In the Gulf of Finland, a large number of Ross and Finnish fishing boats wantonly plunder the abundant fish catch at the turn of spring and summer. Herring, Baltic cod, pike, and seabass are fished by fishermen with limited capabilities.

Generally speaking, a trawler throws a large net into the water and drags it around. How many fish can be caught depends on luck.

The large nets woven by fishermen are all made of a mixture of flax and ship linen, which ensures toughness and strength. It is the best net material currently available. Even such a large net wears out very much. It takes three days of fishing and two days of drying.

It is a reality.

Catching herrings in the vast sea is a gamble, and how much you can catch depends on the gift of God. Therefore, fishermen always kneel before the statue of Frei they bought before going to sea, and even spend money to worship at the New Roseburg Temple, just for the sake of it.

This patron saint of wealth bestows goods upon receipt.

No matter how many herrings are caught, they will be sold out immediately after they are shipped back to the port. There is no problem if the price is cheaper, and the fishermen generally make a profit.

There are also many fishermen who are impatient for large-scale fishing. They are willing to take a safer approach, which is to release bait to catch cod. As long as they catch one big cod, it will be enough for the family to enjoy the meal for many days. If they catch more, they will sell them the same.

A good price. The most important thing is that the cost of fishing materials is very low. Carbon steel hooks and hemp rope fishing lines are enough, and the bait is small fish.

The one between the two is to enter the inland river to catch bass. These freshwater fish are more frequent, but the Russians who are proficient in eating fish have already studied the fish thoroughly, and use daggers to cut off the parts with many fish bones, and the rest is

fish meat.

The coast near the Gulf of Finland is an uninhabited area, and a large number of rivers entering the sea are visible to the naked eye.

All inland rivers may contain huge freshwater fish resources, tempting fishermen to take risks with weapons.

Five fishermen families traveled together, armed with harpoons, axes, arrows and wooden crossbows, and rowed two long boats, consciously aiming for the mouth of an unknown river.

They all have big nets and fishing hooks, and they also bring some bad, bitter salt. The sodium chloride in these crude salts still needs to be purified. Fishermen are not picky. After all, this bad salt is not meant to be eaten directly.

Instead, the fish or animal meat caught by the team is preservative treated, and when it is eaten, it must be cooked again to boil off the excess salt.

This is a rather wide river, which is visibly different from other small rivers, and its flow speed is not high. There are lush forests along the river, and dense reeds along the river.

They lived temporarily on the shore, cutting down small trees to build shacks. Then they set up pottery urns and cooked the freshly caught bass.

Women and children from five families worked together to cook. The children were busy scraping fish scales with knives, and then handed the fish meat to their mothers for further processing. The children played in the grass, played in the water by the river, and tried to catch some frogs and shrimps in the grass.

, even a leg of black mud.

The men ran further, some were responsible for spreading the big nets and focused on catching fish, while others carried wooden crossbows and short wooden bows to hunt farther away.

For those with keen eyesight have spotted cruising waterfowl!

A hoarse rattling sound attracted the attention of two fishermen. They were indeed fishermen originally, but now they have turned into forest hunters.

"Are there some big birds over there? Catching one will last us a long time. Carl, follow closely," one person said.

"We'd better get down on our knees first, and we'll get some reeds and stick them on our bodies to avoid scaring the birds."

"That's fine."

Karl and Brand are old friends. They are New Ross people who immigrated together from the Mälaren tribe. It was a full ten years ago that they immigrated to Ross. The two families obtained new identities and responded to the call to move to New Ross Fort.

Become an early settler.

Now, the two of them took their respective families and teamed up with three other families to embark on an adventure. The two longships were their property. They had saved enough money to order their own boats. The unconditional adventure in the past was now

You can do it.

The two were no longer young, and their beards and hair began to turn gray. They withdrew from the Second Standard, and their eldest sons took up their positions. The sons not only survived the war in 840 but also returned with a large amount of loot. The eldest son had established his own business.

, as a father, besides receiving some gifts from his son, he has no right to ask for more. This is not a problem. The two of them are not convinced of their aging, so they take their younger son and daughter to embark on the adventure they dream of.

A large number of green and towering reeds were inserted into the hat, and the reeds were quickly tied into bundles and hung on the body.

Two clumps of green grass are squirming among the dense reeds. Even an old hunter with sharp eyes would not be able to detect them easily.

The south wind blew the reeds constantly swaying, and the nearby forest rustled. The noise completely hid the movements of the two hunters, and their movements merged with the swaying of the reeds.

In this way, the Nordic gray cranes who are in the courtship period know nothing about it.

Karl continued to crawl, and a light arrow had been installed. He held the crossbow and whispered quietly: "Look at me now, I will kill him with one shot. Alas, I asked you to bring a crossbow, but you didn't."

Brand concentrated on: "The wooden bow is light enough. Alas, I was thinking about fishing, but who would have thought that I would encounter a group of big birds in this unknown place. Also, who knew that this river is so long? Only God knows

Where does it lead."

"Stop talking nonsense. Look at me."

Carl was clearly a sniper at this moment. This old guy was carrying a reed bag on his back and kept moving. He didn't know what those big birds were, he just coveted the bird meat, bird leg bones and the feathers.

The arrow made no sound, and with a short whoosh, the arrow pierced the gray crane's chest. A huge bird suddenly fell!

