Rise of Rurik

A large cavalry force stood at the mouth of the Lovati River, and in front of Rurik stood a large city.

The city of New Ostara has a thick wooden wall, and the city deliberately extended the wall and simply created a pass in the flat grassland area by the river. This place was the former southern gate of the Rus Kingdom, but now the new "Southern Gate" has been pushed south to the Vitebsk stronghold.

The establishment of this stronghold was simply a private act of the Duchess Carlotta. Her ideas were very radical and in fact made great contributions to the expansion of Ross.

It also brings a lot of risk to Rose.

She has led her troops to the south, and only the gods know whether she is simply seeking direct control of all of Polotsk. After all, the area along the West Dvina River (Dugava River) is not only the hometown of those people. As long as you continue southward, there will be a more complicated situation and more residents.

Standing on the grassland outside the city, this is the largest lakeside grassland in the entire Yinermen Lake District. Its environment is similar to the highland meadows in southern Sweden, and also has some characteristics of the lakeside grasslands in the Central Asian world.

Any nomad can quickly adapt to this small world. The sight of sheep traveling in groups here is an excellent feature.

A young woman stands with her legs in the stirrups. She holds the reins tightly in her left hand, and the whip in her right hand keeps urging the horse to run faster.

Her followers were thrown behind and rushed like lightning towards Rurik who was looking up at the wooden wall.

She happily called Rurik's name, and skillfully controlled the horse to suddenly stop beside him.

"Rurik...Oh, Khan. Why are you here so suddenly?" Beyathil raised her red face and couldn't hide her joy.

"Just came to see you."

Rurik tilted his head slightly and stared at the prairie princess's cheek with his deep eyes.

Bea Hill trembled shyly and murmured in a low voice: "Just looking at me? Am I really good-looking? It's so good."

"Of course. This city..." He continued to look up at New Ostara, "Carlotta led the troops south, and it seems that the city has become a little depressed. You didn't follow? After all, you are like sisters."

"I want to go, but I have my own things to do."

"What's the matter?"

"Of course it's to train more warriors. Actually, it's for you." She raised her chest with pride on her face, and she was clearly expecting a praise.

Rurik was slightly startled: "Are you Carlotta's new army instructor? Just in time, I also want to see your new recruits. Sooner or later, they will go to the battlefield. Maybe, this time is not far away."

Bejahir did not understand the profound meaning of this statement. She was eager to show that she was an extraordinary woman.

As a king's woman, she can certainly have a very high status, but as a price, she must share a man with many sisters. The king's energy is limited. He has done too much for the expanding king and will do more in the future.

The king not only governs this growing country, he also has the obligation to lead troops to fight, and it is natural for him to lead the army in person.

I have lived in Ross for several years. Although the customs and customs here are very different from my hometown on the prairie, there are many essential similarities. Rurik behaves like a grassland khan, with endless enthusiasm for expansion, and is much stronger than his father and brother.

She chuckled and skillfully controlled the war horse to hover around Rurik: "You are stronger. Wouldn't you be able to crush me?"

Rurik was very clear, "Hey, it seems that you asked me to stay here tonight. Carlotta gave you permission to do this?"

"Of course. I will take charge of this city now. She asked me to do it. Come on! Khan! Let you see the recruits I trained. They will be very good warriors."

Just like the rapidly expanding population of the descendants of the Old Rus tribe, the population of the Ostara tribe who immigrated to the east is also expanding rapidly. The blood connection between the new Ostara and the old tribe has been very distant. A large number of the population comes entirely from the immigration of local Slavs, becoming the new Ostara people in the legal sense. Additional members of the Swedish Glen tribe joined, and they also enjoyed a new name. As in the past, the Glen people were always vassals of the Ostara people, and the same was true in the New World.

These people who belong to the Principality of Ostara will inevitably give up their past farming life, and even the Ostara people themselves will undergo great changes.

This city is the first stop for grassland products and Kiev products. Not only the products arrive, but the life and culture from the south also take root here. The city began to be filled with rich steppe culture, coupled with the inherent Swedish culture and Slavic culture, the cultural fusion was complex and more intense than Novgorod or Novorosberg.

