Rise of Rurik - Chapter 1040

[Chapter 1040 The Second Cavalry]

With the autumn harvest complete, Ross resumed classes at his school in Novgorod.

The school only teaches cultural knowledge to enrolled students for two school years, and one school year only refers to the period after spring plowing and before autumn harvest.

Because all children, even if they are only five years old, are small laborers in the family.

A small labor force suspending production to study is a good thing for everyone in the long run, but it is a short-term trouble for the child’s family.

Therefore, all the students enrolled are entitled to free meals, and the expenses are borne by the king.

Of course, these children don’t just learn and do nothing.

They only learn knowledge in the morning, but in the afternoon they have to work voluntarily, and exchange the fruits of their labor for the food they eat.

Child labor is very common in this era, or anyone who cannot work will be disgusted by fellow villagers or even close relatives.

Boys often arrange physical work, such as learning the orthodox “Viking-style directional lodging logging technique” with an ax and a double saw, or cracking flax fibers to make fine hemp rope, and peeling off bark with a knife and small hand ax , and then make the trunk into a large number of vertical small wooden sticks for arrow shafts.

Those children who showed the potential of great strength at a young age were sent directly to the blacksmith shop in the city as apprentices, and such children were shaped in the future-a blacksmith who was popular among the people.

Girls are mostly arranged to work as apprentices in state-owned paper workshops and garment factories, and even wear cloth masks soaked in water to participate in the work of tanning leather in a smelly environment.

They are mainly descendants of the Old Rus, followed by the descendants of the Vikings of the New Rus, and the third are Slavic children from White Tree Manor.

The education that Rurik currently promotes can only benefit its own core population. As for other Slavic farms, except for the sons of boyar nobles who are recruited, the rest of the children can almost only repeat the traditional life of their ancestors for thousands of years.

As a result, a noble ethnic group has been expanding from the very beginning. They can come from multiple tribes, even from the Slavs. Now they all call themselves “Russians”.

Throughout the War of 840, cavalry in the kingdom’s standing army were always granted the privilege of independent action.

Rurik did not give them a very clear task, but after setting a general direction, the commander fought freely, and the cavalry became a surprise soldier.

The standing cavalry also suffered a lot of losses, but the parents of the deceased had already obtained a large amount of wealth and glory that the sacrificed son had gained for the family.

At the same time, a vacancy for cavalry appeared. The younger brother of the deceased could inherit his elder brother’s position in the army, or the parents of the deceased could nominate a relative to replace them if there was no suitable son to replace them.

The First Cavalry was revived quickly, after all there were a lot of cubs who wanted to become noble cavalry.

Is it necessary to ignore the long-cherished wish of the screaming cubs?

Do not!

Rose’s cavalry must be expanded to meet the needs of the kingdom’s activities in the eastern forests and grasslands.

The busiest period in Novgorod is temporarily over. Some warriors explored eastward, and some ruthless people went south to build new settlements.

The area around Yinermen Lake has entered the period of “mass production for all”, but the farmers follow the pattern of sunrise and sunset. Even though the daylight hours are very long now, their overall life rhythm is still extremely slow.

They have a very huge potential that needs to be tapped urgently, and Rurik is not in a hurry to exploit it, because the current economic chain of the kingdom does not require the whole people to produce all kinds of materials.

In the past, local Slavic farmers were trapped in extremely backward agriculture, struggling with hunger and food, and at the same time had to pay tribute to Rus the Conqueror.

Now everything is getting better, and the warehouses of every household are finally starting to have surplus food.

Farmers finally have the qualifications to accumulate wealth, and according to the king’s newly reclaimed land tax exemption for the next year and three years, after a little calculation, a piece of newly reclaimed farmland has a total of five years of tax exemption policy.

Even if taxes start to be collected in the future, it is the scribes of the kingdom who will determine the grade of the field after the land is dug, and the grain will be collected in a corresponding proportion according to the grade.

How to calculate? As long as a peasant family chooses to cultivate wasteland, it will make more and more money in the long run.

Very smart people noticed a loophole in the policy – growing vegetables is not taxed.

Therefore, before the king adjusts the tax policy, it is profitable to have a variety of dishes.

All children who have reached the age of twelve are considered adults, and the Slavs are no exception.

They have already begun to recruit daughter-in-laws for their adult sons, and families with daughters are also trying to marry off their adult daughters as soon as possible.

Naturally, there is another kind of problem here. The ordinary people in those surrendered farms hope that their daughters can marry a boy with the blood of Old Ross.

In recent days, farmers have rowed boats to Mstisk and Novgorod to sell their daughters to the locals.

Those pretty girls were, of course, snatched up and became the daughter-in-law of the Old Russ, and a handsome gift was given to the girls’ parents.

This is a normal intermarriage, and Rurik and everyone else are very clear about the purpose of the marriage of those farmers.

Rurik likes this situation very much. As long as the people spontaneously entangle the relationship due to marriage, it will be beneficial to his rule after all.

