Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

Stockholm is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is located on the east coast of Sweden, near the Baltic Sea and where Lake Mälaren enters the sea. It has beautiful scenery and is a famous tourist destination.

The urban area is distributed on 14 islands and a peninsula. More than 70 bridges connect these islands into one, so it enjoys the reputation of "Venice of the North".

Of course, maybe because the name Venice is so famous, not only Stockholm is called the Venice of the North, but also St. Petersburg in Russia.

Because it was unclear how much information the people behind the program had after the arrest, Liang En and the others did not have time to visit the city, but took action as soon as they got off the plane.

Because the place where Liang En and the others were going was located on a branch of the waterway between Stockholm and Syrahamar, taking a boat was obviously the most convenient travel plan from any perspective.

Because the transportation of the ancients was achieved by water transportation, it was obviously more conducive for Liang En and others to sail along the river by boat to complete this search operation.

Fortunately, there are a lot of water systems around Stockholm, so renting a boat is not too difficult.

So three hours after the plane landed, Liang En and the others had already completed a series of procedures and sailed on Lake Mälaren by boat.

Unfortunately, neither Liang En nor Jeanne could sail a boat, so they had to hire a captain to help them sail the ship.

In fact, Fan Meng could drive this kind of ship if he had nothing to do, but this time he had his own things to do, so it was inappropriate for Liang En to ask him to come over at this time.

And from another perspective, what Liang En and the others are doing now is within the scope of disclosure, so there is no need to be secretive and make it so complicated.

Lake Mälaren is the third largest lake in Sweden, with a water area of ​​1,140 square kilometers and a water depth of 64 meters, second only to Lake Vänern and Lake Vättern. At the same time, this lake is one of the birthplaces of Swedish Viking culture.

Mälaren is derived from the Viking word meaning stone beach, and the entire lake stretches west from Stockholm. It is 120 kilometers long from east to west and 1.6-40 kilometers wide. There are 1,260 islands in the lake and it covers an area of ​​488 square kilometers. It is a famous health resort in Sweden.

Because of this situation, the traffic in the entire lake seemed very busy, and Liang En and the others even blocked the boat in a narrow waterway for a while when they left Stockholm.

"Are you historians? Then why don't you go to Birka?" At first, the captain with a gray beard thought Liang En and the others were a traveling couple, until Liang En revealed his purpose.

The Birka the captain was talking about was the most important trading center in Sweden in the early Middle Ages, that is, the Viking Age. It was built around 800 AD and was responsible for the transit work between the trade routes between Eastern Europe and Western Europe.

At the same time, because of the city's unique geographical environment and location, it is also a relay station on the Baltic Sea for the land and water transport route to Byzantium through Rus.

However, the prosperity period of the entire city was only about 100 years. After 975 AD, this trade hub gradually declined due to the diversion of trade routes or the drop in water levels, and its status was replaced by Gotland.

According to the existing archaeological remains, the entire site includes the city itself and a castle built on a cliff. The city wall is about 1.8 meters high, 6-12 meters wide, 5.2 kilometers long, and has six entrances and exits.

There are nearly 1,200 cremations and burial mounds outside the city. The wooden tombs of nobles were mostly buried with female slaves, horses, weapons, precious ornaments and daily utensils.

Moreover, it can be seen from the excavated items that there are goods from Russia, Arabia, Byzantium and Western Europe, which means that it was very prosperous in history.

Because this place has left the ruins of the entire city and a large number of tombs, there is a huge amount of cultural relics in the local area, many of which have not been excavated until now.

Therefore, many scholars often choose to go to this ruins when they talk about archeology in this area, and this is why the captain asked Liang En and Joan of Arc why they did not go to Birka.

"Because we want to find something that others haven't found." Liang En explained after thinking for a while. "For example, this time we are looking for traces of ancient Viking quarries."

"Quarry - what's there to excavate?" The old captain expressed some confusion about Liang En's research topic, because in the eyes of ordinary people, archeology means digging tombs or hiding treasures, while quarries are Not one of those two.

"This has many uses. For example, for a stone building, if you know where the raw materials come from, you can deduce the ancient material circulation channel-" Liang En explained.

Obviously, this kind of knowledge is just like a heavenly book to laymen who don't like it, but the methodical narrative in it also obviously makes the old man feel a sense of incomprehension.

"It does sound important." The old captain nodded, "As far as I know, the place you are looking for is close to a village. Then you can ask the locals if they know anything."

It seems that this captain who is active in this area must have received scholars like Liang En, so he made such a suggestion. After all, asking the surrounding people before conducting archaeological excavations is also a good way to obtain information.

It was about 170 kilometers from Stockholm to the destination, although Liang En and the others were on a small boat with a cruising speed of only about 12 knots.

But because the boat didn't stop along the way, and the old captain was indeed a veteran who often traveled here, before the sun went down in the afternoon, Liang En and the others' boat had successfully arrived at a place only 2 or 3 kilometers away from the destination. in a river.

"I can only send you to this place. I don't have any hydrological information about the river course any further, so the boat can't move forward at all." After docking at a shoal, the captain looked regretful. Di said to Liang En.

"But I will wait here for you to come back." The captain patted the fishing rod beside him. "I can use my fishing license these days."

"Also, take the high-power walkie-talkie you have with you and the rifle you rented. If you encounter any emergency, these are the only things that can help you."

Different from the chaos in the forest areas of Russia's Far East, from a purely public security perspective, the forest areas in Northern Europe are obviously much safer, at least there are not so many dangerous humans.

This situation occurs mainly because the locals are much richer than the Russians, and the new immigrants who are the cause of security problems are simply not suitable for the primitive jungle here.

It's just that it's summer, and there are a lot of wild animals active in this area. Especially near water sources, it's easier to attract various animals, so it will be very troublesome if you don't have weapons to defend yourself.

Fortunately, when preparing yesterday, Liang En thought of this and applied for a hunting license. He also used his gun license to rent a shotgun from a shop that specializes in providing such services to tourists.

After checking their luggage, Liang En and the others said goodbye to the captain and jumped onto the river bank. Then they stepped on the gravel bank and walked toward a valley not far away.