The natural instinct of human beings is to live a comfortable life. Many tents appeared in the meadow area, and the Pecheneg people settled here. These people are not ordinary people at all. They are the guards of Beyasier. There are as many as fifty people. Now many of them have married local Slavic women.

This was what Bejasil deliberately requested. She considered herself. Although it was not a problem for her to ride on a horse and fight as a female warrior, she was now living a leisurely and even boring life in New Ostara. Her subordinates must be equally bored. .

More importantly, as a prairie princess who married far away, what qualifications did she have to really maintain a strong guard? Duchess Ostara is Rurik's nominal sister, and she also has the status of "Khan". Bejasil actually surrendered to Carlotta, and as a price, his bodyguards became de facto Ostarians, and the children they gave birth to after marrying local women were pure Ostarans.

A group of knight slaves actually enjoyed married life in the new world. They were loyal to Beyathil and ultimately to Rurik himself.

As a key reserve cavalry force, Rurik would have ignored the existence of these people if it had not been for Beyasier's reminder. Today, these young prairie men have mixed descendants. If these cubs are given the shortest ten years Years later, a brand new cavalry was born.

The horn sounded, and Bejahir ordered the troops to assemble.

Everything was like a military gathering reaction of the grassland tribes. People on horseback filed out from tents, wooden sheds, and even the open city gate. At first they didn't understand why the assembly alarm was issued. It seemed to be another tactical exercise to "counter Smolensk sneak attacks."

This time they saw a tall warrior wearing a golden crown.

Is it His Majesty the King? Behind him stood a cavalry uniformly dressed, with Ross's white-and-blue-striped flag flying here.

Rurik had been astonished at their presence ever since he saw the galloping cavalry, and now they were assembled into a giant.

Rurik was suddenly confused: "Strange! I remember that the population allocated to the Ostara people was not large. Aren't many people allocated to Great Lucki? Beyasher...could it be that the people your sister took away Not much?"

"Because everyone who can ride a horse must be a warrior? Your Majesty, we have a lot of horses here, and there are just as many people who can ride a horse." She said with a smile.

"But the Ostara people shouldn't have such a large population. Why do I think you can conjure up at least four hundred cavalry?"

"About this number."

Bayahir went to Novgorod for nothing, but she also heard that the king was training a new cavalry unit. It is not surprising that the king expands his new army, but according to her inherent prairie thinking, equipping every man with at least one horse makes becoming a combatable cavalry as natural as eating and drinking.

She pointed out the maze with great interest...

Although the so-called pregnancy period of a mare lasts for a whole year, the foal will stay with the mother for about half a year. The mare must be bred again one year after giving birth, and can only give birth to foals in the third year.

The foals are fully rideable when they are only one year old, and the females are fertile by the time they are two years old. By this time, Pecheneg herders have begun to intentionally get these foals pregnant.

Horses mean everything to the grassland people. The increase in value of horses is as important as the increase in population. They represent wealth and not only the fighting power of the tribe.

As the saying goes, there are specializations in the industry. Ross and other immigrants from the Viking tribe came by rowing. They are best at sailing and shipbuilding. Although they know that horses are excellent tools for land transportation, there are almost no real horse-breeding masters.

The Pechenegs did the exact opposite, and the grassland horses they brought had extremely strong endurance and physical fitness. Since these horses have been living in the bitter and cold grassland areas of southern Russia, their Turkic horses (Mongolian horses) have Due to their unique nature, their reproduction speed is naturally faster than that of Western European military horses, especially under the condition of human intervention and maintenance.

Rurik knew nothing about horse breeding, so he outsourced the entire industry to the Pechenegs who came to seek refuge. After all, the Russian cavalry was to a large extent the "yellow-haired steppe cavalry."

The southernmost end of Yin Ermen Lake is in the meadow area at the mouth of the Lovati River. It is the horse farm of the Rus Kingdom.

