The Brudny family has a lot of private wealth, so in order to protect their wealth, it is logical that they build their home to look like a fortress.
For safety, he also maintained a team of fully independent servants, more than fifty people in number, who were fully equipped with iron-tipped short spears and even broken-edged daggers around his waist.
In addition to these people, many farmers in Pine Needle Manor also have their own metal tools.
The manor has a blacksmith. Due to Novgorod's geographical location, it is very difficult to obtain iron ore. The blacksmiths know basic metallurgical techniques, but due to the dilemma of raw materials, they have to repair the residents' metalware.
If a war breaks out, the men in the manor can quickly assemble and attack the enemy with their iron sickles for cutting grass and wheat, hoes for digging the ground, and iron axes for felling wood. Because of these excellent "weapons",
They clearly had the advantage in the battle.
And this is precisely the task that Ligus of White Tree Manor gave to his eldest daughter Lilia, which is to obtain metal tools from the Ross blacksmith through in-laws.
Is it just that more farm tools make agricultural production more promising? Not just. Because these iron farm tools are weapons at critical moments.
Almost all the ironware and bronzes in Pine Needle Manor were imported from Smolensk in the south using agricultural products. A small number of them were also bought from a few lone ranger Varyag merchants from the southeast.
The team of servants demonstrates Brudne's own power. Compared with the farmers who have iron sickles, his servants are equipped with real weapons. This is also the key to preventing other tribesmen from having any wrong ideas.
This team of powerful servants has an overwhelming advantage over the local residents.
In front of the Russians, their strength was gone.
Brudne's home is like a fortress. As long as the enemy cannot break through the wooden walls he carefully built, it is very safe inside. The stored food and water can support a family with all their servants for at least a month.
However, Otto had never seen the so-called fortress of Prudne, the director of Pine Needle Manor, in all these years.
It's just a wall made of wood. How many times can it withstand an axe?
Not only did the Russian army land, they were walking quickly on the road to the manor.
Brudne's servants rushed into the wooden wall with mournful faces and shouted: "The Russians are coming! The Russian army is coming!"
The roar frightened the gatekeeper into closing the door quickly.
The servant ignored all etiquette and went straight to the manor's chief's bedroom.
At this moment, the head of the manor, Brudne, was already sharing a sumptuous meal with his family, his two wives, his eldest son and his wife, his three daughters and his youngest son.
The appearance of the servant's gaffe made him very unhappy.
"Get out of here, how can you act so wildly?"
"But those Russians, they've already come in!"
"Didn't they come yesterday, and now they finally come to me?" Brudne put down the spoon and waved his hand: "You can leave. I will go to see the Ross leader in person in a while."
"But they have already..."
"Get out of here! Don't disturb my breakfast!" Brudne, who was so angry that he had just woken up, threw the spoon over, causing the frightened family to crawl away.
Brudne's youngest son, Vadim, hurriedly picked up the spoon thrown by his father, took it back, wiped it clean and handed it to his father. By the way, he asked: "Dad, why! Why do we give those robbers a piece of cake every year?"
A lot of wheat."
"Why? What other reasons could there be?" Brudne was still angry, "Because they are strong and we are weak."
"Are we weak?" Vadim's big eyes revealed confusion, "We can organize thousands of people to fight with them, how many people can they have?"
"We tried and we failed."
Brudne's words revealed strong frustration, and Vadim was clearly aware of it.
"Then keep fighting! Even if we die a thousand people, we must defeat them. We can't always do this, giving them property year after year, and now they are getting worse and asking my sisters to be slaves for them. This
How can that be done? We are humans, not sheep!”
According to Vadim, since last year, the list of tributes requested by the Russians has included the item "young woman". It is said that they are given to young Russians as wives. According to past legends, Vadim is more willing to believe it.
, that is to be a humble slave to the Russians.
Isn't this more humiliating than the humiliation of paying tribute to wheat?
Brudne felt secretly happy when his younger son spoke so forcefully. He glanced at his eldest son's slightly dull eyes, and couldn't help but sigh in his heart. They were brothers born from the same mother, so how could there be such a big gap in consciousness?
!
In the future, would it be appropriate to hand over the position of head of the estate to the eldest son?
