Rise of Rurik

Logically speaking, the appearance of a group of horse bandits outside the city would not cause panic in the entire city of Cologne.

Today's situation is no small matter. Those horse bandits are clearly Normans on horseback. They are clearly killing people for the sake of killing. These apostles of Satan can still escape God's sanction.

The people in the city can curse them with all kinds of vicious words, but how can they be cursed to death by swearing?

The prelates came together to vote, and they finally reached a basic consensus - if the price was acceptable, it was acceptable to pay the price to restore peace to everything.

As a result, led by temporary acting Archbishop Hildwin, the motion to spend money to buy peace was finally voted through.

All that remained was the question of how much money could be spent on the savages to satisfy their voracious appetites.

"In my opinion, give them fifty pounds of silver and get rid of them."

"Only fifty pounds? Can those greedy devils be satisfied? Don't anger them because of this, which will put us in danger."

"Hey! Why isn't fifty pounds enough? It's already a huge sum of money. You speak for them, where do you stand?"

"A hundred pounds. Increase it to a hundred pounds and they should be satisfied."

"What if they're not satisfied yet?!"

"Then give them five hundred pounds."

…

The senior priests still tried hard to control their superficial emotions, but their words became more and more intense.

Finally, someone couldn't bear it anymore and suddenly stood up from his seat and criticized the situation very seriously: "With all due respect, all of you sitting here are ungrateful! You are actually bargaining with the devil! In my opinion, let's stop the discussion and open all our treasury. Forget about handing over your wealth to them.”

These were the words that lifted the table. For a moment, the other senior priests were stunned and stared at Acting Archbishop Hildwin, who looked as if he had been constipated for ten days.

Everyone saw that Hildwin was speechless, and suddenly someone said sarcastically to his colleague who had just lost his temper: "You are noble! You are pious! Why don't you go talk to the barbarians outside the city in person? Maybe you can use righteous words to persuade them. Those barbarians, persuade them to lay down their weapons and convert to atone for their sins.”

As soon as he finished speaking, many senior priests covered their faces and snickered. After all, this statement is too absurd. How can it be possible to negotiate with the devil? Even if we negotiate, will those devils accept it?

"Hey! This is a way. Although it is not pious to make a deal with the devil, now we can only do this. Maybe, I can do it. I apologize for the gaffe just now, so I have the confidence to handle this matter personally. If I do it, you..." The speaker couldn't help but emphasize his tone, "This is a great achievement, will you recommend me as the next official archbishop?"

The entire venue was silent, no one scolded, no one snickered, everyone remained silent.

After being silent for a while, Hildwin said in a low voice: "In that case, Marquez, if you succeed, I will nominate you in the next archbishop election."

"That's fine. One hundred pounds of silver coins, this is our bottom line. I will try to settle them with one hundred pounds of silver coins."

With risk comes opportunity, and countless junior clergy, local priests, and regional archbishops are eager to advance.

I am afraid that Archbishop Hadbold, who followed King Ludwig in his crusade against the barbarians, will be promoted to cardinal and transferred to Rome for his own merits. It is even possible that he will be promoted to the pope.

The prelates of Cologne believed that the archbishopric of their diocese would soon become vacant, and that all careerists would be suddenly exposed.

Hildwin became the acting bishop on his own, but he was not confident in sorting out the mess in front of him, and he had no great ambitions to succeed as a formal archbishop.

The careerist Marquez makes his debut.

If we praise this man in good terms, Marquez is a warrior with the will of a martyr. From an economic perspective, spending a little money to deal with the Norman horse bandits would save the city from spending a lot of money to recruit guards, which was actually a money-saving move.

Therefore, Cologne City is well prepared.

They will implement the plan to recruit three hundred guards based on the results of the meeting. The defender must be strong enough and healthy. The church will issue him an iron sword and a pair of armor, as well as a Frankish-style iron helmet to make the defender look like a regular soldier.

The three hundred guards became the Crusaders in a real sense. Unfortunately, they lacked the ability to actively attack and could only be used to guard the city, but their presence would calm the hearts of the people in the city.

On the other hand, the Ross cavalry outside the city was wreaking havoc as before.

The wide Rhine River has not frozen as a whole, but the river channels near the shore have frozen on a large scale.

This year is a complete freeze. When the Rhine River is in a semi-frozen state, the situation in Northern Europe can only get worse.

Indeed, the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland were almost completely frozen, with ice extending all the way to the Åland Islands, where Tombstone Island is located. Lake Mälaren in the core area of ​​Sweden has entered a completely closed state, and some ruthless people who want to survive in the ice and snow have begun digging through the ice to fish...

Even though this year is a cold one, the Nordic world, which is not a major food-producing area, is generally not very worried. The Eastern European agricultural areas of the Rus Kingdom are not too worried. Although Lake Ilmen is frozen, it is not unusual for it to be frozen as usual. Even if the weather is not good, it is okay to postpone the sowing season to early May, but spring wheat will be planted at that time. The action will be put on hold and the whole people will go all out to plant spring oats with a short growth cycle.

