Rise of Rurik

With this glimpse of the battlefield, Rurik chose mercy. In other words, obtaining treasures is always the goal, and killing is a necessary evil to accomplish this goal.

The enemies who fought bravely were all killed, and there was no need to take strong measures against the remaining women and children.

Let them evacuate from Tamworth City peacefully, and Magnut's arrangement is also obvious.

Because those women and children are also the resources that Balmerk Vikings need.

The barbarian army was just outside the city, and a "barbarian leader" who spoke Rurik Latin made a promise of peace.

To be honest, the bishops and priests don't quite believe it, but there is only one thing everyone can be sure of - if you don't cooperate, you will choose bloodshed.

Immediately, the priests announced the conditions of the barbarians to the trembling people. People believed the priests, and women began to follow the priests carefully out of the city with their infant children.

All the city gates were blocked, and the debris was not something that weak women and children could move away in a short time. They also had to climb the city walls, walk down the literal mountain of corpses and blood, and face the horrified Viking army with their weapons.

The old and weak women and children who left the city at first were not persecuted. Rurik ordered his own people to exercise restraint, and many Balmerks were forced to stay put at the behest of the various family leaders.

However, the army was watching these people out of the city at close range, especially the young women. The brothers laughed and said vulgar words to each other.

More and more people went out of the city, and they carried a very small amount of belongings. They were forced to gather on the banks of the Tame River, looking at the moored Viking fleet and sighing.

A large number of people were gathering, and Rurik was startled by the number.

The makeshift captive camp across the river grew louder, with the murmur of the evacuated populace everywhere, and when they gathered together it became a distinct buzz.

With so many prisoners, Magnut was both surprised and horrified.

He approached Rurik and pointed his hands at him: "Who would have thought that there were so many of them? They would rather surrender despite their large numbers? Or are they hiding a lot of swordsmen?"

"Oh? Are you worried about those women?"

"They deserve to be vigilant."

"forget it.

Rurik shook his head, "They are not female warriors at all. Their beliefs restrict them to work in the fields, and it is a sin to take out weapons to fight." "

"Oh...is that so?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

Magnute smiled a little: "It's okay, I can verify it tonight."

"Do you shoot at them?"

"why not?"

"No matter. You can throw these captives to Northumbria, or you can take them for yourself." Rurik stared into Magnut's eyes, "You are the king of York, from now on, you need the local People give you tribute. I don't care, I only want the wheat in the city, not even gold and silver."

"Haha, your requirements are too low, or are you still suspecting that I am not generous enough?" Magnute patted his son-in-law Rurik on the shoulder affectionately, "Of course I will give you some gold and silver. Your warriors are suffocated. , it's okay for me to give your character another hundred women."

The sun is about to set and the world is orange. Nearly 10,000 people were evacuated from Tamworth, and hunger and sleepiness plagued people.

The bishop announced that the city was empty of people, and begged the Viking army to give everyone food.

food? Naturally, it can be provided, but the public has to pay some price.

What is the cost?

The bishops and priests were screaming, the men of Balmerk were giggling and the crowd of women and children who had surrendered screamed and cried.

The bishop himself tried to find Rurik, who spoke Latin, and eventually found him.

The old man knelt on the ground and cried bitterly: "This is what you call peace? You deceived us!"

To be honest, Rurik felt a little bit sorry for these reconciled priests. He thought for a moment, put on an innocent face and said, "I didn't shoot your women. You see, my army is resting, and I didn't even let them enter the city to loot."

"This... this is sophistry! Those people are clearly..."

"Shut up!" Arik stood up and kicked the old pig to the side.

"Brother, don't be impatient."

"Bah. This old guy thinks he's a character?"

The old bishop continued to curse while clutching his chest. Rurik had no intention of defending anything, and said bluntly: "Anyone who committed the murder is not my army. All you see are my father-in-law's army, he is the king of York, you should go and beg him. You see, there are twenty Northumbrian women in my camp who cook wheat, and have I ever shot them? They're happy to work for me. You're asking the wrong person."

