Rise of Rurik

"The Rise of Rurik ()" Find the latest chapter!

The sea freezes, the world sinks into snow.

The sky is still gray, and the world seems to be dead.

The snow began to loosen, and some people emerged from the snow nest.

Rurik finally pushed open the thick wooden door. He stayed in the cave like a rabbit for a long time. When he saw the outside world, he felt unbelievable.

Dormant Russ people appeared one after another, and they struggled in the waist-deep snow. As soon as the two met, they shouted and praised the pile up and survived the blizzard.

"The snow this year is really amazing. Rurik, you should go ahead and put on your hat." Otto in the room resisted the cold wind pouring into the warm "cave" with a sullen face, calling for his breathable son.

Rurik immediately put on another layer of leather, and with a single leap, he was buried in the soft snow and disappeared without a trace.

Then he stuck his head out, and under the white velvet cap was his fair face, as if a snowball appeared in the snow.

The Rus people don't like snow. What they like is always the warm land where wheat can be grown stably, and the good harbor that is not frozen all year round.

The world is frozen, and people must survive in the ice and snow world.

Fortunately, unless the reserves of Roseburg this winter are extremely sufficient, everyone is safe and has no worries about eating, and almost no worries about keeping warm.

It is because of this exaggerated snow that people's winter life has encountered a huge obstacle that is extremely rare. Because compared to the snow in previous years, it is not as extreme as this winter.

Life still has to go on, especially winter hunting is still to be done.

The gray world is blowing with a shrill wind like a knife. There is almost no snow on the frozen sea, and all the snowflakes are blown to the shore. There are snow hills everywhere in Roseburg, and under the snow hills there are many buildings. houses.

The wood carvings are stronger than the longhouses in the past, and people are still worried that if there is another snowstorm, their houses will be crushed by the snow, and then everyone will still be turned into ice sculptures in the severe cold. Besides, the snow at the door and in the intricate streets has made people's lives difficult to move.

After being frozen for a while, Rurik's head was completely awake.

Without his or Otto's personal order, the Russ who barely went out already took a wooden shovel to clear the snow.

If advanced large-scale snow removal equipment exists, the snow in Roseburg will be cleared quickly, at least to ensure that there is not too much snow in people's living quarters.

Mechanical equipment does not exist, and people can only rely on their own hands and simple shovels and rakes.

The native residents of the Ross tribe, all kinds of permanent immigrants, and powerful traders who live temporarily in seasons are the current residents of Rossburg, and their population has exceeded 9,000! Among them, the captured Gotland and the people from Lake Mälaren were as large as three thousand. The residents of Roseburg were forced to live a cramped life, even more cramped after the blizzard, but this bad situation will change immediately with the return of spring.

More than 6,000 of these 9,000 people have sufficient labor capacity (including most children), and a snow-clearing operation officially ordered and led by the Duke of Ross was carried out on the first day after the snow stopped. here we go.

On the roofs of the streets and alleys, there are people clearing snow everywhere. First, they cleared a lot of trails in Roseburg. The road was hard-trodden snow, and a lot of reindeer sleds ran on the bloody road.

Just near the shore, a snow mountain is forming!

The reindeer sleighs come here with full of snow, unload the snow and bring new ones immediately. The reindeer herds that Rurik ordered to breed and cultivate once again played their huge strategic role, and in this era, they were the "truck heads" of the Rus.

There are not only reindeer here, but also more than one hundred well-trained ponies seized from Gotland. These full-time animals who pull carts and sleds to carry snow are just a sideline, and soon they will go to Elronborg, farther north, to do the most critical work.

The work of clearing the snow will go on for a long time,

For the first five days, the Ross cleared most of the snow from Fort Ross and the surrounding area.

A workforce of more than 6,000 continues to work, even in the shortest hours of the day, working in the dark. A huge snow mound about twenty meters high appeared, it was a complete behemoth, and soon it became a playground for a group of children.

Under the snowy hills, the Rus people set up some large pottery urns, in which porridge made of oatmeal and various vegetables has been boiled.

The people saw that the generous Duke of Ross gave a comfortable meal to all those who dumped the new snow on the hills. Clearing snow is supposed to be a part of the job, and once it becomes profitable, public activism peaks.

Finally, the Rus people can walk freely in their home port, but it is very regrettable that all the ships are frozen by frost, and the great Avlora has also been unloaded, and she is embedded in the thick ice of the dock, like a prison. Fairy in the snow. The shore is littered with deliberately stranded longships in a dense matrix. No one worries about them slipping out of place anymore, because they too are trapped in icy snow.

The winter life of the Rus begins, and the strongest and most ambitious men are ready to go.

Reminiscent of the winter hunts of the past few years, each hunt has essentially evolved into an expedition. The hunters acted in groups. They hunted wild deer, bears, wolves, arctic foxes, ferrets and other animals, and actively discovered other human strongholds. Discovery means war, war means making a fortune, and even more glorious battle.

A group of men were once imprisoned in their own homes. In addition to desperately planting seeds for their women, they continued to meticulously repair their weapons with the help of the soft light of oil lamps. It seems to the women that their husbands are going on an expedition in winter!

