Rise of Rurik

For Rurik's sea troops, since the fleet entered the inland rivers, the tortuous journey tortured the blood of the soldiers.

Theoretically the fleet has entered the territory of the Jotalans.

The warriors were eager to fight. They were prepared to fight against the interception of the Jotalans, or to discover their villages. After the soldiers landed on the shore, they attacked quickly.

But all I saw along the way were barren forests and lakes.

The oarsmen were on alert. They saw the woods swaying and carefully determined that it was just the wind blowing. Boredom plagues everyone, and the originally tense nerves inevitably relax.

Some people began to spread rumors that the Hjelmalen tribe in Sweden was too nervous. At most, a small group of enemies invaded the north, and they were described as terrifying monsters by these guys.

The brothers are not going to war simply to seek justice for the Yermalen people. This is a war to destroy the country. Like a giant python that keeps twisting and advancing in the winding river, the Russian naval forces have been fighting against boredom.

"I don't know what happened to Arik and the others." Rurik muttered.

Most of his cronies are on the flagship. It is purely accidental that the Gurdot serves as the flagship.

There is not much difference between this ship and the Aurora, except that she belongs to the Gould family in principle. Due to the character of the family members, this large ship is not only frequently repaired, but the interior decoration is also very particular.

Naturally, the cronies heard the king's complaints very clearly.

We haven’t seen each other for many years, and Kanuf has grown into an adult. He is shorter than Rurik, but he is still a strong man among his peers.

"Brother." Kanuf said so affectionately, "Although I feel bored too, I feel that a big battle is inevitable."

"That's natural. I'm a little worried that the morale of the soldiers is being destroyed by boredom. If we are attacked by those guys, will we suffer undue losses?"

"To put our people on alert?"

"You don't have to be too nervous if you look at the situation." Rurik sighed, "Let's continue sailing. Brother, you are the man who will inherit the governorship of your homeland. This time you must perform meritorious deeds, chop off a few heads or shoot a few. enemy."

Kanuf laughed boldly for a while, then patted his chest and claimed that he must have made a great contribution.

The sea troops will not get lost, for no other reason. The north shore of Lake Vettern used to be the territory of the Swedes. Ten years ago, they fled for fear of war. The old guys of the tribe still have clear memories of the waterway connecting the lake and the Baltic Sea after ten years. .

Although the journey was boring, the fleet always sailed in the relatively wide deep water until it fell asleep. The fleet avoided all wrong tributaries and rushed towards the northeastern entrance of Lake Wettern.

An order from the king was issued, which cheered up the spirits of the warriors, whose arms were sore from busy paddling and whose spirits were rather numb.

Nothing else, because the guides were beating their chests and claiming that the fleet was about to re-enter Lake Wettern.

Most Swedes or other people in the army have never been here. They only know that there are two large lakes in the Götaland area in the south.

Finally, a huge hole opened up in the narrow forest, and in front of us was a very open coastal swamp.

Can I disembark and rest here?

The soldiers were disappointed again, because this was just a large swamp full of cold mud.

The army needs a hard open land as a camp for the army. Not only is the mud swamp in front of them not good, the fleet must also enter the lake to form a formation to facilitate subsequent arrangements.

Like a hen laying eggs, the ship entered the inner lake very slowly. The rowing longboat tows the big ship to form a sailing unit until it enters Lake Wettern. The big ship with the furled sail immediately lowers the jib, then untied the longboat towing its own cable, regaining its freedom in the wide water and relying on the lake breeze to sail freely. .

The swamp was not that big, and the oarsmen also needed to rest. Rurik knew the difficulties of the soldiers. He stood on the bow of the ship and took a closer look, and couldn't help but mumble.

"Damn it, why didn't anyone tell me earlier that this place is full of cliffs near the coast?"

Some of the attendants asked the king what he should do.

Yes, what to do.

"Send the order." Rurik made a firm decision, "Let the long boat approach the cliff and land on a limited beach to rest. People on the big boat are not allowed to move."