The bishop still felt it was a sophistry but had nothing to say.

This night, the ultimate joy for the Balmers, was a disaster for the Mercians in Tamworth.

Magnut didn't feel that he had deceived the Mercians, and his men did not kill again. But in the eyes of the Mercians, there is not much difference between a barbarian's shot at a woman and a killing.

Early in the morning, a hundred young trance women were still sent to the Rus camp.

Magnut came to give the gift in person this time.

"My son, accept this gift. Now it's time for us to enter the city and loot."

"That's them?" Rurik glanced at the group of dazed women. "Did your people shoot them? Maybe you should keep it."

"No. How could I lie to you?" When he said this, his face seemed to prove that he was lying. After saying that, he clapped his hands, and a brown-haired girl was pulled out.

"Who is this?" Rurik was a little confused.

"It seems to be a noble woman."

"It doesn't matter." Rurik shook his hand and pulled the detained bishop over.

But when the bishop saw the girl, he immediately exclaimed, "It's Mary, Her Royal Highness!"

"Princess?" Rurik was a little interested.

"Does it seem to be a member of the royal family? Wouldn't it be nice to give it to you?" Magnut immediately signaled to his subordinates and pushed the dazed girl to Rurik's side.

The woman was sitting on the grass with a limp all over. When Rurik lifted her chin, she noticed the tears in the woman's eyes. In the end, she held back a sentence: "Quick! Kill me."

This is spoken in Latin.

"Kill you? No. You are the royal family of Mercia? You can speak Latin. Now, you are my woman!"

Rurik was very surprised, but Tamworth had already broken the city. This was the royal city, and the nobles of the royal family should have suffered the pain of subjugation.

But the fact that he can get a princess who can speak Latin really makes him different. He still doubted her identity at first, but all the priests bluntly said that this woman Mary is King Wigraf's beloved daughter, and the priest also said that the king's daughter to his daughter Love is the ultimate.

There seems to be something to be said here? Rurik felt that some priests looked contemptuous when describing them. Regardless, it's not appropriate to expect Viking conquerors to wag their tails like pugs.

Another priest described that the Bath King of Wessex obtained Mercia's submission many years ago, and he also mentioned a marriage request at that time, but Wigraf refused on the grounds that his daughter was too young.

She was only fourteen years old, the younger sister of the dead Bottom Woolf.

She is pampered, and her beauty is far better than that of ordinary peasant girls. He speaks Latin and must have had a good education. As the princess of a subjugated country, she still wants to die, it seems that this woman is not mediocre.

A poor princess was just a small noise in the whole war. Rurik was in no mood to deal with the matter of the princess Mary, and the remaining ninety-nine women sent by his father-in-law Magnute were also brought under control.

One of the great things Rurik had to do himself was to find the granary in Tamworth.

The Balmer army first walked through the slope of flesh and blood, and then began to remove the debris in the city gate.

More than 200 strong men joined forces, and after a lot of effort, the closed wooden door was opened, and the long-awaited army broke through.

They started looting, looking for all kinds of useful things.

Biyonni and his men rushed straight to the palace, looking for a warehouse for storing gold and silver. The monastery was another key looting site, where gold and silver vessels were looted.

The Balmers were enjoying the fun of making a fortune, and Rurik and his men were another gesture.

Thirty two-wheeled carts became the best transport vehicles, and brothers Rurik and Arik took more than 300 people into the city.

"There are still many war relics here, all of which are done by our arrows." Arik admired the winding streets, and arrow feathers like wheat ears can be seen everywhere.

"Let the brothers collect arrows, we will need them later."

"Yeah. But I still want to get some gold, brother, you're too kind to the Balmers, you won't let us loot."

"Just gold and silver?" Rurik sullenly said, "In my opinion, wheat is the most meaningful. Gold and silver cannot be eaten. Our hometown has a large population. If we can't get enough wheat, everyone will be hungry. "

"But we obviously grabbed a lot of wheat."

