Once upon a time, the settlements of Münster and Osbrunak belonged to the Saxon region.
It also includes the entire Westphalian region, which is part of traditional Saxony.
After the war, these areas were devastated. Those Saxon people who were able to flee had already crossed the Weser River and even crossed the Elbe River. Liudov gave up half of traditional Saxony, but gained most of the Saxon population.
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Now that his strength has been greatly reduced, he has to cooperate with the Russians to obtain military protection.
The large-scale reduction of territory is only temporary, and he constantly comforts himself: "Everyone is in my hands, and it is easy for me to manage them. When my strength recovers, I will gain more territories."
Just like his bloodline, Liudov's family is not willing to be a hound with a collar on its neck. The lost Westphalia will eventually be recovered, and at that time it will also force the Archdiocese of Cologne to cooperate with them.
"Perhaps my Saxony Principality can expand as much as possible. As long as I do not harm the interests of the Normans, as long as I continue to cooperate with them, my expansion will also be supported by them. Maybe, my family can replace Ludwig
family."
Such undue ambitions should not be told to others, Liudov kept his mouth tight.
What is revenge? Merely killing the enemy is not revenge. The so-called killing of the enemy's heart is the most complete revenge if it can also seize all the political power of the enemy.
Continuing to declare that legally surrendering to Ludwig is a conspiracy and no one can be blamed. The Principality of Saxony is still a political block in the huge East Frankish territory, and Liudov has become one of the few powerful nobles!
How many de jure nobles are there in East Frankia today?
Duke of Bavaria (who also controls general Austria), this is Ludwig's basic position as king, and his original identity was Duke of Bavaria.
The following are: Duke of Saxony, Count of Rheingau (Margrave of Frankfurt), Archbishop of Worms, Archbishop of Cologne, Margrave of Thuringia, and Count of Flanders.
If it is inevitable that the decline of German royal power would lead to the historical process of electors competing for the title of emperor, then the roots of all this already existed when she was still the Eastern Kingdom.
In the large-scale northern war of 840 that finally ended recently, among the "prince entities" in the Eastern Kingdom, only the Margrave of Thuringia suffered no losses.
Of course Taschuf, the Count of Thuringia or Margrave of Thuringia, received Ludwig's order to send troops, and he made it clear to the messenger that he would indeed send troops.
However, until Ludwig's entire army was wiped out, not even half of the Thuringian reinforcements were seen. Even though the Thuringian Kingdom borders Saxony.
This war can be said to be an unprecedented large-scale invasion by the Eastern Kingdom against the Normans. It can also be said to be a war of restoration for the traditional Saxon nobility.
The war finally came to an end, and Ludwig's hope of ending the war before Christmas was fully realized in this darkly humorous way.
The Eastern Kingdom is the loser!
The victor gave the defeated a very honorable ending.
Therefore, when the peace treaty written on hard paper was signed, it meant that the "Northern Alliance" and the Eastern Kingdom became a de facto military and commercial alliance.
Most of the contents of the treaty are supported by everyone, including the Eastern Kingdom's cancellation of all tax collection rights for the "Northern Alliance" member states.
There was only one thing, and the two sides finally reached a compromise after a lot of mediation.
With the Great Wall of Schleswig as the boundary, northerners will not spread the Odin faith to the south, and southerners will not spread the Catholic faith to the north.
Ludwig, who was forced to dress simply, put on his gorgeous clothes again and got back his sword.
So it wasn't until he was defeated that he realized that the sword he had treasured for many years was the sword tailor-made for him by King Rurik of Rus. Then in the Rus' army, Ludwig even met the son of the sword maker, Rus.
The great blacksmith Kawei.
Everything is destiny. Looking at the sword in my hand again, I have mixed feelings. "Perhaps if I was less arrogant back then and had a good talk with your envoy, the situation might still be like this now?"
Since they were allies, the Frankish civilians who were detained in Hamburg were once free. These civilians had almost lost the courage to curse and curse. Now, any man among them who can hold a short spear and ax has become Ludwig.
guards to support the king's face.
