Chapter 901 Since we have a common enemy, we should unite
Linhu Village welcomes distinguished guests. The village tribal militia, which appears to have the upper hand in terms of numbers, does not feel that they can defeat the Ross army in front of them. They do not want a disaster to occur, and they reject an unprovoked dispute.
The Russian envoy made it clear that they were not willing to resort to force in everything.
As for surrendering to the Rus, the majority of the village people closely watched the war chief's determination to "break the bones" of Gorm.
As long as they surrender, the military disaster can be eliminated? The villagers chose to believe it.
Blue Fox became a guest. He was a businessman first, so he didn't have to be as stubborn about things as some soldiers. He asked the accompanying troops to perform a "disarming" drama, and then continued to consolidate the probe position around his ship.
.
The army will never enter the village. Firstly, it is to avoid unnecessary disputes and misunderstandings caused by local people's vigilance. Secondly, it is also for self-defense.
Blue Fox whispered to the centurion: "Just hold the landing beach, don't talk to the villagers, and scare away anyone who approaches you. You are not allowed to take the initiative to attack, but if they launch an attack, you can retreat and report the news while fighting."
By saying this, he was telling his brothers that he was going to be in danger.
"Sir, what should you do? Do you really trust them?"
"They can't be idiots, right?" Blue Fox breathed a long sigh of relief, "I am indeed betting. Well, I will go over and have formal negotiations with them. If you stationed on the beach don't see me back in the evening, you will retreat immediately.
Go and tell the king that I have been killed. You don’t have to worry about other things."
"But it's still very risky."
"Adventure? Nothing. I was almost killed in Hedeby. If I hadn't experienced those dangers, I would still be a boring fat man today."
Blue Fox stopped dilly-dallying and called two brave warriors as followers. Then he unloaded the small cart from the ship, pressed the wheels on the shaft of the cart, put the iron pins on the pestle to assemble it, and then threw away the gifts to be given.
When he got to the top, he accepted the "invitation" from the people of neighboring lake village and went straight to their meeting room.
The war chief and envoy of Rus had a conversation with his men, and the local leader Gorm, who was watching not far away, could see clearly.
Gorm could guess what these Russians might be worried about. Even if both of them had shown a friendly attitude just now, after all, they couldn't trust each other easily.
As early as during the confrontation, Gorm noticed that the Russian "bear-headed warriors" had armor plates hidden under their uniform white-and-blue-patterned robes. These people were all wearing armor and were well-trained. If they suddenly launched an attack on the village, they would not be able to bear it.
.They seemed unwilling to enter the village? Gorm still did not dare to take it lightly. He ordered the strong men in the village to hide in the house and keep their weapons in hand at all times. The rest of the people hurriedly evacuated to the woods when they returned to the village, in case the Russians suddenly
Get angry.
The trolley creaked and creaked to transport the gifts. As for the fisherman's family who accepted the reward first, the pound of silver coins in their hands was suddenly taken away by the whole village.
However, the fishermen Flokin and his family are not at a great loss. One pound of silver coins is one hundred coins, ten coins belong to themselves, and ninety coins belong to the public property of the village.
Linhu Village is still a large commune where people gather together for warmth. The Flokin family is not qualified to enjoy a huge unexpected sum of money alone. The remaining money will be invested in improving everyone's lives in the future, such as acquiring some iron farm tools.
Used together. The village naturally maintains the Viking Nordic democracy. Even if Gorm now becomes the war chief, as long as he survives this crisis, the ruling rights he was given will automatically be lifted.
Therefore, when the blue fox brings a hundred pounds of oats, a jar of honey, and a beautiful glass, in principle, Gom cannot swallow it all.
This small amount of property is nothing, but their existence has captivated the hearts of a large number of people.
Linhu Village is a site opened in the forest. There are no straight roads here, and the hard ground that has been stepped on by people is rarely filled with feces and urine. However, the air is filled with the unique smell of cow and sheep excrement, mixed with the smell of grass and soil.
taste.
The village architecture here is not new. A large number of long houses are built with adobe mixed with wood and hay, and only a few houses have chimneys.
When Blue Fox and his only two followers pulled a cart and followed the leader Gom in the village, he was always accompanied by a group of curious babies.
The children were ragged but had clean faces, but Gorm and other adults were seen trying their best to drive away these curious children, as if they were afraid that they would be in danger.
"It's so poor..."
The blue fox muttered a few words, then grabbed some random things from his little pocket, and then threw them to the children.
This unusual behavior attracted Gorm's attention, and then he saw the children laughing and lying down to pick up some shiny things frantically. Wait! What is that?!
Gorm stopped in surprise, turned around and asked Blue Fox cautiously: "What are you throwing? It can't be some...gems?"
"Gem? That's right. A little gift for the children."
After that, the blue fox showed off some tricks he had specially prepared - colored glass beads.
