Those Russians and Danish warriors who had experienced hundreds of battles saw a brand new way of fighting. The Pecheneg cavalry and the Frank cavalry they had encountered were completely different tactics. The Frank cavalry was brave because they dared to hold the cavalry upright.
The spears rushed into the formation to assassinate, but the Pechenegs shot arrows and ran away!
Smart people such as Aric and Ragnar can realize the disgusting and cowardly nature of this tactic. The Pecheneg horse archers ran away as soon as they shot the arrows. In order to avoid the arrows, the soldiers could only resist with shields. They were about to fight back.
The enemy fled.
Of course, Arik also thought of the soldiers in formation using crossbows to restrain them. However, both sides were good at archery, so did the Ross army still have an absolute advantage in bows and arrows? At least one thing is certain, if the Ross army were all infantry, they would be able to defeat them at best. If they want to complete
It's too difficult to annihilate.
Only a few people realized the advantages of the Pecheneg cavalry, and the vast majority of people just watched the fun.
The big show finally comes to an end, and when all the performances are over, the gathered crowd disperses.
On this night, the ten cavalry warriors who performed well were treated with great courtesy. They were just slave warriors in the tribe, but now they became the guests of the Prince of Rus!
Naturally, their former master Kagan was in attendance again.
A small banquet was the beginning and end of today's work, and Rurik officially accepted these ten people as his subordinates.
Let’s see these ten cavalrymen kneel down together and accept the instructions of “Russ Khan”.
"You are all my servants now and will serve me in the future. You must do your duty well. If there is any betrayal, you will be hanged in public. As long as you fulfill your duties, you will receive stable food, clothing, and housing.
And a stipend. When you get older, I will reward you with women, and eventually you will become my horse herders, raising more horses for me, and your sons will also serve me."
This relationship is good, and brothers can get more by serving Prince Rus.
They all said yes.
"Very good. Just sit down! If you drink my wine at the end, you will be my warriors..."
Those who can be selected by Kagan must be the elite among the Pecheneg people, and these ten people must be qualified to become officers.
They each reported their names. The various Turkic names really confused Rurik, and he learned their true meanings. There was nothing special about the names.
Some are called "wolf teeth", some are called "big arms", some are called "arrow feathers", and some are called "big eyes"...
As the name suggests, the warrior named "Big Eyes", among the many sons of the grassland with small eyes, this man's eyes are indeed big.
They have a variety of names. Since they were all slaves, the right to name them theoretically belongs to the master's family. Naturally, it is impossible to choose any elegant names. In other words, the names of the Pecheneg people are generally chosen randomly, and there are no rules.
casual.
Kagan's own name is quite particular, meaning "Khan's Saber". This is just like a Viking lord naming his son "Bjorn", the so-called "Lord's Squire".
None of the Pechenegs have surnames, or surnames have little meaning to them, especially for a group of slaves.
Even the concept of surnames lacks practical meaning for most people under the jurisdiction of the Rus' Principality. It was only Rurik's coercive measures that allowed the registered Slavs in the Novgorod region to have a variety of meaningful surnames.
At least these ten people must have a surname to facilitate management after serving as cavalry officers.
When they were both half drunk, Rurik had an idea and pointed at the people clockwise according to their current seats and rewarded them with their so-called surnames.
"Your name is one, your name is two, your name is three... your name is ten. This is your attributed name (the concept of surname). In the future, when you call yourself a name, you must add this at the end."
Rurik spoke in Slavic that they could understand. What kind of choice could a group of slaves have? The new master could give him a surname and the brothers could thank him.
In the previous warm period, the city of Novgorod was under construction, and the housing construction movement is still continuing. Building a house for the prince can be rewarded, and you can even get a day's rations at the most. Rurik spent a lot on this, thanks to
This year's grain harvest was abundant, and the fleet plundered a batch of grain in Frankia and Britain, which helped to cover financial expenses.
It is undeniable that there are currently a number of good-quality woodcarvings in the city that are idle. They were built to cope with future population expansion, and they are now just in use.
Each of the ten people will be a cavalry officer, and each of them will be assigned a wooden hut to stay temporarily. From this, they can live a better life than the regular mercenaries in Rurik, and they will also be virtually the same as those of the same race who still live in the barn.
The boundaries were clearly drawn.
The temporary life of these ten people is still resting. They have the right to move freely in the city, and they do not need to spend money on three meals a day. Their personal weapons and armor are still impounded, including their own mounts.
Feeding.
In fact, all the Pechenegs are in a state of leisure. The people living in the barn will spend their own money from now on, and their master Kagan will be responsible for the living expenses. In this way, how to spend money will be determined.
It depends on Kagan's own wishes.
In his opinion, his Rurik brothers have done their utmost to be benevolent. Their subordinates live in the brothers' warehouses for free, and all he has to pay for is food for the remaining forty subordinates and food for forty horses. Rurik is stable
supply, the price of oats was stable at ten pounds a silver coin.
