Rise of Rurik - Chapter 809

[Chapter 810 Siege War]

Hundreds of people retreated to the camp at the top of the stone hill. Of course they could run to the woodland on the island to hide, but the fear affected their bodies, and fleeing back by name was not a good strategy.

Some who had tried to escape on rafts withdrew, and they were not all in vain.

Someone took some precious fresh water from the spring, and as for finding something to eat, there was really nothing but some edible wild vegetables.

Can a little fresh water guarantee the survival of thousands of people?

There are trees and stones on the top of the knoll, and a few food stores belong to the big families.

Now some big families left forcefully and were mercilessly sunk by the Ross fleet. They took away most of the reserves and fed the fish.

The remaining few supplies were also firmly occupied by other big families who were watching.

The first day’s attempt to leave ended in a fiasco for the islanders. After nightfall, the surviving people did not feel that they were wise enough to wait and avoid death. What they faced was not only hunger and thirst, but also dominated by fear itself of fear.

The fact that the islanders fled forcibly surprised Rurik, who had expected this, and did not expect that his opponents could flee on a large scale.

He even thought about it, maybe he shouldn’t have given the order to kill the fugitives.

“Most of you can’t die, as long as you surrender to me obediently? I still want to recruit you…”

Rurik put aside his illusions for a while, even if the situation was like this, it seemed too hasty to recruit them.

The speaker, Swind, was in a hurry. When Rurik quietly watched the grilled fresh fish, this guy staggered over and begged.

“My lord, just let them go. You plan to ask me to persuade them to surrender, and I will go now. This can’t be done anymore! They will be slowly tortured to death by you.”

Swind’s actions were too impulsive, and he was dragged away by the guards before he could finish speaking.

“Let him go.” Rurik motioned.

“My lord, think about it! I will persuade you overnight.”

“No. If they dare to flee once, they dare to flee a second time. I want to kill their aura, and I also seem to know who is so courageous. Don’t dare to fight me desperately, but have the courage to escape? It’s ridiculous.”

“It must be those big families, that is… people like me.” Swind explained hastily.

“you?”

“My lord, my family members must have fled to the hills with others. My home is in this big fishing village. There is no body there. My wife and children have all been evacuated. I am just worried…”

“Worried about their lives? I understand you, but…” Rurik shook his head, “This is war, if your family members are smart enough to surrender obediently, I can make them guests instead of slaves. ”

“Then let me persuade them. I might as well hold a torch and talk!”

Swind, who was trying to leave, was still under the control of the soldiers, and Rurik had made up his mind that he would definitely not let this guy make his own decisions.

“You and I continue to wait! Soon I will send people to clean up in the forest, and my fleet will still patrol the sea. Three days! We will wait for three days, and then we will go and see the situation.”

“Three days?! Even if they won’t starve to death, they will die of thirst!”

Rurik listened tirelessly, so he ordered his subordinates to pull him away, and then ate the fish by himself.

No one in the Ross army is willing to speak well for Swind, and even Ragnar of the alliance is too lazy to talk to this hapless guy.

Even if Ragnar opposes King Horik of Denmark, it does not mean that he must unite the Bornholm islanders.

The islanders here are all strong-headed grass, and their origins are varied, and now they run away when encountering disasters, which makes him extremely despised.

Although his own Stonewall tribe also escaped, it was only after paying an extremely huge sacrifice that they succeeded in breaking through, and they were always thinking of revenge.

What are the actions of the islanders?

The Ross army still lit bonfires everywhere to create suspicious soldiers.

What started out as a ruse has now become deeply pragmatic.

The Ross fleet, which used trawling technology to catch fish, encountered the resource-rich South Baltic Sea. The Ross people trawled for fish during the day and lit lamps to catch fish at night.

A large amount of fish is pulled ashore, and the river beach is only a spontaneously formed “fish processing workshop”.

The big fish is cut into pieces, and the small fish are spread out. After being smeared with salt, they are gradually turned into dry and hard salted fish by the bonfire, and then transported to the ship.

The smell of grilled fish permeates this small island, especially when it floats to the top of the rocky hill with the south wind, it floats into the noses of anxious people.

This made the already restless and fearful people even more annoyed, and objectively it became a psychological offensive of the Ross army.

Not all the islanders fled to the top of the hill. The whole island was surrounded by the Ross Navy. The triangle sails of the cruising ships were like the dorsal fins of sharks.

As the sun rises and a new day begins, the situation is fermenting for disaster for the islanders.

What the prince ordered was only to prohibit the destruction of the big fishing village. As for the other small villages on the island, it doesn’t matter if they are about to be burned.

The warships couldn’t find their hunting targets, so they simply took the tiny fishing villages they found.

Most of those fishermen have escaped, and they are already poor, and it is impossible for them to leave any treasure in the village.