Rurik joined the team on the waterway that sent Carlotta and Kagan to the south, and also organized people in the city to complete all the editing and proofreading of the current content of “Rossaga”.

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In principle, it can be printed for mass production and then bound into books for sale.

A small trouble is that although Novgorod can print, there are too few wooden movable types in reserve.

This is not the capital city, only New Roseburg has enough equipment for large-scale printing mass production.

Besides, wooden movable type is only an expedient measure, and the most cost-effective option that can be completed under the existing conditions is to use lead movable type.

Where is the most lead?

Naturally, it is New Roseburg and Roseburg’s hometown in the north.

You can try printing some chapters of “Rose Saga” in Novgorod to see the effect. When it comes to mass production, it still needs to be implemented in Novorosburg.

Rurik thought that he had an important agreement with the high priest Rumia. Looking at the current time, he probably couldn’t return before the summer solstice. At least he had to arrive in the capital with all the manuscripts and a large amount of paper in July. .

Because the capital city of New Roseburg is stuck in a unique geographical location, the east is the continent and the west is the ocean, especially the Baltic Sea in the west. People who believe in Odin are everywhere along the coast. They can understand it after getting the “Rossaga”. The books are the only “literary works” they can get. Various stories of gods and demons enrich ordinary life and greatly strengthen their belief in Odin.

Rurik naturally also mixed in private goods, always emphasizing that the Ross royal family did receive a gift from Odin.

Other Vikings, such as the residents of Sweden and Denmark, must not be able to understand the Latinized Norse language, so Rurik thought of this and temporarily arranged a task for Erla, that is, to organize another version written by the traditional runic script. written books.

Her cheeks were puffed up like a frog, but so what?

It can only be translated honestly.

And another embarrassing problem is that Novgorod did not prepare wooden movable type for runes, so it immediately began to carve mirror-faced inscriptions of letters. Because runes are essentially knives carved on wooden boards, all letters are just various The combination of straight lines is much easier to handle than the written Latin alphabet.

This reason made Rurik have to postpone returning to the capital, but it did not mean that he would be idle for the next time.

Because what he promised to the battle hero Brody, now is the opportunity to implement it.

First Cavalry Captain “Bald” Fisk led some cavalry south to assist Carlotta in building Lukiholm, and there are still a group of cavalry resting in the rear.

All the standing cavalry have experienced brutal warfare, and they all have sufficient combat experience. In principle, each of them can be used as a junior officer.

The selection of the Second Cavalry was held outside the city of Novgorod, and all boys who had received a full two years of education in school and were twelve years old were eligible to sign up.

This time Rurik intends to recruit another 300 people, they will join the Second Cavalry, and the captain will appoint the meritorious Brody.

Originally, adding fresh blood to the standing army was in Rurik’s plan.

The standing army will no longer set up new infantry units. The current infantry unit, the so-called bear-headed berserkers, will not be expanded after the number of personnel is reduced, but there will be new recruits who will take over the places of the dead.

The Second Cavalry is the only expansion of the army. Joining it means that you can eat your salary. Of course, you will face tough battles in the future. As the saying goes, those who are afraid of death are cowards, and the descendants of Old Ross are brave and fearless.

It sounds good that “a real warrior can charge with an iron horse”, but in fact, joining the cavalry has the opportunity to grab the most spoils, and the elder brother dies in battle and the younger brother takes over, and the father dies in the son. Get benefits.

Of course the king doesn’t feed Kong Xiang’s waste materials.

Now that the young cubs have received cultural knowledge, they also learned basic fighting skills during their school days.

Selecting outstanding people through “competition” used to be the method used by old Ross to select chiefs. That kind of competition is that warriors compete with each other, and it is not surprising that people are killed in competitions.

The written test “competition” is an examination in a general sense, which determines which children can learn deeper cultural knowledge, and then determines which children can be employed as clerks and receive a salary all the time.

Martial arts competition is the most understandable “competition” for the old Ross people. Naturally, children will not fight with wooden swords and shields, and their competitions are much more harmonious.

The first priority of cavalry is not to be afraid of horses, and the second priority is understanding.

They hadn’t been trained to ride horses yet, but Rurik found a “trainer horse” that he thought was extremely docile.

In this way, the horse can understand the slogan, and it will perform sports such as sprinting, sudden stop, and sharp turn under the command of the real army. As long as the child holds the rein tightly and rides firmly on the saddle without being thrown out, it is qualified.

On the day of the “competition”, thousands of people came to watch the big show outside the city.

Except for Novgorod and Mstisk, boyars from several farms heard the news and brought their other cubs to try their luck.

It is well known that the king has a contemptuous attitude towards ordinary farms, but the king will not show contempt or discrimination publicly.

In this way, the king actually tacitly agreed that all brave people can participate in the “competition”, so the second, third and even fourth sons of the family will all have the opportunity to find a good job in the second cavalry team.

Manor boyars all sent their children to school, firstly to show their loyalty to the king, and secondly for the benefit of the family.

