Rise of Rurik

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

The group can be considered to have ended the wandering of the market, but they have to walk along the old road again on their way home.

Now that word of the "weird Norwegian businessman" has spread, the drama has to continue.

Mercenaries carry tools with them, such as knives, axes, and thin hemp ropes for tying things. Rurik didn't know what happened to a tribe like Uppsala, which was clearly far from the war. Anyway, a group of children fled to the Melalen market to find a way to survive.

The children were tied with their hands, and Rurik and his party acted as slave traders. Their ostentation has attracted many people's opinions, not the slaves they control, but their dress.

Word had spread, and the burqa-clad Norwegian almost got into a fight with the leader. Those who dare to challenge the leader of Melalen, are there some bold Norwegians left?

The market merchants said they were brave, but unexpectedly, shortly after Rurik and his party left, the whole market jumped up.

Without him, the leader of Olegin brought his private soldiers to collect the so-called tax. The news has already been spread, and anyone who does not give money will be severely beaten.

Dock, a long boat that Gould has sent, thinking that Rurik may be purchasing a lot of things, so this boat is larger in size.

The sailor who was ordered to pick him up was surprised to see Rurik returning. They only landed more than ten people, and now they have become a behemoth of more than forty people.

A large number of ragged children got on the boat, and there was no fear in their eyes, only a strong sense of anticipation for the legendary Gould Island and Roseburg.

Sailors have self-knowledge, they don't ask anything, they only care about sailing, while Rurik's mercenaries and even Arik are working as rowers, just for the ships to return to Gould Island as soon as possible, brothers. Can eat barbecue.

"Right now, untie them!"

Rurik's order was immediately implemented, and the mercenary gently pulled the rope a few times, and the rope on the children's wrists loosened.

Yes, the mercenaries are tied with live buckles, which also confirms that the swagger is just a show.

The children were freed from all restraints, and they all held a little dried fish in their hands to nibble on themselves, and even sucked the bones of the fish.

The sky was dark, and the cold lake wind swept across the main waters,

The wheat fields that are doing their best to head ears are rustling against the wind.

Some vague fishing boats on the lake lit their bait torches, and the fishing nets had sunk in the water, just waiting for the perfect time to catch the bass.

The huge Lake Mälaren has a huge resource of freshwater fish, among which the intentional bass is the largest. Every autumn, the salmon that inhabit a wide range of waters begin to return to their inherent spawning grounds, and a considerable number of bass must enter first. Lake Mälaren, and then into the small river deep into the cradle-like swamp.

The vast lake area is almost entirely the fishing grounds of Melalen fishermen. Another group of daring fishermen entered the waters. Facing the northern Rus people who began to compete with them for marine fishing grounds in the past two years, they dared not speak out.

As usual, the Gould family is not involved in lake fishing. They and many business families occupying the islands in the lake are very professional. That is, they only do business and will never snatch basic survival resources from the Melaron people.

At least the merchants will not threaten the roots of the tribe. The leaders of Melalen in the past only require them to pay tribute when they go ashore to operate, and all other freedoms. Even the merchants need to spend money to buy food to support a group of small servants, and their consumption has made the fishermen in Melalen a little easier.

In general, the Melalen tribe has more abundant supplies and is more capable of resisting natural disasters and material shortages.

However, for those tribes living in inland areas, the geographical location of the Uppsala people determines that they can hardly grab some resources from the fertile Lake Mälaren, and their farmland is naturally barren. There are not many warm years. They are also actively raising livestock for wool and milk, which can raise more clansmen.

But the fall of 831 came too early.

A large, fully-staffed longboat with paddles docks at the pier at Gould Island.

Rurik and his mercenaries took the lead in walking down the landing plank and standing on the trestle.

"Come down, children of Uppsala, this is your home for now."

The gentle call calmed the children's worries a little. They were still very vigilant in general. When the first boy tentatively walked out of the plank, the subsequent children followed carefully, and finally all set foot on the trestle.

"Very good. Let me go now, and I'll feed you."

