Rise of Rurik - Chapter 776

[Chapter 777 The Wind from the Southern Russian Grassland]

A horse-riding team marched in a slightly desolate forest. They had more than fifty people, but they had more than one hundred and sixty horses.

They came from the farther east, from the Volga River Basin, and even from the current Volgograd to Astrakhan generation.

The leader is a young man with a beautiful black mustache. He is short in height. At first glance, he looks unattractive. However, he is wearing iron armor and a gem-studded scimitar hanging from his waist. One Jiujiu warrior.

The Turkic horses they ride have strong endurance and good assault ability. Each rider has a luggage hanging on the saddle, which contains dry food and sleeping bags.

The saddle also has a leather pocket, in which a compound recurve bow with a loose string is inserted, and fifty wild goose feather arrows are inserted in another leather pocket.

They are a gust of wind from the grasslands of Central Asia. Because of the blow from the Tang Empire, the entire tribal alliance migrated westward on a large scale under pressure.

Part of the personnel and the main body completed the historic separation, and they bypassed the northern shore of the Caspian Sea and entered the Inner Caucasus region on a smooth road with no danger to defend and no strong local forces to stop them.

They finally encountered a formidable enemy – the Khazar Khanate.

The two sides fought fiercely in the Donbass Basin, and finally fought a tie.

So the Khazar Khanate had to admit a new trouble from the East after the Eastern Rome.

The entire Crimea and the Odessa region are under the firm control of the Romans and the Roman fleet. The five oar warships may have fallen behind the times. It’s an excellent platform.

The emergence of two nomadic groups in the north and a big fight is what Eastern Rome is very happy to see, especially if the Khazar Khanate suffers a serious setback, then the strategic pressure on the northeast border of the empire (the Thrace region of Greece) will drop sharply .

But Rome wasn’t stupid enough to fund a new group of nomads.

The newcomers were none other than the Pechenegs. They broke away from the Western Turks and the Oghuz Alliance. They were a fierce westward presence in the entire huge ethnic group.

They didn’t have any strategic purpose, but instinctively drove the cattle and sheep to find the most suitable pasture. If the Fengmei pasture was occupied by others, they would kill the local people and replace it.

However, they are not simply reckless men, and they know the importance of seeking help from foreign forces.

It is beneficial to trade with the Slavs in the forest area. Horses, dairy products, and leather are exchanged for a large amount of cloth and storable wheat from the Slavs.

Just in 836, a Slavic caravan once again came uninvited!

They traveled through the forests of the Chernigov region into the steppes and met Pecheneg herders.

They came with valuable salt and a lot of cloth, and to the surprise of the leaders of the Pecheneg Union, this time it was the turn of the Slavs to sell salt.

The leader of the Slavic caravan was none other than the Kyiv Mak Sakyi who had overwintered in the Russian territory. He took his guys back to his hometown in Kyiv to explain to the elders in his hometown the successful pioneering of the Varyagros trade, and took a rest. For a while it was all the way east.

A land trade route from the Kyiv section of the Dnieper River to the Volga River has long existed, and there are a large number of grassland areas in it, which is actually a smooth trade route.

In the gap between the Bulgar Khanate and the Khazar Khanate, the Pecheneg Khanate created a trade corridor with a scimitar and successfully contacted the Krivich Slavs in the forest.

Ma Ke Sakye came back to the camp of the Pecheneg people not far north of today’s Volgograd. In the khan’s tent, they described to the khan the location of a wonderful Rus Principality.

“The Ross people have good iron, big ships, fine wine and gemstones, and a lot of crystal vessels. But Ross needs a lot of horses. Only you can provide horses, and the Ross people are willing to pay a lot of money to buy them.”

It’s good to be able to develop a distant trading partner for goodies, but does it do him any good if a Forest Slav speaks for the Rus of the Varyags in the north?

At least for Sakye and his guys, there is indeed a big reward for the job of buying horses for Prince Ross.

Given the reward, this group of adventurers would rather live like Cossacks in Eastern Europe.

Why do Slavic merchants have salt?

It turned out that these were made by the Rus.

Ashamed to say, the Pecheneg Khanate, which clearly occupies the mouth of the Volga River (the Caspian Sea), still doesn’t know how to separate the salt from the bittern-like Caspian Sea. They obviously can’t lack salt, but they have to work with Eastern Roman merchant trade.

Those treacherous Roman merchants could not do business with conscience, and the Pechenegs had to exchange more horses for salt, and there was even a purchase restriction here.

Roman merchants also had their own rhetoric: “We are doing a beheading business. If the governor of Crimea finds out, our whole family will be killed. You have no right to complain.”

Khan was moved, and a young man was entrusted with an important task.

“Kagan, you are not young. If you want to inherit my Khan position, you must show a series of achievements to prove yourself to other tribes. You will go to Ross as the Khan season, and take our horses to exchange them as much as possible. My baby!” Khan ordered his son like this, although the young prince Kagan was a little skeptical, after all, this is a meritorious deed, if he brought back a lot of salt during this trip, wouldn’t he become a great hero of the entire alliance?

