Rise of Rurik

Rurik wanted to build a ship, and even if it was ambitious, the issue of the ship's material was the most pressing issue.

The border of Roseburg is too far north, and the distribution of oak trees in the cold area is extremely rare. The easiest way to capture the oaks is to really expand the sphere of influence to Gotland and build a permanent fort there, or go around and ask the Melarens who immigrated to Gotland to help cut down some oaks.

An even more daring possibility is that the Russians have firmly rooted their forces in the southernmost part of Scandinavia, across the strait from the Danes on the other side.

However, for shipbuilding, it is not realistic to die on oak.

It's true that oaks are hard to find in Roseburg and further north, but red pine and spruce are everywhere!

If you sacrifice the hardness of some ships and stop blindly colliding with possible enemy ships, the spruce in the north and even the pine forest near Roseburg can solve all the shipbuilding problems of the Rus.

Throughout the warm period of 832, the Roseburg infrastructure project saw a large number of trees felled with double saws and axes.

A large number of old houses have also been demolished, and the most important beam has become the best marine keel.

The Hortra family who immigrated to Ross already had relatively strong funds. Considering the future shipbuilding project, they immediately purchased as many as twenty girders.

Only a few of these oak wood beams can be used as the keel of a large ship such as the Avrora, and the rest of the wood beams are absolutely fine as the keel of a common cargo ship.

Now, these naturally shorter wooden beams are just used to form the keel of the destroyer.

Rurik signed a clear agreement with them. The plan of the "Eighth-Eighth Fleet" was no joke, but a task that had to be completed in 834. Craftsmen complete this work, and what they get is not as simple as money, but also a higher political status in the Duchy of Rus.

The agreement clearly established that the price of a cruiser without any weapons and accessories was fixed at one hundred and fifty pounds of silver, and the price of a destroyer was fixed at one hundred pounds of silver.

So Rurik spent only fourteen hundred pounds of silver in his budget for shipbuilding.

And this is just the price of building the ship, and the weapons that come with it are a lot of money.

Even if the war dividends have become rich and powerful, Rurik is really a little guilty when he investigates this matter in depth. Fortunately, after these ships are built, they are the tools of the Rus' expedition to the Quartet.

It is necessary to have more money for this shipbuilding.

The destroyers Rurik requested were all smaller than the Avlora-class cruisers. He does not require this kind of ship to undertake cargo tasks, it is a purely small combat tool, and the shipbuilder cannot commit the stability of the hull structure and combat effectiveness.

The keel was laid as soon as possible, and the sound of ding ding dong dong rang from the dock in the two rooms, and the construction of a total of four destroyers has begun.

Even if the indoor environment where two ships are built at the same time in each indoor dock is a bit cramped, the craftsmen have no complaints, because the construction time given by the gold owner is limited, if the time is delayed, I am afraid that Rurik will give less money.

Among them, there is another force that urges working overtime, which is Hotra himself.

He should have lost his fighting spirit in his old age and stayed at home waiting to die. Wouldn't it be nice to leave the shipbuilding business to the younger generation, but his fighting spirit was awakened by Rurik again.

A total of sixteen large ships? What a gorgeous sight that must be?

The Ross fleet was built by his own family, and it was an honor to watch them as if they were still alive.

The shipbuilding attitude of the Hortra family and its friends is always reassuring to Rurik. They also hired a group of manpower, even some Rus women, who have become laborers for logging, moving, and supplying firewood. The hull was built earlier.

But another problem is also starting to get tricky.

Thinking back to that day, he stood on the big ship that was about to install the mast and boasted about the propeller propulsion mechanism. When he really started to implement it, Rurik felt more and more difficult inside.

"Maybe I can build a paddle steamer? No! Paddle steamers are not suitable for sea ships. Either don't build it or install a propeller."

The most critical difficulty here is the sealing problem.

For the best seaworthiness, of course, the propeller must be installed directly at the bottom end of the hull. However, the output power is the two legs of a person, and the power is purely mechanical transmission. How can this be good?

Although the end result may be very strange, Rurik is determined to use propellers, a boat with two propellers, and the shaft is mounted on the outside against the hull.

To a large extent, this is a variant of the mechanical structure of the paddle steamer. The laterally rotating axle is transformed into two rotatable axles parallel to the keel by means of gears, and the end of this axle is the propeller blade.

To accomplish this, Rurik took the time to visit the home of the old blacksmith Klavassen, in the industrial area of ​​the Russian carbon-iron complex, assembled five blacksmith families all over Rosberg, and explained the boat and the propeller mechanism in detail. Things.

This is not something they can understand in a few words.

Rurik was also patient. The meeting lasted for three days, and the group of them finally came up with a result.

As Rurik's usual habit, the results of the research are engraved on the yellow-white pine board, and the lines are smeared with toner to form a clear engineering blueprint.

It can be said that to realize the drive of the human propeller of the ship, even if the driving force of the ship is only two knots, it is also a test of the highest mechanical engineering technology of the Rus people at this stage.

