Chapter 343 Interview with the tailor and the shipbuilder
The talks ended within one day, and Rurik returned to Gould Island with the wooden board engraved with the contract.
It seems that now, Rurik and his men only have to wait for the approaching harvest season.
But the problem may not be that simple.
After all, a big deal was finalized, and the entire Gould Island fell into joy. In order to celebrate the joy, several old sheep bought from the market were slaughtered, and the sheep skins were cut off as usual, even though this was
Even the poorest old sheepskin can be kept as a means of keeping out the cold.
Thin and lean old mutton serves as a reward for ordinary people, like Rurik. He is at the Gould family's dinner party. As the most distinguished guest, he naturally wants to feast on the most beautiful delicacies.
In the midst of the banquet, the sufferings of the Mellaren people naturally have nothing to do with all the Russians on the island.
Gould was slightly drunk, and Aric was also blushing.
"This time, we finally finalized the business. Haha, we don't have to worry about anything anymore, we just wait for them to transport the food."
Rurik kept his mind clear at all times: "Gould, do you really believe them? I think..."
"Are you a little worried? Are you worried that the food will not be in place?"
"Yes! After all, it's half a million pounds, which is double the amount of grain we transported last year. The farmland is really in bad shape this year."
"Are you worried about that guy Olegin? Haha." Gould giggled for a while and drank another glass of strong wine. "That man will try to raise food for his own face. You don't even have a deposit.
Give it to him, if he really defaults on his debt, what exactly will we lose?"
"That's true."
"But!" Gould suddenly straightened his serious face emotionally: "He will exploit his own people and force them to hand over their food to him. Rurik, do you know about this kind of thing?"
Do you know? Although Rurik has never seen it, based on his understanding of the concept of "landlord", he can certainly guess what extreme measures Olegin, as a super large landowner, might take.
"I can think of it. Although the farmers have suffered, we Russians don't have to go hungry. One silver coin is exchanged for eleven pounds of wheat, and we don't lose."
"Hehe, we still made some money, at least we saved nearly 6,000 silver coins. Rurik, you did a good job and successfully bargained with him."
After being flattered by Gould, Rurik naturally felt a sense of joy in his heart.
Rurik said with a sullen face: "I don't like that Karl, he is a stupid man."
"Oh, you mean him?" Gould said hey again: "A guy who likes women. To be honest, I envy him. It's a pity that I'm old. It's not wrong to like women, but it's stupid to humiliate allies stupidly."
It was here that Gould had the intention to criticize Arick. Considering Arick's noble status, he just wanted to end it.
Gould held the glass high in his right hand: "Brave Arik, I salute you."
Arik blushed and filled another glass for himself, and the two men drank from it.
Drinking one glass after another, Rurik learned that Gould's police were stationed at the market again, and there were farmers selling home-brewed ale. The ale was immediately bought with wine and barrels, and now in the island's warehouse
No less than a hundred barrels have been piled up.
However, there seemed to be a lot of these wines. After the distillation was completed, the flammable spirits were poured into up to seven small blown glass bottles. Based on the intuition of a businessman, Gould estimated that the rich people of Malaren
Spending power. Melalen is indeed the largest tribe in the alliance. Its population has reached about 30,000, which is already a giant in everyone's general concept. But for merchants, this population only maintains a very narrow market.
I'm afraid you won't make much money by brewing and selling spirits on a large scale. But wine is wine, and it's such a rare delicacy in the world. Why should the people of Mälaren be the first to enjoy it? Of course, the people of Russia should taste it themselves.
oh.
Gould was inseparable from strong liquor. He always saved his inventory and only drank a few drinks every day.
I saw that Arik finally couldn't bear the alcohol, and combined with the physical and mental things he experienced during the day, he simply lay down on the animal hide and fell unconscious while snoring.
The confused Gould put down his wine glass, shook his head, and asked listlessly: "Rurik, there are some things you...should prepare for."
"What's up?"
"About that Fordgen who makes leather coats, there is also a master of shipbuilding."
"Oh, it's them!" The sleepy Rurik cheered up.
"I will...send people to tell them in the near future that the son of the leader of the Russian people is going to meet them. Haha, I have already sent people to tell them what our Russian people want to do. What do you think they think?"
"how to think?"
Gould laughed stupidly for a while: "They are businessmen themselves, just like me. They said that as long as the price is high enough, they don't mind if they can get greater profits by becoming Russians...
What."
"Wow! That's great. I want to receive them, and I can represent the leader and recognize them as my masters. You know, I give preferential treatment to all kinds of skilled people for my use."
"This is the best. I will make arrangements, at least not today. Oh, I'm too drunk." As soon as Gould finished speaking, the wine glass in his hand fell to the ground. He was lying on the ground like a fat pig that had eaten enough feed.
Sleeping soundly on the leather.
What else could Rurik say? He looked at Carlotta, who was eating dried fruit out of boredom, and the two of them smiled.
Three days later, more wheat entered the heading state.
The farmers have been busy for a year (in fact, they have not spent much time taking care of the farmland), just waiting for the autumn harvest. For them, fishing and logging are all means of survival on weekdays, and they can only go to the market after harvesting wheat.
