The leader was about to die and his morale collapsed. The courage of the Karelian army, which was condensed with hatred and rage, collapsed again in the blood.
It was a total collapse, and they were struggling to escape the encirclement.
Those who can escape seem to have a chance to survive, while those within the encirclement will be ruthlessly crushed by the wheels of history.
Rus will definitely conquer Karelia, and Rurik will complete this major victory a generation ahead of schedule.
Multiple spears pierced Aesailas' body, and he fell into a pool of blood after being poked with several more swords.
"If I had known this, I might as well have taken the tribe and retreated quickly..."
The Great Horde tribe has not perished, but is not far away from it. The population advantage of this most populous Karelia tribe is a thing of the past.
The men in the encirclement were being crushed into powder, and another group of Russian troops had begun to hunt them down.
Once they break into a rout, their pursuers will chop at their backs mercilessly, and the most exaggerated results often come from this.
The fleeing people were confused. They saw many pursuers similar to themselves. They were all short men with black hair, completely different from those blond giants.
Because they are Suomi people.
Once upon a time, the Suomi people, who had tried to avoid the Karelians when they encountered them, boarded the Russian warships and seemed to have gained the courage of the Russian principality. This pursuit was not only for killing, but also for robbery.
Or maybe the Suomi people don't have much desire to kill fleeing enemies. Killing enemies is just a matter of convenience. Their biggest purpose is to rush into the enemy's camps and grab the spoils before enjoying killing all the Varyag troops lost in the blood.
.
Because the Duke has already said that robbery means robbing based on skill. The Suomi people will seize the opportunity to rob, and the loot they get will be recognized by the Duke.
Arik no longer knew how many enemies he had killed. His robe was stained red with blood, and his helmet was sticky and gave off a strange smell of rust.
He has been directing his men to fight, but the battle has turned into a chaotic battle, and the Russian army has basically turned into a personal chaos.
He finally saw that the people with cloth strips on their heads had rushed far enough, and reason finally returned to his head.
"Oh no, let those servants get the upper hand, they will get more!"
Arik raised his two swords in the chaos, "Brothers, those Suomi people have gone to rob. We don't want to fight, follow me and rob!"
He shouted as hard as he could to attract the attention of his brothers, and his efforts seemed to have achieved some results.
However, the Suomi people who were the first to strike had already rushed to the enemy's core camp area, and the looting had already begun.
A group of tents made of wooden strips, linen and animal skins. How many treasures are hidden here?!
The Suomi people had been reduced to pieces. Armed with sharp weapons, they searched everywhere and even allowed hundreds of Karelian warriors to escape.
Sure enough, they had gained a lot. Some people found trembling young women. They huddled up with frightened eyes. Some even held iron daggers in a state of resistance.
There were also men who were hiding. When the tent curtain was opened by the intruding Suomi warriors, they stabbed them directly with short spears.
This is a kind of desperate resistance. The person who was stabbed was pulled away by his companions, and the resisting enemy was mercilessly killed by the subsequent intruders.
The women who were found were all disarmed, dragged by their hair or dragged out of the tent by their feet, and then their hands and feet were tied with hemp rope.
A Suomi warrior with a bandage on his forehead controls a woman, who is his trophy.
Rurik warned his men at the campfire last night not to kill indiscriminately. When they arrived at the Suomi servant army, they did not kill indiscriminately. Those who resisted would naturally be killed, and everyone else would be captured.
They were more keen on finding young women. After all, many Suomi men were difficult to marry. They enthusiastically accepted the order to participate in this large-scale war, just to capture a woman.
Many people gained something, and all the inexplicable women who stayed in the tent were arrested. More than 400 people were arrested.
Once they captured the woman and collected some daily necessities from the scene, a Suomi warrior tried to leave the chaotic battlefield quickly. They used various means to escort the captives to the lakeside. This move really surprised Arik, followed by anger and contempt.
.
"This group of short women is obviously only liked by these guys who are also dwarves..."