It involves a very wide range of aspects, and its complexity is even more complicated than shipbuilding!

But the five senior blacksmiths present were all wise.

The Rus people are already using the power of running water, using a mechanical mechanism to turn it into the power of free forging and grinding. Now with a more complex mechanical structure, the oars of the Rus people have become more exotic. This matter has the technical support of Rurik himself, and the five families are full of fighting spirit!

Rurik's plan was that the space in the stern was arranged with two rotating rods longitudinally to the keel, both of which were made of wrought iron, and were case carburized at times. One rotating rod is on the ground and the other is high.

The high rods are fitted with bronze roller bearings, which are mounted on the hulls at both ends. The lower poles are arranged in the cabin, not only are roller bearings fixed at both ends, but there are as many as five sets of iron pedals which are closely arranged by heat welding on them.

The two rotating rods are connected by four belts, and thus are belt-driven.

The high-place rotating rod is located on the outer part of the hull, and bronze gears are installed at both ends, and each two end special-shaped gears arranged on the rotating rod outside the hull are driven.

The outer rotating rod of the hull is inserted obliquely under the preset waterline. The whole body of the rod is made of surface carburized wrought iron. The upper end is equipped with a bronze gear, and the lower end is equipped with a bronze propeller, which is fixed to the hull by three sets of roller bearings. In order to resist seawater corrosion as much as possible, the whole body of the outer rod of the hull is plated with silver, and the propeller is also plated with silver.

In Rurik's expectation, the corrosion resistance of this mechanical structure to seawater and smoke is naturally poor, but in this era, we can't expect too much.

He has confidence in Ross's blacksmiths challenging difficult jobs, but not completely.

He needs to pilot a boat to prove the mechanism works. As long as it works, then all is well. As for the damage of marine corrosion, just remove the transmission mechanism installed outside the hull when not performing tasks.

Kravassen honorably took on this task, and the work of forging swords and axes was of course important, and such matters were now largely left to the little blacksmiths who were servants in Rurik to study here.

Such as casting, grinding gears, casting blades, forging very long irons and silver plating, and even extremely advanced roller bearings, ordinary blacksmiths are incompetent.

The entire Ross can do so many jobs, except for Kravason, his son Kawhi, in this regard, the two did not brag.

The winter life of the Rus people is no longer the boring and quiet years ago. People are busy with all kinds of things, and they are inseparable from the basics to get benefits.

The first severe cold snap was followed by a small-scale cold snap shortly after. Some snow was cleared in Roseburg and all the roads were covered with ice, but after the new cold snap, people had to do it again.

It's already late October, and the Rus' Hanukkah is only a month away.

Most of the Gulf of Bothnia has been covered in ice since the first cold snap, and even the weakest places can leave.

On a macro level, the tension of the sea water forces the ice layer in the middle of the huge bay to squeeze. The farther north, the more serious the ice layer squeeze. In the end, as in previous years, an iceberg with a height of ten meters is created. This is the power of nature, and the Rus people are powerless to change, but they can use it well.

There are some cracks created by the extrusion of the ice layer. As long as you find such weak spots, hunters can guard the cracks for seals, or create holes in the ice to induce sensitive seals to breathe. Of course, the ones waiting for the seals are harpoons and big hooks.

A group of Ross hunters went to catch seals where the ice was relatively weak in the south. They camped on the ice again, and when the sleds were fully loaded, they returned with a large amount of frozen seal skins, meat and bones. The hides were sold to out-of-town traders who entered Roseburg seasonally, and Rurik the meat and bones was the largest buyer.

Another group of Ruth hunters embarked on their winter hunt this year, along with Rurik's deermen's servants heading north, along with hundreds of reindeer to Elronborg.

This year's winter hunting is not as simple as hunting!

The Speuter, who once explored the upper reaches of Elrond Castle, discovered the lake and established the original camp of Fort Fisk, this time he was ordered in a critical situation, and the trip with a hundred people was to follow the route marked by Rurik , to find Murmansk, not to mention the establishment of a permanent settlement, but also to pull two longboats on sleds there. A hundred brave warriors This is to establish the northernmost settlement of the Rus. It will be an arduous expedition, but the splendor of seeing the sea at the end of the world has made the brothers unwilling to turn back.

Time has quietly entered December, and the daytime is rapidly shortening. Even so, the short daytime cannot dampen the enthusiasm of the Rus people for work.

These days, during the day Rurik took his men to either the shipyard in Hortra or the industrial area where the black smoke never ceased. As it stands, the hulls of the four destroyers are being built in an orderly manner, while the hulls of the other two large ships, which have been completed, are now being pushed outdoors, just waiting for the return of the people who were ordered to go north to cut down the huge fir trees. The masts are installed, only now they're like some big toys for kids to climb up and down.

As for all the parts of the propeller drivetrain, Kravason patted his chest to assure he had a set. This guy and his son Kawhi were busy making these parts, and when they finished one set, they had to make a new set, and Rurik had to stop it because of the need for experimental verification. As far as the quality of the parts is concerned, Rurik is quite satisfied, although not impressed.

