Rise of Rurik - Chapter 998

[Chapter 1000 With all due respect, everyone sitting here is not pious]

It stands to reason that the appearance of a group of horse bandits outside the city would not panic the whole city of Cologne.

The current situation is no small matter. Those horse bandits are clearly Normans on horseback. They clearly kill for the sake of killing. These apostles of Satan can still escape the sanction of God.

People in the city can curse them with all kinds of vicious words, how can dirty words curse them to death?

The high priests gathered to vote, and they finally reached a basic consensus-if the price is acceptable, it is acceptable to pay the price to restore peace.

Thus, led by the interim acting archbishop Hildwin, the proposal to buy peace with money was finally voted through.

All that remained was the question of how much money could be spent on the savages to satisfy their voracious appetites.

“The way I see it, give them fifty silver pieces and get them off.”

“Only fifty pounds? Can those greedy devils be satisfied? Don’t piss them off with this, and keep us in danger.”

“Hey! Why isn’t fifty pounds enough? That’s a lot of money. You speak for them. Where do you stand?”

“A hundred pounds. Up to a hundred pounds and they should be content.”

“What if they are not satisfied?!”

“Then give them five hundred pounds.”

…

The senior priests are still trying to control the emotions on the surface, but the words are becoming more and more intense.

Finally, someone couldn’t bear it anymore, and suddenly stood up from his seat and lashed out: “With all due respect, all of you sitting here are not pious! You are actually bargaining with the devil! In my opinion, stop discussing, and put all our money bank Open it up and hand over the wealth to them.”

These were the words of turning the table, and for an instant, the other senior priests stared at the acting Archbishop Hildwin, who looked as if he had been constipated for ten days.

Seeing that Hildwin was speechless, someone suddenly sarcastically said to the colleague who just lost his composure: “You are noble! You are pious! Why don’t you go and talk to the barbarians outside the city yourself, maybe you can use righteous words to move Those savages, advise them to put down their weapons and convert to atonement.”

As soon as the words fell, several senior priests actually hid their faces and snickered.

After all, these words are too absurd, how can it be possible to negotiate with the devil?

Even if it is negotiated, those devils will accept it?

“Hey! That’s one way to go. It’s impious to make a deal with the devil, and now we can only do it. Maybe, I can do it. I apologize for my gaffe just now, so I have the confidence to handle this matter myself .If I do it, you…” The speaker couldn’t help but increase his tone, “This is a great credit, will you be elected as the next official archbishop?”

The entire venue was silent, no one scolded, no one snickered, and everyone remained silent.

After being silent for a while, Hildwin said in a low voice: “In this case, Marquez, if you succeed, I will recommend you in the next archbishop election.”

“Alright. One hundred pounds of silver, this is our bottom line. I will try to settle them with one hundred pounds of silver.”

With risk comes opportunity, and countless lesser priests, local priests, and regional archbishops aspire to be promoted.

I am afraid that Archbishop Hadebold, who followed King Ludwig to fight against the barbarians, will be promoted to cardinal and transferred to Rome because of his merits, and there is even a possibility that he will be promoted to pope.

The prelates of Cologne believed that the Archbishop of the diocese would soon become vacant, and all ambitious people were suddenly exposed.

Hildwin became the acting bishop lying down, but he didn’t have the confidence to fix the mess in front of him, and he didn’t have great ambitions to succeed the official archbishop.

The careerist Marquez makes his debut.

To praise the man in good terms, Márquez was a warrior with a martyr’s will.

From an economic point of view, if you spend a little money to deal with the Norman horse bandits, the city will no longer have to spend a lot of money to recruit guards, which is really a money-saving move.

Therefore, the city of Cologne is well prepared.

According to the results of the meeting, they will implement the plan to recruit 300 guards.

The guards must be strong and healthy. The church will issue them with an iron sword, a pair of armor, and a Frankish-style iron helmet to make the guards look like regular soldiers.

The three hundred guards became crusaders in the real sense. Unfortunately, they lacked the ability to actively attack and could only be used to guard the city, but their existence would stabilize the hearts of the people in the city.

On the other hand, the Ross cavalry outside the city continued to wreak havoc.

The wide Rhine River has not been frozen as a whole, but the river channel near the shore has frozen on a large scale.

This year is a complete freeze. When the Rhine River is in a semi-frozen state, the situation in Northern Europe can only be worse.

Indeed, the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland are almost completely frozen, with ice extending all the way to Åland, where Tombstone is located.

Lake Mälaren in the core area of Sweden has entered a completely closed state, and some ruthless people who survived the ice and snow began to dig ice and fish…

Even though this year is a cold east, the Nordic world, which is not a major grain-producing area, is generally not worried.

The eastern European agricultural area of the Ross Kingdom will not be very worried. Although Inlmen Lake is frozen, it is not unusual for it to be frozen as in previous years. Even if the weather is not good, it is possible to postpone the planting season to early May, but spring wheat is grown at that time. The action must be put on hold, and the whole people will go all out to plant spring oats with a short growth cycle.