The time is in the evening, the sunset is spreading the last rays of light on the lake, and the world in the east is already brilliant.

The whole island is filled with the aroma of food, and the people on the island are as usual gorging on the sticky vegetable soup and a lot of grilled fish. Before the oats were harvested, Gould sent food buyers back with fresh fish and vegetables.

Almost everyone is eating, but there is no canteen here, and Gould has no plans for this.

The core area of ​​the island is surrounded by wooden walls, which act as a defense and at the same time serve as a key protection against the cold.

A large number of people were holding wooden bowls in one hand and a few grilled fish skewers in the other, sitting on the wood that was deliberately crossed at the base of the wall and feasting.

The most ordinary people can only eat the most ordinary food, including the beggars from many tribes who were gathered by Gould early, and have long been eating surimi soup. Although the food is scarce, everyone will not be hungry.

As for the mercenaries, it was naturally Dunton beef, mutton and fish.

As for Gould himself, other people's habit of greed becomes more and more serious in old age.

He deliberately kept a little spirits and mixed it with ale or wine to drink it. As for meals, of course there was barbecue. If the food is satisfied, the beauty will naturally have it.

Although Gould was just in time to enjoy the rest of his life in his later years, he was not confused.

As usual, he had dinner with his eldest son, Snowreva, accompanied by the newly-raised maid. Perhaps the only downside was the lack of actors and actresses.

Under the dim and throbbing chandelier, the way the two of them cut the barbecue with a knife was a bit hideous. The old guy Gould also deliberately stuck a dagger into the mouth of the maid beside him. He also said some words of promise. He was moved to tears when he saw the meat-eating servant, and he laughed literally. The 300-pound fat man, his round blue eyes squinted into a slit.

The two men of the Goulds were enjoying their supper, and they seemed to have forgotten that Master Rurik had landed in the Malaron Fair.

Finally, a mercenary hurried into the dinner scene.

"My lord, the leader of Rurik is back."

"He's finally back?! Oops!" Gould slapped his forehead hard, then pushed the two beauties around him away. He glanced at the eldest son: "Let's go, welcome him in, it seems that the dinner party is going to be added."

Gould got up almost with the help of the slave girl. He drank some spirits and walked slowly.

At this moment, Rurik had just walked under the wooden wall with the children who had just been subdued.

The wooden door creaked open, and a group of people entered the wooden castle in the core area of ​​Gould Island.

For those children, they were surprised to see a large number of people holding rice bowls, and soon as the wooden door was closed, they subconsciously gathered because they were afraid, and because they smelled the aroma of food, they couldn't help drooling.

After a while, Rurik finally saw Gould, who smelled of alcohol.

"you've been drinking?"

"Oh my little master, all I can say is that Ross Vodka is really delicious."

"But it's not as lucrative as I thought." Rurik didn't want to talk about the wine, so he turned and pointed to the children in a dark group, "I'm ashore. You see, this is me Children found at the Melaron Fair. Gould, you are guilty!"

Gould was taken aback: "Huh? Am I guilty?" He couldn't see Rurik's real displeasure, and he didn't know what the kid meant.

He squinted and saw a group of trembling and pitiful children in the dim light, and he couldn't help feeling strange.

"You are guilty. See these children?"

"I see, they..."

"I thought you gathered beggars from the entire Melalen market, but I met so many people today. Why is this? Please explain to me."

"This... wronged!" Gould shouted righteously wronged, but when a new group of children appeared in front of him, he couldn't say anything. "Maybe, another group of foreign children have fled here recently?"

"Huh?" Rurik narrowed his eyes suddenly, and inadvertently he felt that Gould had told a big secret. He didn't want to linger any more: "I asked, these children are all from Uppsala, maybe you know what happened to Uppsala?"

Gould clenched his chin: "They are all Uppsalas? There are also Uppsalas among the children who were gathered before. They claimed that they did not have enough food and were driven out by their parents to fend for themselves. Are these people? …”

"Perhaps so?"