Thinking of this, Brudny, who was in a better mood, asked her younger son: "Vadim. If you had the opportunity to lead our people, how would you deal with these Russian bandits?"
"Of course, attack them proactively!" Vadim blurted out without thinking: "Gather all our men who can hold sticks and women who are strong enough. We will attack their army and defeat them with sheer numbers.
Maybe we are weaker, but if our entire estate takes action and joins forces with other estates, we will definitely be able to defeat them."
"Oh? What if some manors don't cooperate with us?"
Vadim was stunned for a moment, and then said with a strong attitude: "Then destroy them completely. Dad, we are the leaders of this great lake, and we are their masters. I heard that all those bastards in White Tree Manor are willing to be Ross
Human hounds, they have betrayed us. We should completely eliminate White Tree Manor and let other manors understand that it is only right to follow us."
"Okay! Very ambitious!" Brudne patted her youngest son's head, which was only ten years old.
Hearing the young son's high-spirited words, Brudne became bold. Since the Russians had already arrived, let them wait outside for a while.
He just wanted to leave them alone for a while to show his insult.
Of course, Brudne's decision clearly overestimated his own strength, and his actions will definitely bring losses to himself.
The family still eats together, as if the world outside the wooden wall has nothing to do with them.
As everyone knows, although some servants live on the food provided by Brudne, at critical moments, not all of them may be truly loyal and work hard for him.
The servant who was rolling and crawling immediately should have reported that the Russians became a little strange this year.
That group was a group of people wearing metal helmets that reflected sunlight. Their numbers were astonishing. They were obviously ready for battle with their weapons.
Due to the current situation, the servant thought with his toes and could estimate that there would be a bloody storm next.
Out of instinctive fear, many people standing guard quickly chose to avoid it and slipped away quietly through a small door. Only a few people still stayed in the owner's house because they firmly believed that the Russians were arrogant and had the purpose of
It’s also just asking for money.
This was very embarrassing. When Otto arrived under the wooden wall, he saw no one to help him. All he faced was a wooden door with a huge latch, and a circle of wooden doors with no other reliable entrances.
wall.
"Chief, something is very wrong." A powerful Russian warrior came over and said, "When we came last fall, that guy named Brudne brought his family and his group of trash-like people.
Our men will greet us."
"Maybe they saw us looking like a pack of wolves and ran away?" another person speculated.
"Forget it. Let my ax solve the problem."
A strong man stepped forward, with his shield slung behind his back and the steel sword he had recently purchased stuck in his waist. As for his preference for using weapons, he still loved his long-handled axe.
This ax, combined with traditional Viking felling techniques, can skillfully and quickly chop down a large tree up to one meter in diameter.
What's the big deal about a mere wooden wall?
He was about to violently break down the door with a big axe, but Otto hurriedly stopped him.
It wasn't that Otto had any kind thoughts, on the contrary, he already had opinions about Pine Needle Manor after hearing the description of White Tree Manor. Now that he was rejected, he felt a bad feeling in his heart.
"Leader? No more killing!?" the strong man asked.
"No, Stark. I'm very angry right now! Of course you can easily cut down this weak wooden wall, but that still won't quell my anger."
"Chief, what do you mean..."
Otto smiled: "Are you tired? Have you seen the houses nearby? Go and grab what you need. The only thing is to drive away the residents as much as possible and take away the grain and dried meat."
Just telling a strong man was certainly not enough. Otto immediately looked at his army and issued permission to plunder.
Losing their restraint, all the Russians immediately threw themselves into a feast of plunder.
The residents living near Brudne's house are basically the richest group in the entire Pine Needle Manor.
In fact, when the mighty Russian army marched on the still muddy streets of the manor, most of the residents had already taken emergency refuge with their families.
The Russians began to plunder!
Including Kawei, who is a blacksmith, he never thinks that looting is wrong, or he doesn't understand whether it is right or wrong to do so. In short, he just follows the leader's orders to loot. The basic principle is that he is not his own clan, allies or servants.
By default they are the enemy.
The fleeing residents often stuffed some wheat as rations into sacks and evacuated and hid with their families. Most of their belongings were left at home, which was enough to last for this year's wheat harvest, and all of them were captured by the Russians.
.
These seizures are of course not within the scope of collecting tribute.