"Not enough! Never complain about having too much wheat when you're hungry."

"Oh? Are you making fun of me now that I'm full?" Arik smiled again. "Forget it, I still listen to you."

The granary is in the inner city of Tamworth, which is an inner castle. When the city defense completely collapsed, the doorway opened wide in the inner city.

Rurik quickly found the granary, the stone buildings with piles of burlap sacks, and the rooms filled with the scent of wheat.

"The air system makes me comfortable, I'm hungry." Arik said with enthusiasm on his face.

It's not just him, all the Ross warriors present are salivating.

To be honest, if the soldiers don't get enough wealth, even if they don't say it, they are strongly dissatisfied in their hearts.

Rurik immediately shouted: "Brothers, let's empty these granaries! All of you, go back to your hometown and share the five hundred pounds of wheat!"

Five hundred pounds of wheat? The astonishment of the crowd forced Rurik to shout again, and the answer was still the same.

Ross's ordinary warriors have only started to eat wheat in recent years. Although eating oatmeal is a test of one's bite force, the comfort after eating wheat is far better than eating fish. Once you have this kind of comfort, you can't stop.

However, Rurik, who sells wheat at a fair price, is standing here. The limited sales of limited wheat has really maintained a balance in Roseburg.

Even if ordinary people have a lot of money, they can buy at most 100 pounds of wheat in one winter, and 200 pounds of wheat in the whole year is also a recent year.

Five hundred pounds of wheat is enough for the soldier and his family to eat for the first half of the year! And when wheat is sold in winter, everyone can bring money to buy cheap wheat at the official sales point of the Duke of Ross.

"No one will despise their own wheat when they are hungry." This statement is deeply understood by ordinary soldiers.

Rurik shouted again: "Brothers, those Balmerks don't know the deliciousness of wheat. They think it's useless, and we'll remove all the wheat."

Everyone screamed and started to move, and a large number of heavy sacks were thrown onto the two-wheeled vehicles, and the transportation to the outside of the city had already begun.

At first, Rurik and the others took it for granted that what was inside was all wheat. When the hemp rope at the mouth of the sack was accidentally loosened, the wheat inside rolled out. Rurik was pleasantly surprised to see that it was different from the shape of slender oats. of wheat.

"Haha! It's actually wheat!"

No one knew why his Lord Rurik suddenly shouted excitedly because of the grains of wheat.

Arik didn't care, but my brother came directly in front of him.

"Hey, you treat wheat as gold?"

"This is wheat! Brother, this is wheat that tastes better than oatmeal. It is the best wheat."

But Arik still didn't understand his brother's excitement.

Rurik was indeed very excited, all because of the traditional trade in the Nordic world, the only theoretical existence of the trade in spring wheat.

In this era, especially cold-resistant spring wheat varieties could not be grown in the region around the Baltic Sea. The wheat that existed was imported from other places, which was rare and the price was naturally extremely high.

Wheat is ground into powder, steamed is steamed buns, and baked is noodles.

Looking at the granary piled high with wheat, Rurik was already fantasizing about eating noodles. In fact, he knew that with his current skills, he could make lo mein with sauce in no time.

Rurik never underestimated the amount of wheat hoarded in the King City of Mercia, because any king in his right mind understood the relationship between grain reserves and national stability.

The amount of wheat is beyond his imagination.

Throughout the day, the Balmers scavenged for gold and silver, then household goods such as pots and pans and cloth.

On Rurik's side, he was frantically carrying wheat.

He estimated that a standard 100 Roman pound of wheat was stuffed into a bundle of sacks, measured on a captured balance, and that was basically the case.

Without ball bearings, and with roller bearings Rurik's subordinates could not afford to miniaturize, these two-wheelers were all hard-contact bearings, relying on a lot of grease to ease friction.

Fifteen sacks of wheat were piled on a cart, but it was a little reluctant, but a cart was crushed directly because it was stacked with 200 sacks.

Rurik had to maintain the efficiency of transporting 1,500 pounds of food to the camp in one truck, and a group of soldiers also carried a bundle of sacks all the way to the camp.