The captured Frank stallions have been used hard, and the locally domesticated horses are still dominated by steppe Turkic tails. And because they have been bred with artificial intervention, five horses have been imported from the Pechenegs and Kievs every year for several years. There are more than a hundred horses that have proven their strength after traveling a thousand kilometers and can be used immediately.

The horses that actually become the kingdom's active cavalry are all mare horses, which are much docile than male horses. However, if they really become active horses, these horses will lose the qualification to breed the next generation. There will be one horse team after another, and they will not increase in value.

New Ostara Here is another scroll!

Rurik did not start considering solving the Smolensk problem until the summer of 842. It was a big problem and obviously could not be solved overnight. Smolensk must be conquered, but is there really great wealth there? Hard to say. What is obvious is that through intensive intervention in the Frankish Civil War, Ross was not only able to make real money, but also countless properties.

The transplanted peas began to be planted on a large scale and bore fruit. Rurik was willing to classify them as a vegetable and it was not very storable. Since it was not food, the tax on it was essentially unnecessary, but it could indeed be eaten. , this is a benefit to hundreds of thousands of people.

Rurik even learned about the main attitude of the people from the fact that the first batch of wine produced in Nassau was sold out after it arrived in the capital. From the people's crazy buying and the subsequent discussion throughout the city, he learned that there was It is necessary to go to Frank to gain profits.

The expeditionary force's actions were completely in line with public opinion. Ordinary people didn't care about the grand war. They focused on how much benefit the people on the expedition could get, and looked forward to having their sons and nephews participate in the next expedition.

The northern part of the kingdom has an increasingly strong desire for war to continue to cut flesh from Frank. In a small world in remote Eastern Europe, people here are also pursuing war, but the situation in the north is completely different.

Beyathil did not feel that a war was imminent, and even if there was one, Carlotta could easily defeat it with his cavalry. She believed that Rurik had overestimated those Smolensk people. When he trained thousands of reserve cavalry for the kingdom, and cooperated with the cavalry directly controlled by the king, it was not easy to destroy those enemies.

She spoke with gusto, then looked at the soldiers who had assembled for the assault. These guys either wore felt hats or leather helmets decorated with horns. They generally carry a bow, even a single wooden bow, and some arrows in a leather bag on their waist. Apparently because of the excessive gathering, many people did not even have saddles on the shore, so they jumped on their horses and came holding the reins.

Saddles and stirrups are actually not necessary. The former is to prevent the hips from being broken when galloping, and the latter is to ensure that the warrior moves more flexibly.

An excellent prairie cavalry can hold the belly of a horse with only his legs, and can endure riding without a saddle.

After all, in Pecheneg, saddles can be simple things made of felt. It is difficult for ordinary people to get metal stirrups unless they are captured in the war. They simply don't have them, or use hemp rope to make a noose.

As a result, many of Beyathil's guards have bow-legged legs simply because they are not visible under the cover of their trousers.

Each man is paired with a horse. The horses are the result of the increase in value over the years, and the extra population is also the result of Slavic men migrating from nearby farms. After all, people who were forcibly removed from the forest could go to the lakeside to recreate a farm, but they were forced to start clearing land on the spot, building houses and clearing land. This was very hard work.

So some people simply joined the Principality of Ostara in the south of the Great Lake. At least the ruler here would not let them cultivate wasteland, and they could live by fishing and animal husbandry.

In this way, Carlotta is simply competing for population with Rurik. Rurik ordered the clerks to count the population data. Those clerks will never go to the Principality of Ostara to do the statistics.

Without first-hand information, Rurik could not know how many horses his southern vassals had, how many people they had, or how many reserve troops they had that could be put into combat in a short period of time.

His southbound wanderings yielded important results that he had neglected in previous years.

He inspected the reserve cavalry of Ostara outside the city, and also learned from Bayahir that Carlotta was heading south with more than 200 elite cavalry, accompanied naturally by the 3rd cavalry commanded by "Bald" Fisk. A cavalry unit.

