If Fisk's marauding cavalry continues southward, it is also feasible to rush all the way along the Rhine River to Mainz.
A snowfall calmed down the fanatical Ross cavalry. They counted the gold and silver they had plundered wildly these days, and considered the supplies they now had. No one was willing to continue taking risks.
Their behavior caused panic among the people in Cologne and Bonn, and also aroused the vigilance of the nobles of the kingdom across the river.
Some bad news has been flying all over the sky in recent days, and Aachen has been attacked by barbarians.
The Normans were plundering everywhere in Flanders. The life and death of Count Baudoin was uncertain, and his son took the initiative to imprison the country.
It was during this treacherous situation that a group of well-trained horseback bandits appeared in the east of Aachen.
Aachen is the "best place", and Charlemagne's coffin is located here. The defenders have increased the city's security, and it will still take some time for the news to reach King Lothair of the Middle Kingdom who is still in the southeast.
A snowfall spreads from the Arctic Circle to beneath the Alps.
It was extremely cold in the north, with the whole of Scandinavia experiencing blizzards, and the Gulf of Bothnia and the sea near Rossburg, the place where the Russians thrived, were freezing rapidly.
It was during this freezing season that the Russian blast furnaces did not stop. The flames continued to bake several blast furnaces, and iron smelting operations continued.
However, other people's lives have entered a winter state, and they will try their best to hide in their homes until this snowfall is over.
Eastern Europe also experienced the first snowfall, and the Novgorod region was immersed in snow.
It carries a chill and desolation, because the soldiers from the expedition have not returned yet, and the news that has come so far still comes from September. The information that people know is that the war will continue.
A group of injured people have returned early, bringing first-hand information about the battle situation on the front line and praising the great achievements of the Russian army.
The final battle reports only come from the Danish operations in Jutland.
Finally, the Danish forces, which troubled all the Russians and Swedes, have turned enemies into friends after this war. Let the past grudges be past! Even some people feel that all grudges should not be erased hastily.
Anyone with a discerning eye knows that when the maritime disputes ended, the fishing business in the Baltic Sea became much more stable.
All of this is based on the illustrious military exploits of the Russian army. The Kingdom of Russia and the Kingdom of Denmark are bounded by the strait. The Ross represents the entire Scandinavia here, and they have the right to rule.
The victory was inspiring. It was clear that the soldiers of the expedition would fight all the way until next year. This was the first time in history. When the joy faded, people began to worry about the comfort of the expedition.
What is comforting is that the king has exempted all people from taxes this year. However, this year's agricultural tax and commercial tax have been collected. Do they have to be refunded immediately?
No one asked much about it.
After all, the taxes collected were not a big problem for the people at this time. Although the tax was still a tithe, the results of pioneering had already demonstrated its power. Although most of the old and new Russian families had temporarily lost their strong labor force
, they were the first to reap the dividends of the war. Relying on the strength of women and children and spending money to hire local Slavic labor, the grain harvest was still successfully completed and the grain tax was paid successfully.
Most families still had sufficient food surplus, but the expected Smolensk invasion did not appear.
On the contrary, it was the steppe cavalry who frequently robbed people in the Smolensk area.
For more than half a year, these short black-haired prairie people have been transporting more than 500 captive women to the north. These captives were sold out, and Kagan and his prairie cavalry made a lot of money, and they changed hands.
Buy steel, leather, cloth, and even precious salt from the Kingdom of Rus.
The elderly Otto has age spots on his face. Thanks to the gray beard that covers his face, his hair has almost fallen out, so he usually wears a hat to cover up this embarrassment.
He didn't know when he would come to the end of his life, after all, he was already sixty-seven years old.
what does that mean?
The ten maids he once selected for his only son Rurik now all gave birth to children successfully.
He is just an old man surrounded by many grandchildren, settled in the city of Novgorod and enjoying endless dreams.
He stayed here and lived the same life as a king. The Supreme King was also a king. With him here, the eastern region of the Kingdom of Rus was peaceful.
The huge kingdom needs busy transportation lines to maintain each other. Before the expansion war started in 840, it was divided into: northern region, eastern region, Swedish region, and Finnish region.
The so-called hometown in the northern region, the old man Haro Zuosen dreamed of becoming the boss of the Ross tribe. Times have changed and this man got his wish. As he is in charge of his hometown of Rossburg in the north, there is no possibility of any trouble.
The Swedish region has returned to the state of ancient tribal alliances, with the addition of governors and the institution of the Great Temple of Uppsala. Rus controls the place in a system that is close to a tyranny.
