Rise of Rurik

The crossbow shot through the crossbow successfully pierced through the oak board, which was a little thicker than the wooden shield, and it was only a seven-year-old child who steered the crossbow.

Both Gould and Yevro are aware of the powerful combat power it possesses, but they have no clear idea on how to use it well.

The test of the crossbow was successful, and all the arrows fired afterwards were collected.

It was late at night, the cold wind was blowing outside, and the cold of early winter had come to Roseburg.

Most of the residents have extinguished their oil lamps, and their families gathered together to rest.

In the blacksmith shop, the wooden planks that sheltered the wind were temporarily erected, and the blacksmith shop looked brighter under the illumination of a few oil lamps.

Clavatson sat on the ground, laying aside his unstringed crossbow, a burlap sack full of arrows at his side.

The five crossbow arrows were randomly placed on the gravel ground, and their condition was obviously a bit bad.

"Rurik, our weapons are too powerful, these arrows are all bent. You see, this one has broken the shaft."

Rurik, who was sitting cross-legged, was not surprised. He bowed his body, and with the help of the light of the oil lamp, he observed the bent cluster of arrows and the section of the arrow shaft.

"Can only be used once? Maybe that's a good thing too."

"A good thing?!" Clavasson wondered: "All five arrows you made me make are all damaged. Hunters with bows will recover their own arrows, but you are good, they are all damaged."

Rurik understandably displeased in Kravassen's words, he explained patiently: "You see, the arrow is either bent or broken so that the enemy can't use it again."

"That's it? Do you think the enemy will have the opportunity to have our weapons?!"

"Is that impossible?!"

Clavasson immediately smiled disdainfully: "How is that possible?! In this world, only we Rus people have mastered this weapon, and you are its inventor. In the years to come, only we will use the crossbow to deprive the enemy of life. Son."

It is not surprising that he can say such a thing to Rurik. There are indeed many visionaries who feel that after they have a big killer, they can always hold the power of the strong.

For example, to build a powerful iron armored fleet,

Look at its terrible caliber, who can doubt that it is not powerful enough? Therefore, it is the strongest, and the owner of the fleet did not expect or disdain to understand the progress and ambitions of the enemy.

Rurik never felt that the steel-armed crossbow he had made was eternal, and he did not expect to be able to persuade Kravatsen to look at it dialectically.

After all, the problem now is that there is only one crossbow, and only when it has enough quantity can it truly show its power. The so-called quantitative change is qualitative change.

Rurik said eloquently: "We can't think of the enemy as stupid, it's always right for us to be careful. I think it's an advantage that arrows can only be used once. After all, we need arrows to kill, as long as we can use them. To accomplish this goal, we can obviously use strange things as arrows. For example, stones."

"Stones?" Clava heard fresh and new.

"Yes. Like glass."

"Glass? Can it still be used as an arrow? Do you want me to stretch it into the shape of a whole arrow?" With that said, Kravason made up a magical picture in his mind. The so-called crossbow fired will be the same Transparent cylinder.

"I made an arrow out of glass, tied it with sticks and twine, and finally glued two feathers," Rurik explained.

"But can such an arrow pierce through wood?"

"This... I'm afraid it won't. However, it can still penetrate the deer's fur. The arrow will definitely shatter the deer's body, so the deer is sure to die. If we shoot at the enemy, the enemy who is hit by the arrow will never survive. possible."

"But the iron-headed arrow can clearly penetrate the plank." Kravason said regretfully.

"Don't you think it's too expensive to use iron arrowheads? We're faster to just make glass than to smelt iron. You know, many hunters just use obsidian for arrowheads. What is obsidian? It's a kind of glass. So, do you think glass arrows are bad?"

Clavatson shrugged: "Who knows? In my opinion, the best arrows have to be smoldered steel." He played with the bent arrows: "I made them out of the most common iron. They, at your request, the arrows were struck long. I like glass for cups, but iron for arrows. Bronze might work too..."

"I want all three!" Rurik said decisively.

"You want it all?"

"Yes!" Rurik's attitude was very firm: "Listen, Klavassen! I'm not a hunter, and I don't want to be a hunter. I don't need to reuse arrows, because these arrows themselves are consumables. The only thing here is The thing that can be reused is the crossbow, no matter what the arrow is made of, its beauty is limited to the moment it shoots the enemy. It can't kill the enemy, it is the worst arrow."

"Oh? Do you think so?"

