Chapter 746 Karelian Emirate counterattacks Rus Principality in 836
Those Karelians seem young?
No. They just fled to the north. After settling in their winter pastures, the people who survived the disaster learned from the pain and planned revenge.
The old chief died of exhaustion while fleeing, and his son Caskuwe was elected as the new chief by the refugees.
The strength of the "big tent" tribe is no longer there, but their influence is still there.
The old chief made some plans for his son before his death, but Kaskuwe complied with the wishes of the people and made a decision that went against his father.
Revenge! Revenge must be taken! Revenge must be early!
The priest who spread defeatist remarks was killed by his own hands. The refugees no longer had any thoughts of failure and decadence. After surviving the first winter after fleeing, they began to fight back.
The first step in counterattack is to get married.
Chief Kaskuwe took his cronies to the "Small Tent" tribe to propose marriage, and the marriage proposal went more smoothly than he thought. Since the two sides are traditional allies, the "Small Tent" has long been intimidated by the "Big Tent".
A young man who succeeded the chief came here specifically to propose marriage. Marriage was a must.
Kaskuwe married the daughter of the "Little Tent", and after the rice was cooked, he told the leader of the "Little Tent" tribe a terrible truth.
The "Big Tent" tribe suffered huge losses in the powerful southern Rus' war. The sacred bear altar was taken away, and the large camp Isotarva was massacred. The tribe suffered huge losses in its prime, and the reindeer that relied on them for survival also suffered huge losses. At one time, the population was large.
The tribe now only has one-fifth of its original size left...
His description is very true. Come to think of it, no chief really wants his strength to be greatly weakened.
For a moment, the leader of the "small account" felt that he had been deceived.
Because the alliance between each other is based on the strength of the "Big Tent", it is no longer possible for the other party to deter the two allies of the "Little Tent" and "Eastern Tent" from the perspective of strength, but their daughter has already been married.
This news spread like wildfire, and some elites of the "Small Tent" tribe were ready to make a move. They didn't know what the Rus were, maybe they were just a group of strong men, but the "Big Tent" was a strong man right in front of them!
In the past days, tribes have been sending tribute to each other. The "Big Tent" tribe is a group of blood-suckers. While they are strong, their own side is constantly weak.
Some elites sighed deeply: "Why should we respect that Caskuwe as the chief? My sister is married, and we still need to provide a group of reindeer. It makes no sense. Now we are stronger!"
Therefore, the speaker is the eldest son of the current leader of the "Small Tent" tribe. With his power and prestige, he is basically the unofficial next leader.
He decided to strike first, bypassing his ambiguous father, and organized a group of capable cronies to assassinate Cascuwe.
But he never expected that Caskuve would go against his father's decision this time, and he consciously wanted to use brutal means to get what he wanted.
On the contrary, Caskuwei took the initiative and raided the elite battalion commander of the "Little Tent" tribe, and carried out a dark night sneak attack on his chief family and extremely close associates.
The bloody night has passed, and the "Little Tent" tribe has changed.
Kaskuwe's newlywed wife screamed and cried, and angrily accused her husband of being despicable and shameless in front of the corpses on the ground.
Looking back at Kaskuwe, his face was as calm as a stone. He deliberately spared the old leader's life, and when faced with his questioning, he specifically explained: "This is a necessary evil! From now on, there will only be the Great Horde tribe, and your tribe will no longer exist.
.I will treat your people well, I will rule all the tribes, and then organize an army to fight against the Rus invaders, the hateful Tavastians, and the hateful Suomis."
The Karelian society underwent a major political reshuffle, entirely due to the huge disaster caused by the brutal attack of the Rus Principality. The Karelian people, who were still in the tribal alliance stage, completed the upgrade of the emirate within a year.
.
Kaskuwei summoned all the frightened herdsmen in the small tent tribe, and he declared himself the "chief of all deer herders", claiming that this was the power given to him by God, and God also gave him an important mission.
"The Russians are here south of the lake, and they want to take away our deer and pastures, kill all the men and children, and make slaves of the women. They are already doing this and amassing an army by the lake.
I will unite all the deer farmers, organize a huge army, and wipe out all the Russians."
In the spring of 835, he announced the establishment of the "Karelian Emirate", with Kaskuwe as the country's first chief, and the chief's position would be hereditary.
What choice do the herdsmen have? They are grazing in this bitter cold land. The herdsmen are willing to pay tribute to the strong man, as long as the strong man promises to protect everyone's safety.