Only by selling the surplus grain can we obtain cash that is very important to the family.
In fact, this year's situation is very special.
Olegin and Rurik signed this year's grain agreement. He has already passed the news of collecting a huge amount of grain and issued an order to the tribe through his private army system. This is a big deal! A batch of new wheat is waiting for it.
Businessmen who have gone public one after another and gathered together to plan this year's grain prices, what else can they do when they see this situation?
What merchants who purchase grain do is to buy at low prices during the harvest season, and then sell at high prices after the spring famine, in order to make big profits. This year's harvest is destined to be bad, but they have a lot of silver coins! Farmers and merchants are naturally competing for pricing power.
, the farmers in Mälaren are scattered, and the merchants have not formed a grain merchants' guild. If the price is set too low, the farmers will not squeeze out the grain for money. If the price is set too high, the grain merchants will lose money.
As a result, the Russian order was like a bolt from the blue, a heavy blow to the grain merchants, but it also gave ordinary farmers who did not know the specific content a glimmer of hope. Those farmers who owned acres of land were willing to believe that their leaders would propose an order.
It was a very good purchase price. Although their harvest was bad, they could still get some money from selling grain. After all, they always needed to reserve a sum of silver coins and copper coins for emergencies.
The farmers had hope, and there were only a limited number of professional craftsmen in the entire tribe, but they saw the malice contained in it.
Potters, carpenters, blacksmiths and even shipbuilders have become pure craftsmen. At most, they use their own fishing boats to occasionally catch some fish. Most of the time throughout the year, they are accepting orders and selling their products to make money.
Japan. They represent the industrial and commercial practitioners of the Melalen tribe. In today's era, they are actually more vulnerable than farmers.
What conclusions did some craftsmen draw from the information revealed by the leader?
First of all, the Ross leaders began to actively participate in Lake Malaren's own trading system as never before. They would no longer retreat behind the scenes and be represented by their own merchants as before.
Secondly, the Ross leaders are very wealthy. Their intervention will inevitably cause the water in Lake Malaren to become muddy. It is not something ordinary businessmen can do if they want to fish in troubled waters.
Third. This is a crisis, but also an opportunity. Since the Russians are also recruiting talents, if you are willing to accept the most critical conditions they propose, just join them.
After a real inspection, Fo Degen was fully prepared to immigrate.
On the island he controls, the slaves and servants have been ordered to stop working.
A very interesting thing is that this guy Vodgen is really an active person in buying slaves. Different from those wealthy households, they can live a good life relying on a large amount of land and rent from tenant farmers. They buy slaves.
The purpose of slaves is mainly to serve as slaves for farming and as maids to serve in daily life.
This was not the case with Fordegen. He was fond of the Britton slaves brought over by the Norwegians, and he paid special attention to the female slaves. This was by no means concerned about the beauty of the women. In fact, he deliberately chose some of the worse-looking ones first, so that he could purchase them.
Prices are kept very low.
What he needed was the slave's tailoring ability. After some contact, he figured out the identities of the female slaves he had raised for many years, and even the new female slaves who were slowly increasing every year.
When the slave girls began to understand Norse, they began to mention some small place names, and even larger place names.
Northumbria? Bamburgh? Kent? West Saxony?
A rare slave girl with orange-red hair was describing a Pictish title.
Fo Degen didn't care. These were probably the names of tribes on the distant island. He did notice that these women were carving some wooden blocks, forming intertwined ones, and making them into necklaces to hang on their chests. Each one
In the morning, these women would gather together and read some strange words in the language of their hometown.
This is their belief, which is the belief spread by the legendary men in black from Rome.
If they say something to calm them down and work, Fordgen will naturally say nothing.
Anyway, these abducted women were peasant women in their hometown. In addition to cutting wood and fetching water, their daily work also assisted men in farming. Their greatest abilities were spinning and sewing, and they had extremely rich sewing experience.
Up to now, Fodegen's weaving workshop is not only continuing to improve the work of purchasing leather and sewing leather clothes, but also training female slaves to complete the one-stop work of pounding flax rods to punch out fibers, weaving linen cloth, and tailoring into linen clothes.
What he paid the most to the slaves was to ensure that they had enough food. The slaves ate more than they did in their hometown. This was definitely not a sign of mercy from Fordegen. He was really a calculating businessman who knew that if his slaves
When you are hungry, how can you get more high-quality output?
After experiencing the horrific encounter in the south last summer and the field trip to Fort Ross in the winter, it was necessary to move. As Gould's old friend sent another messenger to deliver the official summons from the son of Chief Ross, he had already
Be well prepared.
The wheat harvest will only happen in the next three or four days. Although a large amount of wheat has no possibility of heading, the wheat that does head is turning yellow quickly. A small number of oats have become more and more cold-resistant due to genetic mutations.
The farmers in Mälaren have no concept of this at all. They can only passively collect the heading wheat and keep part of it as sowing grain. This is a passive "scientific selection". In this way, year after year, the Nordic oat varieties are only
Can become more and more cold-resistant.