After all, agricultural production is not something Fisk and his gang who are fighting outside need to consider.

They acted as horse bandits for the time being, sweeping up the huge forest outside Cologne. Not only was their life not bad, but because they looted so much food, they could not take it away, so they simply piled up a batch of food in the camp in the forest. They feasted every day, and even some The ability ensures that prisoners do not starve to death.

It was also deliberately done to ensure that the prisoners would not starve to death.

More and more villagers are being captured, and the number of innocent villagers currently in Fisk's hands has reached 300. The soldiers selected some pretty women, ignored their frantic wails, and forced themselves to have sex with them.

According to the past Viking practice, if you have a relationship with a captured woman, the woman is considered a slave of the warrior, and can later become a wife and concubine, and eventually be absorbed into the tribe as a member of the tribe.

Today's operation is extremely special. The cavalry will not take any prisoners. All prisoners will be either released or killed. Now they have become bargaining chips that can blackmail wealth. Therefore, Fisk allowed his subordinates to do these things, causing the desperate woman to wail and go crazy, and the captured priest to fall into despair.

An occupied village became a huge prisoner of war camp, and the Ross cavalry controlled it to do whatever they wanted.

The year-long war made Fisk more ruthless and ruthless, and he finally grew into a ruthless man a hundred times more powerful than his father who died in the war twenty years ago. Since some of the prisoners were dishonest, he deliberately ordered his subordinates to execute the villagers in public, thus shocking all prisoners of war.

Such force deterrence alone was not enough, so he ordered the captured priests to declare something like this: "When Cologne pays the ransom, we will be free!"

Fisk's goal is to obtain a large amount of ransom, so that the brothers can bring the loot to the king and divide it 50-50 according to the pirate robbery rules set by the king. Brothers can take advantage of this opportunity to make a fortune, then every prisoner is money!

According to the price of purchasing slaves in the past, an adult male slave could cost nearly one pound of silver coins.

The plan of exchanging one pound of silver coins for one person is theoretically feasible, but when Fiske thinks about Cologne's wealth, why is it unreasonable to ask for such an exorbitant price?

Finally, the appointed day.

The five special operations teams that were wreaking havoc in the Cologne area returned one after another. When they returned, they not only brought a lot of food and a small amount of wool, but also fresh meat and even pack horses for pulling stones.

The cavalry met at the edge of the forest outside the north gate of Cologne City. They deliberately showed their assembled figures, and then fled into the forest like ghosts.

Everyone is willing to share their looting experiences with the brothers on the home team, and then show off to each other who has more loot.

Unexpectedly, after being ordered to kill without mercy, they returned to Commander Fisk's forest camp, and were shocked to see that the place was full of prisoners.

The eyes of the captives of different ages were dull, and there were sporadic sounds of children crying.

The aroma of boiled wheat filled the air, whetting everyone's appetite.

The captains of each team gathered around Fisk for dinner at night, sharing the cold meat they had obtained with each other.

Someone asked Fisk: "Why capture a large number of prisoners? Our brothers followed your request, killing the village and setting a fire at the end."

Another person was very sober: "We have captured a large number of prisoners. Are we going to exchange money with them?"

"Just changing money!" Fisk slapped his thigh: "Oh, I didn't think of this until you ran away. But I have four hundred prisoners now, which is enough to ask the Cologne people for a price. I want to ask the strong men for twenty pounds. Everyone else weighs ten pounds together, what do you think?"

So, he opened the conversation, and the team captains started a lively discussion.

Among the captives, there were more than 100 mature men who could be exchanged for 2,000 pounds of silver coins, and the rest, who were 300 or so, could be exchanged for 3,000 pounds of silver coins.

Fisker planned to ask for five thousand pounds, a staggering amount of wealth.

The young warriors couldn't help but fantasize, and their discussion became more and more intense. They fantasized about driving the captives to the city to ask for a price, and they would definitely be able to walk away with five thousand pounds of silver coins. As for whether each cavalryman could share some of the weight and take away all the silver coins, after some calculations, they found that it was indeed possible, and they became even more eager.

"Then let's talk to the brothers, and we will launch operations tomorrow morning. You should also be prepared for battle, and be careful if the Cologne people send troops to attack us if they don't appreciate it. If so, we will not only kill prisoners, but also kill any challengers who come out of the city."

Everyone heard this and asked "Ula".

At dawn the next day, melodious horn horns were heard in the forest.

It seems that the dragon-headed warships from the ice sea have sailed upstream and arrived at the city of Cologne. In fact, the Ross cavalry has begun the final action.

Except for the two men who were guarding the trophies and continued to stay in the forest camp, Fisk led one hundred and fifty cavalry and drove as many as four hundred prisoners towards the north gate of Cologne.

Now, under the influence of Qian's ability, a new team of three hundred city guards has been formed. They were anointed with holy oil by the priests, and the ordinary men instantly gained great spiritual power. However, they did not dare to go out of the city to fight.

