Rise of Rurik

Some young children stand on the beach with a charred scene in front of them

They are all Rurik's entourage and servants. Maybe they still have a little better imagination about war. What they have seen and heard now makes everyone become realistic and nervous in an instant.

Kanuf and Fisk, the two aspired to become the rising stars of the Duchy of Rus. For this purpose, they had to go to the battlefield to make achievements when they were very young.

The young Fisk, who has been carrying his late father's sword, vowed to avenge his father's crusade against the Gotlanders.

Are the Gotlanders just a bunch of terrifying, ferocious people? Some teenage girls were transported to the Avrora, each in ragged clothes and nearly collapsed. They are all Gotland women, do they want revenge on these people? Even these girls who are almost the same age as him are pitiful. He wants to appease them, and he wants to possess them even more.

Yes, Fisk already had a pair of twin sisters, and according to tradition, they were married from one to twelve years old, but there were no rules that limited the number of wives a man could have, and Fisk longed for more.

On the beach, he saw many charred objects with strange shapes. After careful screening, he was shocked to find that these layers were stacked with the dead bodies of the enemy. They continue to burn and turn into powder after a long process.

The Rus selected a small area on the beach, tents were set up, and most of the warriors landed on the long-lost land.

They ate wheat and mutton, and even the captive slaves ate cooked grains of wheat.

The Ross soldiers who landed were talking and laughing. They didn't think it was so scary that there was a huge fire and a large number of corpses. After all, most of the selected people are veterans who have experienced many battles, and many of them are madmen who participated in the war against the Kowen people.

Most of the javelins shot by the torsion slingshot were recovered. Rurik counted them. The fleet shot out 11, and now 10 are recovered. Such a small battle damage is really gratifying!

What made him even more gratified was that the javelins were huge arrows, and their overall structure was not damaged. It can be seen that as long as the arrows are recovered, most of the long-range ammunition in the Avrora can be reused.

However, Rurik clearly saw that an enemy was stabbed and killed, but he couldn't find this lucky arrow. The arrows were poking into the enemy's body in unison, and they were carried by the Melalen people who cleaned the war and thrown into the fire. Even the people and the arrows turned to ashes.

He didn't take it to heart, but this stika long arrow, it was in Carl's hand.

At noon, in the large tent of the Melalen army.

Carl broke in aggressively with a strange arrow,

And presented this thing to his father: "Dad, this is the weapon of the Rus, it is very powerful. I think a lot..."

"You should call me the king!" Olegin, who was holding the goat bone and sucking the delicious marrow, gave his son a white look.

"Look at this arrow! It smashed through the enemy's chainmail and through the body."

"I know about it." Olegin still didn't care.

"King! Do you really think it doesn't matter? They actually have such ferocious weapons."

"You mean the Rus? So what?"

"You..." Carl gritted his teeth and said viciously: "Yeah, what's the matter. We don't have it. If the Ross people attack us, our soldiers will die."

"You! You... you shut up!" Olegin threw the sheep's bones, patted his thighs and stood up: "It's the time of war, and you actually say such a bastard. What's your purpose? Ah! Are you ……you think……"

Karl, who was hooking his head, raised his head: "Of all the tribes, they are unruly. No one really believes that the Russ are weak, and this extremely long sword is the proof."

"what do you want to say in the end?"

"King, I don't like them. They pretend to be polite, but they are bastards. As long as they don't really surrender, our power is threatened. Our threat is never the Gotlands or the Danes, the biggest The threat is them."

As if overnight, this wild man became wise. As soon as this statement came out, Olegin was shocked and speechless.

Yeah, Origen never thought about the possibility of a backstab. Should Carl's words be considered? Origen's answer was refusal.

This refusal made Carl anxious, and he rudely approached his father: "We lost more than 100 brothers in this battle! My personal soldiers were almost wiped out, they are all our Melalen brothers. We just attacked a small fishing village and so many people died. If we attacked ten more, wouldn't the Meralen army be seriously injured? The other tribes of Fela were unbearable, and only the Ross tribe was able to preserve its strength. If we lose too much, how will our power be maintained?"

Karl's emotional roar was mixed with key details, but the stubborn Origen didn't believe it at all.

Carl was brave and even mad, but he wasn't foolhardy either. Since being humiliated by Arik in the fight, he has hated the Rus people. Even out of personal grievances, he will suppress the Rus people, not to mention that only the stubborn old guy will ignore the rise of the Rus people now.

What makes Carl resentful today is that he observed the Ross soldiers who landed, and their eyebrows exude a different temperament! They were not like a team of peasants and fishermen from the Melalen Army or other tribes. Their eyes were full of thirst for wealth and a trace of doubt about fighting.

This group of people in chain armor even had the luxury of using obvious iron pieces on their chests and crotch to strengthen their defenses. Their armor was the same as those of the slain Danish warriors, and they stared at people who had murdered.