The air began to fill with a burning smell. It was someone maliciously setting the fire, and this was Otto's acquiescence.
The faces of the Russian warriors were filled with the joy of the harvest.
Many people have begun to carry linen bags full of oats, and some people are carrying a few dried salted fish and happily walking out of the empty houses. Since the leader wants to punish the arrogance of Pine Needle Manor, he will order another
Wouldn't lighting a fire make the leader very happy?
More than a dozen rooms were ignited in flames. The thatch on the roof had already absorbed a large amount of rainwater. The flames gradually ignited the thatch, causing thick smoke to billow from the roof. The large amount of evaporating water vapor further highlighted the terror of the smoke.
The air in this era is very clear.
The farmers of Baishu Manor who were working in the fields noticed the black smoke coming from the southeast. Many people thought it was a forest fire for a while.
Rigus immediately stopped the panic and told the panicked people that this was the Russian people's crusade against Pine Needle Manor.
Of course, he himself was murmuring, could it be that Leader Otto couldn't hold himself back and launched a military offensive against those people?
Otto inserted the patterned steel sword on the ground and held its ruby-inlaid hilt with both hands. He looked sharply at the wooden wall, waiting for the person inside to give him a formal response.
Almost no warrior has found enough wealth to satisfy themselves.
According to the new rules set before departure, all tributes officially collected, except those distributed to the priests and chief families, were equally distributed among all participants.
All the property looted by today's soldiers belongs to the owner. People's abilities are indeed different, and their luck is also different. Some people plunder less, and some people can hardly carry the captured wheat kernels.
Eventually, everyone gradually ended the looting because they were basically satisfied.
It was during this process that those residents who had been unwilling to leave and desperately wanted to keep their food rations became the ax victims of the Russians.
What happened to those people was so sad, and Otto didn't care at all.
Finally, the burnt smell in the air spread into the wooden wall, and Brudne, who was immersed in the illusion that he was a strong man, suddenly woke up.
"Come here! Go and see what's going on? What good things did those Russians do?!"
The servants who were always on call seemed to have disappeared.
"It's really disgusting." Brudne stood up and ordered his weak-minded eldest son, "Boike, go and see what's going on."
"Dad, is it really me?" The young man had fear written on his face.
"Idiot, you are going to be the future head of the manor, why..."
Brudny, who was angry again, stamped his feet and directly ordered his youngest son: "Vadim, your brother is a coward. You are braver! Go and see what's going on."
"good!"
Vadim immediately stood up and ran outside.
These two boys, who were nearly ten years apart in age, did have the same mother, and there were three girls between them. Perhaps it was because the Brudny family was considered pampered that all the children they gave birth to survived.
Vadim is only ten years old, and he behaved very ambitiously in front of his father today.
But he had no intention of usurping his eldest brother's position.
As the saying goes, a newborn calf is not afraid of tigers. He has never seen war or bloodshed. From the mouths of his parents and tribesmen, he learned about the continuous humiliation suffered by his manor and even the entire Novgorod region, as well as the shameful traitors and despicable people.
face.
Do we still need a reason to use force to counter an invasion?
A brave heart brewed in Vadim's little heart. He had already seen the Rus' people, and even met the hateful Rus' leader, and clearly recognized this furry and bearded face.
They are indeed strong, but this does not mean that the Russians are invincible. If a farmer fights against a Russian, he will definitely lose, but ten? As long as everyone unites and is not afraid of sacrifice, won't it be natural to defeat the Russians?
However, when he saw the sky dimmed by smoke and dust through the present moment, fear began to arise in his brave heart.
His dexterous body approached the wooden wall, and through the narrow gap he saw that the outside of the wall was densely packed with people!
These are all Russians!
Most of Vadim's bravery suddenly disappeared. What he saw was a large number of axes and swords, as well as the ferocious faces of the Russians.
A figure suddenly swayed behind the wooden wall, and Otto keenly noticed this sneaky little figure.
"There is someone there. Let me take a look." Otto ordered, and three strong men immediately rushed over.
All three of them were holding big axes, and they were trying to chop the wooden wall into pieces.
They rushed over like three brown bears. Although they were separated by a wooden wall, Vadim suddenly panicked due to the instinct of fear and fell to the muddy ground.
Chapter completed!