Chapter 228 Anyway, you will be the leader sooner or later
The Ostara tribe? War refugees? And two beautiful... girls.
"Oh, my child, you will also have more wives. Those two Ostara girls will both be your wives." At night, Otto introduced the good news that would inevitably happen tomorrow in front of his son.
News, at the same time, this old guy was really happy from ear to ear.
The source of Otto's happiness was certainly not the matter of choosing two more wives for his son, and he actually did not take it too seriously.
Rurik took it seriously: "Dad, are you serious? I already have it..."
"That Svetlana? You plan to have only one wife in your life."
"I..." To be fair, Rurik was indeed against three wives and four concubines. However, as a man, he felt that he would not be able to remain self-disciplined after he took control of power in the future. The monarchs of this era would not be able to control themselves without three wives.
With the fourth concubine, the subjects will question whether the monarch is a real man, instead of praising the monarch for his so-called loyalty.
"It's better to listen to your father." Mother Niya came over and her words were really meaningful.
"Mom, even you..."
"Of course I don't object, you will become the strongest man. Listen, every strong man has a group of wives and concubines around him. Our family's population is sparse, your two brothers died early, and your father is too old.
, hope falls on your shoulders." Niya continued.
Otto was very satisfied with his wife's words: "That's what I mean. Rurik, you must have prosperous descendants."
Covering his delicate face with a small hand, Rurik felt that this was his destiny.
Anyway, this is the custom of the Ross tribe.
Treating them all as wives, the ultimate goal is actually to bring more people to the tribe?
In other words, is it to rely on the leader's own efforts to expand the royal population for the future kingdom?
If you want to maintain the stability of a kingdom, you really need the support of the king. This is also true. To maintain an ancient kingdom, it is crazy to rely on just one king to manage a huge territory. It is better to confer a group of sons.
Being a lord is more reliable.
Rurik is more anxious about tomorrow, but also hopeful.
Otto was very happy. His excitement came more from the huge supplies brought by the merchants. What he was most worried about was the preparation of winter supplies in New Roseburg. If he could not buy enough goods from the merchants, he would
If we really need to kill Novgorod and intensify our efforts to plunder it, it would not be good to cause violent resistance from the locals.
There is only one loyal dog enough, and that is the loyal White Tree Manor. The other manors are all a group of cows.
This is what Otto thought. If he plundered too hard and the cows starved to death, he would lose more than he gained.
Now it seems that because merchants have brought a large amount of food, the problem will be greatly alleviated.
Food! You must buy food! Buy a lot of food! You can even buy the food transported by Gould immediately.
After all, it was a happy thing. Otto fiddled with the glass bottle containing spirits in his hand. He had already drank one bottle in the morning, and tonight, he forced his son to get another bottle to add to the fun.
"Dad, you shouldn't. We have an appointment first." Rurik was very reluctant.
"Just take it if you are told to take it."
"Why? Even if you are the leader."
"Hurry up!" Otto suddenly became irritable. He slammed the wooden table, causing the oil lamp on the table to splash a small pool of seal oil.
Rurik was not afraid. He knew that his father was just trying to scare him: "I think you should not drink. Keep a good spirit. The fleet will arrive tomorrow. By then, you are our leader but you are sleeping soundly. Is it possible to let him go?"
I, the child, will pick them up?"
Otto smiled naively and continued tapping the table with his fingers: "What's wrong? You are smarter than me. If you weren't still a child, I would give up my seat to you now. You are going to be the leader anyway.
Yes, there is no problem if you go to meet him as the leader in advance tomorrow. By the way, you go to Gould's house tomorrow first. The eldest son Snoleva and the fat man who looks like Gould will be waiting for you. You and Ha
After meeting Luo Zuosen, he went to the beach to wait. If I have a clear head tomorrow, I will go too."
"That's ridiculous! Are you throwing important things to me?" Rurik felt a little secretly happy after saying this.
Is it possible that this old guy still wants to be a "Taiwan Emperor" who drinks every day?
"It's better to give me the wine. Now I can enjoy this drink. If you give me the wine, I will discuss important matters with you again."