The king gave the order, and even if Rurik didn't give the order, his troops had already done it of their own accord.

Forced by the winding river to row against the current like a giant python, the first ship entered Lake Wettern in the morning, and it was already evening when all of them entered the lake. At this moment, the first boats to enter the lake have washed up on the narrow flat land under the cliff on the lake shore.

From the cliff to the lake, the width of the flat land is only about thirty meters at its furthest. The cliffs are all made of large pieces of hard black granite, and there are also some gravels scattered near the shore, which are constantly being beaten by water waves. The so-called flat land is not flat, it is a weathered gravel beach with some bushes growing on it.

The cliff was not high. Cables were thrown to hang the hanging branches, and some soldiers struggled to climb up. These brave men are facing a larger area of ​​Nordic primeval forest, and the surrounding scenery is no different from Lake Malaren.

The forest on the cliff did have an advantage. Some small pine trees were chopped down or sawed, and then crashed under the cliff. They were chopped to pieces by thousands of warriors below the cliff and used as bonfire fuel.

Although the land was quite cramped, an astonishing number of rowing long boats were lined up and semi-stranded on the lake shore, and the appearance of the Ross army seemed very huge.

At night, the bonfire array formed a wall of fire against the cliff. The soldiers laid down fur blankets and gathered around the bonfire, eating fresh fish caught locally and cooking the wheat they brought with them.

There had been many days when their tiring paddling work could come to an end. Soldiers need a critical day of rest, especially a good night's sleep to replenish their energy.

Because everyone knows that when the army enters the lake, it is inevitable to find the Jotalans and launch a decisive battle. If there is a decisive battle, the battle will take place in the next few days.

Rurik finally landed on the island in a small boat, had a good chat with his cronies and Swedish nobles, and then returned to the big ship.

Ordinary warriors can relax their vigilance a little and enter the enemy's lake, but Rurik does not dare to relax easily.

Considering that there is a dense forest behind the cliff where the army is leaning, and hunters have to be careful of tripping when walking in it, it is impossible for the enemy to launch a large-scale attack from the forest.

A small number of personnel were still placed on the cliff as special sentries to ensure that there were no hidden dangers on land.

Rurik controls all the big ships here. Most of the main ships of the Ross fleet have entered Lake Vetern. The fleet has formed a long snake formation, building a "Great Wall on the Water" in the night. The torsion slingshots covered with oil-soaked linen cloth were displayed one after another, and the projectiles or javelins were placed on the deck. The soldiers on guard at night implemented a rotation system to prevent the enemy from suddenly attacking at night and counterattack immediately.

Although no one dared to challenge the Jotalan forces, Rurik took precautions this time and ordered the ship to spread lights.

Wouldn't letting each ship light oil lamps and torches expose itself?

This is the effect he wants.

Because the Jotalans are here, they will fight if they want, and the Kingdom of Rus is just fighting with them openly. This revealing of one's true identity is both a deterrent and an invitation to war.

Of course the Ghotalans of Lake Wettern could have run away, but where else could they have gone? Ross's strategic goal is not simply to conquer this lake.

All the big boats turned on their lights, and the lights were also fishing lights. As for the skill of fishing for bass at night by burying a big net underwater, of course I would do it now that I had the opportunity.

Some ships take on the special task of catching fish at night, and their results will enter the stomachs of the soldiers tomorrow.

Even a small amount of light can be extremely stressful for lakeside residents who always face dark nights.

What's more, the bright light in the distance is extremely abnormal and forms a dancing light band.

Speaking of which, Rurik's fleet had to rely on the platforms under the cliffs to spend the night, and the Jotalan Garg and his fishermen also needed these platforms to rest.

Since the "bonfire light belt" of the Ross army exposed itself very arrogantly, it attracted the Jotalan army to see them. Rose's sentry could also see flashes of fire in the distance, even if those lights lit up for a while and then went out.

