Chapter 870 The First Scribe Ella Hesturia in New Roseburg
Carlotta, the Duchess of Ostaran, took her son Karl, and other entourage and left the kingdom's capital, New Roseburg.
Accompanying her was another large army. They escorted a batch of supplies and assembled a large sleigh team to march westward on the frozen Neva River.
I have to go back to Novgorod, but not now.
As the king, Rurik should stay in the capital, and after his palace is fully completed, he should settle here completely. To be fair, Novgorod in the southeast has a better climate, but the capital is set in Neva.
The main reason why the river flows into the sea is political needs.
This year, a grand ceremony must be held on the winter solstice. It is the first winter festival since the establishment of the Kingdom of Rus. People have a premonition about this. People are eager for a grand event. Considering the attitude of the people, the kingdom does need a winter event.
.
It was already November, and more than ten days had passed since the first snowfall. A blizzard that everyone could foresee swept across the entire world. The sea, rivers and lakes were all frozen, and reindeer sleighs replaced boats as the best means of transportation.
After the wind and snow passed, the world changed. The air was bitingly cold and snow was everywhere. In this climate, it is best to stay at home and learn from the brown bears to hibernate. However, the men in extremely thick clothes ignored the extreme cold and took the time to do important things.
Winter work.
The state-owned blacksmith shops in the city are busy, and the shipyards are also busy. Not only the state-owned shipyards, but also some private workshops have sprung up in the city. These people build shacks in the unowned wasteland on the edge of the city and build in them.
Among the traditional rowing boats, the more advanced craftsmanship is to build the dragon head warship.
Time passed, and when Rurik grew into a real man, poor Kamni also grew into a strong man.
Kamne is an Ilmenslav with extremely pure blood. She first approached Rurik as a slave. Now this fatherless and motherless man has grown to be extremely strong and has a long blacksmithing career.
, his arms are as thick as his legs, this "elite blacksmith slave" is Rurik's most valued confidant.
Kamnier's loyalty can be completely assured. He married a wife and had a son. He also had a fortune and savings, and his lowly fate was completely changed.
Anyone with any brains knows that this man is a man who is highly valued by the king. There is a legend that King Rurik recognized Kamne as his younger brother. You should never mess with him.
Rurik was very relieved because Kamni, his wife and children were all under his thumb. He was a loyal blacksmith, and Rurik trusted him even more than he trusted the blacksmith Kawei.
Kawei is a relative, and Kamine is a minister. Kawei is in the hometown of Rossburg, while Kamine stays in the capital. The two of them are not just blacksmiths. The most important job they are responsible for is the production of weapons for Ross.
When Rurik just returned to New Roseburg, he took the time to summon his loyal Kamne.
The strong Kamnier has been busy with his work over the years. He does not have any ill intentions, but is determined that as long as he properly completes the tasks assigned by Lord Rurik, his life will get better and better.
It was precisely for such careless people that Rurik no longer had to worry about things, and he could speak openly and loudly about certain things, such as the fact that Russia would need an extremely large number of weapons in the new war.
He made a list for Camnero, the most notable of which were three categories: five thousand brand-new forged spearheads, five hundred bent sword embryos, and one hundred thousand forged arrow clusters.
The production of these three types of weapons must be completed this winter. Even if there are difficulties, we must find ways to overcome them.
Kamni felt unprecedented pressure. He did not dare to insist on the king's order in person, so he had no choice but to take over the task.
As early as September, the state-owned blacksmith shop in New Roseburg, under the adjustment of the person in charge, Kamne, rejected all orders for weapons and tools from the private sector. All young blacksmiths stopped all holidays, except for sleeping time, and devoted themselves to hard work. .
New Roseburg was put into a state of war preparation under the order of King Rurik in October, and Kamni had already started it! The people were mobilized to invest in military production, and Rurik used national funds to pay for it, and the results in exchange were indeed It was an explosion in ordnance production.
The huge demand for military production has given the people huge employment opportunities. Rurik saw a kind of prosperity and clearly realized that he was also kidnapped by the military orders he issued.
It is said that if next year's conquest cannot achieve the expected results, the kingdom will suffer consequences after having paid so much.
What needs to be prepared is not only weapons, clothing, and military rations, but also a treasure that can prove the king's authority.
Once upon a time, the large ship Aurora, which carried the glory of Russia, was already very old. Her hull had been replaced with a lot of materials, but only the oak keel was still strong. Although the cold in the Baltic Sea and the North Atlantic greatly curbed the influence of organisms such as shipworms and barnacles on the ship, The damage to the hull shows that the oak keel has been soaked in the sea for more than ten years. It can still survive for a few more days, but its performance is already worrying.
