Rise of Rurik - Chapter 770

[Chapter 771 Rurik’s Summer of Novgorod]

The Duchy of Ross ushered in the autumn of 836, and all the labor force and even children were involved in the intense work of harvesting.

Novorosberg, Novgorod, Mstiysk, Youth City, Novostara, and even all the Slavic farms around Lake Ilmen are full of people harvesting crops, and everywhere is full of harvest. joy.

Drill sowing has once again proved that it is smarter than the previous model of widely sowing seeds. Oats, wheat and even rye, the ears of wheat grow like military columns and stand in line, and harvesting wheat becomes easier.

The long-handled scythe is manipulated by a strong man, and the wheat ears and wheat stalks are cut and pushed aside to form a raised “wheat mound”.

Women and children followed closely, and bundled up the straw containing ears of wheat and stood it on the field, and then pulled it with a trolley to the nearest shared threshing ground, and rammed it with a wooden flail for shelling.

The Slavs harvested in the most traditional way, without major technological innovations to speed things up.

On the other hand, Ross and other Viking immigrants from all walks of life have to learn how to harvest from these local farmers.

At this most critical moment, Rurik was most worried about the disaster that an untimely autumn rain would bring about a reduction in grain production, and he did not want the rain to happen during the threshing period.

What he can do is to mobilize the labor force as much as possible, and do it himself, even waving the flail and sweating profusely in the threshing floor shirtless.

This is a show, not a show.

As a prince, he is essentially the largest landowner in the principality, seizing a lot of fertile land along the lake, and because of his superior concept, his fields have the highest yield per mu.

Rurik can’t figure out the machinery to speed up harvesting, but he knows the basic principles of increasing wheat production better than anyone else.

It was a wooden box mounted on a wheelbarrow, filled with foul-smelling fermented excrement diluted with water.

There is a wooden conduit at the lower end of the wooden box, so that the turbid liquid flows directly to the rhizomes of the wheat, so as to complete the precise fertilization of the wheat arranged in strips.

If the prince hadn’t paid a sum of money, the mercenaries would not be willing to do such a meaningless job that would make them feel ashamed.

This is very primitive farmyard manure, and it is another method that Rurik thought of besides digging the silt of Lake Ilmen. In terms of effect, the “poo-poo tactic” is better.

Because he has no shortage of “suppliers”, and the huge school is a perfect source.

If the boy’s urine is a real yang thing, it can make the wheat grow crazily and produce high yields.

In order to cope with the fertilization of a large amount of farmland, the excrement and urine must be piled up in one place to form a huge cesspit. The excrement is fermenting. First, it can make the crops absorb nitrogen fertilizer smoothly. It’s kind of weird on the dirt.

It is soil nitrate, Rurik noticed this fact!

Soil nitrate is just one of the by-products of manure fermentation operations, and its military value is only known to Rurik, but in reality, what the Principality needs most is fertilizer. There is no quantitative demand for this kind of soil nitrate. Fertilizer can improve the fertility of farmland.

The actual results are right in front of us, but the wheat fields that have been sown with this kind of primary farmyard manure have high yields visible to the naked eye, and the increase in yield seems to have reached 20%.

This effect is already strong enough, because while many Slavic people are envious, another rumor in favor of Rurik is also spreading-the prince has received the help of the gods, and his wheat field is incredibly productive.

Over the past summer, wood movable type continued to emerge very quietly in response to the teaching needs of the fledgling schools.

According to the requirements, local carpenters in Novgorod collected some oak leftovers for shipbuilding, processed them into small squares with the same length, width and height, and carved mirror-like inscriptions on them.

The text is divided into two alphabets, the Roman alphabet and the traditional Nordic runes.

In fact, compared to carving Latin letters with a certain degree of radian, the horizontal and vertical letters of runes are most suitable for the carving ability of current woodworkers.

Carpenters learn at work, and they are also happy to complete the tasks proposed by the prince, because the prince is willing to pay a high price for this job, and the precision work deserves more wheat rewards.

Each letter has a corresponding mass of wooden type, and some pure punctuation.

As for the printing press, when Rurik tinkered with the lever manual press for glassware in his hometown of Roseburg, the idea of making a printing press was already brewing in Rurik.

The wooden lever system, metal pins, and leather cushions are assembled to form the core components of the printing machine, and then placed on the wooden platform, a manual pressure printing machine is completed.

Its structure is simple, although there were some problems during the preliminary printing experiment, they were all reflected in the unevenness of the wooden pressure plate, and the completion of all wooden movable type blocks, and the overall tolerance was too large.

