Rise of Rurik

A lot of things have happened in the western world in just a few months, and Otto can't help but sigh that the once peaceful and ordinary days are becoming turbulent.

Since all this is fate, the big ship of the Rus people must ride the wind and waves in the waves, and there is no way for everyone to retreat.

At least God said that the people of Rus are favored, just like New Rose Fort has not had any troubles in the past year, and the population and wealth are also increasing rapidly.

Otto felt that the visit of Rurik and Arik was to raise everyone's vigilance, and now it was very important to erect the wooden wall as soon as possible before the first snow.

All night, Rurik, who sailed to Laughton, slept beside his father. He was forced to do it to ease the anxiety of an old man.

No, the old guy Otto kept stroking Rurik's smooth hair, like an orange cat.

It was Otto's snoring that tortured the tired Rurik to sleep.

New Roseburg was born in the fog in the early morning. There are many waters, dense forests and flat terrain. The water moistens this northern land. The small alluvial plain at the estuary is a good place to build a city.

There are few good places in Northeast Europe. The Neva Estuary is one, and it is also an estuary to the sea. Peter the Great desperately built this place because of its strategic value.

The dense and humid fog of autumn fills the earth, and when the fog clears, the pleasant autumn sun illuminates the world.

The earth has not become warm, no, everyone who works outdoors has put on thick clothes.

Standing outdoors, Rurik can easily recognize who is a Russ immigrant and who is a Slavic immigrant.

Look at the women who wear the blue-grey linen turbans and the thick apron woven of colorful hemp ropes slumped around their waists, they are the Slavs. The men of this ethnic group also wear sackcloth, and they all wear trousers (their ancestors ran into the nomadic forces when they tried to migrate eastward from the Vistula and Po river plains, so they learned from the steppe people), and used a thick hemp rope. as a waistband.

What has always been praised by the Russians is the high level of shoe manufacturing by the Novgorods. This is of course, or because of the encounters with the steppe people on the road of immigration, sewing leather boots and felt boots, or boots mixed with various materials, there are many such bootmakers in Novgorod.

The Russians are inferior to Novgorod in all tailoring skills. In fact, the tailoring level of the entire alliance is behind that of Europe at the same time.

The clothing of the Rus is mainly leather.

Therefore, in terms of temperament, they naturally appear aggressive and rough.

But once accustomed to wearing clothes woven with soft linen threads and gorging on the soft and fluffy leba of buying porridge and baking, and getting used to this more comfortable life, the immigrant Rus have begun to spontaneously become Slavic.

Now, no Russ feels that this is wrong, and making life more comfortable is everyone's instinct to pursue.

The two ethnic groups live together, and almost all of them have signed tax agreements with Otto. At least in terms of tax obligations, all immigrants are equal.

In the beginning, those Russ immigrants looked down on the Novgorod immigrants, claiming that they were a group of cowards and defeated soldiers. However, in the daily close contact, with the deepening of mutual understanding, a group of immigrants completed intermarriage in New Roseburg, and the estrangement in the past is rapidly dissipating.

When Novgorod immigrants show excellent farming skills, even for food, the arrogant Rus must need their help. The barren and cold Rosburg has made a large number of Rus people forget how to grow wheat.

Rurik had to stay in Novi Rosberg until the day of departure, which was not far away.

"Darling, you can stay in a warm room, someone will take care of your daily life." Otto really didn't want his son to get cold outside.

"That's not good, I haven't fully appreciated the city." Rurik retorted without thinking.

"Didn't you see it yesterday?"

"Huh? That counts? It's just a squint out of the corner of your eye. Before I leave, I'm going to go around the settlement, and I'm going to see the farmland."

Otto looked at the determined face of his son, and probably couldn't convince him. "We won't go back in another two or three days. The brothers your cousin brought are really nice, and I'm going to organize them to build the wall right away. You say, who will accompany you?"

"Then... myself. Let my mercenaries accompany me."

"Then let Conuson, let the old fellow stay with you. Maybe you have a lot of ideas about our new home, you say to the man."

Rurik's mind turned, "Just do it."

After a while, Conuson, who was ordered, came to see him. He has no resistance to the next task, and is it not an honor to personally take the future leader to appreciate the future main city?

"Dear Rurik, if you have any opinions, put them up, and I will take my brothers to solve it." Konusson knelt down on one knee, his obedience made Otto very happy.

In fact, Konusson could not wait to kneel down with his family, in order to hope to get a promise of stable power in the future from Rurik. In short, Konusson knew that since Ross had grown bigger, wouldn't his family be the leader of a hereditary corner of the land?