The "Small Tent" tribe disappeared overnight, and the herdsmen suddenly became the subjects of Caskuwei. The men swore allegiance to this strong man. As for the unlucky ones who were killed, they saw that Caskuwei sent people
Buried them.
After Kaskuwe succeeded, the remnants of the "Big Tent" tribe drove their reindeer herds from the winter pastures to the traditional territory of the expelled "Small Tent" tribe. The population strength of Kaskuwe finally returned to 10,000, and the
It can summon a fighting force of up to 3,000 people. What is a warrior? As long as a boy has the ability to draw a bow and shoot arrows, he is a warrior. Therefore, the so-called army of 3,000 people has huge water content. Facing the powerful Russian invaders, Caskuwei and
There are no good countermeasures.
The disadvantages of a soldier's personal abilities and weapons should be compensated by his superiority in military strength, right?
In the summer of 835, in the remote north, in what is now the Republic of Karelia, the indigenous Karelia people were spontaneously carrying out a wide-area consolidation of power.
The old leader of the "Little Tent" tribe died inexplicably one night. Caskuwei's wife knew that the murderer was actually her husband. However, this woman was not a fool. Caskuwei would die, and her son was extremely dangerous.
It is possible to become the king of all Karelia people!
This man made a great decision, and an army of two thousand people rushed towards the "Eastern Tent" tribe. He ordered the tribal leader to abdicate, declared that the "Eastern Tent" tribe had disappeared and became part of the emirate.
As for when the "Dongzhang" tribe leader and his family died inexplicably, no one cared about it anymore.
Kaskuwe's integration movement continues, and this time he continues to move eastward to recruit more eastern people.
They arrived at the shores of Lake Onega and swept through all the small tribes along the lake shore. These residents did not have a unified name for themselves. Although they formed a large number of small communities with only a few dozen or more than a hundred people, they did not have their own names at all.
Number.
Kaskuwei had a simple idea. The environment here was a bit like Lake Ladoga, so he simply called the residents of Lake Onega Vips. The reason for this was just because the real Vips once surrendered to him, and
He needs the surrender of the Vips.
Kaskuwe spent the whole warm summer recruiting troops and horses, and even encouraged the herdsmen to immigrate immediately to the shores of Lake Ladoga where the water and grass were better.
The results of his "armed action" even far exceeded expectations, and also greatly increased the knowledge of the accompanying Karelia people.
The world is so vast. People walked eastward in the boreal forest and met another group of people - the Perm people.
This term directly refers to the concept of "exchange" in ancient Finnish, but there are not many people in Perm, and they do not have a large dominant tribe. They are just densely packed herder clans and families that have agreed to live in a place called
Daily necessities are exchanged in the market of "Perm". There are almost no outsiders in their world, so they all call themselves "Perm people".
Kaskuve's army came, although when they rushed to the Perm area, there were only 500 soldiers left due to various reasons. Kaskuve personally led the team and rushed to the Perm market.
The concept of the great chief of the emirate coming to a dispersed clan society is like the army of the Principality of Rus violently attacking the emirate.
The warchief lived like his most hated enemy, but it was so effective that he managed to recruit as many as two thousand men and hundreds of thousands of reindeer without even trying!
The Karelia people are worthy of being the little overlords of the northern ice field. The founders among them do have stronger organizational and mobilization capabilities. This is also the reason why they have been able to beat Finnish tribes such as Tavastia and Suomi in the past.
The expansion of the Karelia Emirate was not at all a way for Caskuve to demonstrate his power. He hoped that more and more of his subjects would gather. Only with more troops could he regain the land and dignity lost to the Rus.
The troops marching eastward returned to the pastures at the junction of Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega in late autumn. At this time, even the local Ludi tribe declared their allegiance to the chief of the emirate.
The assembly order was issued just after the first snow of winter. According to Kaskuwe's order, all men in the emirate who could draw the bowstring were warriors and must assemble in the new camp.
He began to count his troops, and finally regained his lost confidence when facing an army of up to 6,000 people.
It's just that these 6,000 people are full of moisture, and there are only 4,000 men with real fighting ability.
How can the Karelia people, who move north and south of the Arctic Circle, support a large number of people by relying on their cold zone animal husbandry? Their ancestors were indeed residents of North Asia. They followed the footsteps of reindeer in ancient times and arrived in the present area from the Central Siberian woodlands.
