths and had been very important ordnance repairmen in the war. They could repair worn individual swords and spears on the battlefield, and they were also responsible for repairing heavy equipment. Especially the latter, the torsion slingshot requires frequent maintenance, and damaged wooden parts can be made from local materials, which also requires professional craftsmen to deal with.

Most of the soldiers from Rossburg's hometown did not directly participate in the fighting, so the losses were very small. On the contrary, they still received sufficient trophies, and the lives of the participants were greatly improved.

The king's arrival was unexpected, but on second thought it was normal.

In Fort Ross, no matter how noble the elders were, they had to give up their power to their backup.

Let's talk about Harold Johnson, who dreamed of becoming a great leader when he was young. His current position is the governor of his hometown in Fort Ross, and in fact he has achieved his wish. Legally, he still holds the power of the governor, but his age is basically the same as old Otto. When Otto, who was once as strong as a bear, continued to lose ground in the face of the terrifying erosion called aging, Harold Zuosen's situation was not optimistic either.

His son Kanuf has replaced him.

The once bratty little boy Kanuf has grown into a strong man. His arms are thick and his chest is swollen. Under his thick clothes, there are bursting muscles and thick fat that covers the muscles.

Kanuf led his troops to participate in a series of wars in 840 and achieved military exploits. After receiving a huge sum of money, he could not help but indulge in pleasure.

This guy brought his four wives and as many as six children, large and small. He personally supported his father, who had a flowing beard, to go to the dock to see the king's arrival.

Not only him, but another distinguished old man, the legendary blacksmith Clavarson, also came.

Klavasen is no longer able to lift his hammer, but he is pleased that his grandson Kusneslav has become a talented person. This mixed-race boy will be thirteen years old after Hanukkah, according to Viking tradition. Klavasen was once worried that his grandson would not be strong enough because of his blood, but now he is obviously worried.

Besides, he is more than just a grandson. Daughter-in-law Lilia gave birth to another big, fat boy. She is still young and can obviously have more in the future.

The blacksmith family who believes in Thor, the god of thunder, loves flames and steel. They regard forging by the stove as a symbol of the man. In this way, the family is authorized to manage the largest iron smelting center in the kingdom, the satellite town of Roseburg, Blast Furnace Town, which produces The ironware continued to meet the needs of the country and also brought huge financial resources. The miners gained wealth, and the Clavarson family gained glory, status, and tangible gold, silver, and gems.

Just like in the past, there are densely packed old Russian houses on the hillside. Although there are now many Balmoks from Norway, Mälaren from Sweden, Lapps and Kovin from Finland among the settlers, they are like Based on the same old tradition, the old Russians all appeared on the seaside and cheered the fleet that docked.

Because the royal flag flying on the mast cannot lie.

The king is coming.