In principle, Ludwig and Hardbold could leave after the meeting, but they did not do so.
They wanted to spend Christmas in Hamburg, and they also had to spend some time observing the living conditions of the Normans and their barbaric holiday etiquette.
A wooden tower was piled up, and it was solid at the bottom. The higher the wooden tower was piled, the more it converged, and finally converged into a patio equivalent to one meter square. This patio was done deliberately, so-called using the chimney effect. After the fire ignited, the wooden tower
I will think of the fierce tongues of fire spurting out from the sky, the scene is extremely spectacular.
The wooden towers are stacked on top of each other with a slight mortise and tenon structure as much as possible to make it very strong. A large number of pine branches are piled on the outside of the wooden tower, and boiled fish oil can be poured on it. The oil has frozen in the extreme cold and is mixed with the pine branches.
Only one part of the wooden tower is bare, and the pile of wood forms a staircase that leads directly to the top of the tower.
What's the point of building a tower like this? What looks like a ladder is really a ladder?
An interesting and crazy news is circulating among the Russian army. Legend has it that during the Hanukkah fire tower ceremony, the sacrifices will be tied up and transported to the top of the tower by soldiers, where they will be completely burned to ashes.
That sacrifice was none other than Horik, the deposed king of Denmark, careerist, and war instigator who was transformed into a human pig.
To this day, this man is still lingering on his last breath. Having been stripped of his tongue, he has now lost the ability to even bite his tongue to commit suicide and end the humiliation of the wooden cage. His whole person is simply a fish on the chopping board in a real sense.
Burning Horik to death was the wish of all the Normans, and of course, it was also the great pleasure of Count Baudouin of Flanders.
In addition to burning a prisoner, residents in Hamburg regardless of ethnicity are welcoming the grand festival according to their own living habits.
Eskil and Hadbold made a historic joint effort in the Hamburg church and decided to hold a reasonable Christmas Mass. To this end, all Christians, including the Saxons and the freed Franks, had to come to participate.
Even Blue Fox, Count of Gothenburg, who belongs to the Ross camp, and Reglaf, the actual eldest son of Rurik, who has the legal kingship of Mercia. Even though they are more willing to participate in the traditional activities of Ross, for political purposes, it is very difficult to participate in Catholic mass.
Is necessary.
Before the festival, one important thing must be implemented.
On a cold day, the snow has stopped, and horns are blowing loudly at Ross Barracks and Danish Barracks.
Ludwig woke up from his sleep and subconsciously thought of the terrible war and his humiliating defeat. He was so frightened that he sweated. When he woke up, he realized that he was sleeping in Hamburg and the war was over.
The low and melodious Norman horn horn seemed to come from another world. It was an exciting signal. The soldiers who had received the news early woke up one after another, put on warm clothes, took their weapons, and gathered outdoors urgently.
The formations of various banners now also include the soldiers of Blue Fox's Gothenburg Götaland-Unkras Army and the soldiers of Ragnar's Danish Army.
Thousands of people gathered together and whispered, joined by armed sailors, and discussed the special benefits King Rurik was about to bestow.
No! The much-anticipated Rurik, the king of Rus, appeared on stage in extremely gorgeous attire, surrounded by bear-headed berserkers who were equally dressed as luxurious yet brave.
Rurik tried his best to suppress the roar of thousands of people with his loud voice.
"Stop making noise! Half a pound of silver for everyone! Regardless of race, everyone who has fought in the war has a share!"
He kept shouting until his voice became hoarse.
Then it was the turn of the bear-headed berserkers to roll up cardboard and make a simple trumpet, repeating the king's words to the swarming brothers.
With the captains of each banner and the nobles in place, Rurik ordered them to form the team immediately, and he also hurriedly prepared the platform for distributing money.
The berserkers were pulling some sleds themselves, and there were heavy sacks piled on top of them, all of which were, as expected, filled with silver coins.
A simple wooden table was quickly assembled, and a wooden chair was also assembled.
