The king who stayed in the capital could not indulge in eating, drinking and having fun. Rurik had many things to do. Only at night, with the soft light of the oil lamp, could he enjoy family happiness.
Several wives and concubines with different identities gathered together to chat casually, and even the high priest Rumia joined in to kill boredom.
Rurik himself couldn't be idle. He brought his eldest daughter Velika here and presented the compiled manuscript of "Russaga" in front of her.
The floor was covered with warm and thick deerskin stalls. The little girl changed into warm clothes, lay on the blanket and slouched her feet casually, turning on the oil lamp and flipping through the documents under the guidance of her father.
Rurik was sitting cross-legged next to him. He liked his daughter's small neck and bulging cheeks very much. Her long braid hung on her shoulders. Her feet were shaking involuntarily, and she looked through the documents as if she understood them completely.
.
She is growing rapidly, and now she has begun to take on the appearance of a woman. After all, she is still growing fast despite being half German.
She is obviously only nine years old, and according to tradition, she is considered ten years old after Hanukkah. Although she is young, her height has surpassed that of her biological mother Rumia, or maybe Rumia is simply too short.
The high priest Rumia is very short. He wears a huge antlered helmet passed down by the Russian people. The overall height is about the same as a small stag. He is also holding a gem-encrusted wooden staff passed down from his ancestors. He stands in front of the big temple with a mysterious look.
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"Do you understand everything? This version is all in Latin."
"I can understand a lot. Dad..." The girl turned her head, subconsciously twisted her body to act coquettishly, and started laughing.
Seeing her happy look, Rurik couldn't help but burst into laughter.
"Do you really understand? I don't really believe it."
"Well, I really don't understand some of the words."
"If you don't understand, learn it. Listen, this is the classic of our faith. You have to memorize it all."
"Ah?" The face of the girl who was acting coquettishly changed suddenly, and she couldn't help but cover her mouth, "So much content. Isn't it too much?!"
"How much?" Rurik asked maliciously, "Silly girl, this is only a small part. There are still many things you need to be familiar with. Now I will take the opportunity to teach you some more. I will not teach you any more here.
Stay for a long time, and I will leave soon."
"You still want to leave?" The girl wriggled her body again until she reached her father's legs, "I won't let you go."
"Oh, I still have to leave. I am the king."
"no."
The look of her pouting in protest was really cute. Rurik gently grabbed his daughter's pigtails and said, "Disobedient?"
"Hey, you, I'm obedient."
"That's right. I'm going to the north for a tour, and I'll be back in the winter. Haha, I'm just staying in the capital this winter and not going anywhere."
It sounds like she can always be by her father's side. Velika hopes for more company. She continues to hug her father's legs and act coquettishly: "I will also go to the north to see. I heard that there is another big temple of ours in the north. I
Now that we are all deputy priests, of course we should go and see them."
"Huh? That's okay."
"Oh!" The girl thought it was interesting, slowly got up, and said with a smile, "I can still take care of brother Osborne."
There didn't seem to be any necessary reason to keep her in the capital, but this girl did give some good reasons. Rurik thought that considering the future of the kingdom, the future high priest and heir apparent would need the experience of living together as blood relatives. As long as there was
Opportunity, it is indeed beneficial for the outside world to have siblings come together to live together.
"Okay, I'll take you away. Now, take a look at these documents and ask immediately if you don't understand any words."
"good."
In the past era, the Ross tribe suddenly prospered every winter. At that time, due to the fact that the Gulf of Bothnia was frozen every year, ice and snow blocked transportation. Although it was possible to forcibly cross the ice and snow to communicate with distant settlements,
After all, it is a feat of brave people and cannot be turned into common business practices. Businessmen seek profits and avoid risks and are very risk-averse, unless the gains from the transaction are very huge. Ordinary traders do honest work. In autumn, they
Deliver goods to Roseburg, or take goods away from Roseburg, in and out to create prosperity in autumn and winter.
Now Rossburg has long expanded into the huge Ross Kingdom.
The territory of the kingdom is large and fragmented. The settlements are arranged along the Baltic Sea coastline, and the inland areas are large areas of uninhabited forests in Northern Europe.
