The sky is still gray, and the world seems to have fallen into dead silence.
The snow began to loosen, and some people emerged from their snow nests.
Rurik finally pushed open the thick wooden door. He stayed in the cave for a long time like a rabbit. When he saw the outside world, he felt incredibly dreamy.
The hibernating Russians appeared one after another. They were trudging through the waist-deep snow. Once the two met, they yelled and praised the pile for surviving the blizzard.
"The snow accumulation this year is really amazing. Rurik, you'd better go inside first and put on your hat." Otto, with a stupefied face inside, endured the cold wind that poured into the warm "cave" and called for his son to breathe.
Rurik immediately put on another layer of leather, and finally jumped up and was buried in the soft snow, disappearing without a trace.
Then he stuck his head out, his fair face was visible under the white velvet hat, and a snowball seemed to appear on the snow.
The Russians do not like snow. What they like is always warm land where they can grow wheat stably, and a good harbor that does not freeze all year round.
The world is frozen, and people must survive in the ice and snow world.
Fortunately, Rossburg's reserves of supplies for this winter are extremely sufficient, so everyone will not have to worry about eating safely, and there is almost no need to worry about keeping warm.
Due to this exaggerated snow accumulation, people's winter life has encountered extremely rare and huge obstacles. Compared with previous years, the snow accumulation is not as extreme as this winter.
Life still has to go on, especially winter hunting.
The gray world blew a sharp wind like a knife, and there was almost no snow attached to the frozen sea. All the snowflakes were blown to the shore, causing Roseburg to be filled with snow hills, and under the snow hills there were many buildings.
houses.
The wooden ridges are sturdier than the longhouses of the past. People are still worried that if there is another snowstorm, their houses will be crushed by the snow, and everyone will still be turned into ice sculptures in the severe cold. Besides, there are many obstacles at the door and in the intricate streets.
The heavy snow has made people's lives difficult to walk.
After being frozen for a while, Rurik's head completely sobered up.
Without him or Otto personally giving the order, the Russians who reluctantly went out were already clearing away the snow with wooden shovels.
If there are advanced large-scale snow removal equipment, the snow in Roseburg will be cleared quickly, at least ensuring that there will not be too much snow in people's living areas.
Mechanical equipment does not exist, and people can only rely on their own hands and simple shovels and rakes.
The native residents of the Ross tribe, various permanent immigrants from outside, and various powerful traders who live temporarily temporarily are the current residents of Rossburg. Its population has unexpectedly exceeded 9,000 people! Among them, the captives
There are three thousand Gotlanders and people from Lake Mälaren. The residents of Roseburg are forced to live a cramped life. Their lives are even more cramped after the snowstorm? Fortunately, this bad situation will be improved due to the spring.
Immediately changed upon return.
Do more than 6,000 of these 9,000 people have sufficient labor capacity (including most children)? A snow clearing work officially ordered and spearheaded by the Duke of Ross started on the first day after the snow stopped.
here we go.
On the roofs of the streets and alleys, there are people clearing snow everywhere. They first cleared a large number of paths in Roseburg. The road surface is made of hard-trampled snow, and a large number of reindeer sleds are running on the bloody road.
Just near the shore? A snow mountain is forming!
Reindeer sleds pulled loads of snow here, unloading the snow and immediately hauling new ones. The reindeer herds that Rurik ordered to breed and cultivate once again played their huge strategic role? In this era? They are the Rus.
"Truck Head".
There are not only reindeer here, but also more than a hundred well-tamed ponies captured from Gotland. These full-time livestock pulling carts and sleds are just a side job, and they will soon have to go to other places.
In the far north, Ironburg, to do the most critical work.
How long will the snow clearing be going on? The first five days? Ross men cleared most of the snow from Rossburg and nearby areas.
More than 6,000 laborers continued to work, and even though the daylight hours were very short, they were still working in the dark. A huge snow hill about 20 meters high appeared. It was a complete behemoth, and it quickly became a plaything for a group of children.