"About women again? Dad, you really want to think of me as the April bull."
Otto chuckled: "It would be great if you were a bull in April! By then you would have grown a beard and could row the heaviest oars. Oh..." As he said this, Otto glanced at Lu sitting in the corner.
Mia: "Don't be idle, your high priest. I will give you a son when the time comes. The descendants of this son will be high priests from generation to generation. Haha, the priest is also a member of our family."
Otto was speaking freely, but when he said these words, Rumia was so shocked that she almost fell to the ground.
The fact is that by the time Rurik started to grow a beard, Rumia had already grown into an adult. Now she really wanted to find a secluded place to escape and express her secret happiness.
Rurik did not criticize his father's lack of tone: "Tell me, what is the important matter."
"Very important! I really need your advice. It is a major matter related to the development of our tribe. Only you can make the right decision."
"Is it really that important?!"
Rurik was shaken. He actually took out a glass bottle from the locked box and placed it on the table.
Looking at this crystal clear bottle with cork plugged into the mouth, Otto couldn't help but sigh: "Times have really changed."
"If you want to drink, just drink. It doesn't matter if you are fast asleep. Lend me your sword, and I will take it with me to meet the merchants."
Rurik's words were probing, and Otto didn't feel any offense at all about his son's words, and was even very happy. He immediately took off the "Destroyer" hanging from his waist and suddenly threw it on the table.
"Then get me two more bottles, and you can go to the beach tomorrow with your sword."
Rurik never expected that his father was serious. Is Otto delegating power? Or is he just treating himself as a tool for the time being?
Because according to past tradition, when a large-scale merchant fleet arrives, the leader should go to meet it to show the sincerity of the Russian people.
The sword is placed here. This is the sword that my family wants to inherit!
Although Rurik felt that this Damascus steel sword, which was full of patterns, was not more useful than the hundred-forged steel sword that he arranged for Klavasen to forge with the world's top Swedish iron ore.
Rurik looked at a sword, and saw with eager eyes that his father had already pulled out the cork very skillfully, and poured about four ounces of strong liquor into the glass bottle. He had no choice but to give it to his father again.
Get some bottles...
Then Otto opened another bottle with great enthusiasm.
Instead of this bottle, Otto poured it into a delicate glass and let the aroma of the wine begin to flourish.
"Ah! This is really good wine. How much do you think this should be sold for?"
Seeing his father drinking so indulgently, Rurik was amazed that his father already understood the ways of an alcoholic.
No matter! After all, we are from Russia.
Rurik said with a cold face: "At least one hundred silver coins. I will depend on the situation. This bottle of wine can also be sold for two hundred silver coins."
"So how many bottles do you have now?"
"You still want to drink?" Rurik became alert. He did not answer his father's words at all, but urged: "Tell me what you want to say quickly."
"Okay. Because Gould, he completely exceeded the quota for the slaves, mercenaries, and other weird things you needed. My child, you made a big promise to him!"
"You're buying wheat at twice the market price, right? I know." Rurik nodded: "I hope he comes back now."
"His eldest son came first. The fat man should have seen you immediately. Now it's dark and we'll discuss the matter tomorrow. The man told me that Gould has shipped 230,000 pounds of wheat. Do you want to buy it?
"
"Ah?! So many!" Rurik was really shocked.
Regarding the weight of the Roman pound, Rurik's best reference is the weight of the British pound in later generations. After all, the Roman pound weighed less than one catty (500g), and it must be much higher than half a catty. Another intuitive assessment is that
A pound of wheat is enough for a house builder to not go hungry. Of course, there is a slight difference between not being hungry and having a full meal.
The reality is that a strong man who builds a house and sells his physical labor may consume 3,000 calories a day. One Roman pound of oats is optimistically estimated to provide him with 1,600 calories. The missing part can be immediately made up with fish.
.What’s more, on ordinary days, everyone generally eats fish.
In fact, the strong men of the Russian people are all big eaters of fish. A strong man can consume 1,600 calories by eating four herrings!
