Rise of Rurik - Chapter 1032

[Chapter 1032 Valdai Lake Exploration Plan]

Spring plowing is coming to an end, overworked people will take a good rest for a while, and then continue to work in various ways to gain benefits and improve their lives.

If the main cities of the kingdom are to be constructed, these idle people are the best migrant workers.

If the kingdom were to go to war, they were conscripted as warriors again.

In order to prevent the northern attack of the Smolensk people, Rurik, who was on an expedition to the west, faced the dilemma of emptiness in the rear, and had to show mercy and fully arm the Slavic peasants in the Novgorod region.

Bad quality cast iron spears were widely distributed, they were not even sharpened, and many of the blades were not wide.

The sharpening and binding of wooden poles were handed over to the villagers, who were ordered to stick to their homes.

As a result, the war in the rear did not break out, and the spear pieces distributed now have not been taken back.

In Rurik’s view, a piece of worn out cast iron is nothing, but in the eyes of ordinary farmers, it is enough to change a lot.

With the Iron Spear, this group of forest dwellers suddenly had courage, and they dared to form a team to hunt bears in remote forest areas.

A freshly peeled brown bear skin can be sold for at least twenty silver coins, and the income from just one skin is enough to improve a hunter’s life a lot.

Bear meat is edible, but bear bones, especially the whole bear head, are sold separately.

There are more than 30 farms that the army forced to relocate. They left the forest to get a better life by the lake, but they couldn’t really let go of the past.

Living in the forest, they had to build some low walls for the old camp to try to prevent the attacks of wolves and bears. The tools at hand were mostly wood and bone tools. Although they always win when they really face crazy beasts, they always fail once. Someone needs to be injured or die, and injury often means a more painful death.

Kamne, the blacksmith carefully trained by Rurik, is already in charge, and his whole body has become extremely strong.

The thin and short child became a young man with a square chin and a beard. His arms were so strong that he could strike a red-hot iron ingot a thousand times with a hammer in his hand.

Kamne’s parents were killed by a bear attack.

The simple idea of the villagers teaming up to hunt bears is to eliminate this kind of beast that will eat people in exchange for safety. Now that bear hunting has obvious benefits, why not do it?

Every standing army soldier should have an iron helmet decorated with a bear’s head, and the upper jaw of the bear’s tusks should serve as a sun visor for the warrior.

The king has such a long-cherished wish, so the army has a large consumer market for bear products, and economic interests drive the Slavs with a large number of iron spears to rush into the forest.

Not only them, the old and new Russians are better at hunting.

The collective “winter hunting” of the Russians in the past has become history. What they see in front of them is the vast Valdai forest, and the dense forest that extends all the way to the Ural Mountains.

The vast world has not been developed. The so-called “hidden people” were found and forced to relocate because they were found in large numbers. After passing through Lake Valdai, they continued eastward. In theory, the humans that can be encountered are rare and separated Finnish tribes.

A large number of men entered the forest, and they also carried a large amount of dry food, intending to stay in the forest for a longer period of time.

The straight-line distance from Lake Valdai to Lake Inlmen, where Novgorod is located, is 90 kilometers, and it seems that you have to go through a dense forest to get there.

Due to the past explorations of “The Hidden Man”, there is a path in the forest that leads to the lake in the east in a more tortuous way.

Medved and his army, who entered the forest to perform forced migration, eventually conquered the settlers of Valdai Lake along this route.

He did not take full responsibility for relocating the local people, allowing them to continue their current life. After taking some tribute, he left to explain the new changes in the Western Great Lakes region.

Farmland has been opened up in the village of Valdai Lake, and the locals were forced to continue traveling because of the failure of the power competition in Inlmen Lake in the past.

Living on the shores of Lake Valdai is hardly a paradise, where almost all the beasts are to be guarded against, and there is nothing but a lot of usable wood.

They have no iron tools, and since there is no stone in the local area, their tools are all sharpened bones.

They made do with the attacking beasts, and surrendered wisely without a fight to Medved’s steel-armed warriors.

Now Valdai Lake Village has been recognized by King Rurik as the most eastern settlement in the kingdom, which also proves that the farther east has not been explored.

The leather of big animals and the tender skin of precious small animals are what hunters yearn for.

But the roads leading to the local area are not just the forest roads pioneered by the ancestors.

Most of the old Rus people immigrated to Lake Yinlmen with their families, and then built a large settlement on the banks of the Msti River east of Novgorod.

That was the already developed site of the old Pine Needle Manor, and Rurik’s own large area of official land was also there.

Sitting on thousands of hectares of fertile land, continuing to explore along Msti and upstream is still the specialty of the Ross people.

And so, the adventure happened.

The river gradually narrows, which is not a problem for long ships with shallow drafts.

They went retrograde all the way, and finally drifted to a lake.