When Europe entered the period of great division, the Karelia people were only a part of them, but they also occupied a very harsh area. It was not like their blood relatives, the Estonians, were growing wheat, and it was even less like their relatives, the Mazars.
The Er people became a cavalry nation with a large population.
Such a force has been enough to support Kaskuwe's self-confidence. The power is in hand and the army is in hand. Everyone is calling for a war, and launching a counterattack is the fundamental reason why the people support his rule.
Kaskuwe subjectively hopes to have a decisive battle with the Russians, but there is a high probability that he will suffer a loss in a head-on confrontation.
It would be great if we could extract their stronghold and achieve an early victory.
They were supposed to perform winter solstice sacrifices at the Bear Altar, but now they could only do so at the new camp. The sacrifice ceremony became an opportunity for the army to assemble. He quietly provoked and selected two thousand people, and started a counterattack after the ceremony. The target, the Bear Altar!
Naturally, they first arrived at their hometown of Isotalva. The Karelian army, which was a mixture of multiple communities, discovered densely packed human skeletons under the white snow.
People were first frightened, then furious.
A chief will ask rationally: "Great chief, the Russians are so fierce, how should we deal with them?"
What kind of clever plan could Kascuwe have? He was shocked by the bones on the ground, but he had to maintain a tough attitude in front of his subordinates: "The Ross invaders built a fortress at the Bear Altar, and we are going to seize it. According to the previous battle, Ross
Human arrows are very powerful, so we have prepared more arrows this time. With the advantage of arrows, we will definitely be able to demolish their fortress and kill all the enemies without mercy."
He just wanted to rely on the superiority of his troops to achieve his first victory, just like the Zulu army besieging the British military base.
The Ross hunter who was hunting squirrel skins encountered a large number of moving "black skins", which seemed to be bears but not bears. When they realized that they were potential enemies, the hunters immediately retreated.
The two sides have essentially discovered each other. Cascuwei did not even think about hiding the army's actions. Seeing this situation, he ordered: "Follow me!"
The Ross hunters retreated to the wooden castle in Bear Festival Town. Someone beat the deerskin drum frantically to attract everyone's attention. The messenger had already concluded that the visitor was a Karelian, and the number of them was shocking. It was obvious that they wanted to demolish the Bear Festival Town.
The Russian hunters and fishermen turned into warriors. They were warriors, and the winter period was the busiest time in Bear Festival Town. After the winter sacrifice in New Rossburg, there were more than 50 Russians and a hundred Slavs.
People, even fifty Suomi people, arrived at Bear Festival Town on sleighs to plunder the local animal resources.
The war threatened this emerging city. There were as many as 400 settlers in the entire city. The men made a major decision together and issued a very simple statement: "This is the territory acquired by the Principality of Rus. Even if the battle is fought to the end,
No one can be lost!"
Women and children were evacuated urgently, and some older men were also forcibly persuaded to leave. More than a hundred people had to leave the town of Bear Festival. They rode sleds on the frozen Ladoga Lake just to call for help from New Roseburg.
What is the enemy's strength? There may be a thousand or more.
At least the enemy's goal is obviously to destroy the fortress, so they must pay the price with blood!
The Principality of Ross mobilized 250 combat-ready men in Bear Festival Town. Since almost all of them were hunters, almost everyone held a bow. Not only short wooden bows, but also a batch of wooden arm crossbow equipment, and even specialized
The steel-armed crossbow is a heavy-duty individual equipment used for bear hunting.
As early as the expenditure on settlement construction, Rurik had thought about the issue of urban defense. The border troubles in Karelia have not been eliminated, and the existence of Bear Festival Town itself is an insult to the enemy. It is also the gathering place for the next crusade against the enemy, and it must be there.
Make a fuss about defense.
The hunters only wanted leather, and all the meat was kept in reserve. Bear Festival Town also stocked a batch of wheat and frozen fish. Although there were more than 200 people crowded in the fortress, everyone prepared their own food for hunting needs.
Little food, even some flatbreads bought in New Roseburg during the high festival.
People are confident that their food reserves are enough to withstand a month-long snowstorm, so they can withstand a month-long siege by the enemy.
Based on their own experience, it would take at least fifteen days for the prince to gather reinforcements after receiving the news.
Fifteen to twenty days is the critical period to become a guardian!