Rurik had planned to feed the children, put on new clothes, and better wash their bodies, and even get a good night's sleep, and ask them about their experiences tomorrow. Now that everyone has arrived at Gould Island, I simply ask to understand now.

Food, clothes, shelter, and a stable future life, Rurik made these four promises, in exchange for the immediate surrender of the group of Uppsala children. They are all pure, hunger and cold stimulate their survival instinct, as long as they can survive, they are willing to do anything.

The children talked about their past, they were real children after all, and their pure heart made them have no reservations. One and two wanted to tell the new master everything they encountered on the road of escape.

The problem quickly became clear, but the scene described by the children was briefly described as "nothing to eat".

It turned out that the Uppsala tribe was experiencing a serious agricultural crisis!

The Uppsala tribe, located in the northeast of the Melalen tribe, also experienced a long and cold winter this year. The planting season was forced to lag, and the local farmers were still planting grain, praying for Frey, the god of harvest, and Odin, the incarnation of the sun, to give everyone a hot summer, so that the autumn grain harvest would not be too bad.

However, their food is doomed to be completely lost.

right! Completely dead end!

They sowed the seeds in close to May, and the low temperature caused many seeds to be buried in the soil, which just didn't germinate. When the seedlings finally grew up, they were not doing well.

The temperature throughout the summer was not as warm as the people of Uppsala had hoped, the seedlings did not grow quickly, and of course there was no fertilization at all, and the watering was all rainy.

Autumn has come after a rainy day, but all the fields show no signs of heading.

The autumnal equinox is approaching, and in the hearts of the locals, after the average day and night of autumn, the first snow will soon fall.

During the short frost-free period, they failed to harvest anything. To make matters worse, most of the Uppsala people could not catch enough fish in the river, and carried boats to the sea for offshore fishing, and the income was not high. The annual "battle" to reserve supplies for the winter has begun, and a very serious question is before the entire tribe - famine is destined to come, what to do in the future?

There is a saying that the disaster is imminent, and the wealthy people in the Uppsala tribe generally own a lot of farmland, and a group of tenant farmers are taking care of the fields for them.

The farmland was not harvested, but the tenants still had to pay the rent.

The wealthy knew very well that their tenant farmers could not produce large quantities of oats and rye, and they were not even capable of catching fish for rent. The so-called tenant farmers are all farmers who once cultivated land, and successive natural disasters caused them to gradually lose their land and become "part-time workers" for the wealthy tribal people.

Now, the most tragic agricultural failure has come, and the tenant farmers who have not harvested grains have been completely poor, that is, all their property cannot offset the debts they owe.

In fact, they do have one last asset, and that is themselves.

It can be said that the class differentiation of the Ross tribe is relatively late compared to the entire tribal alliance. Those tribes living near Lake Melalen have almost completed the evolution from tribe to state. To a certain extent, the Uppsala tribe It has become a slave city-state.

Those who can only sell their bodies to pay off the agricultural debts of the rich, in order to survive, they really can only serve as slaves, the so-called serfs.

In this way, the wealthy people who own land will suffer a certain loss in their lives because of this disaster, but because they have obtained a group of slaves, they may start the most thorough exploitation next year. After all, for the serfs, they had to farm the land all year round, and they were only paid some food that would not starve to death.

In such a state, the wealthy people in Uppsala, they no longer care that the slaves under them are actually their own race.

mercy? why? The Melalen tribe of the alliance leader has been doing this for a long time, and the alliance leader himself does not care. Many ordinary people have become serfs of powerful people, and even the alliance leader has become very powerful because of this.

The family was reduced to serfs, and the men and women were forced to face a tragic fate, but there was one last hope in their hearts.

If the children are controlled by the leader, they will also be regarded as debts to pay off, and the children will be slaves for life.

Completely bankrupt Uppsala peasants drove their children out of grief and indignation, ordering them to "run away from home" and to become beggars in the Mellaren market. Theoretically, the parents of the children can bring their families along to become refugees. This is just a theory, because the powerful families of the Melalen also select and even capture refugees as slaves.

