Rise of Rurik

The Ross tribe is actively expanding. However, due to the limitation of strength and the traditional way of life, the power of the tribe cannot enter the inland areas of the vast land at this stage.

The settlements built were all adjacent to the sea, and the conquered tribes all lived along the river. In short, all places that the Ross people set foot on can be reached by boat.

The Ross people at this stage are obviously typical sea peoples, and sailing and fishing have long been their lifeblood.

In order to maintain the smooth flow of materials and personnel exchanges in various settlements, and to ensure the increasingly important commercial routes, the Ross people must take precautions to build a maritime force that can protect their own interests.

Maybe it's too early to build a navy, but the tribe must have one or more ships, so that all tribesmen can feel at ease when they see them.

Since the best shipbuilders in the alliance were recruited by themselves with generous salaries, they had to use the existing shipbuilding materials to build a huge ship hull.

This ship must be timeless.

Rurik didn't dare to say that if the ship had the strength to float all the way to the Americas after being successfully launched, it would at least be able to swim seamlessly in the entire Baltic Sea.

Opposite to Rurik's ambition is Otto's suspicion. He stares at the keel carefully, doubting the reliability of the future ship with the navigator's instinct.

"Rurik, are you sure this is okay? It's too long, and I doubt that the spliced ​​keel is reliable."

Rurik couldn't help talking about this matter. The shipbuilder Hotra swore his victory with a voice that had experienced many vicissitudes: "Boss, for this ship, my family and I have bet the honor of our generations. If I fail , my soul will be forever guilty."

"Ah?! You have such an attitude?" Unexpectedly, for a boat, a shipbuilder can swear like some soldiers.

"This is our attitude. We are willing to trust Rurik, and we will...build the ship strictly according to his requirements. Since he is the one who received Odin's blessing, then our ship construction will go smoothly."

Now, Otto focused on his son.

"Rurik, tell me your plan. Oh no! I think you've been planning this shipbuilding plan for a long time."

"Hey, Dad, you really understand me."

In this regard, Rurik admired Otto very much.

After all, he is an old guy who has been blown by the sea wind.

He began to list the many ideas he wanted to use in the new ship: "This ship will be pure sail power, and it will also be a heavy cargo ship. It will be a strong warship. She will be assembled with a lot of pine and Use pine gum. She will have a real deck to protect the cargo and also provide sleeping quarters for our sailors. There will be log cabins at the stern and forward of the ship, the bow cabin is where the dignitaries rest, and the stern The log cabin is the cabin where the rudder is operated."

After just saying this, Rurik noticed that his father was so surprised that he could not close his mouth from ear to ear. It was probably the first time some terms appeared in this world. Rurik didn't dare to speak too professionally, so he had to gesture and use more words to describe one concept after another.

“It also needs to have a huge mast that will have jib sails. I’m planning to have a mast slanted in the bow so we can take advantage of the wind on the lower end of the boat with a countersail. I’m also going Put up a second mast to take advantage of the wind. She will have the tallest mast of all our ships, and she will be the fastest sailing."

The son is making up a beautiful dream for himself, it seems that this dream only needs a winter waiting, and the result will be seen next year. Otto reckoned that maybe he wouldn't have to wait that long. Look at these Mälaren shipbuilders who came from afar and were in urgent need of meritorious service. Their busy appearance didn't look like they planned to spend the winter in peace and boredom.

Ice and snow must not interfere with their plans, presumably Rurik will often supervise them.

While Otto was satisfied, Otto was also a little curious: "Rurik, you actually keep calling the ship her? Is the ship still a woman? Or are you just thinking of the ship as your woman because you like the ship so much?"

What the old man said made Rurik want to laugh, but the matter of "taking the ship as a woman" is not ridiculous when you think about it carefully.

"Because the Romans called ships women, and they even named them after goddesses."

"Huh? Romans? Rome again, you know a lot about them?"

Otto's words reminded Rurik. Think about it, everyone's understanding of Rome is still just a fragment of hearsay. wrong! Most of the tribes simply disdain and have no chance to learn about Rome.

Rurik immediately lied: "That parchment book is a relic of the Romans. I saw the record on it, and they just called the ship a woman."

"Well, it's a strange custom." Otto shrugged. He had read the parchment himself, but he couldn't understand the words on it. Otto was a little timid, and wanted to force himself to say that he knew a lot. He put on a gesture of teasing children: "Honey, what name do you plan to marry your woman?"

name? Name my woman?

Rurik almost laughed out loud.

It is indeed a bit ridiculous to think of a ship as a wife, and it is indeed the Romans who took the lead in giving ships a feminine name. All forces in Europe are interested in competing for the legacy of the Roman Empire, and are eager to obtain a noble status, and it is reasonable to inherit some of the legacy of the Roman navy.