Among these people were a group of craftsmen and free mercenaries, and the rest were farmers who had taken refuge in the city. Although the commission from the church was not much, the farmer could quickly settle his debts and even make a considerable surplus after taking the money. The priests also did not allow everyone to go out to fight in the city. Relying on the protection of the city wall, the money was obtained without any risk.

So for some farmers, this crisis is like pie in the sky for their small families. The barbarians were raging outside the city. As long as they left, the farmers who served as guards could later buy some farmland that had lost their owners from the church. The crisis became an opportunity.

But now alarm bells are ringing across the city.

The defenders gathered in large numbers at the north gate of the city, and men with bows stood on high ground.

Acting Archbishop Hildwin and the priests watched the approaching team with vigilance. They subconsciously thought it was a siege army. As it continued to approach, they discovered that apart from the obvious Ross cavalry, the rest were actually a group of incompetent troops. Helping villagers.

The villagers are easy to identify, especially the village women, who almost always wear black one-piece robes and white headscarves to keep out the cold.

Those cavalry horses were smaller and they carried multiple flags. The white background and diagonal blue stripes were the symbol of the Norman Ross people. They were obviously not ordinary bandits. The cavalry were all dressed in exactly the same clothes, and some of them even had bright feathers on the top of their hats.

To be fair, Hildwin hoped that these cavalrymen were holding cross flags. If Cologne had such a gorgeous army, they would not be harassed by the enemy.

The people in the city watched nervously, and the careerist Marquez was even more nervous.

"It seems they want to negotiate with us?" Hildwin made this judgment as he witnessed the cavalry and a large number of captured villagers suddenly arriving within a stone's throw.

"Maybe I went out of town to negotiate." Marquez said, swallowing hard.

"Okay! I hope everything goes well, my friend."

Marquez nodded: "I will bring a hundred pounds of silver coins and a few brave defenders. I will create a miracle."

"God is with you." In this way, Hildwin and the high priests watched Marquez walk down the city wall like a martyr.

After a moment, the Norman cavalry under the city suddenly spoke!

I saw a tall and strong man in the lead dismounting his horse, taking off his hat and revealing his bald head.

Fisk was also wearing wooden-framed sunglasses this time to protect his eyes from the sun in summer and snow in winter. Each of the cavalrymen had a pair of sunglasses, making their appearance always look weird.

He took off his sunglasses to reveal his full face, and then shouted in Latin with a loud voice: "Let's negotiate! Give me the money! We will release the prisoners and leave!"

He roared several times in succession. Although the shouts were all in Latin, the priests were shocked. They instantly changed their minds and were overjoyed.

Since the barbarians also plan to leave after asking for a sum of money, they have mutual needs and negotiations can proceed.

Fisk was very happy that the people of Cologne seemed to understand his cry. The closed wooden door was opened, and the iron fence reinforcing the door was raised by the mechanism.

After that, several rat-like guys who came out quickly ran to the gate of the city gate, released the suspension bridge, and the planks fell heavily on the dry trench.

Fisk raised his hand to signal the brothers who were following him not to act rashly, not to rush into the city on horseback, and to beware of ambushes.

After a moment, as expected, a priest personally carried the cross and walked out under the escort of some sword-bearing men.

"It seems that he is their negotiator. Brothers, please don't act rashly. Everything depends on me."

The Ross cavalry were on alert, with their arrows on the handles of their bows to prevent their opponents from suddenly coming out of the city to cause trouble.

For the negotiator Marquez, his previous ambitions suddenly withered after he actually witnessed the Ross cavalry that had been raging for months. The other party can speak Latin, which is an unimaginable miracle. Perhaps, they can be converted.

But the moment the two parties met, the scene was very awkward.

Marquez looked at the giant in front of him and subconsciously realized the large number of giants riding behind him.

Take a closer look at the Norman cavalry general in front of you! He was wearing a white plush leather jacket with buttons on it, and two staggered strips of blue cloth on his chest. It was obvious that there was a layer of chain mail under the leather jacket.

The general had a nice leather belt, and his sword looked like a strange kind of thin sword (compared to the Frankish broadsword, the Ross steel sword was much narrower), and the hilt was inlaid with gems. In other words, this general has a lot of gemstones and ornaments (actually cheap colored glass pieces), which clearly don't look like they were stolen from various monasteries.

Could such a noble warrior kill peasants and burn down villages as an honorable act, as part of war? Marquez deeply despised this. Even if the so-called dirty people put on gorgeous clothes, they still can't hide the essence of dung maggots.

"Have you seen enough?" Fisk asked suddenly.

"Ah! Yes. This warrior, we are willing to make a deal with you."

"Of course." Fisk was overjoyed. "You are very sensible. When you saw us coming, you knew that we wanted to make a deal first. You see, I have four hundred prisoners in my hands, including some priests. You... know our Means. Don’t talk nonsense, tell me your conditions first.”

Hearing this, Marquez took a breath. He didn't expect that the Normans actually captured four hundred people! Looking at it now, there are indeed faces everywhere that are eager to be redeemed, and the eyes of the captives are trembling and impatient.

But this has far exceeded his expectations.