"Of course." Saying that, Rurik ran up to Kravasen and looked into the old guy's eyes: "Listen, I need more crossbows, maybe a hundred. I have to organize a A team that mainly uses crossbows, organize them, and shoot arrows at the same time, and shoot the enemy on a large scale. I want maximum kills, not some maximum reuse of arrows. You know me Do you mean?"

Clavasson understood a little, and he asked hastily: "Rurik, next, how many crossbows do you need?"

Rurik glanced at the crossbow lying aside, then said, "At least ten, let's start making them now."

"Where's the arrow?"

"I want you to make arrows for glass arrows, and since you insist on iron, do it."

Kravason nodded. "Okay, maybe we should talk about the price now. You know, the bow we're using is supposed to be a steel sword."

"Sixty silver coins for a crossbow!" Rurik said decisively.

"make a deal!"

"One iron sword and one silver coin!"

"make a deal!"

"Then go ahead and do it! I give you ten days to make them all." Rurik said excitedly.

Clavason, who was very happy, immediately panicked: "My master, are you really embarrassed? The first crossbow, we clearly..."

"Shut up! You've already had success, so it's going to be slow to make a second one. Maybe your smithy should have a meeting, maybe you can share the money with your buddies."

"Bah!" Clavasson stopped on the spot: "My agreement with them does not include crossbows. I will delay other people's steel sword orders. Rurik, I will do your business!"

"That's right." Rurik smiled and comforted: "I will come every afternoon in the future, and I will arrange for some friends to help you. Oh, no! It should be to help ourselves."

In this way Rurik placed an enormous order of nearly eight pounds of silver. The order included nine winch steel arm crossbows and two hundred crossbow arrows.

The price of the crossbow body has also been clarified. Since its bow arm is to be made into a steel sword, the price is simply the same as that of the steel sword, that is, sixty silver coins.

Expecting Kravason to make a batch of crossbow arrows while making a crossbow, he only has one pair of hands, and he can't complete everything in a short time.

Rurik only required that fifty iron-headed crossbow arrows must be made, and these arrows must be treated with smoldering carburizing and quenching surface hardening. Because as long as there is an iron arrow with a sleeve, and a piece of wood is inserted, it is another crossbow arrow.

As for no tail feathers? It doesn't matter. Anyway, at a shooting distance of thirty or forty meters, the tail feathers of the arrow have little effect.

In the afternoon of the next day, Rurik took the guys as promised and ran to the blacksmith's shop in Kravatsen.

Boys and girls all know the powerful power of the crossbow, and they never thought that they would have the opportunity to participate in its production, and the people who were selected, not to mention how happy they are!

Fisk, Kanuf, Carlotta, Ella, and nearly twenty boys and girls.

A large group of children, led by Rurik, suddenly appeared in the blacksmith's shop in Klavassen. How abrupt?

After all, children are also a labor force.

Seeing that Rurik attaches so much importance and cooperation, Klavasen, who had felt a lot of pressure, was in a much better mood.

For Rurik, the total number of children on hand for military and sports training has exceeded three hundred. Even if they are children, the number multiplied by three hundred is a terrible appetite.

More than a month has passed, including those little girls in Melalen who beg, and now their physical fitness is better than that of their peers from other tribes. Boys and girls eat wheat cakes and fish, and they must pay a certain amount of labor to make up for their food consumption.

A batch of longhouses for servants are being built rapidly, and more leather and linen clothes are being sewn. On the surface, Rurik has to pay for these things, but in reality, the real payers are those servants.

Rurik had begun to order some children to pick up dead branches in the woods and prepare firewood for winter heating.

There are also children with axes, carefully cutting down some small trees, and then cutting down the fallen trees into sections. The children work very hard because they know that the firewood is the key to not freezing to death in winter for themselves and their sisters.

Rurik selected the most trusted companions and servants to participate in the making of the crossbow. For these people, he is ten thousand assured!

Even if Rurik decided that the Rus could not count on one weapon to maintain a military advantage, if a certain weapon could give the clan a huge advantage, information on secret weapons, enemies and even allies, was best done much later. learn. In other words, when the tribe has something better, it is also excellent to sell old weapons that have been eliminated to allies at high prices.

What is my father's fleet doing?

Is it because they have to deal with a lot of things and delay the return date? They won't be returning until November, will they? At that time, the sea had already started to freeze on a large scale.

Rurik was a little worried about his father Otto, but he also had a hunch that by the end of October at the latest, such as around October 25 of the Julian calendar, the Ross fleet would definitely return in the cold wind.

But in the middle of October, a blizzard hit Roseburg!

