Every year, the Russians import a large amount of flax stalks from the south. The harvested flax stalks have no added value. The Russians buy them and process them themselves.
The original flax stalks were scattered and thinned to obtain a large number of rough thin threads in khaki and brown.
These messy threads can be woven by themselves, but they are too rough. Apart from being woven into cloaks, sails and sacks, they don't seem to have many new uses.
The women of Rus inherited ancient craftsmanship, and there was no essential difference between their craftsmanship and that of the Franks, and the productivity of the two was also the same.
The coarse khaki flax thread was put into a pottery urn and boiled, and then a little natural Glauber's salt dug from the mountains was added. They didn't know the principle of doing this, but after boiling the flax thread for a period of time, it not only turned into the color of milk.
, especially the woven cloth is extremely delicate.
The essence is the combined action of natural and easily available bleach and boiling water. The natural pigments and gum stored in the linen threads are removed, and only then can the body feel comfortable.
It's not a troublesome technology, but it requires a lot of labor from the processor.
Gould imported three types of linen. The khaki cloth was the roughest and cheapest, and its quantity was not large. The largest quantity was white cloth, which had a large output and a large sales volume every year.
Only linen dyed sky blue is extremely precious.
Although white cloth gets dirty easily, the Russians are not very particular about it. Nowadays, soap is widely used by the tribe, so it is no longer a troublesome thing to wash the linen at home.
With the flax rods purchased last year, the women of Rus have already used the short daylight hours to weave as much as they can during the boring winter.
The Ross tribe was originally short of cloth, but the tribe has been the largest leather supplier to the southern allies for decades, and the tribe has never been short of leather. In recent years, trade with the south has become more frequent and the scale has become unprecedentedly huge.
Linen, which was relatively scarce, has become commonplace nowadays.
It is said that the Duke spent a huge sum of money to buy a large amount of finished linen cloth, and it was actually used to make uniform clothes for the soldiers on the expedition?
Shortly after the arrival of Gould's fleet, the women of the entire tribe, including the hundreds of girls under Rurik's command, gathered on the beach to accept Rurik's orders.
Soon, each piece of white cloth was torn into three halves, namely three pieces of cloth about 4 meters long and 1.3 meters wide.
Such cloth can make a white robe for a strong warrior, and there is even a lot of spare cloth, which requires women to use their imagination to make other textiles.
Among all the cloths, as many as ninety bales are pure white cloth. Theoretically, more than 1,300 robes will be completed.
There are also thirty packs of rough khaki linen, which are also used to make robes, and these new robes must be made quickly and then supplied to the new mercenaries from Malaren. Considering the saving of materials, the three
Ten bales of burlap can make exactly 600 sets of coarse robes.
Only if Rick is willing to spend a lot of money to supply equipment to his main force, and only if their morale is high, will victory truly belong to Ross.
A vigorous clothing-making operation has begun! This is a war for women!
Women were essentially responsible for the logistics of the Russian army to a large extent. They already spent their time cutting wood and boiling salt, and now they took advantage of the extremely long days in summer to work with high endurance.
Although in Rurik's view, the women of the tribe sat together, talking and laughing, cutting cloth with knives, using bone needles, crude iron needles, and a very few people used extremely precious steel needles (the origin was actually the Tang Empire).
) to sew uniform robes.
They can obviously work harder, but unfortunately they will not be able to become Rurik's concept of assembly line workers in this life.
Because they lack key discipline education, and given their current living conditions, they indeed lack the motivation to work hard.
Asking himself, Rurik doesn't blame them for dilly-dallying. No matter how dilly-dally they are, they will still be more efficient than the Mellarens. The Gotlanders, who are also enemies, will not be able to prepare for war at such a speed.
Each woman who received linen had to complete the making of the robe within two days. They completed the work seriously in order to earn a sum of money, and also for their husbands who went to war so that their sons could be prosperous.
On July 15th, all the white cloth gowns with strikingly similar styles were handed over one after another, and Rurik also began to organize a new batch of manpower to perform secondary processing on these white shirts.
A recognized Roman strongman wore chainmail, and then put a sleeveless white cloth Uesugi on his body.
It was this kind of wearing effect that Rurik wanted. As the cowhide belt tied the strong man's waist, a warrior who looked neat and yet brave emerged. Compared with his previous appearance, onlookers praised him.
This new look.
Just this is not enough!
Through this strong man, Rurik determined the exact position of the so-called sides and waist of the gown.
For finishing, there are two strips of blue cloth three men's fingers wide on the front and back of the gown, which are stitched in a cross pattern.