Occasionally they would draw their swords, and to Karl's surprise, they were all bright white. It is no secret that the Russ people make and sell "hard swords", who would have thought that they would be able to equip them on a large scale. Even the short spears they held, the so-called spearhead was simply a "short hard sword" stuck on a wooden stick.

And that's not all, Carl noticed that among the landers were a group of clean and elegant girls, who must be of another ethnic group in terms of hair color.

There was also a group of short men with brown-yellow-black hair. Although they were wearing leather armor, they carried wooden bows that were almost the same height as them.

The last time Carl saw the real Roth army, he was a kid. More than ten years have passed, and the Ross Army he saw today has refreshed all his cognition.

He had to be sure that Arik was a brave fighter, and he had to believe that Rurik was a kid, regardless of those rumors, this kid did have a lot of excellence.

Otto, an old man, might die of illness a few years later, and Rurik will be the Duke of Ross.

A young and wise new duke, a brave war chief, a murderous army, and even the maids were trained very politely. Isn't this a threat? . They can say that they have no intention of coveting power, but if they think about it, they really have the strength to fight for it.

Carl, he really wished that Ross's fleet would be wiped out in this war, and everyone on board was killed, so that the biggest internal threat after he became the king was gone?

No matter how reasonable what he consciously said, his father Olegin's attitude was rock-solid, so angry that Karl clenched his sword hilt subconsciously, and cursed inwardly: "You better die, better die on the battlefield, and then I The place is king."

Perhaps, only the aspirants can have a clear insight into who the competitors are and what their possible ambitions are.

Didn't the Rus act deliberately to preserve power during the war?

At the meeting by the bonfire, Carl himself did not know much about the inside story, especially the previous political transaction between Otto and Olegin on the Leg of Lamb, and he also knew nothing about the inside story.

A new day has come.

The fog in the bay rose and dissipated quickly. The recharged warriors of various tribes took their shacks and pushed all the boats into the sea. The trophies harvested by the various tribes in this battle were very small, and only the Melalonians had harvested a lot.

A small fleet left Blow Bay first. They were two longboats with oars and a fleet of up to twenty captured fishing boats that were pulling their loot. A group of wounded were also on board. Laren's fleet. Followed by an armed cargo ship of the Rus, those obtained sheep, slaves, and a little more, will be shipped first to Gould Island in Lake Mälaren.

Everyone understands the fleet that has left. They are transporting the burden away, and the remaining people are more determined to fight.

But Carl didn't think so. It was reasonable for his people to evacuate with spoils and wounded. Why did the Russ follow? They are missing a ship, which is a manifestation of shrinking and preserving their strength.

As the highest commander of the army, the king of Sweden, Olegin's mind is to continue to expand the results. He selectively ignored his son Karl's obvious hostility to Ross' allies. After all, the most urgent task at the moment was to continue fighting. What made him more anxious was that he did not plan ahead for the next battle, nor could he have a detailed plan. He was anecdotal because of the conditions in the southern waters, including the targeted Danish settlement of Kalmar.

At this moment when the enemy's situation is unknown, without this mighty coalition, Olegin would never have dared to launch such a war.

After everyone had a big meal on the shore, the various armies boarded their ships, and after each duke counted their ships, they left the bay in a chaotic manner.

They left Bulow Bay completely in the afternoon, [Biqudao.xyz] and then all the boats corrected their line and began to have a serious almost purely north-south coastline, heading south against the southwesterly wind.

At this moment, Origen can proudly say that his Swedish army is already involved in a new field, Sweden's sphere of influence has increased, and the next battle may break out at any time.

Olegin never felt that the losses in the previous battles were really great. Lo and behold, the sea is full of Melalenian ships, and the sight of collective paddling is truly spectacular.

He didn't want to look behind him, just because the five Ross ships were walking along the broken line and relied on pure wind to go backwards, and the speed was still no different from that of his own army.

Olegin gave his allies new opportunities, but those fleets were still grinding. Since it was agreed that they would be the main attack in the next battle, he deliberately slowed down the speed of the fleet to give the rear personnel time to catch up.

In essence, the Melalen Army was stop-and-go, and the Rus simply did not pull full sails and accommodated the entire army with speed-limiting behavior.

In the captain's lounge of the Avlora, Otto, in armor, was ready to go into battle immediately.

Rurik, along with his Carlota, Fisk, Kanuf, and Terravis, sat in the cabin. Like those maids, they were all ordered to stay in the lowest cabin because they were non-combatants.

On the broadside of the ship, the deck was full of warriors holding bows and crossbows, so that when a naval battle suddenly broke out, just one round of salvo from the Avrolla would be able to strike down the enemy with fifty arrows. This is not even counting the conical "armor-piercing projectile" made of cast iron from the torsion slingshot against the ship. Now on the fore deck on Rurik's head, the soldiers are ready.

The long voyage is really boring, Otto is a little worried, he has never been to this sea in his life.

