Rise of Rurik

In the area around Yin'ermen Lake, people harvested the peas they boldly tried to plant before the autumn rainy season.

All late-ripening vegetables are harvested in early September.

Cabbage, onions, and yellow-rooted carrots are the most commonly grown vegetables, among which cabbage is the most popular. Cabbage is both cabbage and cabbage. It grows green and white in the fields like a ball growing out of the earth. There are also kale varieties that grow into a fuzzy ball, enriching the variety of cabbage.

Cabbage and onions represent almost all vegetables, and even carrots become a foil.

Because of the king's regulations, even if the food tax is re-introduced, since vegetables are not considered food, they are not included in the tax. Based on this policy, the people spontaneously "take advantage of the loopholes", so that newly reclaimed land is deliberately planted with food first.

The people were very smart, and it was too far-fetched to use new cultivated land to grow wheat. They first planted vegetables that were easy to survive to estimate the soil fertility, or even directly improved the soil and converted newly cultivated land into mature land to create conditions for growing wheat in the future.

As for the king's public claim that the farmland once planted with peas would yield an unprecedented bumper harvest the next year if planted with wheat.

Is it true or false? Since the king said it, it must be true. Besides, the king himself is practicing what he preaches.

This year's autumn harvest is the same as in previous years. The harvest in Rurik's Wangtian is still normal. Because of intensive farming as much as possible, the grain output has increased to a certain extent. But without real nitrogen fertilizer blessing, this improvement is really limited.

"I hope the field where I planted peas in 843 can be replaced by a bumper wheat harvest. The yield per mu will double? Who knows."

Rurik is in great need of increasing grain production, not only because the population in the area around the lake continues to explode and the population pressure is increasing, but also because the number of people receiving salaries continues to increase.

Those trained scribes are demonstrating their strong work ability. Paper and quills have replaced swords and shields. Such young people cannot go to the battlefield unless necessary, but they are the key to assisting the royal family in orderly governance of the areas directly under the royal family. .

Their power comes from rewards from the king. Now both men and women of the scribes are married, and soon their children will be born.

The scribes received a sum of silver coins every month, and the initially set salary was based on the monthly salary of an "outstanding mercenary". The mercenary team was eventually transformed into the kingdom's standing army, and its salary was increased, similarly to the salary of the scribes.

Just as officers in the standing army are better paid, scribes also have a hierarchy.

At least in the current period, officers do not receive much higher salaries than soldiers. There is no gap between them, and the same is true for scribes.

But the army has a privilege that cannot be ignored compared to the scribes - the right to distribute spoils of war.

The spoils of war are not entirely plundered by soldiers based on their ability. As for the valuables captured, half of the property belongs to the king (equivalent to the treasury), and the remaining half is shared between the officers and soldiers. Based on their rank, each takes his own according to the rules that have been set long ago. 's share.

Serving as a scribe to the king is something that only a naturally weak man can do in the eyes of a true warrior. Being a scribe can only guarantee a good harvest during droughts and floods, even if you can hope to become a close minister of the king. As for being able to gain profits by relying on "non-military merit" because he is a civil servant close to the king, even this kind of corruption is already an extremely high-level corruption. It has never been and cannot be seen in the past era, making it unimaginable for standing army soldiers. This is something they are unaware of.

The Kingdom of Rus is a war machine filled with bloody killings! If we continue to expand endlessly, when the expansion reaches the threshold limit, collapse will suddenly begin?

Rurik has not thought so far ahead yet. His idea is very simple. It is precisely based on his Eastern mind that the Eastern plan can reconcile the violence of Russia.

As the cold autumn rain gathered, most of the production work in the Kingdom of Rus was suspended, but it was Rus' light industry that couldn't stop.

Before the Autumn Rain, a huge amount of leather from the East and the South arrived in the capital. The huge family of leather craftsmen had to absorb and digest these leather materials by relying on each of their smelly family workshops.

The tanned leather is immediately sent to state-owned factories and large and small private tailoring shops. At the same time, linen was woven by women of various ethnic groups using simple looms, and was eventually processed into garments and a variety of leather products in these shops.

The textile industry has little technical content. As long as there is a dumping market, people in their spare time can calm down and make more money through handicraft activities.

The Kingdom of Rus itself is a big market, and the Baltic Sea, with its trivial terrain, requires economic activities to maintain the unity of the kingdom, and this is clearly more efficient than military control. "People can't get along with money, right?!"