After all, the matter of agricultural production is not something Fisk and his gang who are fighting outside want to consider.

For the time being, they were horse bandits sweeping the huge forest outside the city of Cologne. Not only were their small days not bad, but because they plundered a lot of food and couldn’t take it away, they simply piled up a batch of food in the camp in the forest. Ability to ensure that captives are not starved to death.

It is also deliberately to ensure that the captives are not starved to death.

More and more villagers were captured, and the number of innocent villagers in Fisk’s hands had reached 300.

The soldiers selected some pretty women from among them, ignored her howling and screaming, and had sex with her abruptly.

According to the Viking practice in the past, if she had a relationship with a captured woman, the woman would be regarded as a slave of the warrior, and could later become a wife and concubine, and eventually be absorbed by the tribe as a tribe.

Today’s operation is very special, the cavalry will not carry any prisoners, all the prisoners are either released or killed, and now they become chips that can threaten wealth.

Therefore, Fisk allowed his subordinates to do these things, which caused the desperate woman to cry and lose her mind, and the captured priest to fall into despair.

An occupied village becomes a giant prisoner-of-war camp, where the Ross cavalry take control and do whatever they want.

The year-long war made Fisk more and more ruthless, and he finally grew into a ruthless man a hundred times stronger than his father who died in battle twenty years ago.

Since some of the prisoners were dishonest, he deliberately instructed his subordinates to execute the villagers in public, thus deterring all the prisoners of war.

Relying on such deterrence by force alone was not enough, so he ordered the captured priests to declare something like this: “When Cologne pays the ransom, we will be free!”

Fisk’s purpose is to get a large amount of ransom, so that the brothers will bring the spoils to the king, and they will split the bill fifty-fifty according to the pirate plundering rules set by the king.

Brothers can take the opportunity to make a fortune, then every captive is money!

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According to the price of buying slaves in the past, an adult male slave can have a high price of nearly one pound of silver coins.

The plan of exchanging one pound of silver coin for one person is theoretically feasible, but considering the wealth owned by Cologne, how can it be reasonable for Fisk not to ask for such a high price?

Finally, the promised day.

The five special operations teams that were raging around the Cologne area returned one after another. When they returned, they not only brought a lot of food and a small amount of wool, but also fresh meat and even pack horses for pulling stone mills.

The cavalry met at the edge of the forest outside the north gate of Cologne. They deliberately showed their assembled figures, and then retreated into the forest like ghosts.

Everyone is willing to share their looting experience with the brothers of the home team, and then show off to each other who has more spoils.

Unexpectedly, they were ordered to kill Unforgiven and returned to Commander Fisk’s camp in the forest, where they were shocked to see that there were prisoners everywhere.

The eyes of the captives of different ages were dull, and there were sporadic cries of children.

The smell of boiled wheat filled the air, whetting everyone’s appetite.

The team leaders then gathered around Fisk to eat at night, and shared the cold fresh meat they got with each other.

Someone asked about Fisk: “Why do you need to capture a large number of prisoners? Our brothers followed your request, killing wantonly in the village and finally setting a fire.”

Another person was very sober: “A large number of captives were captured, is it to exchange money with them?”

“It’s just for money!” Fisk slapped his thigh: “Oh, I didn’t realize this until after you ran away. But now I have 400 captives, which is enough to ask the Cologne people for a price. I want to ask a price of 20 pounds for a strong man. What do you think of the ten pounds for the others?”

So, he opened the chatter box, and the team leaders started a heated discussion.

Among the captives, there are more than 100 middle-aged men, or they will be exchanged for two thousand pounds of silver coins, and the rest will wait for three hundred people, or they will be exchanged for three thousand pounds of silver coins.

Fisk proposed to ask for 5,000 pounds, which is a staggering amount of wealth.

The young warriors couldn’t help fantasizing, and their discussions became more intense, imagining that they would drive the captives to the city to ask for a price, and they would definitely walk away with five thousand pounds of silver coins.

As for whether each cavalry could share some weight and take all the silver coins away, after some calculations, they found that it was indeed possible, so they were even more eager.

“Then tell the brothers, we will start the operation tomorrow. You should also be ready to fight, beware that the Cologne people will not appreciate sending troops to attack us. If so, we will not only kill the prisoners, but also kill the challengers who go out of the city.”

Everyone heard about “Ula”.

At dawn the next day, there were bursts of melodious horn horns in the forest.

It seems that the leading warship from the ice sea went upstream and arrived at the city of Cologne, but in fact it was the Ross cavalry who started the final action.

Except for two people who were guarding the booty and continued to stay in the forest camp, Fisk led a hundred and fifty riders, drove as many as four hundred captives, and rushed to the north gate of Cologne.

Now, under the effect of Qian’s ability, a brand new team of 300 slave city guards has been formed.

They were smeared with holy oil by the priests, and ordinary men instantly gained great spiritual power, but they dared not go out of the city to fight.

Among these people are a group of craftsmen and free mercenaries, and the rest are farmers who have taken refuge in the city.