Are glass beads considered a treasure? If there is a lack of better jewelry, glass beads can also be used as gemstones.
In Rus, the craft of making glassware has become more and more mature. It is controlled by the king and some big families. The head of the largest glass workshop in the kingdom is Lilia, the sister-in-law of King Rurik. Those die-cast glassware are still
The hot scraps are thrown into a small mold, where they are pressed into crystal clear gadgets and allowed to cool naturally.
Due to the type and amount of impurities, these small beads have different colors, and most of them are crystal clear and similar to spherical objects. As long as you drill a hole and put on the twine, you can wear it around your neck. It is a good jewelry, and the price is already extremely low.
.
But among the residents of Gothenburg on the Göta River, all their crystal jewelry is amber.
The behavior of Blue Fox randomly scattering glass beads shocked Gorm and his guys. Did they not expect that such a beautiful thing could be squandered by the Ross messenger?
Because this is what Blue Fox wants.
Denmark's largest trading port, Hedeby, was originally a commercial port with such absolute freedom that even a ruler did not exist. The city was a mixed bag of goods, and the city's gem trading market was neither large nor small.
A variety of glassware of various colors began to be sold, and the prices were reasonable and sales quickly opened up.
However, in Heideby, processing natural amber has been a skill of the Danes since ancient times. Crystal clear amber is common. Some of the new crystal "crystals", which are actually glass balls, do not make them flock to it, but they are also interested in amber.
Supplement to jewelry. A variety of gemstones with different colors and appearances are mixed together to make jewelry with a more diverse aesthetic.
Across the Denmark Strait on the Göta River, the situation is much worse.
Now that Hedeby has been burned to the ground, Ross's layout over the past few years has been reduced to ruins. So now Rurik is launching an army, and the biggest demand is to avenge this incident, so that Ross can continue to do business in Denmark and make a lot of money.
Therefore, when children in Linhu Village pick up crystal glass beads, they will quickly run home to look for their parents. If they are not well-informed people, who would think that these crystal baubles are cheap things?
What is business thinking? This is it.
"Let them taste the sweetness first and make them think you are trustworthy, so that you can make money from them in the future." These words have become the family motto of the Gould family.
Gom and his friends stared at the blue fox's pocket, with obvious greed in their eyes.
"want to?"
"..." They remained silent.
"That's fine." Lan Hu shrugged and said politely: "I'll give it to you as a gift. Anyway, we will still do business in the future."
Therefore, when Blue Fox's "spending money" behavior quickly had a miraculous effect, a group of people hiding in the forest came back within a short time. Who would give everyone gems for free? Are the Russians evil people? Obviously not
.
The assembly hall of Linhu Village is considered a good building in this village. At least the wooden door of this large longhouse has relief decoration, and the interior of the house is also paved with a layer of rough wooden boards.
The sun-shading wooden boards were opened, and the sunlight illuminated the house quite brightly.
Blue Fox is a guest here, and his businessman nature plays a huge role in this situation.
He is a man who can stretch and shrink. Even if he is too timid to run away like a mouse, he will not feel ashamed. But if he were a resolute warrior, he would be quite stubborn, which would be very difficult for the current negotiations.
Very disadvantageous.
After experiencing a lot of bizarre things in a short period of time, the knowledgeable people in the village gathered in the meeting hall. The house was very noisy for a while, and Gorm roared several times, accompanied by several people who specially put on their only gorgeous clothes.
With the help of the noble man in costume, the chaotic scene calmed down.
Looking down, Lan Hu felt that at least fifty people had to be squeezed into this long room.
He just stood there and let everyone watch. He didn't talk nonsense and bluntly stated the mission Rurik had given him - to lobby for surrender.
"We, the Rus, are here to conquer all the Jotalans! Not just you, all the Jotalans must surrender to the Kingdom of Rus!"
As soon as these words came out, the whole place was silent. Gorm was shocked. He really didn't expect that the Russians had such a big appetite.
After all, the people on the Göta River were forced to remain isolated. They did not want to have much contact with the Danish tribes on the other side of the strait, and they always had open connections with other Götaland tribes.
Blue Fox suddenly asked: "How much do you know about Lake Vättern? What else... Weisinger and Jönköping?"
"I know them." Gorm broke the silence. "We have done many transactions with them."
"It's a pity. The local leader of Visingsu led his people to invade Swedish territory, which led us Russians to join forces with the Swedes to retaliate. The entire Visingsu has been wiped out by us, and thousands of people have been killed. This
This is their punishment."
For a moment, the silent house was like a volcano erupting, and everyone present expressed their disbelief.
Blue Fox held his head high and felt content, while Gom's face was sullen and he didn't know what to say for a while.