The Kingdom of Rus must have a new flagship!
Rurik wrote a long letter to the Governor of Novgorod. The letter should have been delivered in the autumn, when the rivers and lakes froze, and some of the selected people returned to the capital to report. This was not the only letter he wrote. According to the letter, the hometown of Roseburg also received some news. He issued a death order to the old guy in Hotla: "You and your eldest son must rush to New Roseburg as soon as possible, and you are not allowed to use old age as an excuse."
This order forced Hotela to take a boat and make a reindeer sleigh, but he did not arrive in the capital until late November.
There was still a while before Hanukkah, and during this period Rurik could not stay with his wife, concubines, children and elderly parents and indulge in family happiness.
For the time being, his mind was on building the ship, and the special order he issued was to summon the men of the entire Hotla family.
Hortra has three sons. The eldest, Harold, is to inherit the family business according to Viking tradition. The second, Karl and Stein, are to start their own business. Today, these three sons lead a group of craftsmen and become King Liuli. "Shipyard Directors" hired by Gram. They can take on private work at the cost of heavy taxes. Once the monarch's order is issued, they must put aside their private work and go all out to complete the task, and naturally they will receive significant rewards.
Hotla was very old, with a messy white beard covering the age spots on his face. He once thought he would freeze to death on the way, but thanks to the blessings of the gods, he managed to survive to New Roseburg.
He and his eldest son Harold arrived a little late. Stein from the Novgorod Shipyard successfully arrived before his old father.
A sled team that set out from Novgorod met on the frozen Volkhov River with a sled team that came back from Novorosberg. It was an unexpected surprise to meet each other, because each had their own things to do, and they met each other.
Then they went their separate ways.
Nowadays, the winter sled team is not surprising. What is strange is that there is a special woman sitting on the sled team heading north.
She is Ella, the biological sister of Carlotta, Duchess of Ostara.
The two sisters met on Volkhov. The elder sister went straight to New Ostara in the south, and the younger sister was going to the capital.
Even though they are biological sisters, due to the current situation, the two sisters have been together less and apart these years, but now they meet and hug each other and cry with joy.
Ella wanted to ask her sister everything, but Carlotta understood everything.
Carlotta put her mouth directly to her sister's ear and told her all her secrets.
In an instant, Ella's fair face turned red with embarrassment, as if she was angry, and she waited for her sister's face with surprise and excitement: "I... finally..."
"Yes! This is the truth. You are old too! In the past, Rurik loved you, so he endured his emotions. Now it's time for you to become a mother. You know, he has many women. Although you are
Entrusted with a special mission, it is really inappropriate to have few biological children."
"I...I'm happy too. What should I do."
"Oh? I have to tell you this carefully..."
After all, Carlotta led her men and left with the Novgorod sled team in the south. She faced the cool breeze with a smile, and she couldn't help but think of many things in her mind.
Sometimes I envy my sister. She only needs to do her job as a scribe and doesn't have to worry about anything else.
But is it really that simple?
The area around Lake Ilmen is the largest grain-producing area in the Principality of Ross. Although the wheat and oat yields per mu are very low in today's era, at least after working hard in each field and throwing away the grain, tax grain and normal consumption, there will still be a certain amount of surplus grain.
, there is very little surplus grain in a single field, and it will appear to be a lot of surplus grain when the scale is expanded. Although the ability of a small farmer family is limited, as long as the farmer population increases, it will form a scale advantage. With the normal operation of taxation and purchase of surplus grain, the kingdom can
Obtained a considerable inventory. However, the situation in this grain-producing area is also very special. As the king, Rurik controlled a large number of private fields. He hired tenants to sow and harvest, and carried out limited fertilization operations in the process.
The matter was entrusted to the Governor of Novgorod and his uncle Medvet. Even the king's royal land was not only used for rough agriculture due to the limitations of the times, but there was an advantage: Rurik
Theoretically, you can become a business owner and get a huge amount of wheat during the harvest season compared to the population.
Grain taxation and the output of the royal fields, coupled with external purchases and tribute grains, provide a large number of Russian children with free meals for half a year. This is a kind of virtuous policy that makes people cry with gratitude, and behind the virtuous policy is a test of the national finances.
Now this test is concretely placed on a woman's weak shoulders.
It comes from the daughter of the leader of the Ostara tribe, the adopted daughter of Old Otto, the adopted sister of Rurik and his current wife and concubine, Ella Histuria. In principle, she is responsible for recording and keeping the historical documents of Rus.
Initially, Rurik also planned to make her a professional historian of the country.