The flock of birds was instantly startled. They raised their towering necks and looked around. All the birds in this large mating scene were exploring the surrounding situation. The big bird that had been hit by the arrow was still kicking and struggling, flapping its wings helplessly. After a while,

It stopped moving.

Karl originally thought he could only shoot one, but when he saw the birds started to quack again after observing them for a while, he couldn't help but secretly cursed: "What a bunch of stupid birds."

"Hey, maybe we can hunt them all." Brand encouraged.

"I hope so. Thanks to the king for the crossbow. This wooden version is not very good at fighting, but hunting is really good."

Indeed, once people discovered the tactical advantages of crossbows with charged aiming, more and more of them were equipped. Any hunter likes efficient hunting equipment, and smart people can spontaneously modify the short wooden bows in their hands. Although

The cost of making a "crossbow-friendly" trigger system is too high. You can switch to a simpler lever-type system, even if it is awkward to use. A short wooden bow cannot break the hard skin of wild boars and bears, and it will have no problem shooting small animals and birds.

, so it was transformed into a crossbow, which could only hunt small animals.

Encountering a large migratory bird like the Gray Crane is a surprise. These Nordic birds spend the summer on both sides of the Gulf of Finland, hiding in uninhabited rivers and lakes to court mates, incubate eggs, and wait until autumn to go south to overwinter.

The second arrow was loaded, and it was another precise sniper shot.

Only this time the whole flock of birds was completely frightened and they began to fly into the air.

"Well done Carl, at least we killed two." Brand said with a smile.

"No! We still have a chance. Brother, draw your sword and charge at me! Kill those who can't fly in time!"

"All right."

The two stopped pretending, and two old men suddenly emerged from the reeds. With axes in their left hands and swords in their right hands, they rushed towards the place where the cranes were stopping without saying a word.

The female cranes were busy incubating eggs and would not leave unless they had to. Or perhaps these migratory birds had never encountered human attacks in their memories. The female cranes that were incubating eggs got up one after another, and three of them were directly hacked to death by violent hunters.

The entire group of cranes had all fled, leaving behind their young birds. The two hunters stood here, laughing and exploring the results of their battle.

"It's such a big bird. I never thought there was such a big bird in the world!" Carl said, holding a dying gray crane by its neck. "It's so heavy."

"The bird meat is enough for us. Let's take a good look at these feathers! We can make extra money by selling them to the king." Brand corrected with a smile.

Karl looked at the prey at hand again, put it down and spread his wings. "Wow! The wingspan is so amazing."

"Let me see it too."

Now, both of them were surprised by the huge wings of such a big bird. Each flight feather was extremely huge. Even the smaller feathers were excellent materials for making arrow feathers.

Karl asked his old friend: "How many arrows can we make by plucking the feathers from this bird?"

"If you have three arrows... maybe there will be thirty of them."

"Maybe more. Let's see what other gains there are."

Nowadays, natural protection does not exist. The Russians believe that all products are gifts from the gods. Hunters have always hunted freely and did not realize that excessive harvesting would cause ecological disasters. This makes the area near Rossberg Fjord

The wild reindeer herds have been wiped out long ago, and even the small animals have disappeared, which led to the emergence of the northern hunting tradition in the Ross tribe era.

Five families are standing in an unknown river area in the southern part of the Gulf of Finland. This generation is not a Slavic settlement. What they see is a completely new world to them.

Five large birds with long necks were tied and dragged away. The two also found many eggs from the nests and even killed the chicks and took them away.

Such hunting was really fruitful, and the large number of hunts greatly surprised the people in the camp.

They boiled the feathers of large birds and collected all the good feathers to dry.

The bird meat was grilled directly, but the taste was a little bit woody. The five families were not picky. They kept the bird eggs as food reserves for continued exploration. Whether it was a big bird or a young bird, the endless bird meat was like

Just like the extra caught bass, apply a layer of coarse salt and bake it into jerky as much as possible.

These big birds have amazingly long legs, and the leg bones are long and slender, which are really good materials for making bone flutes. Everyone knows that Nolen, one of the king’s wives, is proficient in music. She needs a lot of materials for making musical instruments. In the past, it was made of bone flutes.

The eagle leg bones were used to make bone flutes just because they were long enough. Aren't these bird leg bones even longer now? They imagined that Nolen would pay a big price to buy them.

They talked and laughed around the campfire. Today's hunt was a good sign. As long as they continued to explore upstream, they might be able to find more birds. This was unexpected wealth, so they organized themselves and immediately continued their adventure.

The two long boats continued to drift against the current, and everyone was rowing as hard as they could.

The surrounding scenery has never changed much. The lakeside is full of reeds and the surroundings are full of forests. If it weren't for the existence of this river, people in this area would easily get lost.

Suddenly, the peaceful paddling was interrupted by a small boat appearing in front.

"Attention! There is a situation ahead! Pick up your weapons!" After all, Karl retired from the flag team because of his old age, and his soldiers' vigilance was not gone.

The crossbow was loaded and the short wooden bow was ready.

The small boat was actually a canoe. Apparently, he was surprised to see the two big boats while rowing. After hesitating for a while, he immediately chose to row away.

"What should I do?" someone asked.

"Strange, that's definitely not one of ours." Karl hurriedly discussed with Brand and decided to go and visit.

Ross's flag was deliberately hoisted on the mast, and the longboat followed the path of the fleeing canoe. Gradually, the waterway became wider and the flow speed of the river further slowed down.

No! What appeared before us was no longer a river, but a lake and a village made up of many gabled shacks.
To be continued...