Although the commission from the church is not much, the farmer can settle his debts quickly after taking the money, and even has a considerable surplus.

The priests did not allow everyone to go out to fight in the city, relying on the protection of the city wall, the money was almost risk-free.

So for some peasants, this crisis is like a pie in the sky for their small families.

The barbarians were raging outside the city. As long as they left, the farmers who had become guards could buy some farmland from the church afterward. The crisis became an opportunity.

But now alarm bells are ringing across the city.

The defenders were massed at the city’s north gate, and men with bows stood on high.

Acting Archbishop Hildwin and all the priests watched the approaching troops vigilantly. They subconsciously thought it was the siege army. As they approached, they realized that apart from the plain Ross cavalry, what was left was actually a group of innocent soldiers. help villagers.

The villagers are easy to identify, especially the village women, who almost always wear black one-piece robes and white headscarves to keep out the cold.

The horses of those cavalry were smaller, and they carried multiple banners. The white background and the diagonally interlaced blue stripes were the symbols of the Norman Ross people.

They were obviously not ordinary robbers. The cavalrymen were dressed in exactly the same clothes, and some had bright feathers on the top of their hats.

To be fair, Hildwin really hoped that these cavalry were holding cross flags. If Cologne had such a gorgeous army, they would not be harassed by the enemy stealing their homes.

The people in the city watched nervously, and the ambitious Marquez was even more nervous.

“It seems that they want to negotiate with us?” Hildwin made such a judgment after seeing the cavalry with a large number of captured villagers suddenly set within a stone’s throw away.

“Maybe I went out of town to negotiate.” Marquez said, swallowing hard.

“Okay! I hope everything goes well, my friend.”

Marquez nodded: “I will bring a hundred pounds of silver coins and a few brave guards. I will create a miracle.”

“God is with you.” In this way, Hildwin and the senior priests watched as Marquez walked down the city wall like a martyr.

After a while, the Norman cavalry under the city suddenly spoke!

I saw the first tall and strong man got off the horse, took off his hat and showed his big bald head.

Fisk also wore wooden-framed sunglasses this time to protect his eyes from the sun in summer and snow in winter. The cavalrymen each had a pair of sunglasses, which made their appearance always look weird.

He took off his sunglasses to reveal his full face, and then roared in Latin with a loud voice: “Let’s negotiate! Give me the money! We’ll release the captives and leave!”

He yelled several times in a row, although the shouts all in Latin shocked the priests, they instantly changed their minds and were overjoyed.

Since the savages also intend to leave after asking for a sum of money, they have mutual needs, and negotiations can proceed.

Fisk was very happy that the Cologne man seemed to understand his cry, the closed wooden door was opened, and the iron fence that reinforced the gate was also raised by the mechanism.

After that, several mouse-like guys who came out quickly ran to the gate of the city gate, released the suspension bridge, and the wooden planks fell heavily on the dry ditch.

Fisk raised his hand to signal the following brothers not to act rashly, not to rush into the city on horseback, and beware of ambushes.

After a while, as expected, a priest carried the cross himself, and walked out under the escort of some sword-bearers.

“It seems to be their negotiator. Brothers, don’t act rashly, everything depends on me.”

The Ross cavalry then kept on alert, their arrows resting on the handles of their bows to prevent the opponent from suddenly killing a group of people from the city to make trouble.

For the negotiator Márquez, the previous ambitions suddenly faded after he actually witnessed the Ross cavalry raging for months.

The other party can speak Latin, which is an unimaginable miracle. Perhaps, they can be converted.

But the moment the two sides met, the scene was once very embarrassing.

Marquez looked at the giant in front of him, and then subconsciously saw a large number of giants riding horses behind him.

Take a closer look at the Norman cavalry general in front of you!

The man was wearing a white plush leather jacket with buttons fixed on it, and two interlaced blue cloth strips on the chest.

It is obvious that there is a layer of chain mail under the leather clothing.

The general has a nice belt, and the saber looks like a fancy rapier (Rose steel is much narrower than a Frankish broadsword), with a jeweled hilt.

In other words, the general has a lot of gem ornaments (in fact, cheap stained glass blocks), which obviously don’t look like they were snatched from various monasteries.

Did such a noble warrior kill peasants and burn villages as an act of honor, as part of war?

Marquez deeply despises this. Even if the so-called filthy people wear gorgeous clothes, they still cannot conceal the essence of dung and maggots.

“Have you seen enough?” Fisk asked suddenly.

“Ah! Yes. We would like to make a deal with you, brave man.”

“Of course.” Fisk was overjoyed, “You guys are very knowledgeable. When you see us coming, you know that we want to make a deal first. You see, I have 400 captives in my hand, and there are some priests among them. You… know ours. Means. Don’t talk nonsense, let’s talk about your conditions first.”

Hearing that, Marquez gasped. He didn’t expect the Normans to capture four hundred people!

Looking at the past now, there are indeed faces eager to be redeemed everywhere, and the eyes of the captives are trembling with eagerness.

But this has greatly exceeded his expectations.

[End of this Chapter]