Finland is just a county, and its population is too small. Today's economy is highly tied to the capital city of New Roseburg. A group of Finns have been working in the east for a long time. There are always some shantytowns built by Finns outside New Roseburg where they have settled for a long time.
.They can't make any waves.
The core area of rule of the Rus Kingdom is completely in the east. There are more than 200,000 people here, and the number is rising to 300,000 at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Prince Osborne Slav is here, King Otto is here, High Priest Rumia and Deputy Priest Velika are here.
Old Rus's, New Rus's, and a large number of immigrants from Scandinavia have settled here one after another. They still maintain the abundant martial virtues of the past. Due to the incredible stability of life, the increasingly prosperous life has made
Every family has a strong desire to have children.
The population is expanding rapidly, and along with it is the increasing deforestation. People need a larger living space and a larger trade network, and countless needs have given rise to huge desires.
It is already November in the Julian calendar, and soon it will be a brand new year.
The arrival of the new year means that the results of the second large-scale marriage of the old Russians will show its power. Based on tradition, northern boys do not want to count their ages. When a child reaches the twelfth day after his birth,
This thought makes him an adult.
At first, the marriage between Rus and the Novgorod people was just a trial. In the second year, when the estrangement between them was eliminated due to the birth of their children, the marriages became more frequent.
Starting from the second year, the population of Ross began to explode. Now, the first generation of the "population explosion period" has reached adulthood. They have all the obligations of the Ross people. The most important thing is to take up arms to expand the strength of Ross.
Because if it doesn’t expand, it will die.
Everyone knew that the expeditionary army had entered Frankish territory. As for the situation of the battle, it was impossible to know due to the temporary interruption of transportation.
No one complained that the king was going into war. The new young warriors were busy sharpening their swords. They were not afraid of tigers, and they even looked forward to the continuation of the war, so that when the king called for reinforcements, everyone could take part in a large-scale war as a rite of passage.
Otto is old and needs a cane to stand up. He still likes to drink, ale, mead, raspberry wine, kvass, and even precious wine.
He continues to enjoy life, and every day he lives is a day he earns.
He also hopes that the army will triumph and he can see Ross achieve greater glory.
Militarism did not exist, and Ross's rear was quite stable.
This was definitely either the people of Russia or noble saints, because Rurik did not allocate taxes to them to fund the military, and even passed official documents to them tax-free for a year.
The vast majority of the people did not suffer any losses, and the wounded soldiers who were withdrawn reported outrageous victory reports one after another, so they just lived their lives well.
Unlike purely farming people, they had to rely on pack horses or even people's shoulders to transport materials to the front line.
The Russian army's logistical pressure is very low. Relying on large ships and sails, as well as the vast ocean and countless rivers, the force of nature can propel the army to attack at a high speed.
Ross relied on war to support war, relying on looting and tribute to meet his needs, and immediately trawled for fishing during the period when the army was temporarily settled.
Then when the first snow fell in Northern and Western Europe, the Russian army was still able to ensure that its soldiers had oats and fish to eat every day.
The people of Saxony are the ones who suffer the most.
Rurik's combat plan has begun to be implemented, and Arik's squadron has been stationed at the mouth of the Elbe River on standby.
He wished that the enemy's army would advance to the Elbe River immediately, but it snowed heavily.
Since they had long been prepared to continue fighting, the Ross-Danish coalition built wooden houses near Hamburg early. They mostly built houses using the old skills of their hometown. They built rough wooden houses first, and then piled a layer of soil on the outside, as if they were on flat land.
An unexpected earth hole was created on it.
This is the old way of building longhouses by the Vikings, and it is really inelegant from the current perspective. It is not impossible to build wooden ridges that are better resistant to the cold, but it requires more man-hours. Considering that a decisive battle may happen at any time, the warriors
Too lazy to make a fuss, just build a hastily built shack to keep out the cold.
The Russian-Danish coalition forces were fully equipped, but the situation of the war refugees who gathered in the Hamburg area was extremely bad.
For Saxons, it is not uncommon for people to freeze to death in winter, or even entire families to freeze to death.
Speaking more broadly, many people froze to death in the entire Frankish Kingdom every winter. They died from diarrhea due to eating unclean food and died from the cold in winter. These were the two major obstacles that restricted this huge kingdom from increasing its population.
The alliance between Rus and Denmark and Saxony is only an alliance with Duke Liudov. The life and death of the common people of Saxony is Liudov's responsibility. It is kind of Rus to reward these common people with some food, and there is nothing wrong with not giving it.
