Rise of Rurik

Remember [new] in one second! Finally, Rurik led the cavalry troops through the long lagoon sandbar.

"We finally arrived on land, with the lake on our left and the sea on our right. Our wonderful trip has come to an end." Rurik exhaled.

"So, when we pass through the Prussian territory, we have to continue to advance in this environment?" Fisk asked with a grin.

"We passed only the Great Curonian Lagoon and then the Vistula Lagoon."

"Hey..." Fisk couldn't hide his regret: "It seems that the king has given a lot of details to the unknown area. Only the gods and the king know what the Vistula Lagoon is."

"What? Are you a little suspicious?"

"I don't dare." Fisk denied with a smile.

"It's nothing. Anyway, it should be a no-man's land in this era. If we were in the local stronghold, we would be pioneers with thorny paths. The Danzig Corridor, Gdansk, and Gdynia are all ours..."

From Fisk's point of view, the king was talking to himself strangely again, using terms that he couldn't understand.

Because the Kingdom of Poland needs a port to the Baltic Sea, the diving area of ​​the Vistula Lagoon has no development value. Although the Sambia Peninsula in the northeast has a good port (Kdenau), it is occupied by the Teutonic Knights.

Or maybe the area around the Vistula Lagoon was originally the territory of the Prussian tribes. They had always had disputes with the Poles, so Conrad, the Duke of the North, invited the Teutonic Knights to solve the Prussian problem. He never thought that these mercenaries would usurp the throne and Poland would indeed solve the problem. The Prussian problem was solved, but the Teutonic problem was even more fatal.

The port of Gdańsk became a port under Teutonic control, and Kdenau

Developed into the port of Königsberg (Kaliningrad).

In today's late summer of 843 AD, these disputes do not exist, but the local special geographical location and high value-added specialty amber are enough to make it the target of public criticism.

The disputes continued. This time, the Russian army entered the Sambia Peninsula. Although Rurik had no intention of conquering the local Prussians, the entry of the Russian army would inevitably lead to disputes.

Rurik would not really look down on the Prussians, and Fisk happened to mention this tribe.

"Your Majesty, if one day we go to war with the mysterious Prussians, shall we conquer them all at once?"

Rurik tilted his head and thought about it. It was almost sunset. He was riding his horse leisurely and thinking casually: "If we don't fight this year, we will fight in a few years. In front of us are the Sambia Peninsula, the Vistula Lagoon, and the Vistula River." The entrance to the sea. That must be our territory. The Prussians had better surrender. If they don't want to, after we make a fortune in the Frankish world, we will naturally subdue all these miscellaneous guys by force."

"What if they are unwilling to surrender and die?" Fisk asked deliberately.

"That's a good question. Either help them die or watch them escape. After all, we want to get this land and wealth."

Although this area is felt to be too primitive due to its small population, its development potential cannot be ignored in Rurik.

Since Ross has planted his flag along the Courland coast and gained one servant force after another, if he takes advantage of the situation and takes the Prussian Sambia Peninsula, no matter how he thinks about it, it will be done along the way.

Then came the Danzig Corridor and Pomerania.

"The area around the Baltic Sea is mine. Hehe,

It really feels a bit like Rome. "

Rurik has great illusions about the future. Although the economic and trade situation on the Baltic Sea is far inferior to that of the bustling Mediterranean world, at least destiny lies in Russia. This sea area can be integrated by Russia to make it as prosperous as possible.

The foundation of prosperity lies in unity, and those forces that are willing to submit to Rus have the right to enjoy the prosperity under Rus' rule.

As for those determined to resist, their bodies will naturally be destroyed.

"Am I a bit too Mongolian for me? No! Those who offend me will be punished no matter how far away they are, no matter how strong they are, I will definitely create a big empire here..."

Rurik landed on the Sambia Peninsula with a rather relaxed attitude. At this moment, the sea was full of Russian ships floating on the sea.

He did not notice anything unusual about these ships. If the landing site had not been peaceful, fishing boats would have started operating on the sea in the evening.

All warships maintained a high level of vigilance. As the cavalry arrived at the scene of the incident, Rurik was also shocked by the sight before him.

"What's going on? Is there really a fight? Who are they fighting?!"

These words seemed to be asking a question. Fisk, who was riding with him, repeated casually: "They must be the Prussians that the king is thinking about. It seems that the battle will inevitably break out! You think highly of them, and they responded. Your praise.”

"Hey. I'm not here to kill them all. As long as these guys declare their surrender to me, there is no need for our army to destroy their city and kill all their people."

In Rurik's view, the Russian army completely controlled a huge settlement. Based on the army's consistent behavior, I am afraid that except for some

The pretty women survived, but the rest were killed by the soldiers.