The blizzard was a disaster, and the cold wind even blew thatch off some family longhouses and knocked down some pine trees. Thanks to the protection of the hills on both sides of the fjord, the wind in the fjord is not very strong, and the sea is really rough.

At the same time as the waves, there are fine snowflakes like knives.

The blizzard that lasted for two days was over, and the whole world changed drastically.

Some of the old clansmen were frozen to death at home in the sudden chill, and more people hid in their own family's houses, starting the winter Gou'an ahead of schedule.

Of course, there are also a group of hunters who are eager to try. Because of the great success of hunting last winter, this group of hunters began to sharpen their blades, eager to go to the north, to the end of the human world, and then look for deer breeders to loot.

Or because of this blizzard, it really brought some trouble to Kravason.

Rurik and the big businessman Gould made an agreement that in exchange for losing the bet, Gould would do more for Rurik. Rurik didn't make any excessive demands, except to speed up the construction of the servant's longhouse and, most importantly, send people to carry iron ore by hand.

Rurik really asked Gould to send someone to help him make more crossbows, so the blacksmith did not have to spend time mining the blacksmith stone himself, and someone would help him do it well, and the blacksmith saved time, which is what Rurik hoped. Best to help.

The snow has stopped, and the temperature will obviously not return to before.

Fishermen who went out to sea began to report a terrible thing, that the sea began to produce ice floes.

It's been this time, why hasn't the leader's Sorgon fleet come back? The left-behind clansmen could no longer remain optimistic, and one by two became worried.

Rurik's worries grew, but all ten crossbows were completed in just seven days.

In the blacksmith shop, all the crossbows are arranged on the ground in a matrix.

The calluses on Kravason's hands are terrifying, as well as his unkempt beard and tattered cowhide apron, making the blacksmith very punk.

Opposite this deep old guy are the excited eyes of more than 20 children.

"Is it still an experiment?" Kravasen asked of Rurik.

"Yes! This time, we have to play a new trick."

After that, Rurik shouted: "Fisk, Kanuf, take your brothers and pick up the crossbow. Well... and Carlotta, Ella, you come too."

"Me?" Carlotta asked excitedly and cautiously: "Rurik, I am a woman, can I manipulate it too?"

"Don't you think you are unworthy? You are the commander of the Valkyrie Legion." Rurik put on a cold face, obviously criticizing Carlota's words.

"Okay. Ella, let's come too." Carlotta sighed and picked up a relatively heavy steel-armed crossbow.

A group of children wearing leather jackets and hats stood in the snow. The thick clothes they put on were almost perfectly able to withstand the low temperature of minus 20 degrees.

Compared with some children in the tribe, the people of Rurik also pursue the best warmth in clothing. Therefore, Rurik had to pay a fee for buying and customizing clothes in advance, and he paid the money decisively.

Buying clothes can be said to be a very correct investment!

A blizzard killed more than 30 people, most of whom were congenitally weak. And Rurik's men, servants, were all healthy.

A wooden target stood above the snow. Twenty children stood in the snow. At Rurik's request, they rehearsed the so-called "Ross Arrow Formation".

The ten children holding cross bows had firm eyes. About 30 meters in front of them, they stood upright, which was equivalent to a wooden target with three strong men fighting in a row.

Rurik drew his dagger, and with the fog of speech, he shouted with his sword: "Brothers! The best use of the crossbow is to concentrate! Imagine that we are an army, we are the first to launch the Ruth army before the head-on fight. The power of attack."

Saying that, he pointed his sword directly at the target: "Think about it, it's not a piece of wood, it's the approaching Danish army! That's the most hateful enemy, brothers, shoot them with your weapons!"

One word inspired everyone's fighting spirit.

Like Fisk, like Carlotta.

Rurik was a selected crossbow experimenter, and all twenty people present had relatives and friends who died at the hands of the Danish army. Carlotta and Ella in particular, Rurik knew they were desperate for revenge.

Poor Carlotta, she was so weak. Rurik pinned his hopes on the weapons he had developed so that this girl, and even all Ostarans, would know that even if the tribe was left with only weak women, they could use certain weapons to take revenge.

"Everyone! Half-kneel!"

"Left elbow against left knee!"

"The crosshairs aim at the target! Steady your body!"

For a moment, Rurik had a strong illusion, as if his subordinates were not holding a crossbow at all, but a rifle.

what! Perhaps at a distance of thirty meters, the iron-headed heavy arrow fired by the crossbow is as powerful as a small-caliber bullet. Do not! Even more violent.