Compared with people, the brothers' war horses are the most important. In the homeland of the grassland, horses can still eat turf in winter. Even after such a winter, the horses of the entire tribal alliance are in an extremely weak state. Not everyone
Intentional abuse of their own horses is entirely due to the lack of seasonal factors of pasture. In addition, when the pasture is luxuriant, the horses enter the breeding period. Therefore, in the eyes of many grassland people, they have to raise troops and have a truce in winter and spring. When the time comes
Autumn is the season when war horses are most powerful and the best time to launch a war.
It is precisely for this reason that Kagan and his team of horses set off in late summer and arrived in Ross in early winter. If it were another season, the horses would have died of exhaustion...
Even so, the horses that arrived in Rus were very weak. Thanks to the large quantities of oats provided by the Rus, the weak horses recovered quickly.
Everyone loves horses. In the past, Kagan had no ability, but now that he has money, he immediately buys oats to feed the horses.
In this way, Rurik directly negotiated with Kagan a preferential agency breeding price. Each horse stayed in the stable every day and did not go out unless there was no task. The standard food for each horse was five pounds of oats a day, supplemented by a small amount of oatmeal.
Carrots and cabbage. Even if the supply of vegetables is within the preferential scope, labor costs and venue fees are exempted. The hard expenses of 200 pounds of wheat for forty horses a day must be paid.
Two hundred pounds of oats a day? Doesn’t that mean two pounds of silver coins in ten days?
I heard that the winter in this lake area ends in early March, and the brothers have to wear horses here for five months. The feeding fee for forty horses is a huge sum.
Rurik was very reasonable, and at one price he paid a total of thirty pounds of silver coins for raising horses this winter.
In comparison, the cost of food for people is much less.
Taking advantage of the opportunity to rest, Kagan did not hesitate to wander around the city of Novgorod. He bought a new leather coat for himself, and also specially bought sunglasses for his subordinates, spending a lot of money.
He was fascinated by the glassware sold by the Russians, and he couldn't stop using the flower-scented soap for bathing.
After a lot of buying and selling, another fortune is paid out.
Even so, he still felt that he was making a lot of money!
Nowadays, due to the mass production of die-cast glassware, their original extreme prices have become much cheaper, so that five silver coins can buy a glass plate, and ten silver coins can buy a glass. Kagan hurriedly
I bought some more and immediately stuffed a lot of dead grass into the wooden box to seal the stacked glass tableware.
As for simple colored glass bead pendants and necklaces, he also bought several sets, so to speak, taking them back as gifts to his mother, sisters, and beloved wife, and as a tool to win over alliance leaders.
In just three days, the one hundred pounds of silver coins from selling the horse had already been paid out, which is seventy pounds!
Among them, he also ordered ten Russian steel swords, and even used ten gold coins donated by Rurik to have a young local craftsman melt the gold coins and plate them on the sword's tang.
The so-called silver coins are indeed a common accounting tool in Russia, and Rurik made back the money Kagan earned from selling horses in a short period of time.
On the other hand, Rurik had already given the order to raise the cavalry, and he needed some time to wait for the selected men to assemble in Novgorod.
Of the one hundred horses purchased, the ten best mares will be fully used for breeding. Of the remaining ninety horses, eighty will be pure war horses, and the last ten will be noble mounts.
People such as Arik, Jevlo, Medved, etc. all must learn to ride horses and learn to handle weapons on horseback.
Let's talk about the eighty riders who go with the eighty horses. They cannot have a single source. Even the riders are selected and Rurik uses them as tools of control.
The Sixth Flag Team, whose members are all young, selected 30 people, 25 people from the most loyal White Tree Manor, no one from Ostara, and five people each from Calf and Fisherman Manor (including
a son of the chief).
There are also ten traditional lakeside estates that have firmly submitted to the rule of Rus after the counter-insurgency war. Their boyar leader must hand over one of his sons to join the cavalry.
Among the eighty cavalrymen gathered in this way, there are also age limits for the personnel. The so-called lower age limit is fifteen years old and the upper limit is twenty years old.
Thirty of them were boys from Rus' proper, and the remaining fifty were pure Slavs.
The cavalry force should be an elite force. Of course Rurik wanted to build a team composed entirely of Rus' natives. Due to the current situation, the cavalry force would not only be a mixed force, but the internal language would also be Slavic.
The order had already been issued, and the selected persons were required to arrive early, especially those manor owners who had handed over their sons to serve as cavalry. If they missed the date, it would be disrespectful and they would be punished.
The people of White Tree Manor were really happy about this, and the horseman looked majestic. If he had a choice, the boy would naturally prefer to be a cavalryman.