Konussson happily took the task, and after a while, he acted as a guide, with Rurik and his mercenary entourage, and went straight to the pier on the Neva River.

"Wait? Let's go to the dock now? Are we going to roam?" Rurik was puzzled.

What Konusson is most proud of is the construction of the wharf. There is no such thing as a large stable wharf. How can Sorgon's fleet dock for supplies? "Sir, do you have other plans?"

"Go to the granary first. Listen, the key to staying alive is never going to starve."

"Okay, let's go."

"Right." Rurik's mind jolted, "Where did you build the granary?"

"At the heart of the settlement, I hope you are satisfied."

"not bad."

Rurik Sulai lacked knowledge of the ancient granary system, and it seemed that all he needed to do was build a special house to store grain, regularly check for dampness, and kill rodents.

A group of people walked through the unorganized wooden houses. Rurik was relieved that the houses were all separated from each other. Some open spaces were trampled into roads. The places where few people stayed were all withered and yellow grass. The sheep that were tied by their necks were boringly nibbling on it, and occasionally three or two skinny chickens hurried past. There are also some trivial empty fields in the settlement. It was obviously suppressed by some heavy objects, or simply rammed, and the gray-black ground appeared flat and solid. What do they do?

Rurik felt no idyll, and even if it was surrounded by wooden walls, it was a big village. In this "village", traditional Viking longhouses built with wood, soil and thatch are rare, and Slavic woodcuts are the mainstream.

"Maybe that's what Novgorod is like. Yes! It must be so, and that's where a lot of immigrants came from."

Rurik thought so, and reckoned that even the granary should be Novgorod.

A special group of longhouses is the location of the Novgorod granary, and the settlers from Novgorod transplanted their more advanced storage technology to their new homes.

The granaries are all fence-type longhouse buildings, and the interior should be rectangular. The large number of columns under the wooden floor are much higher than those of the wood carvings. They are all built on higher ground to prevent the erosion of rainstorms and sea tides. Considering fire prevention necessary, the granaries are far apart.

Compared with the dwellings, these granaries are arranged in a more orderly manner. They are approximately arranged in a matrix, and all the warehouses add up to thirty.

Rurik looked left and right inside the granary area, and immediately asked, "Konusson, so many houses are full of wheat?"

"Besides the wheat, there's some cabbage, and they're soaked in the tauweng. You know, everyone makes sauerkraut. And some houses, hung with dried meat."

"Then I'll take a look."

Rushing food is a means of life-saving for human beings, so storage of seeds is a more advanced means of life-saving.

No, Rurik got into the granary and saw the sacks stacked into the wall, which were naturally full of grain.

Conuson introduced that some of the grain was tax paid, and they were about to be shipped to the ship. The other grains are the rations of the residents, as well as the particularly valuable crops.

The current settlers in New Roseburg, men, women and children, are only about 800 people, and it is not difficult to manage them.

It is natural to form a community in a difficult place, so when the grain is received, most of the grain is thrown into the shared granary by the residents. The break-in period of more than a year has passed, and the Rus and Novgorods here have actually become a community of destiny.

This union made Rurik feel sober. Perhaps this is fate. The Rus who colonized Eastern Europe were not simply conquerors, but helped the Eastern Slavs to do a pioneering thing. Everything started with the fusion of blood.

Rurik's excitement had no intuitive expression.

For the parties, there is a realistic need for this union, and the essence of the union is to keep warm.

Because they used the curved plough to open up the land wildly, they exhausted the food they brought in at first. They have reached the limit of output in cold years with limited agricultural techniques.

Conuson gave an estimate of 100 stikas (slightly less than a hectare) across the fields, yielding about fifteen hundred pounds of wheat.

Rurik converted it in his mind, and the harvest was equivalent to 90 catties per mu.

It seems very weak, I am afraid that this is already thanks to the nourishment of the Neva River, and the high value of grain production in the New Roseburg area. If you encounter an extremely warm and humid year, and supplement some farmyard manure, it is very likely that the yield per mu will reach 150.

After getting out of the granary, and after listening to Konusson's incessant introduction, Rurik was completely in the attitude of a leader listening to the report.

There's something funny about an old guy talking to a pretty little boy.

After all, Rurik was an adult in his mind. He could have committed a childish illness on the issue of war, and he would have seen it after the bloodshed. In Melalen, he saw clearly the bottomless pursuit of interests by snobs. In any nation and in any era, snobs will always be the same ruthless.