Rurik sat alone on the wooden chair, and the guards around him prepared the money bag. He deliberately took out some silver coins and spread them on the wooden table. The silver-white treasure was right here. The eyes of the viewers were straightened. This also proved that the king really has
A lot of money is willing to reward the army.
He deliberately staged the music, and it just so happened that the musical girls who were trained by his beloved wife Nolen were always working as handymen in the army. They were also cooks, doctors, and washers.
, and played a special symphony with horn horns, leather drums and gongs.
This music officially started the money distribution drama that the king personally implemented.
To distribute money to thousands of people, Rurik naturally made some preparations in advance.
There were a bunch of pockets inside those huge linen pockets. Fifty silver coins were packed in the simply sewn pockets, and they were finally tied with a thin linen rope.
In a sense, this became Rurik's New Year's red envelope for the soldiers.
At the end of the music, facing the very quiet scene where thousands of people gathered, Rurik's cry finally became fully penetrating.
"First Flag Team! Brothers, come here to receive your reward!"
"In the order of each centurion! Receive the reward!"
As a result, a small team walked out in front of everyone's attention and lined up in a single column in front of Rurik's desk.
Rurik was sitting here. The first warrior could not hide his smile despite his caution. He was shaking with excitement. After taking the simple small bag given by the king himself with trembling hands, he subconsciously skipped halfway.
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However, this reckless warrior was immediately stopped by the bear-headed berserker holding a sword.
"Wait a minute! Brother! Why don't you thank the king? And why don't you show the rewards you received to other brothers?" the soldier accused.
Hearing this, the warrior couldn't hide his smile. He immediately stood up in front of the king and beat his chest with his right fist in warrior salute. He shouted at the top of his lungs: "Thank you, king."
After tearing off the rope at the top, there were neatly stacked silver coins inside. He was embarrassed to check whether they really weighed fifty and a half pounds, so he immediately shouted to his waiting colleagues: "It's really silver coins!"
In this way, Rurik handed the prepared bags to his subordinates who received the reward one by one, and the soldiers immediately shouted "Thank you, King", and then they opened the rope to inspect the goods and left in ecstasy.
This is a performance art of unprecedented scale, and Rurik will personally deliver the rewards to all his subordinates, even if it makes him very tired.
He now behaves extremely equally. To many warriors, the noble King Rus is as mysterious as a god.
A mortal rarely has the opportunity to say a word to the king in this life, and it is extremely rare to even see the king. Especially the Finnish flag team and the Slavic flag team. They are not and cannot be the king's trusted warriors. They want to see them up close.
I am afraid that this is the only chance in my life to see the king's face and receive the reward from the king's hands with my own hands.
The short Finnish Suomi people tried to challenge the Russian army many years ago and surrendered immediately after realizing that they could not defeat them. The Suomi people became the most prosperous of all Finnish tribes. This was not due to their smooth surrender, but mainly because of
The king's confidant Yevro was a Suomi.
Among the Finnish flag troops who were ordered to fight, there were also playful micro-tribes such as the Vips and Rudy people. Before being conquered, their living conditions were almost like wild animals. They were pulled into a world created by Ross.
In the northern civilization system, they were extremely poor and had already enjoyed the dividends of the war. This time, they were personally rewarded by the King of Rus like never before.
After receiving the silver coins, there was a short warrior who was so excited that his legs could not stand and he collapsed on the ground. He then stammered "Thank you, King" in Enochian.
Rurik subconsciously leaned out half of his body and looked down at the man sitting on the ground. With the tenderness of a king, he asked in Suomi dialect: "Are you okay? Take the money and make way for the brothers behind you."
This is actually the hometown dialect! The king can actually speak the hometown dialect!
The slumped Suomi warrior was finally dragged aside by the bear-headed berserker. Such an overly excited person became a joke among the onlookers. The warrior was even more happy that the king valued the ordinary Suomi longbowman.
Rurik really showed strong regard for all the soldiers who had gone through the war.
For the Kingdom of Rus, which has already been flooded with a lot of hot money, giving fifty silver coins to the Kingdom's Viking soldiers cannot change a family, but it is definitely a huge sum of money.