The unnamed lake is still the channel of the Msti River to the east. It is better to enter the lake if you continue eastward rashly. The daring explorers turned their heads to the south and found that the lake is extremely slender and divided into several small lakes of different sizes. waterway connection.

Eventually, they saw the settlement and also met the guy standing on the raft fishing.

The explorers were surprised that those people were not afraid of themselves, so they rowed boldly, and simply started a Norse conversation with each other.

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So things have been found out, the upper reaches of the Msti River is in Lake Valdai, and the so-called Lake Valdai is not a small lake, it is an extremely large lake area, even no less than Lake Yinlmen, it is just a dense virgin forest concealed its true appearance.

Rurik’s mind was once entirely focused on the war against the West, and until now he is still concerned about the commercial expansion of the kingdom in Frankia.

After all, the leather, linen, ironware, and other commodities produced by Ross need to be dumped in a larger consumer market, and the commodities must be rushed to places with large populations. Exporting to Frank is currently the most cost-effective option.

The war abruptly took on the meaning of a commercial war, which made it unimportant to explore the Valdai Lake area eastward.

The returned warriors did hear the news—a lot of ferrets were found near the lake to the east.

The people in Mstisk were eager to move, and Arik was also moved.

Although Rurik didn’t have time to think about the exploration of the East, he couldn’t stop his brother from coming to find him with a smile.

After finishing his retreat, he finally squeezed out the most important chapters of “Rossaga”, and together with other mythological stories compiled by Ella, a Norse mythology system with a logical chain as rigorous as possible was officially created.

The rest is accurate proofreading, and then arrange for manual printing to achieve mass production.

He reappeared, and the people who had been waiting for a long time rushed forward.

Since the triumphal ceremony had already been completed in the capital, the expeditionary army did not need to spend any more time in Novgorod.

The overall performance of the triumphant division is a bit low-key, but the large number of spoils will not lie.

Among the many eye-catching people was Verdegen, the director of the state-owned textile factory. This old guy wanted to eat all the Flanders wool. I thought you led people to unload the ship after it landed, why haven’t you done anything yet?”

The old guy happily went to the temporary warehouse to move the goods, followed by some processing, and finally produced a large number of woolen sweaters.

What is a monopoly?

This is monopoly.

The entire Novgorod has only one textile factory, and the Fodgen family naturally enjoys privileges as owners loyal to the royal family.

After all, it was a state-run factory belonging to Rurik. It was expanded and changed its property rights on the basis of the old workshop in Verdegen.

The workers have a group of slaves, most of them are female workers who are not working in the field, and they also include Ragnar’s clansmen who are working.

The reason why Fodgen is so anxious is that in addition to his salary, he also has product dividends.

The cost of incoming materials from the factory is almost all from the royal family. He brings people to be responsible for processing, and the labor remuneration is also paid by the king in principle.

Fordegen is a professional manager. He doesn’t have to worry about business risks now. He has only one task, which is to expand production capacity as much as possible, so that he can get more production dividends, which is a promising big money.

Verdegen’s personal audience reminded Rurik of his promise to Ragnar.

“That’s right, it’s time for his people to go home.”

Rurik knew that Kagan and Carlotta still had something to do, and the three should pick a day to talk in detail.

The date was set, and there was still some time before that, two things to be resolved quickly.

On a peaceful night, there were only two brothers in a warm room, and Rurik was not yet ready to put on airs for his eldest brother.

But now Arik is constantly being ignored by his beloved wife and smart Asuraki, and he has grown more in awe of his younger brother.

But with some strong drinks, the awe disappeared, and Arik shouted his opinion loudly with a haha.

“You know that our most eastern settlement is at Lake Valdai. Now many people have found a direct waterway leading to it, and the eastern lakes have floated our fishing boats.”

“What else?” Rurik opened his eyes in surprise.

Seeing his brother’s reaction, Arik couldn’t help but patted his thighs, and continued to yell: “In addition to being a soldier, we old Ross people are also fishermen and even hunters. Isn’t the purpose of our annual north hunting to catch valuable ferrets? Now There are intelligence reports that Lake Valdai is infested with ferrets.”

“This is real?”

“It’s absolutely true! Brothers can’t lie. So I plan to organize brothers to go to the upper reaches of the river. If we can catch a large number of ferrets, wouldn’t we make a fortune? What do you think?”

Arik poked his head, his eyes looked like light bulbs.

The desire to get rich was written all over his face, and Rurik had no intention of objecting to it, he had to think about it while pinching his beard.

As a king, Rurik wouldn’t simply clamor to get rich like his brother.

It’s a good thing that my brother thinks so.

In the past, when there were not many silver coins in circulation in Sweden, the price of tanned ferret fur was as high as two silver coins.

The color of the ferret’s leather varies with the seasons, from brownish black in summer to pure white in winter.

People who don’t understand will think that these are two small animals, but a shrewd hunter knows that they are the same kind, and will focus on capturing a certain hue according to the season.