It was no luck for them to become boyars. Their family had long enjoyed power in the farm, largely because the family paid more attention to wisdom than others.

Even if it’s a plunder or speculation, the more property they have in the farm, the more they have the right to speak, and now they have to go to Ross to find this huge backer.

The boyars brought their sons to “compete”, which of course pleased Rurik who was watching.

For example, Calf Manor and Fisherman Manor, which are loyal to allegiance, are actually due to the particularity of their geographical location (very close to Novgorod) and they are completely in line with the Ross-White Tree coalition and form a larger coalition. This is already The past ten years ago.

Still because of the geographical proximity, the two farms provide agricultural products to Novgorod nearby, and they are completely economically bound, and the small life is getting better and better.

Ten years later, the youngest son of Boyar’s family has grown up, and Boyar has multiple daughters and sons in the two manors.

The population of the two manors was small. After the good times came, every family was desperately trying to give birth. It was not unusual for a family to have five or six children, and the probability of living to the age of twelve was much higher.

Boyartoli and Usky are also getting old, they are starting to have large areas of gray hair, and the wrinkles on their faces are not obvious.

Wearing beautiful hats, the two took their youngest son and bowed deeply to Rurik, who supervised the competition.

“Your Majesty, this is my youngest son,” Tori said.

“These are my third and fourth sons. They have grown up enough to serve the king.” Uski said quickly.

Rurik glanced lightly at the corner of his mouth: “Needless to say, I understand what you have come here. You are great loyal ministers, and your youngest son can become a cavalryman. However, they have to go through the same trials as everyone else. After all On the battlefield, the enemy doesn’t care whether you are noble or not.”

The two boyars looked at each other, and hurriedly recommended their sons, claiming that the boys were brave enough.

“Brave? Maybe. Pass the riding test first. Be careful, you may die if you fall suddenly.”

Rurik wasn’t kidding, even though the test site he had chosen had soft grass and had been trampled by horses.

In this way, the rotten ground has a natural buffer, but if the impact is too strong, the leg will be broken, and if the head is hit, it may die suddenly.

This kind of “competition” may cause death, so any child participating in it must swear to accept all unknown fates, which is equivalent to signing a life and death certificate.

The parents of the children tried to wrap them as tightly as possible. It was obviously the warmest period, and each of the children actually put on winter clothes.

Such a move is wise, after all, even a docile horse can easily throw the rider off when switching between acceleration and sudden stop and deceleration.

At the beginning, some riders fell off their horses, rolled on the muddy ground, struggled to get up and cried in pain, and some stood up stubbornly.

No one died, but the horse fell from the horse with all internal injuries, and the thick clothes wrapped around the body were also covered with mud.

They are all losers, and whoever rides to the finish will move on to the next stage.

It’s a pity that Usky and Tori’s youngest sons all fell into the mud.

“This is fate. They lack the understanding of riding horses. Maybe they will learn how to ride horses after more training. It’s just that I need elites now. I want to ensure that the most elite fighters can fight cruel battles.”

Rurik’s words were very tactful, and the two had no reason to complain, so they had to bring their dirty young son to pay tribute to the king.

More than 400 people passed the selection on horseback, and such a unique “competition” suddenly became the talk of the whole city of Novgorod.

The children who pass the competition will enjoy a big meal, and they will have an archery competition and a logging competition the next day.

For archery, select the person with the best archery skills, and the four hundred and fifty will enter the three hundred and fifty.

For logging, select the strongest and good at chopping, and three hundred and fifty will enter three hundred.

After some competition, no one can say that it is unfair.

It is precisely the king who gave the participants the greatest fairness. Even if the parents of the participants are blond boys from the old Ross tribe, they must compete with other children and stand out with their excellent strength.

In this way, three hundred good seedlings worth cultivating were selected. They were very young, many of them were just twelve years old, and they were quickly assigned to their own mounts, which were also young horses that were only two to three years old.

Both the rider and the mount are very young and have enough time to develop a relationship with each other.

In the end, Rurik, wearing a golden crown on his head and riding a war horse, gave a grand lecture to these new cavalrymen.

If he wants to make a show, he holds the flagpole in his hand, and the Ross flag flutters in the wind.

Brody stood by with a solemn expression on his horse, keeping an eye on the children in front of him from the corner of his eyes.

For the time being, they are simply arranged in a matrix without riding a horse. Everyone is dressed in a uniform, and their immature cheeks are both green and wild.

After Kang’s speech, Rurik raised the banner with his right hand and turned his horse’s head to face Brody.

“This flag is handed over to you! The second cavalry team is now established, and you are the captain of the cavalry! Brody, I don’t have much time for you. You must train this group of children in the shortest possible time, at least to ensure that they can ride horses , followed by training in riding and shooting, thrusting and chopping.”

“Obey!” Brody took the flag, so that the king had fully fulfilled his promise. The moment he took the flag, he was so excited that he almost cried.

[End of this Chapter]