This is the "oar-shaped coat of arms" unique to the Russian people, and it is also the actual symbol of Russia.
There were twenty bales of blue linen. From the beginning, Rurik did not plan to use all of them as clothing. They had to be matched with various kinds of cloth.
Speaking of which, the "crossed oars" heraldry pattern chosen by the Russians since ancient times is simple, and the reserve of blue cloth is sufficient. It can not only sew the Russian mark on all the elite warriors, but also allow the Russian ships to
Flying Rose's logo.
Only those clothes made of burlap are given to the newly recruited mercenaries who surrender their lives in exchange for their future. It would be good to have new clothes to wear. They are self-aware and know that they have no right to be picky.
Therefore, the six hundred people from the Melalen tribe all put on new clothes the next day, as well as a simple belt made of hemp rope and a pair of simple leather shoes.
They soon learned their true job - to join the Russian army and launch a massive attack on Gotland.
Some young people are excited about it, while some old people are deeply confused about the way forward.
The young people just hope to express themselves in the battle and take the opportunity to get the spoils. The old people think more about possible death and the sorrow of not being able to fight for the people of Mellaren.
They immediately accepted the status quo and saw that the entire legendary Ross tribe, including the young children, were preparing for war.
After all, the Rus are also part of the new Kingdom of Sweden, and I am afraid that the next war was also ordered by King Olegin.
They comforted themselves that they had finally intervened in this great war, but in a very strange way.
The six hundred new troops of Melalen were weak at first due to the torture of boat and cart labor. They changed into new clothes and ate enough fish to fill their stomachs, and then they began to accept the money from their sponsor, the Duke of Ross.
He was ordered to help the Russians cut down trees.
They also all know the weapons and equipment they will use in future battles, and they are indeed simple. They are just the logging axes issued by the Russians and a short spear about the same height as themselves. The key shield? The Russians do not issue them themselves, but fortunately some
The Malaren people carried their own shields and even small axes with them. The rest made their own round shields by chopping wood.
Ross's elite troops have been practicing traditional formation battles in recent days.
Warriors who are good at archery, including a kind of children, Rurik asked them to focus on practicing "thousands of arrows" and alternating shooting arrow arrays.
The total number of Kewen people has reached 150. It can be said that they are veterans who survived the war. Although there is some luck in their survival, it is undeniable that they survived after all, which represents their strength.
They are an elite warrior. They were once attacked by crossbows, but now they also have the right to touch the Russian steel-armed crossbows.
Of course, the Covins are also the users of all longbows, and they have essentially become the core of the shooting force.
All kinds of people are training, Rurik even forced Gould to hand over the use rights of all his current mercenaries, servants, and sailors. This is a full-scale war, although many members of the Gould family
They are non-combatants. Now that the rise and fall of the principality is at war again, they naturally join Rus and must fulfill their obligations.
The sailors and Gould's mercenaries conducted very special training, which was to move the torque slingshot ashore, put it on a two-wheeled cart, and shoot it at the wooden handle.
The torsion slingshot also took the opportunity to undergo important repairs. Considering the previous battle damage, the torsion hemp rope of the slingshot has suffered a large number of small breaks. Although it can still be used, it will lose weight faster and faster in the future. All slingshots
It has lost weight, which is one of the reasons why it is difficult to sink the Gotland patrol ship at close range even when it encounters it.
All the torsion slingshots were quickly repaired, and the hemp rope on each side was increased from twelve to fourteen strands, and their torque was also slightly improved, which received extremely positive feedback during training.
The soldiers wore the same clothes and appeared on the battlefield in neat lines. Their military power must have frightened the enemy.
Of course that alone is not enough!
Fisk's mother Broma was ordered to supervise the work of the women. She has always been favored by Rurik, and now she has to make new achievements.
Rurik found her specially and ordered her to organize people to sew some flags.
Sewing a flag? Sewing a Russian oar flag? Like the pattern printed on the original sail of the leader's flagship?
A piece of white cloth with a width of nearly one meter and a length of nearly one and a half meters. Broma cut strips of blue cloth and sewed them on the cloth himself.
If that were all, everything would be normal, until Rurik asked for a blue cloth strip to be sewn with the Norse language marked with runes in the deliberately six hundred area under the flag.
There are five flags that require text labeling, namely:
Ross's army has become what is now recognized as a behemoth. To command such an army, they must be divided into groups.