Otto Sulai didn't think it was important to name the boats. He learned that his son had marked the captured fishing boats with clear numbers. name? If you must do this, why not choose a domineering name? ! Just like the invincible Red Dragon that the Danish leader said.

Now that it has a name, what name should be given to the Ross people's first true sail-powered ship?

Since she is an epoch-making product, she should have a famous name.

"Yes! Just call her Aurora!"

"Huh? Aurora? I thought you'd have a better name."

Rurik was also very puzzled: "Isn't she elegant enough? This ship will be born in winter, and Aurora shines in the sky. It's the parade of the Valkyrie. Dad, this ship is not just a cargo ship, but also a A special warship."

"Is that so?" Otto thought for a while, "Then wouldn't it be better to name it directly after the Valkyrie? Such as Valkyrie, Brunhilde, or Noren."

"It's absolutely fine!" Excited Rurik slapped his thigh wantonly, his blue eyes seemed to be burning with flames. Immediately he looked at the shipwrights and said loudly, "Listen, I'm naming this ship Aphrodite. After we've finished her, construction will begin on the second ship, and they'll be named after the Valkyries. .”

Hotra's wrinkled face began to twitch violently. He was not excited, nor was it wrong to name the ship a woman. He cautiously suggested: "Rurik, maybe this is wrong. I am afraid that God will be angry , we should not name the ship after Odin's handmaid."

Rurik shook his head: "Really? I don't think it's necessary. Hotra, I asked you to build the ship. Next year! When the Aurora starts sailing, if Odin is really angry, she will capsize. I Think, Odin will not be angry about this."

He is willing to believe that there is a great existence, but he does not believe in any strange powers and gods.

Aphrodite, which is pronounced in the Norse language according to the dialect of the Ross tribe, is basically just a noun describing the Northern Lights. In fact, in the final analysis, this vocabulary comes from the ancient Indo-European language, and finally evolved into a vocabulary to describe "Europe".

Of course, Rurik gave this name to this ship, which was still in the keel state and the construction plan had basically been completed, as long as it still came from his bad taste.

The Ross tribe really needs a ship named Northern Lights as a national treasure.

Autorurik and others stayed at the shipbuilder for the longest time. After all, this place is an extremely important foothold for Otto to inspect the tribe. He had to investigate the wintering conditions of all the ships of the entire tribe, and even the winter work plans of all the shipbuilders in the tribe.

The sea freezes in winter, and the fishing behavior has become a hole-drilling fishing in the ice sea, and even a special short spear is used to "watch the hole and wait for the seal".

Otto was fascinated by Rurik's fantastic plan, and he was even more amazed that his son could make a plan with the shipbuilder in a short period of time. Do not! The planning must have been done during Mellaren's time. Some veneers were engraved with traces, and the traces were not random, but the engineering blueprints of the shipbuilding plan! Manufacturing ships according to the patterns described on the wooden boards, coupled with their superb cargo ship building skills, the most critical thing is the direct participation of Rurik, a holy man.

Otto believes that this will be a great success. What kind of positive impact will the launch of the Aurora bring? Otto could not make any estimates at all.

Because the situation was more special than Otto could have imagined!

What Rurik intends to build this time is a high imitation Caravel sailing ship.

Because of some nautical games he came into contact with on that plane, Rurik has a little understanding of the history of European ship development. The caravel, in the language of the Iberian people who first built it, was an "oak ship". It has learned a lot from the experience of the oriental sea-food ship in the sail system, and combined with the local hull, it has magically reformed such a baby with ocean-going sailing.

The cargo ships of various Viking tribes are the originator of European sailing ships! The hull of the historical caravel ship was born from the continuous transformation of Viking cargo ships for five hundred years.

Caravelle's huge triangular sail, of course, cannot achieve the maximum efficiency of downwind sailing like a balance sail. A series of refined operations, that is to say, as long as there is wind, she can sail freely.

A great dream is being realized, and Rurik is very relieved of those shipwrights.

Only in terms of fees, Rurik did not intend to tell his father the truth.

For a conventional cargo ship, the quotation given by the Huotra family is already an astonishing five hundred silver coins. The Aurora under construction is more complicated to manufacture and requires more cost, and because it has to be manufactured in winter, the labor cost is also huge.

Hotra made an extremely high offer: three thousand silver coins.

And that's just the cost of the hull.

In order to make the ship's hull, the Hotra family had to hire some Ross people to cut and process wood, and even simply buy finished products from local carpenters and blacksmiths. The consumption of loose glue as wood gap adhesive here is also very huge, and it has become one of the important reasons of costing money. A large part of the three thousand silver coins will fall into the hands of Ross laborers, and the profits of the shipbuilders in the end are not astonishing.