Noisy place.
Under the snow hills, the Russians set up some large pottery urns, in which porridge made of oats and various vegetables was always being cooked.
The people saw that the generous Duke of Ross gave comfortable meals to all those who dumped new snow on the snow hills. Clearing the snow should be a matter of duty? Once it became profitable, the enthusiasm of the people reached its peak.
Finally? The Russians can walk freely in their home port, but it is a pity that all the ships are sealed by ice? The sails of the great Avora have also been removed? She is embedded in the thick ice of the dock? Like a prison.
Fairies in the ice and snow. The coast is full of deliberately stranded longships, arranged in a dense matrix. No one is worried that they will slip from their fixed positions, because they are also sealed by the frozen snow.
The winter life of the Russians has begun, and the strongest and most ambitious men are ready to take action.
Thinking about winter hunting in the past few years, each hunt has essentially evolved into an expedition. Hunters work in groups. They hunt wild deer, bears, wolves, white foxes, ferrets and other animals, and also actively discover other animals.
A human stronghold. Discovery means war, war means getting rich, and it also means glorious battles.
A group of men were once imprisoned in their own homes. In addition to working hard to sow seeds for their women, they also used the soft light of oil lamps to constantly and meticulously repair their weapons. From the women's perspective, their husbands were going to have sex in the winter.
expedition!
The captured women of Gotland who were forced to marry the Rus were already shocked by the shocking scale of the legendary Fort Rus, but now they saw the behavior of their new men, and they were puzzled and worried. Life was already like this,
Most women have admitted the reality. They rely on their new men extremely pragmatically, fearing that the sword-sharpening man will accidentally die outside during the winter expedition. In the final analysis, they are worried about losing their asylum.
The sun has finally returned, sweeping away the world's haze and making this world of ice and snow extremely dazzling.
The intense light caused Rurik to collapse, but times have changed after all!
The blacksmith shop in Clavarson once again showed a lively scene, and all five blacksmith shops in Roseburg were spewing thick smoke from their chimneys.
It stands to reason that blacksmiths like them have accumulated a lot of wealth in the past few years, so they don't need to continue to work hard.
However, the Duke issued an order that work must be done, and one order after another from the tribe forced everyone to be very busy.
Among all the blacksmiths, the elderly Klavasen can be said to be an all-rounder. Now he is no longer a simple blacksmith, but a master of more than twenty apprentices.
He is indeed not a blacksmith, but he is the first Russian "engineering master" recognized by Rurik. Even if this person does not have many technical abilities, he has integrated a series of abilities of the Nordic craftsmen of this era.
Rurik provided creative design and process drawings, and the Klavasen family was responsible for turning the drawings into physical objects. The cooperation between the two parties has been very smooth over the past few years.
Rurik brought a few followers to place Klavason around. He came here firstly to inspect, and secondly to ask the blacksmith to solve a small object immediately. However, this small object did not require Klavason to do it himself. Rurik thought about his own
Little boy Kamne can do it himself.
The heat of the blast furnace quickly melted all the surrounding snow, so the blacksmith's mansion appeared to be very hanging. While other people's houses were still covered with some snow, only the Klavasen family's houses were always exposed.
's roof.
The blast furnace resumed operation, with a large amount of carbon blocks stored, mountains of ore, and piles of clay molds, enough for smelting and casting to last a long time.
Kavey was already an engineer. He stood on a high ground and shouted at the hired workers to serve this magical giant furnace. When Rurik inspected, the second pot of molten iron in winter had already been emptied of slag.
The pottery mold casting operation is in progress.
Kawei is supervising the casting of a large number of axes. This wave of casting will consume the entire furnace of molten iron and eventually turn into as many as 200 axes. In the past, such crazy efficiency was something that no one would have dared to imagine.
This batch of axes has a blade on one end and a hammer on the other. Although the cast iron tool is not suitable for making swords, it is suitable for making axes.
It has become a flagship product sold by the Russian people to the outside world, and the price closely follows the market price.
