Rise of Rurik - Chapter 685

[Chapter 686]

The first snow finally stopped, and the whole world changed its appearance.

Winter in Eastern Europe has officially arrived. Residents in the Novgorod area who have been dormant for many days have come out of their mansions. They have no intention of admiring the silver light, and they just want to come out early to remove the snow from the roof.

The fragmented cities of the Duchy of Ross were all covered with thick snow after the snowfall process in a wide area, and the snow on the roofs was pushed down one after another, and it was called a busy event when it was about to be transported out of the settlements.

Braurik gave the order, and the residents of Novgorod acted spontaneously at the first time. A large number of cone-shaped snowdrifts appeared inside the wall, and some people were already building snowmen with great interest.

The winter here is shorter than that of the Nordic homeland of the Ross people, but the limited production capacity forces the local Slavs to dare not run around in the snowy winter.

When the snow was almost cleared, the residents all hibernated at home, doing de facto hibernation.

Are they going to lie dormant like this until the lakes and rivers thaw?

A true Varyag does not waste the opportunity of winter.

In Novosburg on the banks of the Neva River, young and strong men of the First Banner Squad, led by Arik, are plundering leather in the forest and snowy fields.

The hunter wears dark glasses and holds a crossbow in his hand.

Many people don’t even need to lay traps, just use a crossbow to shoot with alert eyes to spot prey in the distance.

Their skills in manipulating weapons became more and more sophisticated, and the silent arrows killed enough vigilant red squirrels.

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They are even hunting polar bears that suddenly come into view again, and the more ferocious steel-armed crossbow makes hunting bears a piece of cake.

The Ross Principality’s “Northern Hunting” operation has already started. This time they do not have an expert organization, but because of the hunting logistics bases such as Fort Eron, Fort Fisk, Murmansk, and Fort New Rose, the hunting operation has become even crazier .

Especially in Murmansk, Spyot took his guys and started sledging on the glaciers in order to locate this substantial seasonal settlement early on to plunder resources.

Every winter, any hunter who dares to brave the ice and snow and bring enough logistics supplies will definitely get a large amount of leather wealth.

Not only leather, if you get a lot of animal fat, you can also make a fortune.

Because the territory of the Principality of Ross is very scattered, it is only connected together in name, but in fact all the settlements are far away from each other, separated by vast sea areas and forests.

Facing a huge land with a very small population, any hunter who is willing to hunt can make a fortune, and Rose is still opening up new fields to obtain wealth under the leadership of her hero, the Duke.

The “hibernation” of the Slavs is a kind of helplessness. How can they find a job in the snowy world other than hunting in the distance? They are also willing to work.

Rurik felt that he had taught his wives and concubines enough geographical knowledge, and they must have a greater understanding of the world they lived in. After their horizons were broadened, they would seek more knowledge.

They must learn new skills!

Because none of them are pampered and do not eat fireworks, they are all doers.

On a clear and cold morning, the girls who had already felt it gathered together.

Rurik was dressed like a little polar bear, and so were their outfits.

The closed wooden windows were propped up, and Rurik let the cold wind into the room, which cheered everyone up.

“Can you guess my reason for asking you to gather now?” Rurik asked intentionally.

All the girls stared at Svetlana, and she spoke on behalf of everyone: “Continue to calculate the data on those wooden boards? Or, let’s go to the distant farm to survey and map the land on the snow.”

“So, do you dare?”

Rurik spoke with a smile, and his joking attitude was tantamount to denying Lanna’s guess.

“Surveying and mapping is of course necessary.” He continued, “Doing this on a snowy day is a kind of courting death. This is a job that requires a lot of physical labor. If you are exhausted, you are bound to suffer a serious illness. That is too dangerous.”

“So it’s about the bark? What are you finally going to do? It’s called…” Lanna squeezed her chin. “Is it called a cork board?”

She is indeed smart. Although she has been busy with the calculation of data, she is really thoughtful and is still staring at a large pile of birch bark that her elder brother Medved and his brothers cut and stripped.

Rurik only mentioned a few times that he was going to make paper, just because the matter of measuring the acres was above all else, and Lanna never wanted to keep staring at it.

He quickly clapped his hands, “That’s it. Lanna, you are very smart, you actually connected the bark and the cork board, shouldn’t they be things that are not related to each other?”

“How could there be no contact?” Svetlana smiled and said, “I found out that when you have a new resolution, you will implement some new work in advance. I know birch bark, the peeled bark can be dipped in ink Write the words. It’s soft, but it’s also brittle.”