It was the Yotalan fishermen who couldn't bear the loneliness who lit the bonfires. Although this behavior was discovered and stopped by Gag, all the bonfires were mercilessly extinguished by the lake.

The Jotalans revealed themselves anyway.

Some Russian soldiers who were part-time night fishermen on the sentinel noticed something strange due to the north, and someone hurried into the captain's rest day of the Gurdot, which is Rurik's current command post.

At this moment, Rurik was sleeping soundly with Nolen, one of his beloved wives in his arms. The noise of the sentry made him feel depressed.

"What exactly is going on? Why panic."

The sentry immediately knelt down half-kneeling, and the moonlight through the wooden door only illuminated a vague shadow of the person: "Your Majesty, it's an unusual firelight in the distance."

"Fire light? Fire light?!"

Rurik suddenly woke up and rushed out of the cabin wearing only a single coat. He stood on the deck and looked due south carefully but saw nothing. At this moment, there was a lot of noise on the deck, and everyone on the flagship obviously saw something strange.

All the people on duty and even the people on nearby boats shouted to each other, and hundreds of people saw the flash of fire on the lakeshore due south.

Nolen was afraid that his man would catch cold, so he grabbed a leather blanket with both hands and covered Rurik's body.

"It's about to begin."

"What?!"

"They're coming."

"Them? The Yotalans?" Nolen's heart beat wildly. "Did they really come to attack at night?"

"They don't have the guts, but...am I lucky or unlucky?! Maybe there will be a big battle tomorrow."

Rurik decided to mobilize the entire army, but not now. The narrow lake shore was full of tired soldiers sleeping. Now he woke them up and announced that a war was about to begin. Although it made them excited in a short time, could this excitement last until the next day? After being tortured, people who are already tired can only become more tired.

If it were a pure water battle, could the Jotalans still dispatch some large Caravel-type ships? If they are wealthy, they will dispatch a large number of slender dragon-headed warships with low sides. If they are poor, they will dispatch a large number of sampan fishing boats that can only carry five or six people.

In this way, the night-time rotation of the Ross fleet's battleships can be stopped and replaced by combat alert.

Tomorrow, there will be a crazy hunting of fish by dolphins!

Now, Rurik did not have time to contact his cousin and the land forces. This lake is very large, and it has a lot of depth when looking north from the current geographical location. He estimated that the large number of fishing fires set off by the fleet was proof of identity. If the land troops were already nearby, they would definitely notice it. In the same way, if the land troops also light a bonfire, the navy can also see it.

The situation was somewhat different from what Rurik thought.

In fact, when the Ross fleet lit up fishing fires on a large scale, Arik's land forces successfully saw it. However, due to geographical constraints, the third fishing village occupied by Arik's troops was located in a huge indented depression formed by the cracking of the cliff. There were a large number of tall red pines around it. Although they lit a large number of bonfires, the total number of people including prisoners was about 100,000. Two thousand people turned out to be perfectly obscured by various obstacles.

Only the soldiers on sentry duty in the distance noticed something strange on the lake in the south, and the news spread back to the camp and exploded.

The army swept through three villages, killing a large number of Jotalan fishermen and accidentally letting many go. The army faced danger at any time when it went deep into foreign lands. The highly vigilant soldiers suspected that the dense fishing fires represented a large Jotalan army. They were counterattacking northward with strong murderous intentions. The land troops had to stay alert!

Naturally, there are also optimistic views. The only people who are known to be able to create a large number of fishing fires on the lake are the Russians.

I'm afraid the king's sea troops have arrived at the lake, and those fishermen are the king's men.

Two factions of opinions coexist, and Arik needs to make a decision. He compromised and ordered: "Tomorrow morning we will send some cavalry to the south to see the situation. If it is the king's army, we will show the flag. If it is the enemy, come back immediately to report."

…

The enemy he had longed for must have appeared! They were determined to attack in a very Viking way? But why should they? It was clear that his fleet had just entered Lake Wettern, not to mention not even a shadow of the enemy was seen along the way. Unless he was ambushed by them. But is this really possible?