People nowadays really can't expect them to have a high degree of discipline. Good discipline requires enough time to train. Rurik certainly boasts that he has the ability to make the entire Russian army follow basic orders and prohibitions, but that requires time, which he lacks.
It's time.
Rurik had already planned, and indeed started to try this three years ago. That is, a group of thirty people in a long boat would choose a "captain" to take command. Then a hundred and twenty people in four boats would be able to complete a task.
The hollow infantry phalanx is also capable of forming complex formations, so a "centurion" is selected. This kind of weaving probably also has the meaning of a centurion.
Then when the number of troops reaches 500, it is time to set up a "flag team".
The flag corps is a large-scale weaving of feudal armies that existed widely from Western Europe to Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. Its positioning is like the positioning of an infantry division in a huge war, such as a huge war involving tens of millions of people.
The infantry flag corps and the infantry battalion are similar in strength. In fact, the strength of a flag corps often reaches 800 or 1,000 people. A similar organization has been used by the Romanians and Germans for thousands of years.
After World War II.
For this war, Rurik planned to set up five flag corps, each with a strength of between 500 and 700 men.
In his plan, the future Russian army, especially the army, should also have such a basic organization.
He couldn't help but imagine that one division of the so-called Sixth Division of the Emperor was equivalent to an army of 10,000. In the Eastern world, an army of 10,000 was not considered to be a lot, but in the current Western world, it was really a huge force.
Really organizing an army of ten thousand people who always marched neatly was a test of the commander's organizational skills. In this era of poor military order delivery methods, Rurik temporarily lacked the experience and confidence in this area.
"Three infantry flag teams are matched with one shooter flag team. If we can arrange a formal logistics flag team, plus some auxiliary personnel, it will form a legion of nearly 3,000 people? Then three legions form a division, so
That’s fine. The emperor has six divisions, so I must have them too.”
There must be a limit to dreaming. Rurik knew that he had to gather people from everywhere to form a "big army" with a strength of nearly 3,000 people.
Among them, there are probably only a thousand local warriors from the Ross tribe, who are the qualified backbone, namely the two "Warrior Flag Teams". As for the other flag teams, they are mainly used for support and transportation.
Soon, the flags of the five flag teams were sewn, and they were all hung on special flagpoles.
The flagpole is like the mast of a ship, and the flag hangs vertically on the crossbar that intersects with the flagpole, just like a small sail. There is a ferocious wooden sculpture of a dragon head on the top of the flagpole, just like the eagle emblem of the Roman legionary flag. This dragon-headed flag
, is the symbol of the flag team and must also represent the honor of the entire flag team.
If the flag falls during the war, it will represent the shame of the entire flag team! It will also cause the top commander to be unable to clearly see the movements of his soldiers, which will be a disaster for the course of the war.
After the flag was completed, it was distributed to the army in Fort Ross. Each fighting flag team was born, and Rurik also appointed the captain of the flag team.
The Warriors' First Flag Team, captain Arik, and the five hundred elite warriors are currently stationed on Tombstone Island.
The Warriors' Second Flag Troop, with a strength of 600 men, is captained by Harold Johnson. On the occasion of this decisive battle, this old guy must shoulder a heavy responsibility.
The Archer Flag Team has a strength of 700. The archery master Frazier serves as the captain and is responsible for commanding the archers of young children (as many as 300 men and women), 150 Kewen archers, and 150 older Ross.
A hundred people including steel-armed crossbowmen composed of human beings, as well as sailors and mercenaries who planned to operate ten torsion slingshots.
The Merlaren mercenary flag force has a strength of 600. An older man named Herriger serves as the flag captain because he served as a "leader's private soldier" for a period of time when he was young. They have been unified.
They have new clothes and seemingly reliable weapons, and they have no worries about food and clothing during this period. Seeing that the Rus people are serious about the expedition to Gotland, they are no longer opposed to the expedition to Gotland, and they already have hope for it.
For example, after the war is over, you can directly stay and become a Russian. The war you participated in is an act of surrendering to join the group.
The Slavic Standard Corps currently has 500 troops. His brother-in-law Medvet is destined to fight for the banner. Rurik estimates that when the assembly is completed, the strength will rise to 700 or even more. Because people have been sent to Novgoro
Germany continued to recruit troops. Although the local tribes usually did not deal with each other, the core of the conflict still lay with the local manor owners. The lives of ordinary people were generally poor. If war was the way to get rid of poverty, Rurik felt that he could really
Recruiting a large number of people to work for themselves.
Calculated in this way, the Russian army has reached 3,100 people, and the final strength can be a little more.