The captured women of Gotland, who were forced to marry the Rus, have been shocked by the shocking scale of the legendary Rosburg, and now they see the behavior of their new man, one is puzzled and the other is worried. Life is already like this, and most women admit the reality. They are extremely pragmatic and depend on their new men. They are afraid that the man who sharpens his sword will accidentally die outside in the winter expedition. In the final analysis, they are worried about losing their shelter.

The sun finally returned, it swept away the haze of the world, and also made this ice and snow world extremely dazzling.

The intense light caused Rurik to collapse, but times have changed after all!

The smithy in Clavason was once again in full swing, and all five smiths in Roseburg were spitting smoke from their chimneys.

It stands to reason that these blacksmiths have accumulated a lot of wealth in the past few years, and they can stop working hard.

However, the Duke issued an order to work, and the orders from the tribe forced everyone to be very busy.

Of all the blacksmiths, the elderly Clavasson is a versatile one. Now he is no longer a simple blacksmith, but a master of more than twenty apprentices.

He is indeed not a blacksmith, and he is the first "engineering master" of the Russ who was recognized by Rurik. Even if this person does not have much technical ability, he has integrated a series of abilities of the Nordic craftsmen of this era.

Rurik provided creative design and craft drawings, and the Kravassen family was responsible for turning the drawings into real objects. The cooperation between the two parties has been very smooth for several years.

Rurik brought several entourages to place Kravasen. He came here to inspect, and secondly, to ask the blacksmith to immediately solve a small object. However, this small object cannot be done by Kravason himself, and Rurik thinks that his little guy Kamne can do it himself.

The heat of the blast furnace quickly melted all the surrounding snow, so the blacksmith's mansion had a very hanging cabinet scene. When other people's houses were still covered with some snow, only the various houses of the Kravason family were always exposed. 's roof.

The blast furnace resumed operation, and the reserves of a large number of charcoal blocks, piles of ore, and piles of clay molds are enough to smelt and cast for a long time.

Kawei is already an engineer. He stands on a high ground and yells at the hired workers to serve this magical giant furnace. When Rurik inspected, the second pot of molten iron in winter had emptied the slag, and the pottery mold casting operation was underway.

Kawei is supervising the casting of a large number of axes. This wave of casting will consume the molten iron of the whole furnace, and eventually turn into as many as 200 axes. Such a crazy efficiency is something that no one dared to imagine when you have no oil in the past. But this batch of axes has a blade at one end and a hammer at the other. Although cast iron utensils are not suitable for swords, they are suitable for axes.

It is already a popular product sold by the Russians, and the price is closely followed by the market price.

Of course Rurik knew that the Gran tribe in the kingdom was also producing and selling their own ironware, but they were still making them in a very primitive way, and their production capacity was really low. They are not worthy to be the competitors of the Rus, or the iron production capacity of the Viking tribes in the entire Nordic world is not comparable to this earth blast furnace in Rosburg.

The Rus people have upgraded the iron smelting process to the method of frying steel, and now Rurik sees the blacksmith apprentices he ordered to train, and they are working completely in the attitude of blacksmiths.

More than 20 people gathered in a shed with a large number of small stoves under the shed. They cooperated in pairs, one was responsible for desperately flipping the pig iron block, and the other was responsible for pumping the air with the bladder blower. Although they were all ten-year-old children, Rurik had named and rewarded them with excellent meals for the past two years or so. These Slavic boys were destined to live a hungry and full childhood. In Rosberg, they did have meat every day, and now they have a continuous supply of porridge and barbecue.

They were Europeans after all, and a ten-year-old who was given such a good meal had already shown unusual strength.

In other words, all the children who received benefits from Rurik, they all became strong, which is a remarkable characteristic that people of Rosberg age are full of praise.

Kravason himself was not idle either. The workers he hired kept turning a wooden turbo blower, and the small stove in front of him was blazing into the sky. He was still doing his old job, and finally made the carbon steel sword embryo into a good sword.

Rurik is a guest!

Kravason suspends the work at hand, recalls Kawhi, the overseer, and Kamne, who is frying steel, and invites Rurik to a comfortable mansion.

A matrix of bright oil lamps is lit by the warm woodcut. Kravasen sits cross-legged on the wooden floor with his old wife, while his daughter-in-law Lilia holds his son Kuzneslav who is just walking. Kawi smiled like a fool, and Kamne was very reserved when he saw his master Rurik for a while.

Rurik highly praised the blacksmith's immediate resumption of work after the blizzard, which reflects the strong support of the Kravatsen family for the development of the strength of the Duchy of Ross, and is a manifestation of loyalty. He is highly concerned about the future output of various metal utensils, and also verbally praises all blacksmith apprentices.

It's all the right kind of politeness, but really, the scene where they are actively working is not acting, they are actively producing, and Rurik took a reassurance.

"I'm very happy now! I think you all know what's going to happen in the future."

Clavasson shouted proudly: "Go hunting in the north! Many guys who ordered steel swords said that the duke was going to hunt a group of white bears, and let a group of elite warriors use the bear's fangs as helmets. Such a gathering. Dui will definitely scare the enemy, haha!"