Although the more I thought about it, the weirder it became, the enemy finally showed up.

Rurik knew neither the enemy's strength nor the status of its weapons and equipment. The Russian army, which was well prepared in these aspects, could arrogantly call the enemy "dung."

He despises the enemy and hopes to deal with the enemies of this lake in a short time.

But after this experience, Rurik never slept peacefully again.

At dawn, the soldiers sleeping on the shore were awakened by the sound of drums and horns.

There was a huge movement, as if an enemy was coming. The soldiers were so shocked that they stood up and clenched their weapons in their hands.

The soldiers on the shore all noticed that the large ships of the fleet began to move, and as many as thirty large ships, including standard armed cargo ships, were actually forming an array.

decisive battle! This word comes to mind.

On the other hand, the Jotalan army was already nervous. They now did not care whether they were exposed last night, but the enemy must have been exposed.

Garg made a major judgment and ordered the soldiers to board the ship early in the morning. A large number of ships gathered together and the soldiers listened to his preaching.

Jiage held his own broad-bladed iron sword and pointed directly to the north: "The enemies who attacked our village have finally appeared! They seem to be a lot of people, but they will all become your record. You always remember! They are enemies, not monsters! They foolishly exposed themselves, and we took advantage of the early morning mist to rush through. Now let's go!"

As Jiage said, the size of his absolutely unknown enemy is definitely not small, and maybe his huge army cannot take absolute advantage. He was convinced that it was precisely because of the large number of enemy troops that he could quickly defeat each of the three villages. After all, there were only one or two hundred men in each of those three villages. With such a number of men, his fishermen were armed It can also be broken through with overwhelming force.

If it really turned out to be a close battle, Jiage estimated that even if he won, it would be a miserable victory.

In order to avoid a disastrous victory, the best tactic is to take advantage of the fog rising from the lake to cover one's whereabouts when the sun is about to rise. A sudden attack on the enemy will surely gain an advantage and even a quick victory.

And this determination must be in line with the desperate desire of the Jotalan armed fishermen to survive.

A large number of ships rushed to the north, and they began to advance in an increasingly dense armament.

The Jotalan fleet maintained a dense formation, with a large number of small fishing boats clearing the way ahead, but the most powerful leading warships were behind.

Do you want Jiage and his civilian comrades to enter dangerous territory? This is really unreasonable.

Those armed fishermen all wanted to win the battle and make a fortune, but they didn't know that the farther forward they rushed, the greater the risk. After all, Carl "The Wild Bear" is a warlord and tyrant, and his hardcore subordinates, the chicken thieves, make sense.

The fog on the lake constituted the fog of war. When the dense fleet of Jotalans attacked northward, the "ship wall" formed by Ross's battleships also twisted forward in the early morning southerly wind.

The damp wind smeared on his face, Rurik wiped his wet beard. At this moment, he was wearing armor. Behind him, on the deck of the Gurdot were not only soldiers manipulating torsion slingshots, but also a group of people holding crosses. Warrior with bow.

Five capital ships in the front, the Avrora and the Guldot behind, and four planet-class sailing cruisers on each wing.

The ship sailed south in the fog until the fog could no longer cover the tracks of the two armies that were constantly shortening the distance.

The fog became thinner, just because the two sides were walking toward each other against the cliff on the east bank of the lake. They were close enough to each other that each was surprised by the other's appearance.

As a king, Rurik's scalp was numb with shock at the sight before him.

"Brothers! Hold on tight and prepare for impact!"

Rurik watched the sudden appearance of a large fleet from a bird's eye view. The battle came unprepared and even extremely hasty.

Those small sampans faced the tall bow, and their boats were directly cracked by the bronze rams, and then crushed by the oak keels.

With strong potential energy, the Yotalan ships were smashed into drifting wood by the Ross ships one after another. Many of those who fell into the water were knocked unconscious by the bottom of the big boat, or even suffered fractures, and finally drowned in the lake.