But for Finnish soldiers and Slavic soldiers, it will bring about a qualitative change.
After capturing female prisoners, they gave them to Viking warriors as wives. This was a benefit that Rurik had thought of very early on, and he relied on this trick to win over a large number of fans.
This benefit was soon extended to the Slavic villages in the Novgorod region that surrendered to the Rus. However, the act of abducting women through war and giving them to subordinates as wives was only a temporary measure in a special historical stage.
They are men, and capable men should pursue their own wives. They cannot expect the king to give them money.
It is a luxury to expect pure love. If a talented man can provide a betrothal gift, the marriage problem will probably be solved.
Especially the Slavs in Novgorod who live purely farming lives around Lake Ilmen. According to their culture, women are just appendages of the family, and parents have full authority over their daughters’ marriage arrangements. Although there is no clear clan culture, small Slavic families
Through continuous marriages, farms were built one after another, and there were intricate blood relationships in the farms. As this marriage pattern continued, multiple small farms could be merged into large farms, and their final derivative was the city-state.
A Slavic man rarely saw silver coins in traditional life, and even iron tools were rare. Nowadays, silver coins are widely used in the trade system of Lake Ilmen, but fifty silver coins are enough to be used as a betrothal gift to obtain a marriage.
Many soldiers in the Slavic Flag Army were young and unmarried. They were the second and third sons of their families, and most of them were not the main labor force. In this way, if they died in battle, the loss to their own families would not be fatal.
The banner team suffered minimal battle losses. After a whole year of war, the young warriors not only realized how big the world is, they had already plundered some loot, their dry pockets were bulging, and now they wanted to add the fifty silver coins given by the king himself.
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This means that when they return to their hometown after the war, the young Slavic warriors can marry wives immediately, buy some tools to clear the wasteland, and hire laborers to help them cover the new wood carvings.
Because the king has decreed that this year’s taxes will be canceled due to the victory in the war. Since the taxes have been collected, next year’s agricultural taxes will be completely exempted.
There is also a one-year tax holiday for land reclamation. Even if taxes are collected, the newly reclaimed fields will be classified as "poor land" by default, and the agricultural tax collection will be extremely low. As for whether it can be defined as "good land" to increase the tax rate,
It depends on the future land survey.
Young Slavic soldiers enjoyed the dividends of the war. They could work as homesteaders and then gather together to form a farm, such as the already built cities of Mstisk and Youth City near Novgorod, so that the army and the people were loyal to the Russian royal family.
Now, they saw with their own eyes that their king was a young man just like themselves. This was no longer a distant view. Everyone could clearly see the king's beard and sharp eyes, and even touched the king's hand when he took the money bag.
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Even though Rurik wanted to do the entire money distribution activity quickly, it still continued into the night. After all, the daylight hours were too short now.
The soldiers' enthusiasm did not diminish. They lit bonfires and held torches. Rurik also suppressed his yawn and continued to give away the money he had prepared.
By the way, he also took this opportunity to determine how many troops there were that could directly obey his command.
The fact is, including sailors, there are only over 4,000 fighting men left.
No longer the horseback riding reviewing the army flashed past, Rurik saw the face of each soldier, and had the most realistic understanding of their height, short, fat, and thin. Obviously, there were not many faces among the old soldiers of Russia. After all, they were
No matter how powerful the veterans are, they will naturally have to fight the toughest battles. They will suffer a lot, and the core army of the Ross Army will undergo a major change. The old Ross tribe will be worn away by the sacrifices of the veterans due to the shackles derived from the large number of veterans.
A large number of howling recruits were added. In their childhood before they became warriors, the recruits ate the king's food, wore the king's clothes, and were sent by the king to educate them in cultural knowledge and combat skills. There is no telling who they will be loyal to.
And metaphor.
This war has reshuffled the political landscape of Northern and Northwest Europe, and it has also reshuffled the internal affairs of the Kingdom of Rus. The younger generation has emerged and will quickly replace the older generation. This is exactly what Rurik wants to see. Everything