Of course Rurik knew that the Glan tribe in the kingdom was also producing and selling its own iron tools, but they were still using extremely primitive methods to make them, and their production capacity was really low-level. They were not worthy of being competitors of the Rus, or the whole of Northern Europe.
The iron production capacity of various Viking tribes around the world cannot compare to this earthen blast furnace in Rossburg.
The Russians had upgraded their iron smelting technology to the steel-frying method, and now Rurik saw the blacksmith apprentices he had ordered to train, and they were working exactly like blacksmiths.
More than 20 people gathered in a shed. Under the shed were a large number of small stoves. They worked together in pairs, one person was responsible for turning the pig iron, and the other was responsible for continuously pumping air with a leather bag blower. Although they were all children around ten years old.
, in the past two years or so, Rurik has rewarded them with excellent meals by name. These Slavic boys were destined to live a hungry childhood, but in Roseburg, they did have meat every meal.
Nowadays, the supply of wheat porridge and barbecue is non-stop.
After all, they are Europeans, and a ten-year-old child who receives such good food already shows that he is unusually strong.
In other words, all the children who received the benefits from Rurik became stronger. This remarkable feature made people of Roseburg's age praise them full of praise.
Klavasen himself was not idle either. The workers he hired continued to turn a wooden turbine blower, and the small stove in front of him was blazing with flames. He was still doing his old job, forging the carbon steel sword embryo into a good sword.
Rurik is a distinguished guest!
Klavasen suspended the work at hand, recalled Kawei who was overseeing the work, and Kamne who was frying steel, and invited Rurik to a comfortable mansion.
The warm wood carvings were illuminated by a bright matrix of oil lamps. Klavasen and his old wife were sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor, while his daughter-in-law Lilia was holding her son Kuzneslav Kavy, who had just learned to walk, smiling like a fool. Kamne was very reserved for a while when she saw her master Rurik.
Rurik highly praised the blacksmith's immediate resumption of work after the snowstorm, which reflected the strong support of the Klavassen family for the development of the strength of the Principality of Ross and a manifestation of loyalty. He was highly concerned about the future output of various metal tools and was also concerned about the future output of various metal tools. All blacksmith apprentices gave verbal praise.
These were all correct polite words, but to be honest, the scene of them actively working was definitely not an act, they were indeed actively producing, and Rurik took a reassurance.
"I'm very happy now! I think you all know what will happen in the future."
Clavarson proudly shouted: "Go hunting in the north! Many guys who ordered steel swords said that the Duke planned to hunt a group of white bears and let a group of elite warriors use the bears' tusked heads as helmets. Such a gathering The pile will definitely scare the enemy away, haha!"
"Of course, but I encountered a little problem."
"Oh? What problem do you have?" Klavasen poked his head, "You are recognized as a hero by everyone. It is my honor to solve your problem."
"It's not a troublesome thing." Rurik shrugged: "I need some special stained glass."
Ultimately, what Rurik needs is sunglasses.
After his dancing-like explanation, the three of them, Klavasen, Kawei and Kamne, had already understood. Because these three people were already supporters of Rurik's "atomistic theory", they believed in it. It was Odin's wisdom. With the help of "atomistic" thinking, they not only had new ideas about the various minerals at hand, but also began to consciously "do things".
They have bypassed alchemy and gone straight to chemistry.
Adding ruby to the glass liquid will eventually turn the glass into light red. Following this routine, the Klavassen family, the only designated glass manufacturer in the Principality of Ross, accepted Rurik's new mission, and this time it was no longer simple manufacturing. stained glass.
It’s actually a pair of black lenses for the eyes of travelers in the land of ice and snow!
Klavasen had actually considered this idea after he first discovered stained glass. After all, glass with a large amount of lead added turned black overall, and it seemed that the more lead was added, the darker the color became.
If the glass continues to darken, wouldn't it mean that the sunlight on the snow will no longer be dazzling?