In winter, countless rivers enter the dry season, and the amount of fresh water flowing into the Baltic Sea decreases, giving the high-salt water of the Atlantic Warm Current an opportunity to take advantage.
Warm ocean currents can ensure that the central Baltic Sea is not frozen. It is bounded to the north by the Åland Islands, where Tombstone Island is located, and to the east by Gogland Island in the Gulf of Finland, where quarrying is possible. The area within the boundary is rippled by cold water, and the outside is covered by ice.
.If the cold wave this year becomes more severe, the ice layer will expand and the central Baltic Sea will also be covered with floating ice.
The weather in 841 was generally average, and the agricultural harvest was neither bad nor rare. For any farmer family that relied on growing food to make a living, this year's situation was quite satisfactory, which can be said to be a gift from God.
As one of the Viking tribes, Rus has now integrated most of the Viking tribes into one, and merged all the mythological parts.
The Kingdom of Rus worships seven gods, among which is Frey, the god of agriculture.
In other words, the real god of agriculture and harvest is actually the mount of God Frey, the big golden boar Gulimbosti. The original meaning of the ancient Norse language is "the pig that radiates warm light".
The autumn harvest in New Roseburg is about to begin, and High Priest Rumia is actively preparing for this year's harvest sacrifice.
For the largest glass-covered temple in Rus, there is a reason to perform a sacrifice every month.
The Great Temple is on one side of Harvest Square, facing an extremely flat square paved with cement.
Some heavy stone piers from the old stone ship altar of the Rus tribe were transported to the capital by ship, and were reprocessed at the gate of the First Temple. They were then assisted by a batch of newly mined stone bricks that were chipped and neatly cut to build a permanent building.
altar.
In this way, priestly activities in the capital can be carried out stably in public places, and there will be at least one sacrificial activity every month. The priests therefore appear to be very busy, and people who come and go can freely observe and participate, making the lonely life more fun.
.
Especially for some major festivals, the new tradition of building a fire tower in Russia has become an old tradition. If you don’t build a tower to make a torch during major festivals, you will lose the fun of unknown carnival and dancing. People voluntarily cut down wood and carry it to the square, and personally participate in the construction of the wooden tower.
It is to add strength to the sacrifices. They want to believe that if they are so pious and respectful to God, the whole family will get good luck.
Ships carrying fur goods from the north are arriving one after another, accompanied by large quantities of iron ingots, copper ore or simply iron ore. Glauber's salt, cinnabar, chalk mud, pine gum, pine tar, simple charcoal, salt,
Walrus tusks, feathers, antlers, boiled fat...
These northern goods are generally rough and raw materials. They have no market in the north. They can only be sold at a good price if they are transported to warmer and densely populated capitals.
Squirrel skins, mink skins, forest cat skins, and various valuable or large quantities of small animal skins arrived at the port of New Roseburg on the last ships before winter. These long ships were in order to avoid the relatively fragile hulls from being frozen in the ice.
During the period, when the ship was frozen and cracked, we rushed directly to the sandbar. After unloading the cargo, we dug wooden piles and fixed them with cables. Then we unloaded the sails, leaving only the mast pointing straight into the sky.
On the eve of the Harvest Sacrifice, the kingdom's autumn leather trading event begins. Since this year is the first trade fair during the grace tax holiday, the trading scene has become extremely popular. Since the Harvest Square is about to hold a big sacrifice, and after the sacrifice, the square will immediately serve as a
The public threshing floor was used, the inner city market was cancelled, and all the vendors who were supposed to do business in the city moved to set up stalls outside the city.
The two markets in Waiguo are more lively, and when there is intense excitement, there are more disputes. As usual, Governor Cornuson led security patrols to maintain law and order at fixed locations.
The Kingdom of Rus already has a written law written on paper. It can certainly be made more detailed, but the general public is still more accustomed to the common customary laws of the Viking tribes. The thieves chop off the hands and violently beat the tribesmen.
If they are expelled again, the murderers will be beheaded or hanged, and the extreme murderers will be made blood eagles.