On the other hand, Chief Kaskuwe personally led the expedition, but his army of 2,000 people was not monolithic. Multiple tribes and dense clan communities recognized his power, and the composition of the army was also very complicated. The soldiers lacked the usual skills.
There was a tacit understanding. As for attacking the Russians, they did not have a clear concept of dying in battle, but they all wanted to grab some iron tools after the war.
The news that the Russians had a large amount of iron tools spread like wildfire, which almost eliminated half of the people's fear of the enemy.
A group of troops wearing deerskin, holding short spears, throwing spears, wooden shields, and a large number of bows and arrows began to appear on the snow-covered grassland outside Bear Festival Town. The Ross army, waiting to work, relied on wooden walls and sentry towers to prepare for defense.
Combat.
The crossbows have been cocked, and the torsion slingshots placed at the corners of the towers and fortresses have also been charged. Many people did not wear armor at all, so they used deerskins and bearskins as temporary defenses.
They hid behind the wall and maintained absolute silence, leaving the entire fortress virtually deserted.
This situation put Kaskuwe in a difficult position. Fortunately, this Karelian army was quite reckless.
Compared to the Rus defenders, the hostile Karelia warriors have more hunting experience and lack the concept of fighting.
Someone murmured: "Maybe the Russians were scared away. Their main force is not here, so they were worried that they would not have enough troops to flee overnight."
If someone says this, someone will test it.
Cascuve sent a hundred men to approach the wooden castle from all directions. Just as it approached the trench, the hidden Ross defenders suddenly appeared.
The crossbows and torsion slingshots fired accurately first, and then the bows and arrows fired randomly.
The Karelian scouts suffered losses and fled, so for the sake of glory, Kaskuwe issued an order for the entire army to attack.
Two thousand people besieged a wooden castle with 250 people? Logically speaking, "attacking it ten times" is a correct tactic, but how can the weapons and equipment and fighting will of both sides be on the same level? One hundred Slavic warriors among the defenders are not good at archery, but they
They are also spearmen in the flag team who have fought fierce battles. Over the years, good food and good food have made them different from other Slavs and have become strong and strong.
Most of the people in Rus are armed with crossbows, and the Suomi people are also good at archery.
Of course, the Karelia people and the Suomi people are of the same origin, and both are good archers. However, after surrendering to the Rus Principality, the Suomi hunters have been fully equipped with iron arrow clusters, and they can even buy many at the market!
On the other hand, the Karelian army and the army assembled by Chief Kaskuwe are still using bone clusters extensively.
On the first day of the battle, the Karelians abandoned more than fifty corpses and retreated with more than a hundred wounded in various conditions.
On the third day, a new round of attack began again. Kaskuwe made temporary wooden shields made of some small tree trunks and continued the attack. This time they successfully reached the trench, but they suffered from climbing the wooden wall.
A loss.
On the seventh day, this is already the third round of attacks! Arrows have become the main weapon for attacking each other. The Karelian army has been reduced to causing damage by throwing rain of arrows. It is no longer possible to achieve what kind of results.
It is estimated that attacking has become more of a form of catharsis. The Karelia people have also learned war in the war. Now there are no reckless men risking their accurate arrows to rush wildly.
It was at this time that a small snowstorm hit, and the cold finally forced Chief Kaskuwe to calm down. So far, he had lost 200 people, some were killed in battle, some were seriously injured, and more than 300 were injured.
A person with minor injuries from an arrow.
Some people thought of retreating, but the chief was killed for disturbing the morale of the army.
A small fortress could not be conquered for a long time. The chieftain was obsessed with fighting, so he decided to bring reinforcements from the rear. Before the army arrived, the existing army surrounded the Bear Altar, hoping that the enemy would be exhausted due to hunger before launching a general attack.
However, Ross's flag with blue stripes on a white background was fluttering in the cold wind. The existence of the flag was the worst mockery.
More than 20 of the fortress defenders were injured in three battles, and two unlucky men were shot through the neck and died. On the other hand, some corpses fell into the trenches, and the enemy was unable to even collect the corpses.
Let them continue the siege!
Some warriors who were originally nervous were now in high spirits, and the Karelia people once again demonstrated their vulgarity to the fullest.
It seems that the Rus defenders can go out of the city to attack in person. Reckless people will do this. The guards just want to wait for work. Everyone knows that the prince has already made some preparations to attack Karelia again. The enemy comes uninvited.