The Rus can carry up to nearly fifty thousand pounds of wheat in one round.

The Rus and even the mercenaries who remained in the camp were soon ordered to join the operation.

What kind of crazy looting is this? Rurik sometimes felt that he was really a wicked man. The food they reserved was to supply the residents of the entire royal city, and the food was another manifestation of the wealth of the royal family.

By the time the sun went down, the Ross Army had been carrying as many as twenty-one times. While they were carrying them, the camp at the rear was doing simple statistics.

A truckload of wheat is about 1,500 pounds, and there are 29 trucks continuously transporting it. The continuous transportation has accumulated as many as 600 trucks, which is more than 900,000 pounds!

In addition, the soldiers carried back 2,000 bags by simply carrying them on their backs.

Even so, under the twilight, the Russ were thrown at carrying wheat...

Many Roths were panting and guarding their camp by the river outside the city. The total of 120 female prisoners were comforted by the captured old priest of Lindsay Abbey as soon as possible, and they were honestly cooking wheat for the Roth army.

They were all ordinary peasant women, and many of them were actually slaves of nobles.

When they saw the king's youngest daughter being captured, some people were not only saddened, but rather happy.

Since he was born, he was a humble servant, and those who were born noble are now also serving as slaves and servants to the barbarians?

Perhaps, being a servant to a barbarian is no more difficult than being a servant to a noble.

It cannot be said that the Russ are benevolent and good people, that is not the case at all! They have collectively committed Stockholm Syndrome, cooked for savages, and are entitled to gulps of wheat themselves, and even more to eat a lot of salt.

The king did not protect his people, and the barbarians were not the monstrous demons described by the priests.

The women appeared to be submissive, but their future was still unknown.

It was Queen Mary, who was already in Rurik's tent.

She was curled up in only a commoner.

Rurik wiped himself clean with hot river water, and used soap made with chrysanthemum water and honey, and when he washed his body, he had a peculiar fragrance of flowers.

He walked into the tent and saw the nervous princess.

"I heard that you are Mary? Queen Mary of Mercia?"

The girl Feifei did not deny it, but stood up and clenched her fists, roaring in Latin in a low voice: "You are all wicked! You have destroyed my kingdom."

"Is this about fighting? Do you think you are a female warrior? Do you think fighting a boy shows your strength?"

But this Mary still clenched her fists and hit her.

"absurd!"

Rurik stumbled over him with a stumble, then his knees pressed against his waist, and his arms completed the chokehold.

He put his face close again: "You can speak Latin, and I need you. You are still the princess of Mercia, and I, the Duke of Ross. Your father's kingdom foolishly chose war, and I followed Northumbria. The agreement to raise troops to attack. All this is your father's fault, and you will pay the price for your father's stupidity."

"He...he's a bastard!" she growled.

Rurik was a little surprised: "You? Are you actually insulting your father?"

Princess Mary was speechless at first, and then asked, "What do you want to do to me? You, obviously just a child, dare to call yourself a duke."

"Of course I am the Duke of Ross, and you are only two years older than me. I want you to be my woman, and I am a benevolent person."

"You... This is also kindness? What is the difference between you and those villains now? You men, you are all villains! Besides, you are obviously a child, an arrogant child."

"Really? I heard you mocking me. You say, a man can stand this kind of mockery?" Rurik smiled. "I'll show you now..."

That night, the guards on guard heard the woman's shouting, the voice was special, and they knew what was happening in the camp.

It just so happened that Arik came back with a tired body, and he still took his brothers to take advantage of the chaos to loot, and he could get some pots and pans that were of little value and use. He just wanted to tell my brother that he had moved the granary clean, and when he heard the movement of the brother's tent, he opened the curtain with a smile.

"Yo! You're a good kid."

Rurik was startled and angry, "You! Brother! Close the curtain!"

"Alright. You kid has conquered a princess? You are indeed a man." Arik shook his head, and the curtains also covered him.