"I came from Merlaren, and I found that the fields there are not as good as ours."

"Oh, it must be because this is the entry of the Rus people. Odin sees your face, Lord, and bestows us favors."

"Enough!" Rurik waved his hand, and he couldn't stand the nauseous words. "In my opinion, this place has just been developed, and the land is fertile, but the continued cultivation of food will reduce the yield of food."

"Ah? Is there such a thing?" Konusson really felt incredible.

"Exactly."

"If so, we can only open up new farmland."

"You!" Rurik grinned suddenly, "Do you really understand or are you stupid?"

"Um?"

"Your people can't..." Rurik had something to say, and suddenly thought that these guys didn't know how to fertilize at all.

I really can't criticize them for this, it's just that they don't have the awareness of fertilizing, or that they have never logically contrasted the filthy things like feces with the vigorous growth of seedlings.

Rurik knew of a cutting-edge theory from another time and space that the end of agrarian farming was not far away. The nutrition of the land itself will be quickly absorbed by the crops, and the desperate application of chemical fertilizers is not a long-term solution. The current people are not qualified to consider those things. All the residents living in New Roseburg, Rurik does not expect them to do more, but to collect themselves and the dung of livestock and poultry, not as in the past. Or they can be buried directly and thrown into the Neva River, but sprinkled on the farmland to fertilize the fields.

"You can use the whole winter to collect human and animal manure and sprinkle it on the fields before the spring ploughing. This way, when the harvest season comes, you will get more food. Oh, by the way, don't use the ashes for heating and cooking and baking bread. Throwing them away and spreading them into the fields will also increase yields.”

Hearing Rurik's words, Konusson really couldn't figure out the causal relationship between dung and ashes and the high grain yield. Taking into account the technical level of the residents, collecting plant ash and manure is the only way to allow wheat to obtain nitrogen and potassium fertilizers, although the efficiency of fertilizers is far less than that of later chemical fertilizers.

"Sir, is this possible?"

"It can be done! It must be done! Just remember that the chief's order to you is to pay the tax of two hundred pounds of wheat per household, and the rest of the grain is your own, and you have absolute autonomy. I propose to you You can try or do nothing about ways to increase production. Remember, those grains that increase production are your own wealth.”

Conusson understands the importance of increasing production, even if he doesn't understand why.

A sturdy farmer has limited physical strength, and a family with quite a few people can manage the limit of the field is 200 stika vertically and horizontally.

Overall Rurik's attitude towards the granary is good.

He slapped his hands vigorously to get rid of the ashes: "Just collect the feces, don't be afraid of getting dirty. Soap has also been shipped, and you can wash your hands with it frequently, and you can wash away all kinds of filth. As for this granary, you should take good care of it. There must be no fire."

"Yes, we must protect it properly." Konusson asked complimentably, "Sir, where do you want to go next?"

"Alas. For you, there is nothing more important than farming. Let's go and show me the fields."

Rurik didn't have any wonderful hopes for land that the Russ could cultivate.

When it comes to intensive farming, the farming peoples in the East still have skills. In other words, the intensive cultivation of the eastern peoples is forced out by the natural environment. Since the fields given by the sky are naturally arid, in order to survive, they try their best to take care of the fields. If there is a shortage of water, build an irrigation system. When the land is barren, manure and fertilizer fields are collected, and even the dregs of grinding tofu are used as nitrogen fertilizer.

Really standing on the ridge of the Rus people, Rurik could not conclude that it was really farmland for a while.

There are no irrigation ditches in the fields, and even bringing in water from the Neva River is a trivial matter of digging a diversion canal.

The fields are set with some boundaries, that is, raised low mounds, it is so low that to distinguish the fields of each household, it is impossible to distinguish without confidence.

He could see some sparse stubble, and a small amount of dead grass. Looking at the density of these wheat stubble, it completely proves that the current situation of less than 100 catties per mu is a fact.

Suddenly, a gust of north wind made him wrap his leather jacket tightly, and the feeling of desolation really made him uncomfortable.

Conusson didn't think there was any problem. He enthusiastically introduced the fields, describing the beauty of the oats heading, and the entire settlement's residents harvesting wheat and their families going into battle, and even all the residents working in the threshing field at the same time.

Wait, the threshing floor? !

"Your threshing floor? Where is it?" Rurik asked.

"Just inside the wall, there are many open spaces." Konusson introduced.

"Huh? I saw some solid ground just now, could it be..."

"Hey, that's our threshing field and grain drying field."

"Go, let's go to the threshing floor and have a look."