It was raining outside, and it was raining continuously. In Novorosberg and Novgorod, the two big cities of Rus, in the houses one after another, people continued to work on their hands. They weaved cloth, spun wool, made leather, and then tailored clothes, making leather shoes, gloves, hats, etc.

Some families even do nothing else but focus on making belts from leather scraps to make necessary armed belts for warriors, hunters and even all kinds of people. Just doing this is enough to make a family prosperous.

What is the economic level of the Kingdom of Rus? Perhaps we can only know it when we collect the Autumn Fu in the agreed year of 844.

What is collected is not just the traditional food tax, but also the industrial and commercial tax for merchants and craftsmen.

Not to mention the capital, Novgorod's business is already booming when it doesn't rain. The commercial streets that spontaneously formed in the city cannot meet the demand, and the wine shops in the city are booming every day. The fish market at the city dock on the Volkhov River evolved into a new commercial street, and a third commercial street was formed near the shipyard facing the Great Lake.

Who is actually doing business? The trained scribes are not just for free.

The people in the entire kingdom who are directly controlled by the royal family are the registered personnel. Thick birch bark papers are piled up in the room. This is the royal family's "household registration archives". Every household that sells its own goods publicly, or even sets up a stall in a commercial street, is registered by the scribe.

After all, the number of registered personnel has expanded to more than 300,000 in just a few years. This number is huge but not particularly large. Only more than 200 scribes can cope with such complicated statistics.

There's nothing big to do in Qiu Yu's gathering, so just farm with your wives and concubines endlessly?

Rurik did this, but he did not spend a lot of time on this.

He is the king of a country and has many responsibilities. The responsibilities force him to personally handle some major affairs, especially setting a road map for the future development of the kingdom.

The kingdom is still expanding. In Eastern Europe, it conquers more areas and incorporates them into territories. In Western Europe, it actively intervenes in the Frankish Civil War to develop trade lines and seize economic benefits.

Expanding eastward requires armies to conquer disobedient tribes, and more importantly, standing armies with strong execution capabilities to plant flags in the wastelands.

Expanding westward will definitely encounter various forms of resistance from the Frankish nobility. Compared with diplomatic mediation, it is easier and more direct to use force to solve the problem, and Ross has the ability to deliver oceans.

Continuing expansion will require more standing armies, and raising soldiers is more expensive than training scribes.

Just at the time of the autumn harvest, the top scribe Ella arrived in Novgorod by boat.

She is a concubine of the king. Although she is a third-level concubine, in serious situations, she is not a concubine, and cannot even be said to be a woman.

She is the highest scribe, the king's financial officer and historian, and her significance is more important than Frank's palace minister.

The autumn rain continued continuously, but a solid wooden sculpture still remained warm and dry.

This is the residence of Ella, the top scribe, on the shore of Yin'ermen Lake. It is also her office and the kingdom's comprehensive archives.

It is no longer shabby, and now has hired security personnel to guard it on a rotating basis, to prevent stray people from approaching, and to pay special attention to avoid fires.

Ella Hestoria, she no longer inherited the name of Ostara, and her son changed his surname to Hestoria, just like the original meaning of this name - history.

The historian is the main identity of this emerging family, but as the head of the civil service, his descendants have the blood of Rurik, so there is nothing wrong with becoming the palace minister.

The little boy Amberman is already two years old. He can call Rurik daddy and run over to him for a close hug.

Then take this son and live directly in a hotel in the kingdom during this rainy season.

Ella didn't say anything, but she felt so happy that she wanted to cry. When she was with her husband and son, her spirit was a little dazed, as if everything should be like this.

She temporarily had ownership of the king himself and could temporarily enjoy the happiness of a family of three together.

But this happiness is entirely based on one thing - she wants to submit a work report to Rurik.

After all, they were husband and wife, especially Ella who had lived as Rurik's adopted sister for many years. She had already regarded Rurik as a family member when she was still young, and now that they were in the same formal office, she felt no restraint.

Son Amberman was sleeping leisurely in another room. The two simply sat cross-legged on the bed facing each other and talked about economic matters in a leisurely way.

The papers were neatly stacked at Rurik's feet.

"I wrote in great detail and recorded a lot. You have to read it carefully and you won't waste my carefulness."

"That's natural." Rurik looked at Ella's round head with a smile, picked up the document and examined it...