Arik mocked the useless style of the servant army with contemptuous eyes. He and his brothers continued to chase the remaining enemies. Unfortunately, the last Karelian warrior had escaped far enough. The pursuit did not last long, and was finally defeated by the final attack.
The enemies rushed into the dark green forest in the distance and ended.
Isotalwa has collapsed, with a layer of corpses lying strewn across the lakeside, and a large area of the lake has been dyed dark red by the blood-colored stream.
The red warriors stood on the pile of corpses. Rus, Balmoks, these pure Viking warriors checked the corpses everywhere. If they found the corpses alive, they pretended to be dead and immediately stabbed them to death with an arrow.
The occupied tent group was full of sword-wielding warriors who wantonly destroyed the tents, cut off the wooden supports, and looted the leather in search of anything useful.
This place has been explored by Suomi and the Vips, and the pure Viking warriors who followed were in a sense picking up leftovers. The brothers originally thought they could get a lot of leather, but what they didn't expect to find was just rubbish.
The negativity was spreading, and the bloody Viking warriors scolded the servants for taking too much, saying that they just wanted to rob and watch the remaining soldiers successfully escape.
Arik's head was so angry that more than a dozen brothers were complaining to him about not being able to find any useful trophies.
He bumped into Jevro who was also collecting trophies with his men in the Isotalwa camp area, and the two met quietly.
The old man who saw it, Jevlo said hello with good intentions, but of course he was harshly criticized.
"What did you Suomi people do? You took away all the good things, so that my brothers couldn't get anything."
The startled Jevro suddenly came to his senses. When it came to looting the loot, the poverty of reality made him angry: "Brother, you are blaming us for taking too much. God is watching us, you can't mess around."
explain."
"How are you not talking nonsense? I saw with my own eyes that your tribe was the fastest and you were busy robbing the enemy before they were eliminated."
"Does it mean we robbed a group of slaves? Do you have a crush on those short women?"
"Of course I don't like it." Arik continued to scold: "You must have grabbed gold and silver, but now my brothers and I can only grab a batch of rags."
"You? You are slandering me!" Yevro stabbed his sword directly on the ground in anger, took off his helmet and opened his arms, "Lord Rurik will make the judgment! It was the Lord who gave the order, and everyone looted according to their ability.
Those who can't get it are not allowed to complain. Besides, we didn't get any gold or silver, and these Karelian people are incredibly poor. I'm just going to stand here, and you can search me."
"You..." Arik was restrained, mainly because his brother had given the order. As a cousin, one should not disobey the orders of a cousin who is a duke. Arik, who prides himself on being generous, does not want to leave a bad impression on others.
Talking point.
He hesitated for a moment and sighed: "However, we have not completely wiped out the enemy. You are responsible."
"I am responsible. The pincer tactics allowed some enemies to escape due to the mistakes of the troops I was responsible for. As for how much responsibility I have and what kind of punishment I should accept, this matter should be judged by the Duke."
Having said this, Arik felt very uncomfortable and had no intention of asking any more questions.
The battle is over, and the sun finally shines miserably on the post-war land at noon on a cloudy day.
The enemy's wounded will eventually die of excessive blood loss, so the Ross army's last-ditch attack can be considered a cruel mercy.
Even the seriously wounded members of the Ross army, those who were obviously only alive, were killed by their companions to end their pain.
War is so cruel, and the lake breeze begins to carry the smell of blood. In the cold weapon era, when the battle ends, the battlefield is always muddy, and the bloody and bloody flesh is like minced meat minced by a meat grinder.
However, Rurik was completely immune to such cruel scenes. The fleet had all anchored, and he took all the subsequent soldiers ashore.
"Is this the core camp of the enemy? They are really a polar nomadic tribe..."
The groups of conical tents made Rurik first think of the Inuit. But wait, when it comes to blood and culture, the Karelia people and the Inuit do have a connection, so it is not enough to have commonalities in building tents.
Surprising.
Soon Rurik saw the Suomi warriors sitting on the ground. The battle was over. The men who had grabbed some trophies were chatting happily. There were also a group of women sitting here. They were clearly prisoners. Their fate was already over.