The vast majority of crimes that can be detected by patrols are thefts. This is a commercial city after all, and the ones that can be caught the most are pickpockets. It is really difficult to catch pickpockets in the mixed market. There is indeed a small group of thieves in New Roseburg.
A small group of people. Young Conuson didn't have much patience with this kind of people. If he caught the thief, he would naturally have to torture him to find out his accomplices. If he didn't chop off his fingers, he would be beaten with a whip. After that, he would transport the stone to the quarry on the shore of Lake Onega.
Worked as a quarry slave for a year.
Young Konuson came to work, especially when the king was present. As a pure-blooded old Russian, he had some common blood and honor with Rurik himself. He would not tell the king that the capital city was peaceful, and the king must have absolutely
I don’t believe it. Now I’m arresting a group of thieves and robbers to report to the king. Anyway, it’s almost impossible for the criminals caught to be old Russians. He has no psychological pressure.
The lively market was comforting. Rurik, standing by the window, had a bird's eye view of the city, and his ears were filled with the noise blown by the wind.
The lively scene in Waiguo was clearly that of a rural market. Rurik knew exactly what was being sold in the market. He suddenly felt a little regretful and couldn't help but clenched his fists.
"Oh, I'm just pretending to be fat. I'm just giving you a national tax exemption with a slap on the thigh. How much business tax will I lose? Forget it, let's just treat it as a fattening sheep."
Rurik could only comfort himself. The tax exemption stimulated various small businessmen to accumulate wealth. Relying on opportunities to quickly accumulate a sum of original capital was conducive to these people's reinvestment. Focusing on the future, Ross could make it as soon as the tax holiday in the spring of 844 passed.
There is huge financial revenue.
Before that, the operation of the kingdom relied heavily on the royal family's industrial support.
However, Rurik decided to continue to use troops against Frank.
Captain Brody of the 2nd Cavalry took a rest after arriving in the capital. The entire flag team began to practice every day in the open space outside the city. They did not train on horses every day. The horses needed to be cared for, fed with fodder and wheat, and driven in the wasteland.
They wander around munching grass, removing horseshoes to repair their hooves, combing their long manes with a large wooden comb, and even cutting off an overly long neck mane for other uses.
The blood of the Russian war horses is almost that of Turkic horses. This is an ancestral breed of Mongolian horses, which is essentially the same as Mongolian horses. They are shorter but stockier, have strong endurance and are extremely cold-resistant. They have extremely exaggerated pony tails and neck manes.
These long and tough hairs can be used as brushes, but they are clearly more suitable as the torsion unit of a torsion slingshot.
Deer sinew, horsehair, hemp rope, and the three-in-one torque unit provide powerful torque for the slingshot. Rurik is already preparing for a rainy day. There is no need to make new torque slingshots and bull trebuchets. The old equipment can be used by his blacksmith slaves.
Make large-scale improvements.
The battleship's heavy equipment was dismantled, and the torque unit was inspected and refurbished.
The blacksmith slaves also accepted the job of mass-producing carbon steel arrow clusters. Compared with cast iron arrow clusters, sleeve-type low carbon steel arrow clusters are more time-consuming. This is certainly worth it, considering that in the future, they will intervene in the Frankish Civil War,
Rurik calculated that King Ludwig, who had lost most of his main force, would be beaten up by his eldest brother, and that tough-talking guy would definitely ask for help. At that time, the Russian army could legitimately send troops to intervene.
The enemy will be the regular army of Central Frank. Based on a series of lessons learned from previous large-scale battles, Ross must use the best weapons to deal with them.
There would be a group of armored heavy cavalry and heavy infantry, and there would also be a group of ruthless men equipped with riveted mail. Ross would also have to use carbon steel arrow clusters on a large scale to break the armor.
In this way, all kinds of feathers from the north were purchased by Rurik, including some special ones. They were long black feathers with a delicate feel. They were definitely not crow feathers. With the complete belt,
A feathered bird skin appeared in the market, and together with the bird's head, Rurik quickly realized what it was.
It is not a penguin, but it has the real name of a penguin - auk.
Asking about its capture point, it was on the rocks near Murmansk, a stronghold in the far north. Rurik was not completely familiar with this bird. At that time, he personally completed the first Murmansk expedition and survived in a pit in the Arctic Ocean.