However, the development of Ross to the present era has encountered special obstacles, which forced the country to have an extremely greedy demand for technocrats. After all, Ella followed King Rurik and was instilled with a lot of mathematical knowledge. No one can compare with her.
She is more suitable to be the head of the "Statistics Bureau", so during the annual wheat harvest and tax collection period, she is the busiest woman.
The situation is much better now, and a group of boys and girls who have experienced education immediately took up the job of scribes.
This year, all Novgorod regions were taxed half. While the people shouted long live the king's benevolent government, Ella completed the statistics after being extremely tired.
She once naively thought that the king asked her to go to the country to spend the Hanukkah to listen to her work report. A large number of papers filled with data were stuffed into a cardboard bag. She was confident that she would hand these documents to the king, but she unexpectedly met her sister.
I understood the king’s true purpose.
Two happy things are intertwined, and life becomes more and more wonderful.
Ella has been staying in the isolated Lake Ilmen for a long time. The war against the rebellious Pine Needle Manor has ended for nine years now. Such a long time has turned a helpless little woman into a beautiful woman!
Ella always ignores her own beauty. She has the same round face as her sister, but her temperament is completely opposite to that of her sister Carlotta.
Ella, who focused on writing statistics, was trained to have a quiet temperament. She simply tied up the cash receipts. This kind of literary girl's temperament directly poked Rurik's heart, and he was always unwilling to touch the body of this wife and concubine. Not only
Not only because she was still young, but also because Ella had no more experience when she was really pregnant. In the period of lean years when scribes could not do their jobs alone, Ella had to always maintain a strong working ability.
Now, Rurik felt that she would have to work extremely hard in the future.
Her life seemed to be isolated from the rest of the world, and when she saw the vastness of the frozen Lake Ladoga, she really wanted to open her throat and roar.
What is New Roseburg like now? I heard it has become extremely glorious and magnificent, completely unlike the large village it once was.
As all the remnants of Ostara completed their immigration, they saw that the sister they met by chance actually coaxed all the Gran people who were stranded in their hometown in the west to come. The Ostara people and the Gran people have always lived side by side in ancient history.
, as Ella, who is in charge of and organizes the history of Ross and even the past Swedish region, no one knows these things better than her. She also learned Latin and could read the parchment "Exodus" passed down from Ross's ancestors.
With great interest, I also learned about the trophy parchment books brought back from Britain.
It is the story of the gods and gods believed by the Romans and Franks. The story is really interesting, especially "Exodus". The old book cherished by the late Rus high priest Vilia must have hidden a huge amount of information.
Secret, now she feels that she understands everything.
Lord Rurik is Moses of Rus! The story that was played out in another world is being played out again in the far north. This is fate!
She no longer had any nostalgia for her homeland in the West, so she was filled with joy when she went to the country.
The number of people in the sleigh team going to the capital was small, and everyone was full of joyful expectations for the outcome of the journey.
The country is finally going to war, and King Rurik is finally going to expand a large territory. The news spreads all over Lake Ilmen, and the order to recruit elite troops is passed down. All the men who claim to be strong are gearing up, and a large number of young boys
I think this is an opportunity to make a great contribution. For example, there are orders for the cavalry. Regardless of age, every cavalry member must feed the horses well this winter, and the personnel must step up training. Although it may shock everyone, the cavalry must participate.
The expedition must be successful to prove that it did not let down the king and the country.
Stein Hortrason, director of the Novgorod Shipyard, was sitting on the sleigh on the way to the capital. He was holding a special order from the king - to discuss the construction of a new large ship.
Building a new ship? As for gathering all the men in the family?
He could assert that the king needed a brand new warship to prove his royal power.
This sled team did not and did not dare to delay. They took advantage of the good weather and ran all the way. The well-raised reindeer were also very powerful. When the team successfully arrived at New Roseburg, everyone was deeply aware of their own insignificance.
The sleigh had not yet heard of it, and the lovely Ella stood up in surprise while holding on to the wooden railing.
She subconsciously stretched out her hand and pointed: "What is that? Why do I think it looks like Roseburg's... attic?"
Stein's face was numb from the cold and he muttered: "That's the king's home. You are the king's woman, so that's your home too."
"Really? It's too high."
"The river bed is already high, and the king built tall buildings there. Only Lord Rurik could build such a palace. In my hometown of Mälaren, there is no building higher than this one. I heard that Uppsa
The Temple of Ra is also very tall, obviously the building that the king has been planning to build for a long time is above all else."
At first glance, the attic of the palace had been built. When she thought that she could live in such a place, Ella felt that everything was in a dream. She sat down again and continued to wrap herself in leather to ensure warmth. Her hands were tightly wrapped under the leather.