The price of fish in the Roseburg Fish Market can often be purchased for thirty pounds of herring or forty pounds of cod for one silver coin. Whale meat is very expensive. For a strong man who simply sells his physical labor, three silver coins can buy him a month's worth of fish.
If you eat three pounds of herring every day, you can get 2,000 calories.
But there are no proletarians here who simply sell their physical strength. Most of the Ross people are fishermen and hunters. Their ability to hunt and catch fish is such that the main consumers of fish for a long time have been businessmen who live there. The Ross tribe has a large number of people.
Some tribesmen have always eaten a lot of fish, so it is natural that there are a group of strong men in the tribe!
So Rurik entertained his men to eat meat every day, and everyone was very willing to eat delicious herring. Perhaps the most fundamental reason is that the calorie content of two Roman pounds of herring has exceeded 1,200 calories.
The physical exertion of an eight or nine-year-old boy was measured.
Herring is a cold-water fish with a very large population in the Baltic Sea and extremely high caloric value. Two pounds of herring have the same calories as one pound of oats.
Rurik could not calculate accurately at all, nor did he make a good prediction.
The fact is that if he can really make the Russians, who are experts at eating fish, have the opportunity to eat a lot of wheat, the result will be that the diet of the Russians has reached the level of Swedish fat people in the 21st century in the ninth century. By then
, I am afraid that the Russians will face another dilemma, that is, they are beginning to be qualified to care about obesity.
Rurik calculated in his mind that this amount of wheat would be enough for a thousand strong men to eat for 230 days. The population of the Ross tribe has now exceeded 4,000 due to the addition of foreign women.
.
As for the issue of food, the Russians certainly don't have to consider the mouths of merchants and residents. They can think of their own way to eat for thousands of people. Rurik only needs to consider the lives of his own people.
Now, the Russians' traditional skills of demanding tribute from Novgorod are being used again. Can they bring back 100,000 pounds of wheat this time? Theoretically, it is possible.
Rurik believed that the force used by his father had deterred the rebellion there, and the rest was a search in the autumn.
According to optimistic estimates, it is reasonable to raid various manor houses and take away a total of 100,000 pounds of grain, or even more.
Fortunately, now, Rurik finally understood that encouraging merchants to traffic in food was actually more effective than using his own tribe's fleet to plunder.
Of course, businessmen can't afford to do anything early, so to encourage them to do something, buyers have to pay considerable sums of money.
But when it comes to solving the tribe's food problem, Rurik has an account in mind.
That is the population of the Rus tribe. How much food does it need in a year?
Rurik made an order-of-magnitude assessment, that is, based on the standard of four thousand strong men, 1.5 million pounds would be needed for the whole year. This value is still a huge overestimation. After all, the Russian diet includes fish.
Herring, in particular, occupies a large proportion.
Of course, if wheat could be eaten, everyone would love it very much.
Just like after the leader tried hard liquor, he became a very skilled bottle blower in less than ten days.
Now that everyone eats wheat cakes, bread and wheat porridge every day, I am afraid that they cannot accept the hard life of relying on surimi or simply eating raw herring. We have lived such a life for generations, and of course we do not think it is bitter.
Days. But after you get used to eating bread every day, the past days are defined as hard days that you must try your best to return to.
In the Ross tribe, there are not many people who need to eat one pound of wheat every day, perhaps only a thousand people. Rurik conservatively estimates that the entire tribe's annual food consumption only needs one million pounds at this stage.
.
What kind of concept is this?
Rurik estimated that if he bought the grain that Gould trafficked, plus the grain that his father took people to search for in Novgorod, there might be other merchants who would bring some of the grain and try to sell it.
This winter, the Russians are likely to stockpile as many as 400,000 pounds of wheat!
Rossburg has never had such a large amount of food stored before!
Otto suppressed his gradually turning red face and said seriously: "Kid, that big cash box you set up should come in handy now! I need your advice!"
"Use! You must use it. That's what the big cash box is for!"
"Are you sure? Maybe you shouldn't insist on paying double the price to buy food. You should understand that it is a huge amount of money! We are also doing a loss-making business."