It can be guessed, and that kind of ending is what he would like to see.
The work of cleaning up the battlefield has been fully launched, and an astonishing number of arrows are being carefully recovered. Whether they are enemy or own arrows, whether they are functional or broken, the arrow collectors are patiently searching.
The enemy's arrows are all of poor quality. The only thing that satisfies the searchers is that the arrow clusters of the enemy's arrows are mostly carefully polished deer bone fragments. The bone fragments have a wide blade. This kind of arrow is very effective for hunting.
It's possible to kill the enemy, but it's a pity that the quality of the enemy's bow is too low.
A large number of short wooden bows were seized, and rather than the bows themselves, the bow strings were what searchers were most willing to collect.
The bows of the Karelian people were of poor quality, but they were good for use as fire sticks. However, more than two thousand bow strings were found, and the number surprised everyone.
Reindeer are full of treasures, and the economic life of the Karelia people depends almost entirely on reindeer breeding. Reindeer are the only large herbivores in northern and northern Asia. Male deer often grow very tall and strong, and the big tendons on their backs are used
, used by the Karelians to make special strong ropes and bowstrings.
Deer tendon bowstring may not be as good as beef tendon, but its quality is at least much better than oil-soaked hemp rope. Rurik was surprised to find so many ready-made bowstrings!
There were surprises and astonishments. What shocked the entire Russian army was that everyone expected to capture an astonishing number of reindeer here, but only found a few dozen reindeer. What is going on? Don't the Karelian people here trust?
Reindeer live their lives.
What's even more strange is that Rurik ordered his men to prohibit the killing of women and children, but except for Suomi and the Vips servant army, who captured three to four hundred women with panic-stricken eyes, there were really no other prisoners.
There were some old men among the dead enemies, but apart from that, no enemy children or other women were found in the entire tent group.
The brothers under his command did not kill indiscriminately. There is no evidence of indiscriminate killing. Facts have proved that when the Russian army landed, the entire tent group had already lost all women and children!
As for the shocking number of women who were captured, the situation was extremely abnormal.
Brauriulik went to investigate in person, and Jevro had already brought surprising results of the interrogation, and there was even important news brought by Terravis on behalf of the Vips.
The battle is over, and thousands of corpses have been inspected.
The bodies of the Russian dead were pulled out and carried to an empty lakeside to be arranged in a matrix.
It's a pity that Rurik hoped that the Viking brothers in the army would not suffer any losses, but ten unlucky guys were pierced through vital parts of the neck by the enemy's spearheads, and the dead basically died from this.
The largest number of casualties came from the Suomi people. There were as many as 150 short corpses lying here. Their heads were all tied with red bandages. This headdress allowed the body pickers to determine their identities. The corpses on their bodies
There were various wounds, and onlookers could confirm that if they had all been wearing metal chainmail when fighting, most of the dead would not have died.
In the chaotic battle, the Suomi and Karelian people's combat effectiveness was only half the same. Even if the former accepted part of the change of clothes, they faced an opponent who was trapped and still fighting. They were like novices pecking each other, and the chaos was extremely ferocious.
This was the total loss of the Russian army. The total number of casualties was less than 200, and there were also 200 wounded, and almost all of the wounded were Suomi servants.
As for the enemy's corpses, the exhausted Russian army did not carry the corpses for detailed statistics. People made estimates and judged that the enemy must have killed 3,000 people no matter what.
In the evening, arrogant soldiers dressed in dirty clothes lit huge bonfires. They looked down on the enemy's shabby tents and resented the enemy's poverty for not being able to grab many good things, so they used the materials from those tents as firewood.
The rotten leather was also used as fuel, causing the campfire to always emit a special smell similar to barbecue.
The largest bonfire was where Rurik held a post-war military meeting.
The sunset does not exist. It is supposed to be dusk. The sky in the west is dark yellow. Experienced people think that there will be a rain in the future. The weather in August is like this. A rain is a cold. It is good to stay away from Roseburg.