Five hundred cavalry is not all the troops that Carlotta can control, because there are still some Pecheneg horses in the important Velikiy Luki stronghold in the south, which was built by Rurik himself. There may still be some Pecheneg horses there. Can pull out another hundred people who can ride horses.

Because it is completely different from Frank's attitude towards cavalry.

All men of the Pecheneg tribe are cavalry, and women also fight on horseback when necessary.

The people of Russia are all too familiar with the matter of all the people becoming soldiers. This is how Ross came to be, but every man in old Ross must be a "Marine" who is good at sailing.

Since the composition of the prairie cavalry comes from all the men of the tribe, the quality of the warriors varies greatly. If a large cavalry is organized, Rurik will inevitably have prejudices - maybe a large group of mounted militiamen will be trained by the prairie people and still turn out to be a mob.

In the final analysis, it is necessary to build cavalry flag corps one after another, fully devote themselves to combat training in China as a prostitute, and provide them with excellent weapons and armor.

Rurik felt that it was necessary to learn from the Franks in this regard. After all, this kind of cavalry standard was directly loyal to the king.

At least he got great good news in New Ostara. The horse breeding industry continues to prosper. This time, Bejasil, the prairie princess, is personally supervising. The fifty new riding slaves are good at wool themselves, and there are a lot of horse breeding masters. Here, it is not just the added value that is given to the horse herd, but also by-products from the horses such as fresh mare's milk, mare's milk products and mare's kumiss are also produced.

Finally, Rurik stood in the city of New Ostara and entered the pure wooden palace of the Duchess, accompanied by Beyah Hill.

The palace now became the residence of King Rus, and Beyathil stayed with Rurik.

Their son Khazal, who is almost two years old, was left in Novgorod with other princes for collective protection. He should receive education after safely surviving the most dangerous childhood period in his life. .

As a mother, she can't take her son with her all the time, it seems just because the boy is too young. She regretted that she missed her son so much but was unable to leave the affairs at hand and stay in Novgorod to take care of her children every day.

Unlike Carlotta, as a duchess, she took her son Karl to launch a complete conquest of Polotsk. After all, the child was already six years old.

"Let's have another one."

At night, Rurik, who was sleeping in the palace, responded directly to Beyathil's pretentious and coy expression during the day.

Beyasier, who had been anxious all the time, was waiting for Rurik to say this under the moonlight. Hearing this, he was extremely happy.

"Just what I want. Hazal also has a younger brother... no, two or three. They will all be your warriors! And, I really like you..."

Rurik has always had an oriental aesthetic, and Beyahil is the girl who satisfies her own aesthetic. It would be better if her eyes were bigger.

He had already made clear hierarchical classifications for all his wives and concubines, and Beyathil was classified as the so-called third class. Even Carlotta is at this level. All wives and concubines at this level must be female nobles with titles and identities.

The first class is Queen Svetlana, and the second class is High Priest Rumia. The queen's status must be the highest, and the high priest's status is the second. The former maintains the direct bloodline of the royal family, and the latter maintains the faith of the kingdom. The two girls are really of a high status and cannot have a fief.

As for the third-class wives and concubines, many of them have become de facto frontier officials, just like Carlotta who led the cavalry to expand into Eastern Europe.

Bejahir was very submissive, she just wanted it and enjoyed it very much.

However, the happy time is short-lived.

Because Rurik has settled a lot of affairs, Novgorod, Novorosberg, and several northern cities, the local governors can work step by step, and all the people can enjoy a good life of peace and suspension of taxes.

As a king, Rurik is now unwilling to be trapped by the great power he possesses.

He actually had some indifferent worries, and it was not convenient for him to tell anyone about them.

It is said that the expansion of the Principality of Ostara is somewhat out of control. Carlotta is a strong woman forced by the dangerous environment, and her ambitions are likely to expand due to the expansion of her strength.

"I have to find her! Tell her! I am the true king."

How to implement it? After all, she is a woman, and she is still her sister in name only. Rurik felt that he owed her a lot over the years. His son Karl was six years old, and it was time to add a half-brother or sister.