The cavalry marched into the Pusketis Altar Area, an important sacrificial shrine of the Samba tribe and an amber distribution center in the north. It became the main barracks of the Ross Army. However, with all the local defenders, the Ross Army did not capture them. A prisoner of war, the name of the settlement was still unknown after the war.

When Rurik arrived, the victors had almost finished removing the dead bodies, and the looting of the entire settlement was also in progress. The soldiers were allowed to plunder freely, because the most valuable trophies were held by the Tenth Banner Troop and would be dedicated to the King. The soldiers of the other Banner Troops could get nothing more than a small amount of unprocessed food from various simple dwellings. A small piece of amber rough stone, some common pottery cooking utensils and a batch of leather and linen products.

What was exciting was that the soldiers found a batch of new oats and even some ears of wheat that had not yet been pounded and shelled.

Although the entire Pusketis Altar is coastal, in some inland areas, the gaps in the forest are full of local wheat fields.

The current time is the wheat harvest period for the entire Sambia Peninsula. Although the number of residents there is not large, they try to grow wheat as much as possible and cultivate it with a rough wide-spreading method. This kind of grain-to-grain ratio is very bad, and they have no choice but to do so. The people in the countryside had no choice but to develop new wheat fields as much as possible in order to expand the autumn harvest.

All the able-bodied men and women died in the battle, while the old, weak, women and children fled south with the weak.

Although oats and rye grow very sparsely in their wheat fields, and there are not many seeds in each bunch of wheat ears. They are also developed and mature fields with very few weeds. If no one harvests them, the seeds will fall after the first autumn rain. into the mud

The land is declared destroyed during this autumn farming season.

The wheat is there, but it would be too much work for the soldiers to cut it and pound it and remove the pods themselves.

A large settlement with a large altar as its center, and surrounded by dense forests are a large number of wheat fields and vegetable fields.

The supplies are here, but the landing troops are still setting up bonfire arrays on the coast, setting up the cooking utensils unloaded from the ship and captured on the spot, and starting to cook the food they have stored.

Now Rurik needs the admiral to explain the situation.

He led the cavalry around the military camp, and the victorious warriors became commotion.

Before Rurik could wait for Admiral Goldlund to report, Trigway, the captain of the 10th Banner Corps of the Citizen Soldiers, came running in a hurry.

The man beat his chest and made a military salute, looking up at his king: "Your Majesty! The Tenth Flag Team congratulates you on your arrival."

"You? Trygve, here... it doesn't matter." Rurik simply dismounted: "I originally wanted to find Goedlund, but I met you. Tell me, what kind of war happened here? Your enemies who is it?"

"This is what I want to report to the king. Because the situation here... is very complicated."

"Oh?" Rurik noticed that this brother was shaking uncontrollably, and his eyes were wandering, seeming to hide complicated thoughts. "You lead the way, we're going to take a look."

After that, Rurik made simple arrangements for the cavalry.

Since he had been traveling on a relatively desolate lagoon sandbank, even when he arrived at this unnamed huge settlement, the dense forest obscured many details. Rurik could not see that there was pasture for grazing on the spot, so he only had to order each team to consume food immediately. Feeding the war horses

.

As for the subsequent reindeer army, they also need to unload some food from the ship to provide deer food. In this matter, he temporarily handed over management rights to Fisker.

Rurik led a group of soldiers to follow Trigwei, and soon saw the densely packed corpses under the setting sun, as well as the traces of the battlefield covered with Yin Hong's blood.

He was used to seeing mountains of corpses and seas of blood, so he wouldn't be very surprised when he saw this scene again. He just wanted to understand the situation.

In response, Trigway lowered his arrogant head and said in a low voice: "Your Majesty! I made a fatal mistake."

"Error? What is it?"

"There. Those are our battle dead. And... they are all the battle dead of my flag team..."

The battle situation will be reported truthfully by the flag captain himself, and all merits and demerits will be determined by the king.

More than thirty Russian soldiers died in battle? ! This was something Rurik had not expected.

What surprised him even more was that the dead were all from the Tenth Flag Troop. The soldiers did not have to die in battle. It seemed that the enemy had set up an empty city trap. When the Russian army was happily plundering property, the enemy with tattoos suddenly came out. .

The armor of the soldiers who landed was not heavy, but the victory was that all of them were wearing armor. When the entire army entered into formation and fought, no one was killed, except for a small number of wounded soldiers who were slightly injured and could not hinder future battles.

"What a capsize in the gutter!" Rurik couldn't help but clenched his fists as he stared at the soldier's body lying quietly. "Trygway!"

"exist."

"Enemies! Have you eliminated them all?"