Anyone who knows a lot about the eastern region in my hometown knows that September in the Julian calendar is the rainy season in the east. There will be a high probability of rain for the first half of the month, and the world will become muddy. If we wait for this opportunity to activate
In war, soldiers really have to fight fiercely in the cold, damp and mud. Maybe the soldiers will not die in the battle, but will lose their lives due to cold and sudden and inexplicable diseases.
The flames dissipated the coldness of the night.
Rurik saw that everyone was not happy after the victory. He already knew very well what the captains and centurions of each banner were thinking.
Of course, he knew something about the enemy better, which was a series of information that Yevro easily heard from a group of female prisoners. The contents of those messages were basically the same, so it could be concluded that these messages were all true.
Many people were holding back their words, and when Rurik asked the brothers to speak freely, everyone shouted so loudly that the campfire was noisy.
"Take your time, everyone, tell me one by one!" Rurik ordered.
They were asked in order to express their opinions about the battle, especially the reasons for their depression.
Perhaps most of the people who had the right to hold a meeting here had reservations. Seeing that the two powerful generals Aric and Khelaphid were complaining without reservation, the brothers followed suit without any scruples.
Many people pointed at the Suomi servant army, accusing them of not being busy killing the enemy but busy looting, resulting in an incomplete pursuit and allowing some people to escape.
As for despising the enemy for being too poor, that is another matter.
This is a bad sign!
Rurik gritted his teeth and asked himself, how could the proud Vikings look down on a group of Finnish servants? After all, the appearance of the enemies they fought was indistinguishable from the servants. The accusations of the Viking warriors were not without reason.
Logically speaking, since as a servant army you dare to go out of step with the main force, how can you do that?!
"I have to coordinate this matter well. If the interests of some people must be sacrificed, then the Suomi people's must be sacrificed..."
He thought about it, calmed down the agitated people, and then preached: "The Suomi people, the Vips people, they have captured some prisoners. After my investigation, I found that these women are slaves of the Karelian people!
They are not slaves themselves, but women captured from other places, or even women given to the Karelia people as tribute. Some of them are originally Vips and Suomis. Our servants
The soldiers found their lost tribesmen, which is why they failed to seal the siege."
This is a fact, but only a very small part of the truth. The children of slaves are still slaves, and this is how the Karelia people deal with it. Slaves do come from Vips and Suomis, and a large part of them are actually
Comes from the Tavastian people who have completely collapsed.
Slaves, these female slaves did not dare to fight, and they had almost no thoughts of their own. They were like docile lambs being led away by the new conquerors. They were timid at first, and then showed obedient postures one after another until they learned that,
The conqueror will see himself as a child-bearing wife, and the situation changes completely.
Rurik was very satisfied with the actions of the servant army. Based on his sensibility, he felt that this was the last warmth on the violent battlefield. Based on his rationality, the Suomi community could get a group of fertile young women.
This is a war, let’s calculate the economic accounts carefully!
Allowing the servant army to obtain spoils of war is a useful means for the monarch to maintain the loyalty of the other party. In most cases, it is more effective than military deterrence. Rome's expansion was based on this set of tricks. The Roman army naturally ate meat every meal, and an excellent servant army also
After eating meat dregs every time, even the most humble servants will have broth to drink.
However, if your basic army, especially the brothers who came out of Old Roseburg, feel that the Duke has treated your brothers badly, then the monarch is shaking the foundation of his rule.
It is undeniable that this trend seems to be sprouting.
Rurik continued his words: "The warriors of the servants can enjoy the women they captured, the Rus, the Balmoks, the Melalens, all the warriors of Odin, I know what kind of women you like! You
You need to be tall and young, have a pretty face and be good at working. You like girls of your own race, and you also like Slavic girls who are similar to your own race. You don't look down on these short women at all, so let the servant army get them! Other than that, you want them to be tall and young.
, all their seizures will be deprived of them! This is the punishment for their wrongdoings!”
If this is the arrangement, the pure Viking warriors in the team will be satisfied. To be fair, more than a hundred people died in the servant army. After all, they shed their blood for the Principality of Rus, and it is natural for them to get some trophies. However, the sin is also very serious.