Listen, Rurik’s eyes widened in surprise: “Oh? You actually thought of this.”

“Have I… guessed it right?”

“Yes! You guessed right, but not all. Basically you guessed right.”

After all, she is the main wife, and Svetarana is the head of the female family.

She is indeed a smart woman, but this epiphany about bark comes from her life in this land. She is a native of White Tree Manor, and unlike the ten sisters who are maids, she can do nothing. He could run around in the woods when he was young, and he happened to have a unique understanding of birch bark.

But her cognition stops here. Adults don’t want bark if they want wood. Birch has no peculiar smell of fir or pine, and the juice is slightly sweet, so Svetlana was willing to lick the fresh peeled bark when she was young. , after all, it is difficult for people in this era to access sweet things at low cost.

The fresh bark can be spread out into a flat surface, and its inner wall is yellow-white, but after dehydration and drying, it starts to turn yellow and become very brittle.

She didn’t know what her man meant by “cork board”. Based on her understanding of Rurik, she estimated that it was the further processing of bark.

After all, the Principality of Ross has done too many similar things, and she is no longer uncommon.

Rurik began to point out the matter: “She is quite right. We are going to make a writing material that is as soft as cloth. It is taken from a tree that is soft as cloth. I call it a cork board. Its main material is bark, according to me. It seems that the best bark to use is birch bark. The time is finally ripe! The bark I ordered to be peeled off has been stored for a while, and they should all be dehydrated and dry. It is time to further process them.”

The girls held their heads high, especially the ten maids. They were experts in making soap and they were the ones who could best understand Rurik’s description.

And girls like Nolen and Carlota, they just don’t know much about it.

And then the queen Mary with her big belly, she was listening to the scriptures throughout the whole scene.

Breaking an object into small things, and then processing it into a new whole, this becomes a brand new thing!

“It’s like smashing the ore and throwing it into the furnace, and finally pouring the hot thing into the mold to make a shovel for digging. It’s like smashing crystal river sand or a whole crystal into powder, throwing it into the furnace and being Burned into a viscous hot thing, blown into a transparent bottle, the crystal plate you eat with. If you don’t understand enough, think of the bread and cakes you eat! Mix it with water to form a ball, and after baking, it will be your delicious meal. Wheat is still wheat, but it has completely changed its form…”

Rurik made a few enumerations, and the wise wives and concubines already understood.

Although Svetlana has not been personally educated by Rurik about the composition of life, she has no clear understanding of the fact that animals and plants are composed of tiny cells, but she already understands what Rurik wants to do.

The bark will be crushed into powder, after which a reshaping of the form is completed.

Although they don’t know the specific principles, they have tried their best to figure out the shape and structure of the so-called cloth-like “cork board”.

Rurik felt that they had already reached a theoretical consensus with him, and it would not be strange after the birth of paper.

He began to describe the production process of paper from beginning to end in public. Although it was the first time for him to do it manually, fortunately there was no problem in theory.

The “instructions” for papermaking are in Rurik’s mind, and he can do it himself with his wives and concubines. Even if there may be some detours, the papermaking operation with writing as the ultimate goal will definitely produce a good result.

The action has begun!

The doors of the warehouse buildings were opened, and the aroma of the birch trees came in!

There is actually a strange sweet taste in the air, and there is also a faint sour smell.

It was the peeled bark of 500 birch trees, and the house was piled up very full, and there was no need to consider the issue of keeping warm. The temperature in this house was always below freezing point, which happened to have a certain degree of freeze-drying effect , the bark is dehydrated and dried.

They were indeed dry, and Rurik squatted down to inspect the bark by the light from the open wooden door.

They’re dry, not to mention papery to the touch.

“That’s right, come on girls, take some of the bark to the outdoors, let’s boil it for three days and three nights, just like cooking flax to whiten the bark!”

After giving an order, his wife and concubine started to work.

On the other hand, Medved was ordered to rush a group of young and powerful men to work for Rurik.

Lord Rurik is indeed fair and just!

The adults promised to give each laborer a reward of silver coins, and he did manage one meal a day during the labor period. If you get such a good thing, you will earn it.

The pottery urn used to boil flax stood outdoors, and the clean snow that was available in the pitcher was thrown into it, and flames began to emerge from under the urn, and the whole urn began to be heated.

As many as four large pottery urns were boiling water, and the half-person-high urn finally began to boil after a long period of time.

At the same time, Rurik had already dragged a small sled with his wife and concubine, and piled a batch of dry bark on the snow beside the urn.