Check out these uniform roller bearings! It is the master craftsman of the Kravason family!

As many as ten bronze roller bearings, the tolerances must be large, that is, it is difficult to see the difference with the naked eye. They all rotate very smoothly, and it can be seen that the nesting of the four inner rollers and the large and small bronze rings is quite stable and accurate, and then smeared with viscous seal grease, it seems that the overall mechanical performance is quite excellent. Now, waiting for the hull to be built to the right degree, it's time to install the system on a boat.

Rurik only went back to his palace at night, to see how his wives and concubines were studying, and to bring in John Ingvar to study Latin.

On the whole, the Russ people only need to live a traditional life. As a real duke, he does not need to monitor what his subordinates do every day. But there is one guy who really needs to be vigilant, and that is missionary Eskil.

Naihe, Naihe! It was clearly stated that it could only be used as an observation and could record some of what he saw in Rus. This Esquil couldn't help but spread the word among the Rus people who were busy making money, and even among the Slavic women who married and carried their children. The so-called holy belief.

This is a taboo forbidden by Rurik, if you let this man fool around?

Rurik was ruthless, and instructed his subordinates to arrest Esquil, who appeared to be traveling but was actually trying to do his job. But Otto did something even worse. He didn't ask his son to kill the old guy, but forced Rurik to order the man's hair and beard to be shaved off with a sharp steel knife as a show of humiliation. But such punishment is not enough! Even if Rurik intended to be merciful, Otto and many of the Rus demanded further punishment for the outsider who defiled Odin's blessed sanctuary.

Esquier came with two small entourages, one of whom, John Ingvar, became Rurik's governess. As for the other nameless who fell victim, the nameless teenager was secretly beheaded, and Esquil was humiliated after being shaved off his head.

He became a monk? More than that!

Since you have done such a thing, why not do it even more. Rurik heard John Invall's sincere cry, and only then did he know that this kid didn't really want to be a rabbit, but was just passively doing it to pray for his life. All of these are the preferences of Esquil, and even his followers have been violated.

What is blasphemy? Wasn't Esquill's actions the purest blasphemy of his own beliefs?

Eskill was essentially imprisoned. Although he was well-fed, his body and mind were greatly damaged. The hair on this man's whole body was hung off, and he once felt that he was going to become a ram who had been gelded while he was yelling.

John Invall was quite helpless when his companion was killed, but he was not stupid enough to stop Rurik's decision. His teacher was revenge, but he was very happy to see it.

John Ingvar, who was trained to be very obedient, knew how to condescend to the strong, like a loyal dog, a man of this nature that Rurik liked to use. It's a pity that a good-looking man really can't be a real man because of what he has encountered and because of his beliefs?

More than a month has passed, and Rurik has become a strange person in John Ingvar. The Duke of Ross has basically mastered the Latin language (a surprising number of vocabulary is very similar to modern English), and he feels that his use value is rapidly weakening. John English Val is also increasingly worried about his own future.

To be honest, he felt that he was living the best life here with Ross. Lord Rurik wouldn't ask for his back, and he was even extremely disgusted and disgusted with it. Sufficient food also became stronger. Moreover, Lord Rurik has been hinting at certain things, and John Invall inevitably has some doubts about his beliefs.

He is basically a man too!

"This is the end of today's study. I'm tired." Rurik yawned, and then he asked Fisk, Kanuf, and Telavis to leave.

As usual, John Ingvar should leave the Duke's palace and go to sleep in his temporary house.

He was left on purpose by Rurik.

The third floor became cold...

"My lord, you...you have other important arrangements for me? About Latin, maybe what I taught you..."

"You boy, you are still as cautious as ever, and you seem weak. You are a Dane, and you should be Odin's berserker, how can you not be strong enough? You are really like a lamb now. Now I will ask you one thing."

"Ah! Your lord."

"Do you like women?"

"Ah! This..." John Invall was speechless, this guy wanted to say that he was actually interested, but because of his beliefs, and the teacher's punishment in the future, and...

Rurik shook his head and stood up, pointing to his nose: "You hesitate! Hesitation is desire. Listen, I'll make a deal with you. I'll get you a woman who will turn you into a real man. You don't think about going back to Frank, you stay in Ross."

"But! This is... blasphemy."

"Blame. I knew you'd say that. Eskil is blasphemy, did he get punished by God? I punished him! Listen, it turns out your god doesn't punish these things. Do things according to my requirements, I am the backer you can rely on. Don't worry, I will arrange a woman for you to take care of your daily life, you must prove that you are a real man, I will see the results within a year, you should know me It means. Otherwise... just like your comrade who was beheaded by me, you will also have a tragic end."

John Invall's eyes widened and he swallowed hard. He was in a mixed mood, a mixture of excitement and guilt.

But he knew that Rurik, the Duke of Ross, was a good man.