Rise of Rurik

Rurik didn't hate wine at all. He really knew that the clansmen brewed ale with low reading, and it had a mellow taste and was also quite bitter. Ale is upgraded to beer if hops are added. In the era of extreme scarcity of beverages, ale has become a very critical beverage compared to tasteless pure water.

Still less than eight years old, he was still enjoying so-called mead this winter.

There are two kinds of mead in the Rus. One is fermented after being diluted with honey. It tastes like a rush of syrup.

The other is the modulation, that is, the bitter ale mixed with honey. The ale is obviously higher in degree than the fermented mead, but not everyone likes the bitterness. After adding honey, it is very different.

Including the mass wedding of the Novgorod women, the drinking wine quoted by the newlyweds is actually ale blending with honey.

There is even a rhetoric, the so-called life is always bitter and sweet coexist.

Of course, people in the southern European world can still get a lot of delicious wine, and even some people who are addicted to wine, such as the rich and aristocrats, did not drink alcohol liver, but drank diabetes in advance!

Rurik took his father's hand to go to Gould's seaside wooden house, and he also took his servant Rumia with him, first to show his pomp, and secondly to let her, who will bear heavy responsibilities in the future, see the world .

The day was still short, and when the soft light of the setting sun shone on the ice surface of the entire beach, Rurik saw the dark shadows swaying on the sea. Needless to say, those guys were still catching seals.

Human damage to nature is still limited, the Rus people have captured wild reindeer in the region, and seals are still easy to catch.

The population of Arctic seals is very large. Only in the Baltic Sea, the seal population in this region is still close to 500,000. After all, they are a mammal, and their special fur prevents saltwater erosion. For them, freshwater seawater is the same, so there are still Baltic seals in some rivers in Lake Ladoga and even more inland.

Rurik knew that seal oil, after being purified, was a slightly yellowish transparent oil that was almost pure white after it solidified. All soaps at this stage are made of it, and seal oil does not have a serious odor. If it weren't for the brownish yellow color of the plant ash solution, the soap I made myself would have been translucent white!

In the soap warehouse just now, Rurik learned that Gould's excitement about soap was partly due to the color of the soap. In this time and space, people's consumer goods are extremely scarce. Anything with bright colors can impress people. With their keen eyes, businessmen will naturally see business opportunities at the first time.

After a while, Rurik was standing in front of what Gould called the mansion.

It is said that it is a mansion, in fact, the shape is not outstanding. Unlike other houses, Gould has ordered his followers to clear all the snow on the roof, revealing its row upon row of wooden structures. Only the herringbone shape composed of this plate does indeed show different architectural features from the Ross tribe.

"Come on, great chief. I had the mansion renovated last year. I hope you don't mind the mess."

Messy? Gould's words are actually very humble. Rurik grabbed Rumia's slender arm and followed her father Otto into the house.

This is a huge warm longhouse, it still has no floor, but the sand on the ground has obviously been treated, that is, it has been rammed quite flat by heavy objects.

Gould's so-called clutter doesn't exist at all, it's obviously beautifully decorated here, and the overall layout looks very neat.

In fact, it is still a monolithic longhouse, and the interior is divided into the living room and servant's living room with wooden planks.

and the master bedroom.

On the wooden walls hang some shields, as well as decorative and practical axe with gold pattern. There are also some raised wooden supports holding bronze oil lamps.

Compared to other houses, Gould's Longhouse is more waterproof because its roof is made of multiple layers of wood. Although there are no ceramic rain shingles, Gould used staggered hard oak boards to achieve the effect of shingles.

Standing in the middle of the hall of the house, Rurik looked up and could only see the largest wooden beam in the longhouse.

The wooden beam is the key to the structure of the entire longhouse. It is conceivable that if this wooden beam is used as the keel of the ship to build a 30-meter-long transport ship, it must not be a problem.

Three iron cables hang down a large bronze chandelier, and the chandelier supports as many as thirty-two oil lamps. They are arranged in a radial pattern with mathematical beauty. Thanks to this large oil lamp matrix, the whole house does not need a bonfire, and it also looks quite for bright.

The oil lamps on the walls were all lit, and with the largest chandelier, the whole house was baked very warmly.