The cheapest material for dyeing lenses black is black copper oxide. Rurik thought of a chemical method for preparing copper oxide in large quantities that can be achieved with current materials and equipment. The core copper material is It was a large amount of copper coins seized.
Although the steps were a little more complicated, it still took Klavason a day to make a very black substance like toner that was enough to fill a small cloth bag. It had a strange metallic smell and was essentially
It is a special kind of patina. Indeed, as far as coloring materials are concerned, copper oxide is a glass coloring agent that the Russians can now produce efficiently, and it is not toxic compared to lead.
They started working, Klavasen was responsible for preparing the raw materials, and Lilia and Kamne had already taken on all the remaining work.
The viscous glass liquid was cast on a piece of extremely polished iron ingot. The hot red color dissipated, and the dark glass piece showed its clues. Compared with the previous stained glass, it was darker!
Rurik didn't even need to experiment further. He took the cooled irregular glass piece outdoors and saw the dark world of ice and snow, and the sunlight was no longer dazzling.
Not only that, Rurik's mind also thought of huge business opportunities.
It is not troublesome to polish the lens into two square pieces of glass of similar size, and it is also not troublesome to create the wooden bracket and hanging ears to carry the glass pieces.
Two days later, Rurik came to Klavasen's house again. Not only did he get the sunglasses he requested, but he also brought another news to the blacksmith.
"Do you like it?" Klavasen asked knowingly.
"It's really wonderful." Although Rurik felt that the sunglasses were a bit heavy, he was completely relieved after considering how wonderful their actual use was.
A group of people gathered at the blacksmith's house again, and everyone was in a very happy mood.
Wearing sunglasses, Rurik completely changed his temperament. Viewers felt from the bottom of their hearts that he was made more heroic by the sunglasses. It seemed that for anyone who wore them, men became handsome and women became heroic.
Facing her future brother-in-law, Lilia was generous, but the dark circles under her eyes revealed many things: "I am already a woman who is good at making glass. I have been working during the long night, and now I have made a batch of black glass."
Glass. Rurik, I can guess what you are going to do."
"That's great. Don't force yourself." Rurik nodded and looked at Klavason: "Yesterday, my father had a discussion with some people in the tribe. This year, everyone must go to the north for hunting. Let's set out.
The day is not far away. I also went to the Huotra family's shipbuilding workshop to have a look, and you are very aware of the situation there. The two large ships are in urgent need of new masts, and the materials must be transported from the north!"
"So, you need me to make a batch of eye protection sunglasses with excellent performance before people leave?" Klavasen asked with a smile.
"Exactly! This is a request of mine."
"Oh, don't be like this. Your order is very important. I will complete it no matter what." Klavasen slapped his chest again, looking like he was determined to win.
"That's great. Making the frame requires carving wood, which is a bit of a delicate job. The winter hunt is scheduled for the twentieth of November, and I want to order at least a hundred pairs of sunglasses. Mark my words.
, is to order.”
"Really?" Klavasen fully understood Rurik's intention: "So the buyers are the people from Beishou? How do you decide to price it?"
"This...I thought about it, a pair of sunglasses costs twenty silver coins."
"Ah?" Klavason was a little surprised, "Is it..."
"Did I set the price too high? I think it's already a huge favor. It's still the old rule, your family will get a corresponding proportion of the money, and the share I got will be put in the big money box of our Russian people. After all, mine is
The mission is to lead the people of Russia to become bigger and stronger. What I care about is not the money, all the money will eventually be used for everyone."
"Oh, you are such a great person."
Rurik curled his lips: "This sounds a bit like a question."
"I can not."
"Then hurry up and do it. Soon I will go to Ironburg in person. Kawei, you will go with me. And you. Rurik pointed his little hand again: "Kamne, you will also go with us. We are here
We have to come back before the Hanukkah sacrifice on the winter solstice. We have to bring back a lot of shipbuilding wood and a lot of chromite! Let's make sunglasses. Now those who own sunglasses don't have to squint all the time during the long journey to the ice field.