The soldiers who disembarked from the ship were unable to search and set fire to the house completely out of venting their anger, and then removed all available bottles and cans.

Especially the fishermen’s boats, the boats that were too small were scuttled directly, and the large paddle boats were directly tied with ropes and pulled away.

The toss of the Ross army on the second day caused thick smoke to billow in various small fishing villages, and some people fled with their families to the stone hill in the center of the island to seek refuge.

The new arrivals brought more grim news—villages had been burned, and not a single fleeing ship had been found.

The whole island became a cage, and although there were dense forests under the stone hills, it seemed to be a hunting ground for Ross raiders.

Because there was another news that the Russians with bows and arrows seemed to be all sharpshooters. They shot people like hunting, and some people were captured and their lives were unknown.

The people who fled to Shiqiu could only bring bad news one after another. They thought they had temporarily avoided the invaders, but unexpectedly the supplies they carried became the must-haves for other islanders.

[In other words, currently the best app for reading and listening to books, change the source app, www.huanyuanapp.com to install the latest version.

】

Unbeknownst to Rurik, the islanders trapped on the hill were killing each other.

Those big families and exiled Danes are more numerous and organized than others. They hold sharp weapons to search for the remaining supplies, and pour precious water into their stomachs.

What else can people who have been robbed of their supplies do?

They were hungry and thirsty, so they had to sit on a stone and pray for a rain.

Of course, some people took the risk and decided to go down the mountain to get water from the spring. More than a hundred people rushed there with hope, but they were ambushed by the Ross army.

The ambush was extremely short and did not even cause many casualties.

The ambushed Rus army stunned the water-takers after firing some arrows, and the brothers rushed to capture them.

The captured islanders thought they would be decapitated immediately, but they were escorted to the Ross army camp.

There were men and women among the captives, among which the woman holding a child was the most conspicuous.

Seeing such a mother, how could Rurik not feel compassion?

This was the largest number of captives by the Ross Army since the beginning of the battle. More than 80 people sat on the sand and gravel by the sea, and they all got enough grilled fish and fresh water.

After eating and drinking enough, most of their fear disappeared.

And when they got the safety promise, they all expressed their willingness to cooperate.

They began to explain the situation on the stone hill, especially how the powerful people there robbed the supplies of ordinary fishermen, described the size of the number of powerful families in power, and the size of ordinary fishermen.

Swind came in a hurry and interrupted the prisoners’ complaints. The prisoners were shocked when they saw such a big acquaintance.

Immediately, someone was furious and stood up, pointing and cursing: “Swind! You are the one who led the Ross people to attack our island? You are a traitor!”

Listen, Swinde can’t argue.

But in the next second, the man who spoke was hit in the chest by a crossbow. Seeing the arrow in his chest fell to the ground, he twitched a few times and then stopped moving.

The sudden death frightened the prisoners to scream, and Rurik shouted loudly: “This is the fate of disobedience! You must remain obedient until you regain your freedom.”

The corpse was dragged away and thrown directly into the sea, drifting in the waves…

For this reason, Rurik had to reiterate the policy, and then began to divide this wave of captives into grades and grades.

Swind got his wish and knew the condition of his wife and children. Although they were alive, many servants in the family were killed or injured.

Even so, they were stuck on a rocky hill, where food and water were scarce, and the situation continued to deteriorate.

He wished he could take the water up the mountain now, at least to bring his family back.

Swind had learned to be smart, so he didn’t do this rationally.

What has he done to the Ross people today? The army has infiltrated into the woodlands of the island, small islands have been searched, and small fishing villages are raging. Except for the huge refugee camp on the top of the hill, no one is hiding in other places.

It seems that the prince of Ross will not take back his order. The prince will deliberately let the islanders hang out for three days, and the real persuasion will be put on the fourth day.

What else could Swinder do?

I can only hope that my family can survive until that day.

On the third day, in the big fishing village occupied by the Ross army, Rurik chose a big house and held a combat meeting before the capitulation operation.

However, rather than persuading them to surrender, the covetous generals of the army are more willing to swarm up and annihilate them to gain glory.

There are many people who can be recruited by Rurik, and the “ship” captains in the army, that is, the platoon commanders, all participated.

The flag team of the Ross Army is a well-organized combat group. Each “ship” has 30 people and can carry out combat tasks independently.

Rurik has already learned from the captives the composition of the islanders on the top of the stone hill. There are a large number of women and children there, but the men who fought were lost a lot due to the failed escape. Rivals of the Ross Army.

What’s more, if they haven’t received effective supplies for three days or more specifically four days, even if they don’t die of thirst and starvation, they must be dying.

The venue was very noisy at the beginning, but when Rurik decided to preach the policy, there was an instant silence.