After a polar night, while capturing elephant seals for their big tusks, I also saw this flightless bird.
The auk is not extinct now, and Ross's hunters have just begun to capture it. Its leather is very delicate, but Ross still likes the good skin of small animals like ferrets. The feathers of the auk are a good material for making arrow feathers, considering
The poultry raising operation encouraged by Ross has been very effective. There is no shortage of arrow feather materials in the kingdom, and eggs are no longer rare. The black feathers of these great auks seem more suitable as decorations for feathers.
The most leather the Rus Kingdom can provide is reindeer!
Nearly six years have passed since the crusade against the Karelian tribal alliance. The existing reindeer herds, combined with the tens of thousands of captured reindeer, have multiplied into a herd of up to 100,000 deer. The base is huge, and all of them are owned by the royal family.
.All Lapps are essentially related by blood to the high priest Rumia. They still live a herding life, because the whole family is legally the herding slaves of the royal family, so they have huge and powerful backers.
A large number of reindeer were captured in past wars, and the king shared the trophies with the soldiers. Many Russian families raised their own herds of reindeer. The number was small and they were mostly used for transportation, so-called pulling carts in the summer and pulling sleds in the winter. Some families who were not good at management used it as transportation.
The trophy reindeer was hastily slaughtered and now there is nothing left.
Rurik controls the largest deer herd. Relying on the absolute advantage of scale and the loyalty of all Lapps, this advantage is still expanding. Due to the destruction of the Karelia tribal alliance, the remaining Karelia people all
They rushed eastward and fled to a place called Perm to live with their relatives. They had escaped from the sphere of influence of the Kingdom of Rus. After they disappeared, they fled to the north of Lake Ladoga, around the White Sea, and even to the Kola Peninsula.
, these barren northern lands suitable for reindeer herding have completely become the activity space of the Lapp people.
There is no need for Russian explorers to find the path. These nomadic Lapps must wander around the Murmansk stronghold in the far north and the area around Lake Ladoga. Their production and lifestyle are such that relying on a pair of feet has already become the basis for the Russians.
Discover a different land transportation route to the North Pole.
The king has a large amount of reindeer financial resources to support his grand ceremony of "ninety-nine deer" sacrifices.
The people in the capital have polished sickles, and the oat fields outside the city are in harvest time. It is an open secret that the king collects human and animal excrement to make fertilizer and even cultivate fire salt. The fire salt to support combustion no longer has to be collected from naturally rotten wood.
You can get some from the dung pile, but it feels disgusting. In the past, people just threw the excrement into the river or sold it. The Russians hated the presence of these filth around their living areas.
The king collected the excrement of people and animals in Novgorod to make fertilizer to fertilize the fields. The royal family's farmland output has always been gratifying. Not only did the news spread, but the people with land in the capital also began to collect it after learning about it. They could only use it on a small area of land, and overall the
It is said that due to the comprehensive adoption of drill sowing, supplemented by weed pulling, and water trucks transporting water from the Neva River for irrigation, the production capacity of oats has indeed increased on the Neva River, which is barely able to cultivate land.
Maybe this is because of the worship of gods!
Rurik ordered ten reindeer to be taken out, and at the high place of the public altar, the high priest Rumia looked up to the sky with a jeweled wooden staff and shouted words of prayer.
Noren, Ella, Bayasil and Queen Svetlana happened to be in the capital, so the four women took the opportunity to dress up as priests to participate in the ceremony.
With a golden laurel crown on his head, Rurik received the attention of the people. He first raised a steel sword inlaid with precious stones, and then took the hand of his eldest daughter, Velika, who was also the deputy priest. The guards controlled the deer and beheaded all ten of them.
According to tradition, deer blood must be integrated into the altar and into the earth. The following ceremony is too thrilling.
The livers of the deer were cut out, and then the high priest confirmed the good fortune. The livers were placed on a bronze tray and enshrined in front of the gilded statue of God Frey that was moved from the great temple. At this moment, the high priest solemnly addressed the crowds of people watching the ceremony.
Announcement: God Frey promises us a good harvest.