"They were completely wiped out. We killed almost five hundred of them. I think these are the Prussians that your Majesty is talking about. They are really fierce. They would rather die in battle than surrender."

"So, because of their bravery and cunning, you also

No more humiliating their corpses? But the neat arrangement is asking me to take credit? Rurik said sternly.

As if he meant to be harsh, Trigway denied it: "I dare not. It is just to show the results of the war to the king, and this place is like a huge altar of the Prussians. They do have a lot of gems, and now they are all dedicated to the king." "

"Gem? Or amber?"

"Yes."

"That's fine." Rurik nodded: "You rushed to the beach and marched forward bravely. If you fought with the enemy and killed so many brothers, I wouldn't blame you. But you fell into their trap and were attacked by surprise. You are guilty! But your troops fought fiercely with them and killed hundreds of them, which is a contribution that cannot be ignored. I can't make a fair evaluation of you right away, so let's consider it as a balance of merit and demerit. Because I don't want to have an unprovoked conflict with the Prussians! At least not this year. But since there is a fight..."

After figuring out the basic situation, Rurik was a little undecided.

In his mind, the Prussian natives are a group of people who will fight to the death. Of course, the powerful Ross is not afraid of them. Rurik is worried that this group of people will follow the Ross army out of revenge and cause trouble for the army that continues to march.

The other flag captains did not come to report on their duties, only Trygway came, and even the admiral was now "missing". They obviously deliberately avoided it, so that if there was any merit, it was Trygway's, and if there was any fault, it would be borne by him. Others just don't want to get involved and steal the loot silently.

Rurik continued to make a decision: "Now you send people to pile up firewood and burn the dead in the battle, put the ashes into pottery urns, and then stuff their identity plates."

"As commanded."

"us

We have to continue the Western Expedition. They died in battle, so we will march with their ashes. "

"As commanded."

"As for the corpses of the defeated ones." Rurik thought for a while and decided not to examine the seized amber, but to carefully examine the identities of the corpses in order to get some important information from the corpses.

The Ross Army actually entered an unknown area. Rurik knew the structure of the coastline but knew very little about the details. His understanding of the local forces came from the disputes that began in the twelfth century on another plane. Although everything happens for a reason and a result, the brave Prussians must have been equally brave in the beginning.

The setting sun cannot hide the true appearance of the deceased. They are both men and women. What is unparalleled is the dense blue tattoos on their bodies.

"Prussian blue? They really like blue. I just don't know which tribe these warriors come from. Are these armed men the only ones in the huge settlement? Maybe there are two thousand residents in this place, or at most three thousand..."

Rurik murmured in his heart. He actually walked past the body of the local war high priest. Therefore, the shapes of the war dead were very similar. He did not notice that the commander of the militia was lying quietly together with his fallen men. At this moment All the dead are completely equal.

Observing the situation of the dead bodies, Rurik basically understood the reason why Rose was able to achieve an astonishing exchange ratio when encountering a sneak attack.

Rose's advantage indeed comes from the fact that all of his men are wearing armor, but the enemy seems to be so arrogant that they don't even wear clothes, and fight with weapons while wearing only some fig leaves. It seems that the weird blue pattern on the back of their belly can scare the enemy into silence.

"Are these the Prussians? I still think highly of them. How brave! How brave.

It's foolhardy. It's a pity that I don't know how to fight. Rurik said to himself and shook his head.

"Your Majesty, what should we do with these dead bodies?"

"Deal with it? This looks like their big altar..." Rurik closed his eyes and thought for a while, then said decisively: "We are Odin's tactic, and we have every reason to destroy the strange altar here. We have blood on Odin today. , these corpses are all sacrifices. According to a tradition of our Rus, the corpses are thrown directly into the sea, and then sacrificed to Jormungandr to ensure that our navy endangers the safety of navigation. It’s your fault. "

"As ordered." Trigway said again: "I will call on the brothers from other flag corps to complete this matter quickly."

So, where did the Admiral go?

If he wasn't in the navy, with Goethelund's qualifications he could be a flag captain-like figure. However, the power of a mere flag captain is too small. It is not as majestic as the one who controls the naval battleship All-powerful Fengyun now. Of course, the captains of each ship are legally directly loyal to Rurik himself, which restricts Goedlund from messing around.

But Goethelund himself had subjective initiative. He took a small number of cronies deep into the altar area and explored the residential houses in the south. So in the south, after getting rid of the cover of the woods, he was surprised by a large number of wheat fields and some vegetable fields.

Cabbage and beet are traditional vegetable crops in the Sambia Peninsula, especially beet, which has thick red rhizomes with a sweet taste.

Although in this era, the sweetness of European sugar beet was extremely low, and the sweetness of the varieties grown in the Sambia Peninsula was even worse than that in Saxony, it was still an important vegetable and something that local Prussians could enjoy a little sweetness.