The document is written in Romanized Norse, and all proper nouns are in Latin standard.

This kind of document seems to be a Latin document at first glance, but it can only be understood by the top nobles of the Rus Kingdom and educated children.

It is Ella's economic assessment of the metropolitan area.

The number of people engaged in various industries, the number and types of goods in the market, the population and employment of Finns, Danes, and Swedish tribesmen living in the capital, etc.

The total number of shops in the three commercial streets of the capital, the overall assessment of the income of merchants and craftsmen, etc.

Statistics and evaluation are all important references for future tax collection.

The document could not be read in a short time, so Ella stared at Rurik's focused face with wide eyes, not daring to disturb him easily.

After an unknown amount of time, Rurik finally completed the preliminary review of the documents.

"ah!"

"How is it?" Ella raised her head slightly, looking forward to being praised.

"You did a great job and I hope the assessment is broadly consistent with the facts."

"You're not questioning me, are you?"

"Questioning? How could that be? How could I question my own woman."

"Hehe." Ella smiled coquettishly and pretended to be naive: "I arranged the task, and the subordinate clerks in the capital were busy doing things. I also found the governor, Cornuson, and your naval general. Gottlund. The big baker Asraqi, the leader of the big shipyard, and the blacksmith Kamne, they all reported their achievements."

She looks very good when she is serious, and it will be even more interesting if she wears a pair of myopia glasses.

Rurik nodded: "That's the best. Novgorod is mainly responsible for agriculture. As I told you, if you want to make big money, you need to do higher value-added industries. The tax holiday hasn't come yet, so I Now I rely entirely on making money from the industry monopolized by the royal family."

"There is no problem with the current financial situation." Ella immediately added seriously.

"Yes. If there is a problem, I will not be able to expand the army any more."

"Are you expanding your army again?" Ella was a little surprised.

"How? Do you have any objection?"

"I dare not. Now your income is still growing, and your money bank is still full. But you have also taught me that large-scale military expansion means large-scale expenditure. Could it be..." Ella narrowed her eyes slightly: " Are you planning a large-scale battle?"

Rurik stared into her eyes and smiled without saying a word, as if he acquiesced.

"My sister is expanding in the south, and I know this very well. Our expeditionary force is fighting in Frankia, and we have spent a lot of upfront investment for this. If many of those soldiers did not bring their own weapons and equipment, we would inevitably have to spend a lot of money. Pen."

"But if you get a lot of loot, all the effort will be worth it." Rurik added.

"That's right. The benefits of our war must be far greater than the initial expenditure. The main force of the Russian army has not been dispatched yet. Brother!" She simply called out affectionately: "I just came back not long ago, and I don't know how many more troops you have in Novgorod."

"Two Cavalry Troops."

"Well, if that's the case, your expenses are really quite big."

Although Ella is a woman, her identity as the highest scribe is well known, but her specific work is rarely known.

She calculated the various expenditures of Rurik. She knew better than Rurik himself whether the treasury's floating deficit was balanced.

How much does a warship cost? The largest ship in the Kingdom, the Sea Monarch, has been a money-burning monster until now. The expenditures have been equivalent to 4,000 pounds of silver coins so far, and the subsequent expenditures are still increasing slowly!

Why so extreme? Because the expenditure of a ship is not only the shipbuilding cost, but also the personnel salary must be paid every month, which is the subsequent hard expenditure. The core components are generally not replaced, and maintaining the large and small wood of the ship is another huge amount of money.

And she is a battleship. The Russian army is widely equipped with torsion slingshots. The Sea Monarch not only needs to be equipped with them, but also has more of them. When a large number of heavy weapons are gathered together, the money invested can build the hull of another battleship.

Not only the Sea Sovereign, because the naval admiral truthfully took out the inventory of the ships and personnel stationed at the Kronstadt mooring, Rurik had to learn about the cost of maintaining his navy based on the documents compiled by Ella.

The navy is an aristocratic branch of the military. If nothing else, it is a huge gold-swallowing behemoth.

At least a large number of naval ships are acting as transport ships, relying on them to transport northern ore and cast iron ingots to the state-run iron smelting complex in the capital. The income from ironware currently far exceeds the expenditure on raising the navy, which Rurik is pleased about.

Compared with the navy, the construction of cavalry has obviously become an emerging grand strategy of the Kingdom of Rus.