Why doesn't Fordgen want to live a good life of eating bread every day? He has saved enough capital, and the silver coins he has saved are not only 20,000 but also 18,000. This is all the wealth he has accumulated in his life, and he can rely on this money.
After spending the rest of his life, now that he is old, he naturally has to consider the things behind him and the prosperity of his descendants.
He had to think more, if the Ross people were as the messenger said, as long as they paid a tax every year, they could get the security promise of the Ross leader and even the military guarantee of the Ross warriors, why would he have to spend a lot of money to raise a group of soldiers every year?
What about private security? After all, the cost of hiring mercenaries is a huge expense in a year, even higher than the so-called taxes.
In the final analysis, his transformation into a hard-core immigrant was mainly driven by the pursuit of market and profit considerations.
However, a group of aspiring shipbuilders not only pursued profits, but also appreciated Rurik's lofty goals. After all, as craftsmen, they longed to create miracles in the shipbuilding industry throughout their lives.
They long to build big ships, and they long for their descendants to build big ships from generation to generation! They are admirers of Thor and long for a challenge.
In this way, the two groups of people landed on Gould Island on the eve of the wheat harvest on the agreed date provided by the messenger.
Among the visitors were the richly dressed Fo Degen, and as many as ten middle-aged men of various ages who were dressed simply and smartly. One thing they all had in common was their beards, which were tied into various braids.
Yes, even people like Fordegen tied his short beard into braids so that it would not get in the way when eating bread and soup. None of them thought about cutting off their beards.
Of course, there are tools to cut beards, just because they follow a very simple logic of doing things - if you have a hairless mouth, you will not be able to do anything.
What awaits these people is a feast under Rurik's instructions.
At this point, everything is under Rurik's calculation. Gould's suggestion is good. Those businessmen from all walks of life who are invited to pay homage are ultimately seeking wealth and stability.
In order for the Russians to stabilize these talents, they must put on a grand display in public so that their most fundamental demands can be satisfied immediately.
Gould Island was deliberately arranged to be busy. The hired sailors, slaves, and even a group of children were all assigned to work. In fact, they were moving all kinds of goods sealed in wooden boxes around, and even boxes
There is nothing inside. They deliberately move around the pier just to show visitors what a "busy pier" is.
For the mercenaries and Rus warriors, Ryuri ordered them to wear chainmail, hang shields on their backs, spin swords and axes on their waists, and carry a throwable short spear in their hands. In order to show luxury, Gould was still there
Some white fluffy fox furs were hung on their bodies, and gray goose flight feathers were temporarily decorated with pine resin on the top of their helmets.
They were ruthless characters who fought wildly against Gotland fishermen on the sea a few months ago. Everyone's eyes could show murderous intent. They had basically received formation training (Otto had ordered it), and this time they completely acted like Russians.
guard of honor.
They formed a passage and went straight to the gate of the core wooden fortress of Gould Island.
The Rurik brothers, even Carlotta, and the Goulds, who were dressed in bright and gorgeous clothes, were waiting at the pier and saw several rowing boats coming.
"They are coming! Pay attention! Stay alert!" Rurik shouted, and the well-trained soldiers straightened their bodies.
After a while, three boats docked, and those in rich clothes and those in simple clothes boarded the trestle one after another. They were the invited ones.
However, when they saw the array of Hekhwulfs, they couldn't help but feel timid. How incredible? Everyone has never seen such warriors! Is this the style of the Ross warriors?
Vordegen quickly saw Rurik and Carlotta. Even though they were wearing gorgeous clothes and hats, they had grown a lot taller in the past six months. Because they had been in close contact with each other, he recognized them at a glance.
Two people.
He didn't feel comfortable having an acquaintance here. It was the first time for the ten shipbuilders to see a Ross warrior. As for the two short, gorgeous children, they should be the sons of the legendary Ross leader? One of them must be Rurik!
The shipbuilder cautiously followed Vodgen and saw him approaching a boy, taking off his hat and saluting: "My friend, here I come."
"You're finally here. Have you thought about it?" Rurik asked with a smile.
"Of course! I will take all my family and slaves with you. I hope to be recognized by you as soon as I arrive in Rossburg. I also want to be a new Rossite."
Rurik nodded with satisfaction, and he was actually ecstatic in his heart, because this guy Vodgen is certainly snobbish, but the people under him are all master tailors. "You will do it. On behalf of the leader, I can recognize you now
Mind Identity.”
"Oh! That's great."
Rurik originally thought that this guy would kneel down and salute, but he never thought that he would turn around and introduce his new friends with cautious faces with a smile.
Fordegen also changed his title in an instant: "My leader, please allow me to introduce these ten shipbuilders from Melalen. I can say that they are the best shipbuilders."
In fact, Voldegen was bragging, and Rurik didn't feel it at all. His eyes widened, and the joy in his heart could no longer be suppressed.
He rarely became emotional and suddenly stamped his feet: "Okay! Shipbuilder! Shipbuilder who can build big ships! I need you so much! Hurry! Come with me."