Each Russian ship kept a distance from each other. These gaps were enough for some lucky people to travel together, but they were immediately sniped by the condescending bows and arrows of the Russian warriors.

The torsion slingshot directly penetrated the bottom of the boat, and the arrows killed the stunned Jotalan fishermen.

Even if there were lucky ones who continued to drift, they were violently sunk by subsequent armed cargo ships.

This is simply not "a school of dolphins hunting a school of fish", but "a baleen whale swallowing an entire school of krill".

The Jotalan armed fishermen lost a large number of sampans and contained the offensive of the Ross fleet with huge sacrifices. The battle had clearly just begun. When the mountains of large ships almost touched his face, Garg suddenly realized that he had lost so completely.

fighting? ! Pooh!

"What's going on? Who are they?! Leave quickly! Brothers, let's retreat quickly!" Jiage shouted in despair.

The leading warships turned their bows one after another, while the more knowledgeable fishermen had already fled in all directions.

A bunch of boats running around would be a good target?

Rurik noticed those dragon-headed warships. The style of those ships was both familiar and unfamiliar. Overall, they were easy to identify—compared to other ships, they were very large.

"Fighters! Leave those small boats alone! Give me all your strength to sink the longships!"

The king's orders were conveyed by the heart-rending shouts of the soldiers. The fleet had its main target, and the battle turned into a siege and hunting.

Jiage and his close comrades paddled frantically, but all the leading longships were targeted. Time is now extremely unfavorable to the Jotalans. The sun has risen, and the fog is dissipating at a speed visible to the naked eye, and it will soon become impossible to provide any meaningful cover for the escapees.

All Jotalan ships were within the range of the torsion slingshot. The javelins, projectiles, and even arrows falling from the sky, although the bumpy pursuit was not accurate enough, still caused constant damage to the fugitives.

Even more than ten years ago, these Jotalan warriors and the Danes had never fought such a one-sided battle. Garg could not understand that this could be considered a battle. He was being killed one-sidedly, and he was even going to die here.

So, he died.

Garg was dead, or the whole ship he was on was dead.

Since the distance was already very close, the port side slingshot of the big ship Sperosvilia launched a salvo. This salvo was extraordinary. The cast iron projectiles fired by the ten slingshots on the side dug no less than three holes in the long ship. Cold lake water gushes out like a spring.

The crossbowmen on the deck of the ship fired deadly arrows, and it was precisely because Garg was dressed more eye-catching that he became the target of public criticism.

What is chain mail used for? The three short armor-piercing arrows in his body fell into the lake with a roar, and sank to the bottom of the lake at an extremely fast speed...

All the dragon-headed longships were not spared. The ships were sunk, and the people on board would die if they fell into the lake wearing chain mail.

The battle came to an end in this way, and Rurik couldn't laugh even if he wanted to. He had no joy of victory, and was even surprised that he had won so easily. He couldn't understand that the Jotalans really made such a big noise and were instantly killed by thirty large ships in his own fleet. Is the enemy really of this level? There is not even a decent resistance. Looking for Shuyuan www.zhaoshuyuan.com Even if there is a generation difference between them, how can the enemy's fighting will be so clumsy?

Some sampans ran too fast for Rurik's fleet to catch, while many more sampans had trouble escaping.

Many people who fell into the water on the lake were holding pieces of the boat and wailing. The salvage work for these people has begun.

Indeed, there is no need to beat up the drowned dogs now. It makes more sense for Ross to capture these guys as slaves than to kill them hastily now.

When the sun's golden light graced the world, the Rus' fleet crushed a lake fleet of the Ghotalan people in the Lake Vettern region.

Rurik deserved this victory in a daze, and the prisoners were all killed after a simple scare.

At this point, Rurik completely understood the reason for everything.

He pinched his beard and looked to the north: "Aric, it seems that you went too far, causing the Yotalan people to organize a fleet to try to annihilate you. Thanks to me, they were easily intercepted."

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