“My lord. Look, all the urns are boiling. You…you want to boil the bark right now.” Medved was puzzled, he reported the truth, and wanted to see what kind of feat the lord could do.

“Okay, let the brothers throw the bark in. Be careful, don’t let the flames hurt the flesh.”

“Good!”

The snow beside the urn has long been melted by the heat of the flames, exposing the blackened land below.

The bark was thrown like a pottery urn by a strong man and began to be boiled for three days and three nights.

“Is it really going to be cooked for three days?” Medved asked very puzzled to Rurik who was watching.

“certainly.”

“Is it really necessary? Even if it is boiled meat, any meat that has been boiled for three days will become dregs. These urns are boiled flax stalks and stripped twine, and we can cook them for half a day at most…”

“Are you worried that we will boil the bark into powder?” Rurik asked intentionally.

Medved looked skeptical but didn’t dare to question it bluntly, so he could only side drum: “My lord, I’m just worried that what we’ve done will ruin your big event.”

“It doesn’t matter. My purpose is to boil the bark into dregs. If you can accomplish this, I will pay you more. Don’t worry, boil it for me. In my opinion, the bark can’t be boiled into powder.”

“what?”

“Listen to my order carefully!” Rurik said in a more serious voice, “I want these four pottery urns to be heated by the fire for three days. Every other day, you can use a ladle to clean up the dirty water inside, and then Put in fresh snow. On the fourth day, I will stand here myself and order you to put out the fire.”

“Obey, I will strictly implement my decision.”

Rurik is well aware of one of the steps in papermaking, which is to boil out non-fibrous raw materials through long-term boiling.

After all, the technology of papermaking comes from the by-products of the silk reeling process in the silk textile industry, so the word “paper” is directly related to “silk”.

Of course, plant fibers can also do the same thing. The hemp stalks of flax and ramie have all kinds of impurities, and what people need is only its fibers and regular weaving.

When it comes to the structure of matter, the difference between cloth and paper probably lies in the arrangement of the cellulose. Cloth is extremely regular, while paper is completely reversed.

When the flax stalk is boiled, the pigment, colloid, fat and other impurities in it can be boiled out and dissolved into turbid water.

The flax after this processing can be stripped into silk threads for textile processing, and can be woven into plain white linen.

And white linen cloth is indeed made by every farm in Novgorod, but everyone has a love for beauty. When a farm took the lead in adopting the technology of mixing dyed linen, people turned to weaving striped calico one after another.

There are still white cloths, and Rurik quickly ordered some in Novgorod.

The local Slavic women are ingenious, and almost every household has a loom, but the too old tool is manipulated by sitting, and the weaving speed is too low.

The local people don’t want to weave too much. First, the output of flax is limited. Second, the peasant women don’t bother to make new cloth when they have enough cloth for their own use. The most energy of the whole family is devoted to spring plowing and autumn harvest.

Just like buying idle female labor in Roseburg’s hometown in exchange for the cloth they spun, paying real money, Rurik did the same in Novgorod.

He ordered a special cloth, or gauze at all.

Each hired woman has to weave a piece of gauze with a stika in each length and width, and the threads should only be separated by the width of a silk thread.

They are all experts in weaving, and their weaving and dyeing skills are much better than those of Ross women.

While the pottery urn over there boiled the bark frantically, the gauze requested by Rurik was quickly completed under the great enthusiasm of the women.

After all, it is gauze, and it doesn’t need to be woven airtight, so it doesn’t take a lot of time.

The water in the pottery urn is still boiling, and Rurik has hired a local carpenter to make enough wooden frames.

The wooden frame is spliced with mortise and tenon structure, and the size of the inner frame is also very particular, that is, the length is 0.4stika, and the width is 0.3stika. The overall size is for the production of A3 paper size paper.

The fresh gauze is cut, and the gauze is tightly bound by the small wooden frame of Wai Guo.

The sieves were thus completed, and as many as fifty sets were made, for which Rurik paid as much as half a pound in silver.

Rurik felt that such a sacrifice was worth it, the Ottos felt that their son was a waste, and what old Rigus and his family members saw was the generosity of Prince Ross.

In fact, Rurik has no other way. After processing the bark, pure fibers will be left. The fibers will be smashed and ground into fine powder, and finally attached to the sieve to be pasted with a dense layer.

This layer of fiber was pressed by the wooden board to squeeze out most of the water, and the entire screen was placed in a dark room with a temperature above freezing to dry in the shade. Rurik has already started the follow-up work according to his own ideas…

[End of this Chapter]