The above are all small problems in the final analysis, and the solution is very simple, which is to use sandpaper (rough paper coated with pine glue and a layer of fine sand) for overall grinding.

In this way, the hired women workers engaged in papermaking have a new job-printing.

The principality’s first state-run printing workshop also came into being in an extremely low-key atmosphere.

Rurik didn’t intend to publicize it with much fanfare, and only a few people thought this set of machinery was advanced at the beginning.

Those who can share the common happiness with Rurik are his wives and concubines who compile textbooks and sort out data information together, and need a lot of time for paper and pen work!

With the printing press, copying became redundant.

Who will be in charge of the work of the printing workshop, Rurik did not hesitate to pull his wife and concubine Ella Hestoria over.

Strictly speaking, this girl has been separated from her mother clan. She was given the surname “History”. The value of her existence in the Principality is a series of information about the Principality. She is a librarian.

She is a quiet girl, unlike her sister Carlotta’s bravery.

Carlotta is also happy to take this quiet job.

The message boards organized by the late High Priest of the Principality of Ross, Vilia, were all copied into paper documents, which have two types of rune letters and Roman letters.

It was this summer that the “History” of the Rus people was published immediately. The rune version printed the original Norse documents, and the Roman alphabet version printed the three versions of the Norse, Slavic, and Latin documents.

All four editions were in print, and the mass-produced paper became immediately available.

People who lacked entertainment immediately had reading materials at hand. The history of the Ross tribe was printed on thin paper, and some of the stories immediately aroused people’s memories.

Now Rurik didn’t have to worry about paper sales at all. The families from Rose’s headquarters were willing to buy it, and put this document at home to educate the cubs about the glory of their ancestors.

Finally, the Roman alphabet version of the document flowed into the school, and it became the first mass-produced printed textbook.

Also relying on this teaching material, children’s learning efficiency for Norse, Slavic and Latin has been significantly improved!

Relying on the printed “History” to learn about Ross’s past, glorious war victories, further consolidating the sanctity of the Rurik family, and even becoming the key to creating a “unified Ross nation”, also strengthened language learning.

A print edition of Mathematics is also available towards the end of the summer, full of content teaching children simple arithmetic.

As the wheat harvest approached, the school held its first exam since its establishment under the auspices of Rurik.

The so-called exam, what Rurik advertised to the outside world was the word “competition” in the Norse language.

This suddenly attracted the attention of all the Viking immigrants. Many people rumored that the prince wanted to let the children fight and choose the best ones from them, and they would be incorporated into the flag team to become fighters.

The exam is of course comprehensive. The Principality is standing in this period of great historical change, especially the external conflicts are quite fierce, and the rapidly expanding territory will inevitably breed internal conflicts.

The principality needs to develop its military equipment, mobilize all combat power, and carry out unified ideological education, such as worshiping the seven gods and respecting the Ross flag as a sacred object.

It was a three-day exam.

The first day is a literary test. The so-called uniformly printed test papers are in front of you. The first test of “History” is ten questions written in Latin to test whether the children understand the names of the past wars in the Principality of Ross. , Do you understand the noble status of Prince Rurik?

The second game is to simply write three sentences in Norse, Slavic and Latin on a piece of paper at the same time. If the child has the ability to write more, he will be rewarded with wheat and honey.

The third test was really “Mathematics”. Compared with the others, this subject was the only one that paid the most attention to rigor, and it was also a highlight of Rurik’s teaching work.

The exam tests children’s numeracy skills, especially their mastery of multiplication tables.

In the first semester of general education, Rurik only needs the children to master the basic mental arithmetic ability, and next year, the ability to calculate numbers will be strengthened.

The second and third days were all physical fitness and military tests.

The children run in different age groups. The so-called running around the alleys under the city of Novgorod, the top ten of each age group will have a real reward of wheat.

This is really a unique sport. The children who have been trained in physical fitness every day have completed this assessment, and the best among them immediately received rewards at the finish line.

The much-anticipated one-on-one jousting did not take place, but the children’s parade on the threshing floor drew the attention of thousands of people.

They are only eight-year-old children, if they are given another ten years, wouldn’t those standing here be all brave warriors?

Look at them, the queue is walking neatly, although their faces are immature, their bravery is already showing.

There are currently three types of real martial arts assessments: chopping wood with an axe, shooting a target with a bow, and shooting a target with a crossbow.

The three-day exam was like a sports meeting, and those who achieved outstanding results were rewarded in kind such as food.

People who lacked fun gathered around to watch, and even people from distant Slavic farms gathered in Novgorod after hearing the news.

More than 10,000 people flooded into the city in an instant, and the total population suddenly reached 20,000!