If they can live a good life, the Pechenegs are not willing to gallop on the grassland to fight for living space. However, the grassland is big or small. At least there are four forces competing for the huge South Russia-Inner Caucasus grassland. Pecheneg If Ge shows weakness, the end will be the destruction of the family.

Kagan, with a mustache, took his personal guards and commercialized horses, and followed the lead of Slavic merchants to Kyiv, where forests and rivers intersect for the first time.

Kagan and his party arrived at the summer solstice, and the people of Kyiv were at their riverside altar, each wearing a beautiful corolla, dancing around the altar’s sacred tree matrix.

The Slavs were offering sacrifices to their gods of the sun and the god of agriculture, hoping that the crops would grow vigorously and have a good harvest.

Kagan and his party were all spectators. He respected the beliefs of these Slavs, and all he wanted was to go north as soon as possible.

Prince Pecheneg arrived in Kyiv in person, and a small part of the cowhide, sheepskin and wool carried by the horse team was sold on the spot in exchange for a batch of wheat for the people and horses in the northward team.

They stayed in Kyiv until late July in the Julian calendar, when the long overland journey northward officially began.

Compared with Sakyi’s expedition last year, the size of this Pecheneg horse team is too large, and it is impossible to take a convenient water route.

A nasty moat lay ahead – the Pripyat Swamp.

It is a huge country of Ze, and according to legend, it is the residence of the god of chaos, Cherniberg. Those who enter it rashly must leave quickly, otherwise they may die of sudden illness.

It is impossible for the horse team to advance in the thick silt, where the rotten smell can be tolerated. If a large number of horses die from the foul air, the trade with Ross will lose a lot of capital, right?

If you can’t force your way, you can make a detour. The mixed caravan rode horses along the border between the forest and the grassland. They walked northeastward while groping. It took a lot of time to make a big circle, and plunged into the forest in the present-day Bryansk region. , and successfully found the upper reaches of the Dnieper River.

Compared to the disgusting and terrifying Pripet Swamp, Valdez is much milder.

Unfortunately, an autumn rain brought the cavalry a lot of trouble.

However, Kagan and his cronies are a true nomadic army. Even if the horses enter the forest, the cavalry can still exert certain strength.

A small forest village appeared in front of him. Kagan didn’t care about Sakyi’s warning of “don’t attack”, and led his men to rush over, easily finishing the entire unsuspecting village and killing the villagers vigorously.

When Sakye arrived at the scene, all he saw was the dead body and the woman who was being played by these nomads.

“Don’t you want to be happy?” Kagan, who was riding a horse, pointed at his subordinates who were having fun, as well as the village women struggling to survive without hesitation.

“Fortunately, you still understand our language. You are attacking the village of the Smolensk people. Once we expose our tracks, they will take revenge on us!”

“Then fight a battle. This group of people is obviously weak, and I have no fear.”

Sakei didn’t want to say any more, and warned bluntly: “Let’s stop the attack here, we must not leave anyone alive, and we must not expose our traces. I warn you, you are not allowed to kill any Ross people when you arrive in Ross, otherwise you will annoy the North.” powerful force.”

“This? Needless to say, I still know the news about the Varyags. I will not foolishly attack a group of strong people like us.”

Indeed, the Rus people are part of the Varyag people. Armed merchants from Northern Europe appeared on the Dnieper River and the Volga River long ago, but their traces are too mysterious.

Because more often, Varyag armed merchants from Denmark and Sweden like to enter the hinterland of Europe from the West Dvina River. From the perspective of the people of Kyiv, these Varyags are more from the north, and they bring It has not only traded products, but also left behind legends of kidnapping and kidnapping. In short, it is an existence that is very entangled with the local Slavs.

At least the Russians among the Varyags have never done anything vicious to the people of Kyiv. They must be a powerful force with their own principles.

Kagan took a short spear and stabbed the woman in front of his men who were doing their own work.

“Boss, what are you doing?!”

“Idiot! Get lost! Move all the corpses away, we will stay in this village until the weather clears up. Go search and find all the food and cloth,” Kagan ordered.

For the entire horse team, a long forest march wears out the horsepower, not to mention the lack of high-quality pasture in the forest area.

They came just in time, the wheat in the so-called Smolensk region was harvested, and the villages plundered by Kagan’s gang were also full of wheat in the warehouses.

The nomadic warriors wanted to take all the wheat, and they did their best, so that in the rainy weather everyone hurriedly made sacks of sackcloth and hung the oats on the backs of a large number of horses.

All the horses also had the opportunity to eat to their heart’s content. During the rest period of a few days, together with the riding of Sakey and his group, a total of nearly 200 horses crazily munched on the delicious oats.

With people and horses, the huge appetite quickly consumed the grain stocks of this small village.

Compared with European rush grass as the representative pasture, the calorific value of oat grains is naturally much higher than it.

Oats are actually the most cost-effective concentrate feed for horses in Europe. Feeding horses with oats is extremely luxurious in Kagan’s view, but it can also help him reach Ross smoothly.

During the rest period, Sakey was in a panic, and he even felt that Kagan had executed those peasant women prematurely.