“I know you want to chop off their heads! But you all remember, they are a bunch of cowards! A bunch of hungry and thirsty cowards, and a lot of women and children! If you kill them, especially in the stone hills Kill them on the high ground, Odin is watching you from the high sky, the gods will not think this behavior is honorable. So you are the captain who must restrain yourself. You convey my words to yourselves Brothers, don’t try to kill indiscriminately, and don’t attack without my order. If the situation becomes very urgent, if they don’t resist, they will be tied up. If you dare to violate my order, I will use Hit your ass with a stick!”

The punishment for violating the order is to ram your butt?

Everyone couldn’t help laughing wildly.

Someone laughed and said, “Your Majesty, don’t worry, we don’t want to do things that shame our honor.”

Rurik knew very well that the Rus army was not a well-disciplined army, but a tribal army.

The Principality of Ross itself is a mixture of various tribes, a brand new nation is being formed, and a unified belief in Odin is also being implemented.

In order to maintain the morale of the army, Rurik had to allow them to plunder freely, and condoning violence was eating at his heart.

It wasn’t that Rurik hadn’t thought of killing everything.

So what if he ordered to kill the whole island?

It will not be sanctioned by others at all, it will only make others more terrified.

It is the real barbarian behavior to keep killing people after customs clearance to maintain the ruling authority.

The biggest contradiction in the principality at present is still a serious shortage of labor force. Bornholm islanders should capture as much as possible and throw them into the northern mining area to dig iron ore, which is obviously a very good labor force.

Rurik still focused on the issue of persuading surrender. Now that he has figured out the situation, he must explain clearly how to persuade him to surrender.

According to his plan, the stone mound will be surrounded by the Ross army, and some big trees will be quickly cut down and sawed down, just to create an open area, so that the Ross army can raise the flag and shout majestically to scare the islanders.

The army then unloaded some torsion slingshots and catapults and set them up. All the soldiers took their bows and crossbows to prevent the islanders from coming to kill them.

Having done enough military preparations, a mind-boggling strategy is also indispensable.

Especially this trick, Rurik was very proud of it.

He proudly declared: “After we lined up, we still lit some bonfires. We threw the big cod we caught directly into the fire, and let the fire burn it to ashes.”

“What does this mean?” Arik asked in surprise, “You are willing to burn the fat fish?”

“Why don’t you give up? I just want the fire to burn the fish, and the tempting aroma will float to the stone hill nearby. People who are about to starve to death will use their last strength to come down after smelling the smell. In my opinion, at that time , Their consciousness can no longer control the body.”

Ragnar questioned deeply: “Rurik, is this also in your calculation?”

“yes.”

“We’ve done this before, why didn’t they come down? Oh, someone did come down to fetch water.”

“They’re not hungry enough.” Rurik shrugged. “My purpose is not to really kill them, but to give them some hope of survival. Those captives are of great use. Let them stand in a conspicuous place tomorrow.” , declaring that we did not kill. The fragrance of grilled fish is a trick, and I also want to publicly show that our army has enough fresh water.”

Ragnar thought for a while, and patted his thigh feeling that Prince Rurik was so vicious at such a young age, and he also lamented that he and him are currently in an alliance, and if they were enemies, he would be completely defeated in terms of military tactics.

Everyone absolutely agrees that Rurik’s strategy is quite subtle. If they don’t surrender like this, those guys really can’t be described in words.

So what should they do after they surrender?

Rurik has already rated it differently, and has made three suggestions for the fate of ordinary fishermen’s families, exiled Danes, and powerful families on the island.

“Those ordinary fishermen are all attached to the strong, and some sell themselves as slaves. Now that I am the strong, they will serve me and become my servants just like the deer breeders. Only I can punish them. Don’t kill indiscriminately!”

“The Danes in exile are not our opponents. The battle is a misunderstanding! Ragnar, I hope you can convince them. At least I have no intention of fighting them. It is meaningless to fight each other. Instead, I and them should join hands to deal with King Horik of Denmark. I hope you can mediate well from it, and don’t create any more misunderstandings.”

“As for those big families who provoked the battle, is there any need for them to stay? I can spare their lives, but they must behave obediently. The battle can be avoided completely, and the peace talks are obviously successful, but they refuse to recognize the peace talks. Even if they choose to surrender, they still have to pay some… money.”

So preached, Ragnar and Swind received their respective tasks.

Things are very different from the original plan. The peaceful incorporation of Bornholm Island is no longer possible. At least in theory, there are still 3,000 people who can be captured by the Principality of Ross.

All are Vikings, all speak Norse, and worship gods such as Odin, Freya, and Thor.

Rurik was most interested in the ordinary fishermen and slaves, a great mass of careless people who could be most exploited.

As long as the economic connection is bound, they will have to coexist and co-prosper with Ross in order to make a living. This is “incorporation”.

As for those big families?

forget it.

Rurik had murderous intentions before, and this murderous intention was only suppressed temporarily, and it depends on whether those big families are smart or not.

[End of this Chapter]