Ordinary people think that Ross has had more and more horses in recent years. Ella, who understands financial expenditures, can clearly calculate how much it costs to raise cavalry, and how much more money the increase in the number of cavalry will mean.

A war horse, the armor and weapons equipped by the cavalry, the cavalry’s salary, horse feed fees, horseshoes and saddle maintenance fees...

If Rurik's two newly expanded cavalry units become a fully independent standing army, the initial investment will be no less than building another Sea Monarch.

Of course, the national treasury can still withstand this consumption.

However, Ella still gave Rurik a pragmatic warning: "You must not expand your army uncontrollably. Unless you plan to launch a large-scale war." I also learned about the attitude of the people in the capital. Many people envy the warriors who expedition to Frank. They look forward to it Looking forward to a new war, looking forward to plundering wealth during the war. But Frank is too far away, if you intend to attack them! We... need to prepare early."

The last words spoke directly to Rurik's heart.

This wife has bright eyes. Ella, who is not the real wife, is now a much better wife than Queen Svetlana!

She shouldn't be jealous of other women, right? After all, she is the top scribe with no military power. Her son Amberman will inherit everything from his mother and will have no military power.

"I've long wanted to take action against Frank! This time I sent the expeditionary force just for a small purpose. I just don't know if they can come back this year. I guess they can come back."

But Ella, who was nestled in Rurik's arms, objected directly: "Brother. If Asgard and Blue Fox's expedition goes very smoothly, they will need a lot of time to transport the spoils. Who doesn't like money? Since you can make a fortune this year, in After the warm Frank has passed the winter, they can obviously continue to plunder. Any man who reaches the age of twelve wants to establish a legacy that does not belong to his father's generation. Your seventh flag team... you don't even pay them, they want to If you want to get rich, you can only fight. You! You are clearly forcing them to plunder."

"Oh? You actually thought of this level?"

"Yes. Even... some words may be unlucky to say."

"Say it." Rurik said seriously.

"If they come back early, it just means something bad. They're defeated."

Rurik was still worried after hearing this, and asked hurriedly: "Do you think they will be defeated?"

"Only the gods know. But we are so respectful to the gods, and Odin gives them power. They will win and get rich, so...by the end of October this year, we may not be able to wait for their returning army. But it does not mean that we have lost contact. , there will be messengers arriving in the capital by boat, and we will know what exactly happened in the west."

A wise woman was nestled in his arms. Rurik never imagined that the seemingly weak and dull little girl in the past could be so smart? !

"Indeed." Rurik cleared his throat: "We should prepare to take action! Follow the will of the people and attack Frank again. For our benefit, I cannot let Lothair win, nor can I let Ludwig have the last laugh."

"You." Ella suddenly raised her head: "Are you going to eat a piece of Frankish land?"

"So be it. Nassau is a steel nail that I have embedded in the heart of the Franks. There is the wine that we are intoxicated with. We can get more benefits from there, Black Fox! That little fat guy, I need him to grow bigger. Moreover, I I also need to go and investigate in person to make sure that boy is loyal to me."

"So. Are you planning to assemble a large army for the expedition?"

"What do you think? Do you have any suggestions? My good woman, you are the one who helps me settle the accounts." Looking at Ella's face, Rurik couldn't see the slightest surprise on her part.

"Thank you for your praise. Then... maybe it will be the same as in the past wars. It must be very safe for you to personally command three thousand people and lead our fleet on an expedition."

"Why only three thousand people? I can bring more." Rurik was a little surprised.

"Of course you can. But your expenses will become even greater. Brother, there is no need for Ross to bet on his fate now. Before you are sure that you can actually plunder far more money than your expenses in the new expedition, don't be too cautious. Too aggressive.”

"Do you suggest that I have three thousand men?" Rurik couldn't help but look at the ceiling and then to the west: "Three thousand elite soldiers are enough. Three thousand Yuejia can devour Wu, and three thousand elite soldiers join the Frankish civil war. I focus on plundering You can make a fortune."

Ella smiled softly. She didn't think the war was a disaster. Being the top clerk for so many years had made her better at calculating accounts. Fighting is a question of whether the benefits are worthwhile or not. She is actually the same as her sister. The war once destroyed the Ostara tribe. The two sisters who survived the disaster were not afraid of the war. Instead, they felt that they failed because they were too weak.

Ella is supporting Rurik's expansion and revenge in her own way.

She clearly felt Rurik's murderous intention, and her man's behavior made her feel more secure.