After a while, Gould clapped his hands and called his entourage to the living room.

There were four warriors, two young maids, and a man in a linen robe.

Seeing the samurai, Otto grasped the hilt of his saber almost instinctively.

Seeing this, Gould hurriedly waved his hand, and the fat on his face trembled: "My leader, don't be nervous. You see, these are my people, and some live in another longhouse."

Otto relaxed a little and joked: "Gould, it seems that your life is very nourishing. You still need young women to serve you, but does it disgust some of your other women?"

"You mean my maids? Hey, they're just lowly slaves, have you noticed their reddish hair? These are two Britons. My chief, maybe you don't know, those Danes recently Over the years I've been taking some slaves from that island to the west called Britain, and even we can get some for some money."

"This... I've heard of it, but we don't need those servants."

"But you have also made changes." Gould glanced at Rumia beside Rurik and pointed out: "You also chose a maid for your son. You are indeed different, and I still think you are You're going to make this humble deer breeder your son's wife. I've figured it out, you're a little weird, you treat your servants too much!"

"Don't talk about this matter." Otto waved his hand, "you asked me to bring the blanket, I want to rest my feet. And put your good wine and meat on it, I want to see what you say. What is wine?"

"Okay!" Gould slapped his thigh and ordered the thin man to bring the food. It turned out that the man was just a cook.

He beckons the cook to bring the food that has been prepared, along with a leather blanket and a low wooden table.

A lot of tribal people eat at tables that don't work at all, simply because there is no urgent need. Otto usually eats by sitting cross-legged, picking up meat in a clay pot to eat, or drinking soup with a spoon with a set of bowls.

Gould's life was so particular that Otto felt a little uncomfortable facing the cold barbecue on the table.

The barbecued meats are all cold, and the meat is actually beef, with a thin layer of butter attached to it. Rurik received exactly the same care as his father, but poor Rumia could only sit and watch because of her status as a servant.

Dinner was cold beef, and some rye bread. The side dish also has a little dried cranberry, and the sweet taste is precious.

As wealthy as Gould, he didn't feel that this reception was inappropriate for the Rus's Great Chief, because he also ate these foods on weekdays.

The most important thing about this dinner is the wine!

"Great leader, please wait a moment, I will bring you my treasure."

Gould stood up and walked into his bedroom. After a while, he came out with three clear bottles and a big belly.

He actually held a transparent bottle!

Rurik was bored with a meat cleaver, trying to cut cold roast beef into cubes. He felt that he couldn't destroy such a big lump no matter what, and the two children could always kill the Rumia he gave to him.

He saw the three glass bottles that Gould was only holding, and it was really shocking that they were almost transparent.

It seems that these bottles are not from the ninth century AD at all, as if some traveler deliberately left them in the cracks of this history, and finally the bottles that are extremely cheap to a dime have become Gould treasures.

But that's not really from a bottle that's a thousand years old.

Gould proudly placed the three pancakes on his low table, and the liquids of different colors were still shaking, and Rurik even saw the bubbles in them.

The heights of the pancakes are different, the shape details are also different, and in some places there is a crooked texture.

After looking closely, Rurik calmed down and determined that she was not from the future, but perhaps from this era, created by some magical craftsman.

Rurik had already made an estimate in his mind about the origin of the bottles, perhaps they came from Eastern Rome, or perhaps the Persian region. As for glass, the name of "glass" was given to the East because of its origin in Persia.

Gould proudly faced the stunned leader Otto and boasted: "Great leader, perhaps compared to wine, these three bottles of mine are the treasures."

"Yes...I...I know. This is a crystal bottle. You still have such a treasure."

Rurik heard his father's words, and all the hairs on his body stood up in an instant. The two words of crystal and bottle were spoken in Norse and became a combined word. The co-author father knew the concept of crystal bottle, and it was also valuable to know it.

Gould shook his head. "No. It's not a crystal bottle, and it's not as precious as a crystal bottle. It either came from Rome, or it could have come from farther east. Anyway, to get these three bottles, I spent a lot of money. A price. If I think about it, I spent twenty gold coins per bottle."

"So expensive? Selling a bottle at the price of a boat, only someone like you can make it." Otto praised with envy.