They are all Slavs, doesn’t Sakye have empathy for the dead?

He did not.

After all, once he was detained by the Smolensk people, he would be beaten and even executed. The reason here was very simple. Anyone who tried to do business with the Ilmenslavs was regarded as an enemy by the Smolensk people.

It’s as if the Pechenegs and the Khazars obviously speak the same language, but they still fight each other.

Taking advantage of the leisurely opportunity, Sakye pointed out the follow-up path to Kagan.

“We’re going straight through the swamp (Valdais), which perfectly avoids the attention of the Smolensk people. We’ll find the course of the second big river, it’s called the Lovati, and we’ll continue north along the river, As long as we see a strong castle, we will enter the territory of the Principality of Ross through there. The prince of Ross has a high status. Thinking of your Khan, I have a very good relationship with the prince. When he learned that you are going to sell a hundred horses in one go , you will become the most honored guest! You will also enjoy a pleasure that you have never had in your life.”

What is “enjoy yourself”?

Sakye said that it is beyond the pleasure of men and women.

For example, the whole person is soaked in a large warm wooden barrel until his whole body becomes soft, and he is placed in a material full of warm white mist, lying on a wooden board and being wiped off with a sackcloth, and his hair is washed with a soap that emits a strange fragrance. And the whole body, so that the smell of sweat and mutton is gone.

On the grasslands, it is not easy to take a good bath, and it is easy to catch cold when taking a bath rashly, so that the Pecheneg people adhere to the habit of their hometown in Central Asia. Although they are keen on cleaning their own hygiene, they subjectively reject bathing.

The people of Rus have a kind of wine that is on fire. When you drink it, you will feel a fire in your stomach, and people who are shivering from the cold will immediately restore their firepower.

Ross people have barbecue and big bread. The barbecue is heavy salt because they don’t lack salt, and the bread is big and soft because they have wheat.

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…

Kagan was fascinated by all this, wishing to enjoy it immediately.

The nomad cavalry continued northward, leaving behind burning villages and corpses gradually reduced to ashes…

The autumn wind on the Lovaj River is bleak, and the sky is cloudy and it seems to be raining again.

It is not far from New Ostara, a border city in the south of the Principality of Ross. Kagan and Sakye have almost seen the end of their journey, but the snowfall activity has begun.

They would rather advance in the snowfall. Fortunately, everyone has been prepared, and these Turkic horses have physiologically changed into long manes. The southern Russian grassland is not much milder than the winter in Novgorod. These naturally cold-resistant Turkic horses are fearless. The cold wind and snow here means that a large number of horses do not have iron shoes, and they cannot be expected to move fast in the snow.

Success is just ahead, the wind and snow have just stopped, and a wooden castle lies across the mouth of the Lovati River into Lake Ilmen!

The hunters of the Ostara people have noticed a group of foreigners riding horses, but the female leader Carlota took her young son to the north of the lake for training in Novgorod.

The people stood up spontaneously, and many suspected that the visitors were the horsemen from last year, but just in case, they still took self-defense activities!

As the saying goes, there are no dates to hit three poles, New Ostara has been fortified, the crossbowmen on the wooden city wall deterrently shoot arrows, and the fixed-position torsion slingshots also shoot javelins to deter them.

Kagan was taken aback by the sudden attack, causing even the horses to stir.

Kagan really took a note of Mawei, he is not a simple idiot, he knows that the Ross defenders deliberately missed the javelin.

The so-called as long as they want to, they will be shot to death with their horses and men.

Sure enough, someone in the city wall asked loudly: “Who are you? Are you an enemy! Or a businessman!? Put down your arms and accept our interrogation!”

Kagan couldn’t understand Norse until the other party yelled again in strangely accented Slavic.

At this time, Ma Ke Sakei hurriedly got off his horse and opened his arms to indicate that he had no intention of fighting. He stood within the precise shooting range of the torsion slingshot, greeted the people at the top of the city and blew himself up.

He explained a reason for the passage that the people of Ostara could not refuse.

The so-called Kyiv horseman Sakye, at the order of the prince of Rus, came again with horses, and a large number of horses were to be sold to the prince.

As for a group of black-haired exotic knights, they were the best horse breeders, the Pechenegs of the East, and asked to see the prince as envoys.

The Ostara people let go of the border, but the Ostara army was also dispatched.

They were guarding the South Pass and hadn’t been careless enough to let everyone in. Since it was a large mission, they should be escorted by soldiers.

It is said to be an escort, but it is actually a surveillance.

A larger team began to go north along Lake Ilmen by land, because there were too many people and horses, and the plan that could have gone by water was meaningless.

At least Kagan has seen a large number of Ross ships. Although this is just the southern city of the Ross Principality, the strength of the navy is evident.

Without him, the Pecheneg Khanate has only a few flat boats, which clearly control the lower reaches of the Volga River. If the whole family does not know how to build ships, it is like guarding a golden mountain and not knowing how to mine and smelt.

However, there is a boat that goes northward quickly with a large army. They must report a good news to the prince-the return of the horse riders, or there may be a hundred good horses for sale.

[End of this Chapter]