When the hull is completed, a large number of strong men must be summoned to drag it outdoors along the slide. At that time, a pine tree from Elronburg in the north was brought in and turned into the main mast of the ship.

It is a normal decision to use a straight red pine as the main mast, so can it be used as the keel?

If it is just a general ship, pine wood can certainly be competent for the keel. Since this time it was a huge ship that challenged the shipbuilders, it had to be built with stronger oak.

Shipbuilding has always been a very expensive business, and how big a ship can be built is also an evaluation symbol of a country's manufacturing level.

It stands to reason that Rurik should ask these people to dig a pit and build a waterproof embankment with wood and sand. This is the dry dock, which is the key to building large ships.

Clearly, with the current rush to build, there was simply no time to dig dry docks.

The Aurora had to be built on flat ground, but fortunately it would not be extremely large, and the existing manufacturing technology could serve such a huge monster.

Rurik is still unable to estimate the real cost of a large ship. If the expensive hull cost will account for most of the finished ship, the final cost of the Afulora will be 4,000 silver coins no matter what.

It seems that this amount of money is not much for Rurik, but he is currently unable to control even a silver mine. The root cause is that the Rus cannot issue currency that is acceptable to all tribes. It is inevitable that food will become a special currency. Four thousand silver coins corresponded to forty thousand pounds of grain.

The caravel type sailboat itself is a small boat, her displacement is only about 50 tons, but the displacement can reach an astonishing 80 tons when fully loaded. She is a small ship with a lot of cargo in her belly. Due to her slightly flattened hull, the center of gravity of the ship is extremely low after loading cargo or ballast, and she stands like a tumbler on the sea.

This is what Rurik expected most, even if the ship would cost him a lot of money.

The Aurora, which was built with huge sums of money, is bound to be a milestone. How many ships of the same class will be built in the future? Rurik had an expectation in mind.

"I must have at least ten ships, or more. In the future, this kind of ship will become the main force of transportation. Of course, it will be very expensive. If I can sell more high-value commodities, I can buy a huge amount of food from Mellaren , it's not a big problem."

The ship building plan starts with the Aurora, and what can support her and the subsequent sisters' construction is food in the final analysis.

On this day, Otto led his men to complete the investigation of the tribe. He stayed in the key areas for a long time, and naturally left the less important places after a few glances. For example, Otto has not realized until now, what does it mean to immigrate with a group of female slaves who are good at sewing like Verdegen?

In Otto's view, it is only natural for women in the family to make all kinds of clothes for men. Otto has no concept of making money by processing ready-made clothes and opening a tailoring factory.

Rurik thinks this is of great significance. Verdegen's tailor workshop and Hotra's large shipbuilding workshop are clearly a kind of enterprise. They can create more wealth, and as the chief family, they have the right to collect more taxes.

The balance of the "big cash box" is seriously insufficient, and maintaining a large amount of advanced reserves is originally the wealth backing for Rurik to implement a series of plans. Although the backing has now become a huge amount of food, it is still very important to control a large number of silver and copper coins that can be used flexibly.

On the second day of Otto's inspection, a grain market arranged by the leader's family was suddenly formed on the cold beach.

A large group of tribesmen who wanted to buy oats gathered together with their money, and they were in a state of disarray for a time. Rurik was so shocked that this group of tribesmen would soon carry out a tragic robbery, and even cause a stampede.

Fortunately, with the experience of distributing spoils, neither Otto nor Rurik could just sit back and watch the tribe fall into a coma.

The mercenaries obeyed the leader's order to maintain these, and they gradually formed a line, waiting for the opportunity to buy food by themselves amidst constant complaints.

The gigantic scales eventually yielded a hundred pounds of fresh wheat, which the buyer put into clay urns or carried away in burlap sacks.

The upper limit of the grain release this time is 100,000 pounds of grain, which is enough for 1,000 people to receive one time each, and Rurik will get back 10,000 silver coins from the sale.

Rurik disagreed with Dad's large-scale grain distribution plan. It is said that grain is the private property of the leader's family, and more of it is Rurik's private property. How to use it should be arranged by the property owner.

The clansmen did not have a reliable granary, but they had a lot of silver coins, so they put out a large amount of grain rashly. They would damage the grain due to their poor storage, and the loss outweighed the gain.

Slowly releasing food, Rurik boasted a trick. When the people of the tribe have almost eaten enough food, they will release the next wave of 100,000 pounds of food, for example, every two months. In this way, 800,000 pounds of food can really be carried abruptly through a special distribution method. In a sense, the next harvest season is to use limited grain reserves to achieve the magical result of "wheat all year round".

Of course, this is an expedient measure when the food reserves are extremely low. If there is really a lot of food, then the Ross people should make wine in an all-round way, and it is not uncommon to end up with drunks lying down and snoring everywhere.