Ten years ago, his Sorgon fleet was swayed by the fog, and the fleet actually swerved to the small island northeast of Gotland, that is, Gotland Sands. In a sense, the island is a huge piece of granite, because of countless years of wind erosion and flooding, the island has a lot of sand. Otto led his troops to a perfect ambush for the Gotlanders, but he lost his only real brother.

He is really unfamiliar with this sea area, but there are young veterans in the Ross army who attacked Gotland three years ago.

It can be said that there is no shortage of navigators among the Rus in the entire fleet.

In fact, Rurik was the greatest navigator, only because he could describe the geographical structure of the entire Baltic Sea world extremely accurately, especially knowing the situation of the next battlefield.

The captain's lounge in the forecastle house contains a huge secret. The portholes (which also take into account the bow shooting holes) let in the light. Rurik used the tip of his knife to draw a map on a slightly whitish pine board.

He introduced Otto to a magical world.

Everyone knows the Scandinavian coast and its complexity and variability. The shallow offshore area is huge, full of lush islands and sandbars, and the entire fleet is farther away to avoid running aground. sailing the sea.

Rurik's map does not feature the tens of thousands of islands, including bays large and small.

He specifically marked two extremely critical beings, Gotland and Öland.

Rurik directly pointed out an extremely rare peculiarity of the ensuing battle: "Dad, it is no longer the open sea that awaits us. Although none of you have ever seen Öland, or even know of its definite existence, I know."

Otto just wanted to ask if this was also an oracle when he saw that his son was still introducing and then shut up. And what about Carlotta? She felt that Rurik was a god, because he could see into the unknown world.

As an old fellow at sea, Otto has a strong spatial orientation. He has accepted Rurik's map drawing method of "up north and down south", and this time he quickly understood Rurik's description. .

"The island of Öland is just to the southwest of Gotland, and it is like a long wall, a natural barrier for the enemy. The Danes and Gotland must have established many strongholds along the coast, and there must be a way The inhabitants of Gotaland also settled here, and they rely on the island of Öland to protect it like a wall in the open sea. In this way, the extremely long and narrow sea between the land and the island is our future battlefield."

Rurik's description is indeed a truth. That sea area is the so-called Kalmar Strait, which is only three kilometers at its narrowest point.

Having said that, Rurik calmed down, raised his head and stared at his dignified father, and then said coldly: "Dad, we will soon enter this extremely narrow sea area. The fleet of our coalition is very large. It is very difficult for us to turn around in the naval battle. Because if we turn around and the team is in chaos, we are likely to be backstabbed by the Gotland army. Since we chose war, we must go all the way south. This is a cramped situation. The battlefield is like crossing a single-plank bridge, in my opinion, the brave who meet in a narrow path wins."

"You..." Otto, who was already startled, finally spoke: "You really believe that a naval battle will happen?"

"At least we have to be prepared."

"This is an oracle. Maybe it shouldn't be a secret for us Russ. You should tell Olegin to let the mad Melalen army not rush too fast."

Rurik shook his head: "This is the war they chose. We are only participating in the war to fulfill our alliance obligations. It is in our interest for them to suffer losses, and I don't think the enemy's ships really pose a great threat to our ships."

Otto thought about it for a while, and felt the same thing, "No one knows the battlefield better than you now. Rurik, you are still the commander of the entire team, and you can do whatever you want."

Rurik nodded: "Then let everyone stay vigilant, no one is a weapon. Our ultimate goal is to attack Kalmar, the Danes. Before that, Olegin will definitely attack the towns along the way, maybe tomorrow we will The first target is about to be attacked, and a naval battle is likely to break out. Even if there is no naval battle, there will be fleeing enemies running towards the south.”

"What will happen?"

Rurik pointed directly to a location on the map, that is, the lower left corner of the plank, where the lines were highlighted, that is, Jutland, as well as several key surrounding islands, and even the lower part of Scandinavia. The fate part, "This is the core of the Danes, Dad, you see, it is not difficult for them to reinforce Kalmar. We may encounter the Danish army at sea! It is not just about attacking Kalmar."

"Okay! Attack the Danes!" Otto was not nervous at all, he was even gearing up!

His father's actions fully proved that his courage had not diminished. In fact, Rurik had great confidence in the Avlora and was only worried about other cargo ships. But for friendly ships, that's pure worry.

Rurik put down the planks and concluded: "We are about to enter the Kalmar Strait and the looting is about to begin. I hope Olegin will take it as soon as possible, the guy is hungry for honor, will he forget after his great victory? What about his own weight? Is he ready to fight the Danes?"

"I don't think he can." Otto shook his head sullenly.

"That's right!" Rurik shrugged, "so, in the worst case scenario, our safe evacuation is the most important thing. I don't care if Olegin and Karl live or die, they're just Mellaren anyway. The spokespersons elected by the big households, if they die, the big households can still elect a new king, and our business is not wrong."

Hearing this, Otto's tense spirit finally relaxed, he subconsciously reached out and rubbed Rurik's little face, and said with a smile: "Good boy, I didn't expect you to be quite vicious, but I like it. Just do this, and prepare to fight. !"