"Of course I know, but a good man must be honest, right? I have made a promise and I will do it. Two hundred and thirty thousand pounds of grain is 46,000 silver coins. With this money, we...
"Rurik gritted his teeth: "We can afford it!"
"Are you very insistent? Nothing has changed?!" Otto continued to ask,
"Yes! It hasn't changed."
Otto couldn't help but let out a long sigh: "I thought you would back down! That's close to 50,000 silver coins. You are so straightforward. It seems that your vision is not limited to this amount of money."
"Of course!" Rurik could hear that this was a compliment, so he boasted: "I want to build a great cause. I am a man who has been favored by God. If I am blinded by some money in the world, I will fall.
In the final analysis, the money in the big money box is for us Russians and our servants, not for my personal enjoyment. Besides, even if it is for enjoyment, I have better toys."
Otto was happy in his heart, and now he returned to the original topic. He fiddled with the wine bottle in his hand: "I once thought your crystal cup was shocking. Now it seems that you can make many in a short time, and each one can be sold.
Ask a high price. In my opinion, you can use the wine to pay for the silver coins."
"Oh? Dad, these are the vodka I prepared for you."
Hearing this, Otto felt even better. But Otto was not a real alcoholic. While his mind was still clear, he suggested: "Sell it to Gould, you can offer a more favorable price. Listen,
The crystal cup contains flammable wine, which is a miracle no matter how you think about it. Tell me! How many bottles of wine have you prepared?"
"To be honest, there are a hundred bottles. As long as you provide me with more ale, dad, I can make more."
"One hundred bottles? Each bottle sells for two hundred silver coins. Twenty thousand silver coins is no problem. Don't you still have soap?"
"Yes. My little maids, they are already very good soap craftsmen."
"Sell soap to Gould, too, just like you did in the spring."
Rurik nodded: "Dad, I can handle these myself."
Otto smiled, like a two-hundred-pound elephant seal. Excited, he pulled out the cork again, and then stared at the mouth of the bottle: "I'm so stupid, I was worried that you would be reluctant to give up money. I didn't expect that you are the biggest
Merchant. Ah! What a fine wine. One bottle costs two pounds of silver, a holy relic of Valhalla, and I ended up enjoying three bottles today. I am so extravagant."
"You also know your luxury?! Others only have three silver coins a month, how about you? You drank six hundred silver coins." Niya listened for a long time, then she smiled and went to put the unopened envelope on the table.
She took the bottle away, and her pride could not be concealed in her words: "Listen, leave some goods for your son, we still need this to make money."
"Ah! Okay. Rurik, I'll leave tomorrow's affairs to you! The key is right here." Otto put the key to the bronze lock in the small room of the priest's longhouse on the table, and then drank the strong drink.
, and immediately lay down on the ground. He looked at the wooden beams of his longhouse, feeling more and more dizzy, feeling that everything was gradually becoming dreamy, and slowly snoring began...
A new day arrives in peace. As the news that a large fleet is about to enter the port has spread throughout Roseburg, people are excited!
Rurik suspended today's training, and he really couldn't train either.
The merchants were like a flock of migratory birds returning to their nests in Rossburg. The Rossites must have gathered on the beach with men, women, and children, carrying coins in order to make a big purchase.
Sure enough, Otto was hungover again. Thanks to the temporary delegation of power last night, Rurik took over Otto's task.
It’s not that Otto intentionally neglected the businessmen. In fact, Otto really felt that he needed to retire. When he saw the miracle that wine could burn in the blacksmith shop, he even took the bottle with him wherever he went.
He came up with the idea that he could recreate miracles.
It is really a good thing to let my son experience it.
But of course Otto didn't know that his precious son had the ability to stand alone from the beginning. Even though Rurik was naive at first, his temperament has been quietly changing since his little face was stained with deer blood.
After all, Rurik, or Liu Li, was already a man who deliberately pursued power.
Today he brought the leader's sword, coupled with the special nature of his work today.
It can be said that the only thing left for Rurik to become the leader is to kneel in the stone ship altar and undergo a ceremony.