In this way, the city market has become more lively, and the exam has created a wave of “sports games economy”.

This happened on the eve of the autumn harvest, and the Novgorod bazaar made a surprise sale of iron tools that would help the harvest. The Blacksmiths Alliance and Prince Rurik also took the opportunity to make a fortune.

The people who went to the city to watch the theater saw the unique demeanor of the two thousand children trained by the prince. The children were all about the same age, both men and women were strong and strong, and there was a clear difference in complexion from their own cubs.

The children wore uniform clothes, and it was difficult to tell the gender if the girls who were not wives had longer tunics that looked like skirts.

They were also cleaner and tidier. Everyone in the queue was chanting, and the entire queue changed its formation accordingly. Even their kicking and arm movements were exactly the same!

Children who have undergone a spring and summer training immediately burst into combat effectiveness in the autumn harvest work. Although they are young, their physical abilities far exceed the expectations of their biological parents.

The global autumn harvest work was successfully concluded, followed by Rurik’s taxation work.

836 is a good year that everyone can feel. On the one hand, the rain this year is normal. Although there is a short period of haze during the autumn harvest, there is no rainfall at all. Even when people transport the wheat back to the granary, the weather is still beautiful.

In mid-September, all the preparatory work was completed, and the tax work was first carried out in Novorosburg, Novgorod, Mstiysk and Youth City.

Almost all the Viking immigrants lived in these areas, and the eleventh tax collected from everyone would not encounter conflicts.

This tax rate is high, but the Viking immigrants from all walks of life fished and hunted everywhere during the slack period, and there was almost no tax in this regard.

Viking families have more ways to open source and have the ability to get more wealth.

And the large group of Slavs in Novgorod’s White Tree Manor, who imposed heavier agricultural taxes on them, obviously would not cause outrage.

As the first batch of Slavic slaves, the manor’s labor force was purchased by Rurik. They were organized to do a variety of handicrafts, and the wealth they created was significantly higher than that of simple farming.

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Rurik did not choose to overdraw his own power, the eleventh tax was the eleventh tax, and the tax was collected on the basis of last year’s hectare tax, and the tax was collected according to the fish scale book.

At the same time, the Yulin Book will also add the area and owner of the newly cultivated fields this year.

As a prince, he stayed in Novgorod for a long time, but the capital of the principality was obviously Novorosberg.

The taxation of New Roseburg was entirely carried out by the governor, Conuson and his sons. As a family entrusted with ruling, they had the right to take part of the tax revenue in proportion to maintain the local finances.

Currently, the Principality’s former home of Fort Rose, Fort Elrond in the north, Tombstone Island, and Fort New Rose continue to operate under the entrusted rule of the Governor-General system. The merchant class and the industrial owner class are also shuttling through these large settlements that rely heavily on ocean traffic. , the interests of these classes are deeply bound to the governor and prince.

If there is a problem with this system, it is not the current problem. Rurik is very clear that he needs the major development of Novgorod and Lake Ilmen, which is the source of agricultural and handicraft raw materials, so that the world has promised Fugorod is the real capital.

Indeed, the grain output of this lake area alone is enough to ensure that the people of the Ross Principality in the wider area do not go hungry, at least for the time being before the population explosion, the per capita wheat possession is extremely gratifying.

From the student examination in early August of the Julian calendar, to the harvesting, threshing, and storage work throughout August, and the completion of taxation until mid-September.

Although the people are busy all day long, as a prince, Rurik can be said to be busy from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

“After all, I have become a hardworking Yongzheng, and it is time for me to take a good rest when winter comes.”

The prince is by no means a greedy person. In the eyes of the world, the prince Rurik has broken his heart for the development of the principality.

Rurik also has this year’s distance wealth, the total amount of wheat in the national and domestic funds, because of the absolute expansion of the land area, a year of good weather, and an increase in production, the wheat tax in Novgorod alone has reached 5 million pounds, compared with 4 million pounds last year.

A big reason for the overall 20% increase in taxes is that more people who are hiding are being brought out.

In the end, it was Medwait who did things rough. He led his brothers into the forest to find someone, and forced the villagers to emigrate to the fertile land by the lake by force.

It is a good thing to have the right to cultivate the lakeside area, but their fields in the forest were scooped up by Medved obsequiously to please the prince.

His subordinates were really rough in their work, and the food they got was like a surprise. Rurik didn’t want to spit it out when he got it, and praised Medved as a loyal minister of the principality.

Anyway, those who were picked out had enough rations and grain to grow, and the agricultural surplus could be regarded as the qualification to buy lakeside reclamation.

[End of this Chapter]