Goldlund transformed into

As a wilderness investigator, I turned back when the sky turned dark. I was pleasantly surprised that the king's cavalry had arrived and hurriedly found the king to report his work.

Therefore, when the subsequent herd of deer arrived at the altar area, all members of the Ross expeditionary force arrived here and settled down using existing private houses as barracks.

There are many wooden pillars standing on the mound altar, with bird-shaped carvings on them. It is actually a cuckoo bird, which is the symbol of the earth goddess in the beliefs of the Prussian Samba tribe.

The altar really reminded the captains of the Russian cavalry of what they saw in the inner city of Mezot of the Semigalians. It was a large mound with an altar on the top. The altar also had a large number of wooden pillars carved with unusual patterns, so At that time, the Ross Army renovated the watchtower to monitor abnormalities on the ground, in order to provide early warning and mobilize to block the enemy's counterattack.

Now that they have thought of what happened to Mezotne, they are now sitting by a bonfire in the open space outside the altar, very close to the place where the battle took place during the day. While discussing the encounter during the day, people also mentioned Mezotne and mentioned the enemy's counterattack. possibility.

They all talked about it. Since people knew very little about the southern region, if there were a large number of Prussian villages in the area, given the belief that the group of guys who fought during the day would not retreat, it would be hard for Ross to fight again here if a group of warriors came. Do they have a fight? Isn't it an extraneous thorn in the side that crazily hinders the army's march?

When many people mention this possibility, it means that it becomes extremely possible.

Rurik frowned: "It seems that this place is not suitable for staying for a long time! There is really no reason for us to waste time here anymore."

"Wait a minute!" I had just given a brief report to Rurik to explain my mystery.

The missing Admiral Goedelund made a decisive suggestion: "All the Prussians here are dead. There are a lot of farmlands in the south. The wheat there is not harvested, and some vegetables are not harvested."

"I know you went overland to explore the situation. You are worthy of being my admiral."

Goldlund was not stupid. He could hear the king's sarcasm. In order to prove that his exploration of the road was not a failure of his job as a navy, he suggested: "I feel that I am losing money if I don't harvest the wheat..."

"Oh? We still have a lot of food, why waste time harvesting it? It's a waste of time to pound and thresh the wheat after harvesting it." Rurik didn't know this guy's intention for a while.

"Wheat should not be wasted, and I...I think our army has reason to rest here for a day."

"what for?"

Glancing at the brothers sitting there, Goldlund stroked his beard. He was very confident in his idea: "Let the war horses and reindeer wander in their farmland. All the good food will go into the bellies of the horses and deer, and it will also It saves the king from feeding them good food. Moreover, the navy needs to clean some cabins. Those soldiers eat, drink and defecate in the cabin, but there are unconscious guys who defecate wantonly..."

"Come on! Shut up." Rurik noticed the suddenly embarrassed expression of the infantry flag captain from the corner of his eye. For their sake, he interrupted Goldlund's vulgar complaint, changed the subject and continued with a smile. "But I think the grazing on farmland you mentioned is indeed necessary. The next step is for our army to go to the Vistula Lagoon. The hardships there are no easier than the Great Curonian Lagoon. After that, we will reach Pomerania. Through it we enter

Saxony! Also there, the navy will make a wide circle along the Jutland peninsula and enter our Rotterstadt at the mouth of the Rhine, while I will lead the cavalry directly south through the Saxon forests. "

All those who had doubts about the future journey still couldn’t quite understand Rurik’s description. Since the king’s words were clear and logical, they believed that the army would never get lost, so they firmly agreed with the king’s decision.

Rurik gave the entire army a day off. This was to prepare the entire army for passing through the Vistula Lagoon. Everyone must be fully prepared to avoid a repeat of the unfortunate experience on the sandbar of the Great Curonian Lagoon.

It was also beneficial to have war horses and reindeer feasting on the Prussians' unharvested farmland.

However, the captains of each banner are all veterans. When many people mentioned that "our stay may be counterattacked by the enemy," this forced the entire army to take precautions while resting.

Therefore, the whole army did not need to camp deep into the land. They held the coastal area of ​​​​this large settlement, with their altar as the center, and did not station in the southern part. The entire army only camped in the northern coastal area, and then unloaded some torsion slingshots and made temporary arrangements. At the outpost, everything is arranged according to field standards.

"I hope our preparations are all unnecessary. The whole army will have a day off, and the day after tomorrow the whole army will march out and burn this large settlement to the ground with a fire..." Rurik thought so and was so determined. In short, since the outbreak with the Prussians has already begun If there is a fierce conflict, then let the conflict be more violent.