, so that the merits and demerits were balanced, those prisoners who were short and illiterate and did not understand the language and were looked down upon by the Viking warriors were allowed to be taken away by the servant army.
After all, Vikings such as the Rus and Balmoks are no longer what they used to be, and the brothers already have the financial ability to be picky. If they must marry a woman, isn't there a ready-made way? They found that they were completely
You can go to Novgorod with a sum of money and buy the marriage of his daughter from a local Slavic farmer. This is actually a win-win choice. The Viking warrior gets a woman he likes as his wife, and the wife's natal family
In-law relationships were also needed to gain protection from Viking conquerors.
Due to their aesthetics, when it comes to the identity of their wives, their first choice is Vikings, followed by Slavic women, and finally these short women from the East.
As for the fact that the high priest of the principality is a deer herder, this is a special case, or a special case appointed by Odin, and everyone has no doubt about it.
If we say that people in the society of the Principality of Rus will be divided into three, six or nine grades based on their origins, their grades will all depend on their mothers. It is not surprising for a Viking man in the Principality of Rus to marry two women. Both parents
Vikings are the people with the highest status. One is a Slav, the second is a Finn, and the other is a Finn from the East in a broad sense. The last is those whose parents are from the East.
Regardless of the ethnicity of the hereditary nobles, their noble status defined by the Duke has another chain of contempt that is offset by the derogation.
The Principality of Rus is currently unable to achieve the so-called equality of all people. Rurik, who gave up his naive delusion, based on realistic considerations, knew that he must support the high and low of the people in the ninth century AD. He could not set a very clear setting for the time being.
The hierarchical arrangement of monarchs, ministers and ministers, the unspoken rules that arise spontaneously in society should not be inappropriately negated.
The interests of the Vikings in the principality must be maximized, and among them, the people of Ross must enjoy the highest interests. This is the fundamentals of the principality. Although the current fundamentals do not seem to be large, through the efforts of the men to cultivate the land, the interests of the Vikings must be maximized.
Old scalper, a huge Russian nation can be created out of hand.
It's a pity that everyone's pre-war fantasy of plundering the enemy's 100,000 reindeer in one battle finally came to nothing. However disappointed they were, it was reasonable for people to attend the meeting with resentment.
As for why this group of enemies was so poor, Rurik had already heard the prisoner's description relayed by Jevro and knew the exact answer.
He began to preach about the matter seriously, and finally asked Yevlo himself to stand up and speak out...
"It turns out that they fled all night, tens of thousands of women and children, driving 100,000 deer!" Someone stood up in anger to answer the question.
Others shouted: "We can't let them escape! We want to pursue them!"
"Since this is not all the Karelia people have, and their chief has not been killed yet, we must carry out the war to the end! We must not retreat without grabbing a large number of deer!"
…
What's amazing is that those who had complained just now have no more resentment against the servant army. The battle will continue, and the Russian army will continue to fight the enemy, even if the battle may last for many years in the vast new world, and it will be completely destroyed.
Defeat the Karelians and the battle cannot stop before plundering a large number of reindeer!
They were so resolute that Rurik just went along with the situation.
The little leader who knew the identity of the subordinate officer of the servant army was present. Rurik loudly announced: "Continue the war! As a Duke, I only want 30% of the loot! The first, second, and third flag corps, as well as the shooting flag corps, Austria
Brothers of the Stara Army, you have the right to share the remaining 60% of the spoils. Servants of Suomi and Vips, because of your wrong performance in the decisive battle, you can only get the last 10% of the spoils in future wars.
."
In response to such an order, all the Vikings welcomed it. The servant army felt that the spoils they could enjoy were pitifully small. After all, they were busy looting and letting a group of defeated soldiers run away. They were wrong in the first place and did not do more.
Spoken.
The situation is not bad. If the Russian army really makes a major capture, such as grabbing 100,000 reindeer, according to this Duke's order, Suomi can also get 10,000 deer, right? All living brothers can get 10 deer, this