The scene was chaotic for a while and then calmed down. Blue Fox said: "Let me tell you, Rus is Sweden, and Sweden is a part of Rus. Soon, you Yotalans will also become part of the huge Rus. Those who actively provoked the war
Weisinger has been punished, so we have no grievances with Jönköping, and the residents of Jönköping have surrendered. The fact that we can successfully enter Lake Vänern and your Treaty River is all thanks to Jönköping.
Guide of Xueping. I hope you understand that our Russian army has ten thousand people, and all the warriors are as powerful as you just saw on the river beach, but our king Rurik does not want to go to war with you, and now orders you to surrender.
I think highly of you. So!"
"Ah? How?" Gom asked tremblingly.
"I wonder if you have heard of the saying that if you can't defeat us, join us. You all can't defeat us together, so why not join us. From now on, we will be brothers and obey the rule of the great and young King Rurik of Rus.
.I see that you are very poor, don’t you want to get rich? As long as you surrender to Ross, your life can be improved quickly. Now my king has good intentions towards you. You are all smart people who seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, but you must grasp it.
Chance."
If you can't beat it, just join, and you'll get benefits if you join.
Gorm was doubtful about the so-called "destruction of Wizinger", but the logic behind Blue Fox's statement seemed clear, but there was a very fatal problem.
To confirm the previous matter, Gom first asked: "So, what is the name of the ruler of Weisinger? You..."
"Are you afraid that I will lie?" Blue Fox narrowed his eyes and laughed, "It must be Karl the Wild Bear! Our king once ordered Karl to surrender, but unfortunately he chose to fight. He was defeated and tied to a big tree, and was killed by my king.
He chopped off his head with a big axe." The blue fox deliberately made a beheading gesture and stuck out his tongue to show off.
Karl "The Wild Bear" was a ruthless man, and the people in the Göta River Basin also respected this man. He had made great achievements in fighting the Danish pirates, but he just wanted to lead a group of brothers to become the boss here in the river and ask the people to pay him tribute.
He started a war and was blown away.
In fact, everyone estimates that the Ross army came over to repeat Karl's claim for dominance. At that time, Karl had few soldiers, and several villages joined forces to drive him away. The Ross army only had 10,000 people, but after hearing this number,
The morale of Linhu Village was completely shattered.
"Submit to Rose." Blue Fox continued, "This is actually your honor."
Gom actually already has the answer, so don’t rush to reply.
By now he knew that if the village did not surrender, he was afraid that the sun would not be visible tomorrow.
He still had to solve the doubts in his mind: "So, what is King Rus' for? He has a huge fleet with ten thousand warriors. He can't be...traveling to us, right? I hope you...tell the truth.
"
"Then I will tell the truth." Blue Fox cleared his throat: "You are collectively called Gothenburg. If you refuse to surrender and gather soldiers to go to war, our king will kill without mercy. But! This is not necessary!"
People who were almost suffocated by these domineering words were relieved when they heard "it's unnecessary."
"We are attacking Denmark. This is revenge. This is the biggest purpose. We also discovered the inner lake waterway from Sweden into the Denmark Strait. Any tribal villages we encountered along the way either surrendered or refused to surrender and were killed.
Listen! Our biggest goal is to attack Denmark. Götaland happens to be on the path of our advance. The entire Götaland must surrender. Not only you, but also the ten-village alliance in Växjö. You all want it.
Surrender.”
Blue Fox emphasized the real purpose of the army to conquer Denmark. Mentioning this, the men present became excited.
"If you want to attack Denmark, that's fine." Gorm forced a smile: "After all, we don't like the Danes very much. They used to come to us to catch livestock, guns and wheat, and what we can't tolerate especially is catching our women."
The word "woman" is accented, and Gom's little trick Blue Fox recognized it at a glance.
"Hey, since we have a common enemy, we should unite. However, you still have to surrender to us. Tell us your conditions."
"Well, we only have two conditions. First, don't make us slaves, and second, don't order us to pay too much tribute."
Blue Fox thought they would put forward some harsh conditions, but they were all insignificant and small conditions, and probably only they valued them the most.
"Okay. My king doesn't intend to rob you of your people as slaves. I don't think you can give much tribute as a poor person, otherwise I won't reward you with gifts. What Ross needs is your surrender. Now, make your choice.
!I can promise that your people will not be slaves and your property will not be plundered."
"All right."
Gorm nodded in agreement, and immediately held a special Nordic meeting on the spot. More than fifty people raised their hands to vote whether to surrender to Ross.
Now that the fleet of Ross's army is right in front of us, the terms of surrender given by Ross's envoy are already too good, and the case of refusal to be exchanged for killing is so terrifying that there is really no room for anyone to hesitate.
All the prominent figures in Linhu Village expressed their submission.
Gorm even hoped to see King Rus in person, and as the war chief of Linhu Village, he would solemnly perform a warrior salute and acknowledge King Rurik's rule.
It was just a matter of wasting some words and spending some money. Blue Fox was convinced that it was a great achievement for him to help the king complete the conquest on his own.