White mink is the most popular, but black is still wonderful.

The area of leather the size of a man’s thumbnail can contain 100,000 fine hairs. Mink fur is extremely smooth and warm. Making leather clothes with it is extremely noble and comfortable at the same time.

Mink fur has always been a hard currency in the Nordic world, and it is actually not easy to catch, but now Ross has more tools to make more and more advanced traps for hunting small animals.

So, will those Frankish nobles, big and small, want my mink fur?

“They must.”

Rurik judged that even the knight lord of the village would like a mink coat that feels extremely smooth.

Of course, the lords lack cash wealth, what they have is the food they plundered from the people in the territory.

Food is always what the Kingdom of Ross needs, and no one despises it.

Rurik paid more attention to the elder brother’s description, and he had already figured it out. He asked tentatively, “Are all the soldiers willing? They have just finished spring plowing, and they plan to take a break and continue to be hunters?”

“Who doesn’t want to have the chance to make a fortune. Besides, it’s also good to catch a group of brothers who can make their own clothes.”

“Very good indeed. How many people are you going to mobilize?”

“This…” the dizzy Arik thought carefully, “We won’t fight this year, right? At least you didn’t take the initiative to launch an attack?”

“Of course. I just want to get rich quietly this year.”

“Well, then, I’ll try to get my brothers going. I’ll take some young men from the City of Youth, if they want to. Maybe five hundred people will go to Valdai, and maybe we’ll spend the whole summer there. If in I found a strange village during the hunt, so I went straight to attack and catch some more slaves. Haha.”

“Alright.” Rurik nodded with a smile: “How many mink furs do you think you can bring back? I am very concerned about your gains.”

“Maybe a thousand, maybe more.”

“Do your best. Since you told me about this matter, I agree now. I… also put some conditions on you. ”

“But it doesn’t matter.”

“I will send my scribes to follow you.”

“Oh?” Arik suddenly had an idea: “Could it be possible to tax the hunted leather? You can’t do that.”

“Hey! What are you thinking! It is agreed that this year will be completely tax-free, and I will say the same thing. My scribes are all proficient in drawing and writing. Brother, we should be prepared for our exploration of the unknown world in the future. The team passed through those rivers and mountains , Try to draw down the terrain. When you meet those strange animals, you should also draw them down. Also, what happened every day, what the weather is like, and the problems that brothers have encountered, write them all down. This is convenient for summarizing after the exploration. ”

“This… is too troublesome. If something happens, everyone can come back and talk about it?”

Rurik shrugged: “I’m afraid that you may encounter too many things and forget a lot, so my clerk will record the things you encountered.”

“Okay. It’s not a problem to have one more person. I’m afraid that your clerk should not pee his pants in fear when everyone encounters a bear.”

“Is this possible? There really was a bear, and you shot it with crossbows?”

“Haha, that’s not going to happen. We’ll spear the bear in the gut, after all, only a bear’s skin that’s in good condition can be sold for a good price.”

The action plan has been approved by the king, and the king will also deploy manpower to participate in it.

The expedition to Lake Valdai was not known to be a trip to hunt wild animals to make a fortune. Rurik wanted to take the opportunity to conduct land exploration, even though this exploration was relatively primitive.

Because Rurik also has a long-cherished wish.

He knew little about the vast Eastern Europe, and he was no better than his own people.

Now the Kingdom of Rus has basically understood the direction of the Dnieper River and the Smolensk tribal alliance that occupies the main channel of the upper reaches of the river through commercial trade with the Pechenegs and Kievs.

Where is the very important Volga?

This great river is somewhere further east, and there must be a large number of tributaries converging into the main river.

Ross’s explorers don’t have to insist on finding the main river channel. All rivers that flow eastward as a whole have a higher probability of flowing into the Volga River.

Rurik did know the Caspian Sea, the final mouth of the Volga River.

What is certain is that the narrow and long riverside plain in the estuary area is now completely occupied by the Pecheneg Khanate.

It would be great if the allies can be reached by shipping, and the cost of trade between the two parties will be greatly reduced.

Thinking of this, Rurik made a new request to his elder brother.

“Explore as far east as you can. There is a very wide river in the east. It is wider than the Rhine. I call it the Volga. If you find it, we will establish a settlement at the place where we found it. We will go there To build a ship, go down the river.

“Where will it end up?” Arik asked casually.

“The territory of the Pechenegs.”

“Ah! A miracle.”

Rurik has a serious face and doesn’t mean to be joking at all. His younger brother is always a prophet, and he often gets revelations from Odin.

The “Volga River” is completely inexplicable to Arik, and he can find it by exploring eastward, and then find the channel to directly contact the Pechenegs?

It would be great if it works.

Aric has always been willing to be an explorer, hoping to make more contributions for this.

He wholeheartedly agreed to his brother’s additional proposition.

[End of this Chapter]