The Principality of Rus pursues a simple citizen soldier system, and all men have the obligation to serve as soldiers. In this regard, the Slavs and the Vikings, including the Rus, have reached a complete consensus, but they are destined to only be infantry.
Now becoming a cavalryman has become a new choice.
Medved was responsible for his share of twenty-five people, and quickly selected qualified personnel according to the prince's requirements. First of all, they were young warriors in the Slavic flag regiment, with an average age of only twenty-one. Even so, many of them
This young man participated in the decisive battle on Gotland many years ago as a child, and has also participated in many subsequent battles. They are still young, and there is nothing to say about their loyalty.
Although Fisk, the captain of the Sixth Flag Troop, could not resign as captain to become a cavalryman, he still followed the instructions to select people. In their settlement in Youth City, a competition within the flag troop was immediately held. Although it was not known that the cavalry was formed
What does a team mean? At least the people selected must be strong. They competed in wrestling and archery in the snow, and thirty boys competed in a gentler way.
Carlotta, the Duchess of Ostara, acted as five riders. She wrote a letter, and the longship sailed on Lake Ilmen, where there were ice floes. The letter arrived at the New Ostara Fortress, and the five candidates were quickly selected.
It was determined. Even if this once extremely depressed tribe was seriously short of men, it would be okay to gather five fifteen-year-old boys. Of course, Rurik also considered their practical factors and only asked for five men.
Calf Manor and Fisherman Manor stood firmly in the camp of Prince Ross during the counter-rebellion war. They enjoyed considerable post-war dividends. Now, the two leaders have no worries about recruiting people to serve as cavalry. They have
They didn't just hand over one son, they also handed over their nephews. The two handed over a total of ten boys, each of whom was related to them, just because they didn't want to let go of this shortcut that would make future generations prosperous.
.
But among the other ten manor owners, how many of them have such an awareness?
Because of the geographical isolation, they only knew that a group of horseback riders from the south went to the north, but they basically didn't know the identity of the horsemen. What did the prince mean by building a cavalry force? It was probably for better control.
The prince forcibly handed over his son to serve as a cavalryman, and the manor owner took it for granted that this was an act similar to that of a proton.
What else can be done? If we don't hand over a son of the right age, it will be a disaster when the prince's thunderous wrath comes.
The departure of the younger son meant the complete loss of inheritance rights to the manor. Naturally, the eldest son of the manor owner was the happiest. However, after much thought, the child's mother always felt that her son would never come back once he left, and she would only take orders from the prince.
Like a slave, he cried loudly when he said goodbye.
This kind of thing happened in many manor houses, and for a while the boy who was eager to become a cavalry was panicked, as if he was going through fire by boat to Novgorod.
The personnel have been gathered one after another, and they also have different expectations for their future.
Especially the sons of the manor owners, they came here trembling with fear, and what they saw and heard was not at all what they expected.
They saw a group of fat and strong horses, all equipped with saddles, bits and reins.
A group of prairie people on horseback stood majestically behind the horses.
Look! That blond man.
Who else could that be if not Prince Rurik?!
Indeed, Rurik was not afraid of the north wind and let his blond hair flow with the wind. Although the weather was good today, the wind was slightly strong, which showed the desolation of the northern country. Look at this group of Turkic horses. They have been eating oats every day.
, carrots, and their manes are also growing wildly. They are supposed to gradually consume physical energy but become stronger, completely different from their counterparts who spend the winter on the grassland and are physiologically sluggish.
While Kagan was shopping in the city, Rurik was busy improving his equestrian skills.
The running-in period has probably passed, and the mount I chose is obviously very intelligent, and the orders given are implemented very well. This horse got a nickname, the so-called "Monkbjorn", the so-called "Black Guard", in
It is actually a domineering name in Viking culture.
It was Rurik who gave the order to assemble. He saw the selected boys gathered in the open space outside the city ignorantly, blowing the cold wind. He lightly rubbed his feet against the horse's belly, and the horse walked slowly away.
Prince Rus reviewed his subordinates from an absolutely overlooking perspective and gave a brief speech.
He didn't hesitate anymore and ordered: "All the gentle and powerful horses are here. Go and choose your own horse! Remember, the person who chooses the horse must swear to treat his horse well. It will be your comrade-in-arms and your future."
family……"
An interesting horse selection meeting began. Under the watchful eyes of Kagan and other Pecheneg cavalry, a large group of young novice knights chose their own mounts. Curiosity and joy were written on their faces, and they subconsciously stroked the horses.
The mane was hugging the horse's head again. Those sons of the manor owners who had been worried that this man would not learn to ride a horse immediately in order to have a majestic appearance like a prince.
In Kagan's opinion, these young people must not have the talent for riding horses like Prince Rurik.
Next, Prince Pecheneg himself will serve as the chief instructor and train these yellow-haired guys into cavalry! By the way, he can also earn a tuition fee and purchase a batch of supplies to bring back to his hometown next year.