"Sure, but I'm having a little problem."

"Oh? Can you have any problems?" Cravason stuck his head. "You are a well-known hero. It is my honor to be able to solve your problems for you."

"It's not too much trouble." Rurik shrugged. "I need some special stained glass."

At the end of the day, what Rurik needed was sunglasses.

After his dance-like explanations, the three of Kravatson, Kawhi, and Kamne have come to understand. Because these three people have long been fans of Rurik's "atomic theory", they believe that this is Odin's wisdom, and with the help of "atomic theory", they not only look at the various minerals at hand and have a new The idea of ​​​​also began to consciously "do things".

They've bypassed the alchemy routine and gone straight to chemistry.

Add ruby ​​to the glass, and eventually the glass will turn reddish. According to this routine, the Kravasen family, the only glass manufacturer designated by the Duchy of Ross, accepted a new task from Rurik, and this time it was no longer a simple stained glass.

It was actually a pair of black lenses for the eyes of travelers in the land of ice and snow!

Cravason actually had this idea after he first discovered stained glass. After all, the glass with a lot of lead added is black as a whole, and it seems that the more color is added, the darker it will be.

The glass continues to darken, isn't it that the sun in the snow is not dazzling?

The cheapest material to dye the lenses gray-black is black copper oxide. Rurik thought of a set of chemical methods for preparing copper oxide in relatively large quantities that can be achieved with current materials and equipment. The core copper material is the large amount of copper coins that have been seized.

Although the steps were a little more complicated, it took Kravason a day to make enough black toner-like substance to fill a small cloth bag, with a strange metallic odor, essentially It's a special kind of patina. Indeed, in terms of coloring material, copper oxide is a glass colorant that the Rus can now produce efficiently, and it is less toxic than lead.

They got to work, Clavasson was in charge of blending the ingredients, and Lillia and Kamnee had done the rest.

The viscous liquid glass was cast on a perfectly polished iron ingot, the hot red dissipated, and the dark glass showed his clues. It's even darker than the stained glass of the past!

Rurik didn't even need to experiment further. He took the cooled irregular glass piece and put it outdoors, and saw the dark world of ice and snow, and the sun was no longer dazzling.

Not only that, Rurik's mind was also associated with huge business opportunities.

Grinding the lens into two square glass pieces of about the same size is easy, as is creating a wooden holder for the glass piece and a mounting lug.

Two days later, Rurik came to the Kravasen's house again. He not only got the sunglasses he asked for, but also brought another news to the blacksmith.

"Do you like it?" Clavason asked knowingly.

"It's wonderful." Although Rurik felt that the sunglasses were a little heavy, considering the beauty of their practical use, he was completely relieved.

A group of people gathered at the blacksmith's house again, and everyone was in a very comfortable mood.

Rurik wearing sunglasses has completely changed his temperament, and the viewers feel that he is more heroic because of the sunglasses. It seems that anyone who wears them, the man becomes handsome, and the woman becomes valiant.

Facing her future brother-in-law, Lilia is generous, and it is her dark circles that reveal many things: "I am already a woman who is good at making glass, and I have been working during the long night, and now I have created a batch of black Glass. Rurik, I can guess what you're going to do."

"That's great. Don't force yourself." Rurik nodded and looked at Kravasen again: "Yesterday my father talked with some people in the tribe, and this year everyone must go hunting in the north and set off. The day is not far away. I also went to the shipbuilding workshop of the Hortra family, and you are very aware of the situation there. The two large ships are in urgent need of new masts, and the materials must be shipped from the north!"

"So, you need me to make a batch of high-performance goggles before people leave?" Kravason asked with a smile.

"Exactly! This is my request."

"Oh, don't be like this, your order is very important, and I will complete it no matter what." Kravason patted his chest again, looking like he was bound to get it.

"That's great. Making the frame requires carving wood, which is a bit of a delicate job. The winter hunt is set for the twentieth of November, and I'm ordering at least a hundred pairs of sunglasses. Mark my words. , is an order."

"Is that so?" Clavasson fully understood Rurik's intentions: "So the buyers are people from Beishou? How do you decide to price?"

"This... I thought about it, a pair of sunglasses costs twenty silver coins."

"Huh?" Clavason was a little surprised, "isn't it..."

"I've set the price too high? I think it's already a huge favor. It's still the old rule, your family will get a corresponding proportion of the money, and the share I get is all put in the big money box of our Ross people. After all, mine The mission is to lead the Rus people to become bigger and stronger, and I don’t care about the money, all the money will eventually be used for everyone.”

"Oh, what a great man you are."

Rurik curled his lips: "This sounds a bit like questioning."

"I can not."

"Then do it quickly. Soon I will go to Elronborg in person, Kawi, and you will follow. And you. Rurik pointed again with his little hand: "Kamne, you will follow. We're back before the Hanukkah festival on the winter solstice, and we're bringing back a lot of shipbuilding lumber, and a lot of chromite! Let's make sunglasses well, and now people who have sunglasses don't have to squint all the time on the long journey to the ice field. "