"Now you can too!" Gould exclaimed. "I know very well that your son has made a fortune for you. You see, now that soap has made lovely Rurik extra rich. ."

"My son is too young."

"No! I can see that he must be a business genius. A great leader, and a future leader, I am eager to cooperate with you further."

Taking advantage of this dinner party, Gould frantically released his kindness. Rurik could hear the person's flattery. There is a saying that there is no benefit. The reason why a senior businessman can say a series of flattering words must be that the businessman feels that in-depth cooperation means huge business opportunities.

Since the other party showed strong goodwill, Rurik, who kept silent, directly stated his decision.

"Gould, I love these bottles of yours. Don't you have new ones? I've got a lot of money now, and I'd like to get them from you if I can. I'll give you a price you're happy with."

"Really?" Gould, who smelled the business opportunity, whirled wildly, and he immediately responded respectfully, "I'm sorry, my little master, I have these three here, and I am very reluctant to bear them. But I will try it in the south. Luck, if I can get it at the market, I'll have it when I get back in the fall."

"Well, you'd better find out if they came from Rome, or a more eastern world." Rurik was very interested in this, and for a moment began to think about the possibility of making it himself. New 81 Chinese website updates the fastest computer:

Carving a piece of natural crystal into a cup, many peoples in the world know how to make it. During the Spring and Autumn Period in China, the monarchs such as Chu State already had their own World Cup. The Tang Dynasty called such cups "luminous cups", and the verses of luminous cups for wine and wine have been circulating.

More ancient, such as the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, there are not only crystal cups in the tombs of the temple, but also weapons made of meteorite iron.

Rurik felt that these glass bottles were all from Persia. They were trafficked to Eastern Rome by food merchants, and then sold to Gould. Every time the resale merchants made money, the so-called twenty silver coins were One-fifth of a Roman pound of gold! It's a lot of money!

He is very clear that the main component of glass is silica, so the most critical raw material for making glass is quartz sand. What about the improvised glass?

Rurik thought of the high-temperature jelly-like slag flowing out of the furnace of the blacksmith's shop. When the slag cooled naturally, it had a glass-like texture.

Perhaps the Persians discovered that the ore and clay with a high content of quartz sand became special when heated. This is the creative direct burning of quartz sand, and some chance of creating an almost transparent cooling object.

By adding some lead soil, which is a by-product of silver smelting, the so-called lead dioxide, together with calcium oxide that is available everywhere in the mountains, practical glass can be made. However, it is not pure, and impurities that are difficult to remove cannot guarantee absolute transparency, so it is more appropriate to call it colored glass.

Sorting through the knowledge in his mind, Rurik felt that in the remote Roseburg, there seemed to be no problem in craftsmanship, using the sand from the coast and the lead from the smithy to make a glass container from the smithy.

Look at these three glass bottles, they are obviously blown out bottles, it can be seen that their makers already have very mature "bottle blowing" technology.

In fact, cheap glass bottles can be produced efficiently in the era of great industrial development in the 20th century, even in the 19th century, the bottles were all blown out by craftsmen. Even so, in the 21st century, there is still a huge market for professional craftsmen blowing bottles.

The reason for the magical physical properties of glass still does not have a very reasonable scientific explanation, and it still puzzles people in the 21st century. This group of materials mainly composed of calcium silicate and lead has strong plasticity after heating, and craftsmen since ancient times can make it into various shapes.

In addition to becoming a daily necessities, even transformed into weapons, such as arrows made of glass or something else.

Look at the three bottles of wine that Gould presented. If one bottle is pure "water of life", that is, spirits purified to 97%, it is no longer a wine. Such a glass bottle can fully serve as a fragile container for an incendiary weapon.

liquor? Pure wine?

Rurik had already figured out how to make glass at once, and even had a great money-making plan to talk to the blacksmith Kravason about it and put it into practice.

His attention suddenly turned to the three bottles of wine at Gould's desk.

Of these three glass bottles, the left bottle is dark red and is considered wine. The color of the middle bottle is yellowish, or mead fermented wine, or ale. And the one in the right bottle, it can't be white water in it!ァ新ヤ~⑧~1~中文网ωωω.χ~⒏~1zщ.còм

Gould kept saying that they were all wine. Could it be that the bottle on the far right was...