Seeing that they were almost ready, Rurik shouted urgently: "Launch!"

Because of the recoil caused by the heavy arrows, the light-weight children who were shooting in the kneeling position were struggling, and almost fell to the ground.

But the result of the shot is amazingly wonderful!

One round of salvo, all ten crossbow arrows hit the target, or in other words, they had already embedded and penetrated the wooden target.

There were three holes in the target, and it was obvious that the crossbow arrow had pierced through it. The other seven branches are all inserted crookedly.

"Well done, brothers and sisters. Keep winding and fire again when you're ready."

A weak girl who almost died from a leg injury, now relying on the weapon in her hand, she can easily kill the enemy. Carlotta looked at her younger sister's more petite appearance. Even such a weaker child can handle this weapon.

In fact, Ella used all her strength to barely level the crossbow. Fortunately, at the age of seven, she still winds the crossbow because of the ratchet winch.

I have to say that the winding process is really a tedious process, but the second round of salvos has done some strong damage to the wooden target. Everyone feels that their efforts are worthwhile.

What's even more crazy is that after five rounds of salvos, the target has been completely broken into pieces, and its remaining value is nothing more than throwing it into a bonfire as fuel.

Children with a little common sense already realize what this means. Because the plank of the wooden target itself can be used for shipbuilding, the ten children's salvo completely destroyed the plank, if the target's enemy ship, wouldn't the enemy ship be destroyed?

If the target is a deer, after a salvo, the deer must die on the spot.

The children realized that their shooting was very accurate. They boasted that they could not hit the wooden target with a normal bow at such a distance, but with a crossbow, the precise shooting turned out to be so accurate.

In fact, most steel-arm crossbows can accurately shoot at a distance of about 50 meters. Only short and thick crossbow arrows within this distance can fly stably, and only have the ability to smash wooden boards, that is, the ability to smash the enemy's wooden shield flat.

As for exceeding this distance, it is better to use the projectile carpenter to throw light arrows.

Originally, the Rus and other Viking tribes were not so fond of using bows and arrows in warfare in this era. The reason is that bone arrows and inferior oak single bows cannot cause serious damage to armored enemies. It's not that the Vikings in this time and space don't know bows and arrows, it's just because they haven't mastered the technology of making powerful bows and arrows.

However, the longbow will have it, and the cavalry will have it. The descendants of the Danes who immigrated to the Brittany region of France were not only good at archery, but also built heavy cavalry. It was this group of people who went to the Holy Land to bring the oriental crossbow technology back to Europe, and developed the steel-armed crossbow into the war.

If all this is destined to be a historical inevitability, the Rus people, under the leadership of Rurik, brought the technology and use of the crossbow to Europe five hundred years in advance.

Its method of use, or "Ross Arrows" as Rurik named it, is a line array. But this kind of routine, as early as a thousand years ago, has been used frequently by the Orientals.

After that, Rurik also organized his subordinates to try the routine of three-stage, four-stage, and even five-stage strikes.

He even tried the so-called group of five, with one shooter dedicated to shooting, and the other four's job was to wind up the arrows, a so-called round-shooting tactic.

In the snow, Rurik began to practice his "Ross Arrow Formation" tirelessly, and his subordinates also had a great time. In the snow, boys and girls continued their daily military physical training, boys continued to fight, and girls continued to shoot arrows.

Finally, Rurik brought the crossbow to the hillside of the training ground.

It was here that he finally began to train his boys and girls, the so-called phalanx of the Ross tribe.

His idea is very simple, the so-called future war, the infantry tactics of the Ross tribe must have two axes.

First, the archers throw the arrows first, and then the crossbow shoots the heavy arrows straight.

Second, the bowmen retreated, and the Ross swordsmen and shields formed a dense formation, advancing towards the enemy who had passed the arrows.

Rurik's training plan surprised coaches Yevluo and Fraser. Although the first training attempt, the coordination of archers and swordsmen and shields was very bad. After some running-in, the situation is improving.

Especially the so-called arrow formation!

"Rurik, girls, you'd better stand back, you'd better be all men. Well, I don't think you need to think too much about the enemy rushing in front of your army, because your crossbow has been shot dead. Most of the enemies of the charge." Yevro suppressed his inner excitement, and Rurik once again showed his great ambition. As a loyal servant, Yevro felt that the only thing he could repay was the boys who worked hard to train Ross. Swordsmanship, especially instructing Rurik, made him an excellent fighter before he reached adulthood.