They would rather let their children try their luck in Melalen, and they themselves should stay in their hometown.

Because some rumors are circulating among various tribes, that is, there are some businessmen with unknown motives in Melalen, who are gathering children, rumors that boys may be trained as private soldiers, girls may be trained as servants, or even trained The concubine who became the master, in short, the child's situation will never be worse than it is now.

Almost overnight, hundreds of children with little food ventured to the core territory of the Melalen people to the southwest.

Along the way, they either weakened and died, or were killed by wolves. The remaining sixty people fled to the Mellaren market.

The children are all accusing themselves of being ruthlessly driven away by their parents, but they don't know that their parents will face a more tragic fate of lifelong slavery.

In fact, they were controlled by Rurik and faced a similar fate.

Hearing about the "malicious abandonment" of the child by the parents, Rurik is no longer surprised. He is not surprised at all. It is like a grove called "Baby Cemetery" near Roseburg. will abandon this. Who would abandon a newly born child if there is food to eat?

In the short two years of the Rus people, Rurik was convinced that the entire tribe had basically solved the problem of food and clothing for the whole year, and the incident of abandoning the baby had ended. Of course, there was also a death order issued by the leader Otto to restrain it.

Some clearly articulated children explained their tragic experiences, and Rurik felt a chill all over his body.

He sighed deeply: "Well, I really can't expect most parents to be kind."

"Benevolence? The Uppsalas have no food. If there is no food, the men will take up arms and loot. I don't think Uppsala can loot anyone. They dare not attack the Mellarens, much less The ability to organize a fleet to attack the Gotlanders. Could it attack the Rus people in the north? Attack us? They dare to loot, I think you will easily kill them if you are strong." Gould said coldly.

"Of course!" Rurik didn't change his face. "If the army of the Mellarens came to beat me, they would also be waiting for my ruthless slaughter. You know, our crossbow is invincible."

Hearing it, Gould suddenly heard the murderous intent hidden in these words. war? The Melarens are fed up and attack the Rus? Rurik said so.

Gould whispered, "What happened to you on the shore, Rurik?"

"Yes. I met Olekin. He is really a hateful guy. He actually killed people in front of me. Is he still the leader of the alliance? He is a child killer at all, hateful!"

Gould didn't know Rurik's angry appearance. To make such a somewhat overly kind child angry, it must be...

Because of his surprise, the slightly drunk Gould sobered up: "Ah? You mean, the leader of the alliance, Olegin, he... he provokes you? Ah! Did you go to him personally?!"

"It was just a chance encounter." Rurik held out his head. "He actually dared to kill my servant. Sooner or later, he will lose his status as the leader of the alliance."

Rurik had already had ambitions to become the new leader, and even his ambitions were even bigger, as great as the legendary emperor of Rome.

Ambition is ambition, Gould knows that his little master is actually a very pragmatic person by nature.

"Alas! I don't know what happened to you and him, but we still have to do business with him."

"Only now." Rurik gritted his teeth.

"Okay." Gould shrugged, "I sent a messenger, but the messenger hasn't come back yet. Just come back and rest on the island. As for these kids..."

"According to the old rules." Rurik put on a commanding tone: "When we go back, I want all the Uppsala children to live. You arrange their lives as usual, and when they are sick, they will be treated and healthy children. Tell them what to do."

"I understand." Gould nodded deeply: "They are already the new Rus."

"Of course! I want all the beggars that the leader expelled, especially that Olegin!" Rurik continued to bar his teeth, "Sooner or later, the children who survived his persecution will become my warriors. Mela The people of Lun will pay for their prejudice and arrogance!"

For the convenience of reading next time, you can click "Favorites" below to record the reading record of this time (Chapter 335 The Disaster of the Uppsala People), and you can see it when you open the bookshelf next time!

If you like "The Rise of Rurik", please recommend this book to your friends (QQ, blog, WeChat, etc.), thank you for your support! ! ()