After a short while, the Queen Mary panted and sobbed and muttered: "I am a miserable toy. You and your brother are together, and I don't care. I am a lowly woman."

"Why self-deprecation? I still want to be one of my wives. You give birth to a small nobleman for me to fight for the power of Britain."

"You...you are obviously a teenager, how can you have ambitions like a hungry wolf...I am a lowly princess, a plaything. I don't deserve it."

Rurik had actually heard that this so-called noble Mary still had many stories in the court of Mercia.

"Since, you are a plaything. Then be my personal plaything, and I will take you away."

This night, the princess was tossed to the point where she was powerless. Rurik was very surprised that after the early morning, this Mary's personality changed drastically. She didn't have the hostility she showed yesterday, but was docile like a lamb.

She murmured: "You...more of a man than my father. You are Rurik of Ross, and if the secrets of my father, my brother and I are exposed, the priest will hang me. You...maybe you can really help I."

"Oh? Could it be that you and your father..."

How loud this unspeakable thing was, Marie dragged her numb legs close to Rurik and whispered in Latin.

"Is that so? I've guessed it."

With tears in her eyes, Mary pleaded, "You either kill me or you take me away. I never want to come back to this cursed Tamworth again."

Rurik nodded. Although things were very bizarre so far, he did develop a desire to protect him. Of course, for reasons of reason, this woman knows Latin and she can teach it to others, which is her greatest value!

Rurik walked out of the tent, and everyone saw that Mary was holding his arm, she was staggering, and she knew what happened at first sight.

There are Rusian warriors who are fond of chewing their tongues. The so-called Lord Duke has been surrendered to the Queen of Mercia, and it is said that the number of concubines of the Duke has increased.

Rurik was not shy, and he brought the Queen Mary, whose personality changed drastically, to the council with the leaders of the Balmerks, Magnut and others who had completed the initial looting.

Rurik's performance is really surprising.

Magnut laughed casually: "It seems that you like the gift I gave you."

"Yes, I like this pet very much."

Rurik used the word "pet" in particular, which made everyone laugh.

He used this term deliberately, or the Queen Mary also positioned her identity in the same way.

"Friends," Rurik added, "you should all be rich. What are you going to do next?"

As soon as the voice fell, someone shouted to return to York to prepare for the winter.

Magnute shook his head: "We won. In my opinion, the Northumbrians haven't arrived, and the King of Mercia hasn't been caught. It's obviously not appropriate for us to leave. I... still want to defeat Mercia completely. Royal Army. As you all know, I'm getting old and I want to keep getting the glory of victory. I think you want victory too."

"I do too. King Mercia is a villain, and I want to kill him! His army must also be completely defeated." Rurik gritted his teeth as he said this.

"Hatred of the enemy? Very good." Margonut said.

"Yes! Now I have hatred for that Wigraf. I'm going to wait for the Northumbrians, and my captain of guards hasn't returned yet? Besides, you and I need time to count the captures and ship them."

Magnut looked left and right, and everyone nodded in understanding.

"I propose that I wait for them for three days, and they will definitely arrive within three days." Rurik said, "We also have to prepare for battle. If the Mercian reinforcements arrive, we have to fight them. So your Don't be hollowed out by those women."

Rurik said it seriously, and everyone laughed. For example, Biyonni also shouted: "You have to take care, don't be hollowed out by your newly acquired woman. You kid, you have to save your energy and go back to take care of my good sister. ."

The Vikings' values ​​and chastity are indeed very peculiar, or very open, and Rurik knew that these were all concepts forced out in extreme circumstances, and Rurik has now done as the locals do.

He nodded and said: "I want to give the prisoners food, let them clean the battlefield, cook and wash for us. Our coalition forces are recharged to restore their strength. I always have a hunch that we will have a decisive battle with Mercia. Great battle. Even if we destroy their royal city, the battle will continue."

Magnut nodded and looked at the brothers present: "The climate here is warmer than that of Northumbria. We have to fight them, defeat them, and make room for us Balmers. "