Now, what Rurik is doing is giving nothing.
After the snowfall began, Saxons began to suffer from frostbite and frostbite.
The maximum temperature in the environment suddenly dropped below zero. Those weak women and children could not withstand the test of low temperature and began to die. The combat effectiveness of strong men was also weakened by the cold.
The 10,000-strong army that Liudov assembled by recruiting strong men originally had few combatable soldiers, so Xue Xue's strength was further reduced.
He will not ask the Russians and Danes for some relief. He will not do it out of pride, and the situation has not yet evolved into mass casualties of the people.
The priests have gone to comfort these poor people and organized labor to bury the frozen dead.
Especially Eskil, he conveyed this message to the people: "Some people died because they were not devout enough in their faith. This is a trial, and you must overcome the test of cold and war."
The Northern Sage has spoken, but everyone has nothing to say.
As for those Russians and Danes who couldn't see any signs of freezing to death, what's going on?
Ah! Maybe it's just because they are weirdos who jumped out of the ice and don't need to go through God's test. They are integrated with the ice and snow and are not afraid of the cold at all.
Are the Vikings really not afraid of the cold? Are they really the creations of ice and snow?!
In Hamburg, Eskil presided over a modest Halloween celebration, after which the snow began to fall, like a festive follow-up.
The coalition forces still held on to the Elbe River in the snow and wind, and Hamburg became a large military camp with various wooden buildings rising from the ground.
The food supply of the Rus-Danish army is very normal, and their living environment is also better.
The overall situation of the people in Saxony is much worse, and most people will not suffer the fate of freezing to death. At most, more than ten people gathered in a room to keep warm. The food they brought could last for a long time, and they all hoped that the snowfall would pass soon.
.
Snowfall is a test for both sides in the war.
It delayed Ludwig's next move. The main body of the huge Frankish army has moved to the north of the Weser River. For the time being, they still have to stay in the rebuilt Bremen and build some wooden houses to accommodate more than 20,000 people.
Survive this snowfall.
Archbishop Hardbold of Cologne held a simple Halloween ceremony in an open space in Bremen. Snow began to fall after the ceremony, and many soldiers claimed that the archbishop had brought bad luck.
But did this Frankish expeditionary force encounter too many bad luck? In other words, when King Ludwig insisted on launching a winter expedition, he was bound to face winter wind and snow.
But this snowfall cannot only bring trouble to the Frankish army.
Ludwig rarely came to Saxony. He lived in the south for a long time. He mainly conducted remote control of the northern region and learned about the situation in the north mainly through letters from nobles.
"Maybe the weather will be colder this year, maybe the Elbe River will freeze. My army will go directly through the ice, capture Hamburg and fight them, and I will win."
The size of the troops will determine the outcome of the war. Ludwig always believed that his strong army was invincible in land warfare. All the previous setbacks were due to the disgusting Norman ships. The powerful cavalry could not run on the water. Before,
All the defeats were due to this desire. If there were smooth roads everywhere, how could the Frankish army fail?
Ludwig's pride lies here, and he will never admit that his strength is insufficient. He now puts all his grudges over the failed border friction with his eldest brother Lothair in the summer on the traitors and invaders in the north, even if he curses them.
A thousand times is not an exaggeration.
Both sides of the war are waiting for the snow to stop, and it is obvious that this snow will continue for a while.
On the other hand, while Rurik was waiting for the snow to stop, Noren and Beyashil, who were in the final stages of pregnancy, gave birth to two normal baby boys on exactly the same day.
One has golden hair, and the other has brown hair. They both closed their eyes and howled, wrapped in soft sheepskin, and held in the arms of their respective mothers.
The two princes of the Kingdom of Rus were born in the city of Hamburg. Helping them a lot now will be very beneficial to themselves in the future.
Liudolf provided generous rooms for Nolen and Bayahir to cultivate themselves, and he also handed over his maid to take care of their children.
There are not many women in the Russian army. Women are very weak after giving birth and really need to be taken care of. The maids of Liudov's family are pure maids, and there are many old women with old faces. They are the maids who take care of noble families.
All meals and toiletries are included. They are a group of professionals, and Rurik is certainly satisfied with Liudov's assistance in this regard.
However, the old man Eskil saw this as an opportunity. He estimated that his actions might make Rurik angry, but he thought of the big boy Regraf Ruriksson wandering around Hamburg every day.
He couldn't help but start his conspiracy again...