Rise of Rurik

"The Rise of Rurik ()"

At Lake Mälaren, bad things are brewing.

The army of the expedition has returned, that is, they have returned and they are not as degenerate as an army!

The coalition of the various tribes of the Kingdom of Sweden, they have gained a lot in the early battles. While most of the looted treasure and a few prisoners belonged to the rich, those who joined the army had some considerable spoils of war in some way.

Maybe the enemy is not as powerful as the legend, maybe looting can make a fortune faster than farming.

Many tribes returned to repair the soldiers and put their war dividends at home. It can be seen that the rich and wealthy people also forgot the casualties of the war. Because almost all farmers are short of money, they don't know the reason for their poverty, which is largely due to the exploitation of the rich, and now everyone has to fight for the glory of the rich.

The society around Lake Mälaren is developing rapidly. They have been excluded from Denmark and Norway for a long time, or they are not Vikings in the narrow sense.

Their development is gradually involution, and the internal gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen.

The husbands were more willing to believe in the gods Frey and Freya, who brought prosperity and fertility, especially the farmers and fishermen, who increasingly revered the sun god Sora and the earth god Uber.

The simple prayers of the earth and the sun led to the establishment of the Uppsala Temple. Of course, people also believed in Odin, but Odin did not give everyone victory this time.

The huge army has been rushing south to the legendary Silver Fort, and King Olegen vowed to rob the Danes of the Silver Mountain. Under the lofty ambitions is the boiling of the entire Lake Melalen. Every man is eager to participate in the war and earn money. After all, only the strongest warriors have the right to fight.

A batch of the most robust labor force rushed to the battlefield. The time was at the end of August. Although the entire farmland around the lake this year welcomed a bumper harvest, there was almost no rainfall during the harvest season, and a large number of strong men were temporarily lost, but the people who stayed behind suffered.

The women and children of the family shoulder the heaviest work of harvesting, threshing and husking, and drying.

To make matters worse, most of them have to repay past arrears.

Maybe the situation isn't that bad. Wouldn't it be nice to repay the money that the husband got? The living wheat is his own.

The farmland along the lake in most areas is always moist, and the farmers do not need irrigation at all. Relying entirely on rough agricultural methods, they ushered in a rare bumper harvest of 150 catties per mu!

Just as they were desperately processing the wheat to taste the harvest, the army returned.

The army did not have the spirit of the expedition, the number of ships dwindled, and the men on board were exhausted.

Hundreds of Melalen farmers and fishermen have returned with confidence when they set out, and now come back almost empty-handed. They were first blamed by their families, and fear and loss spread as they recounted their harrowing experiences in the South.

King Origen! The old leader of Melalen! Actually died!

And Carl! That Carl directly became king?

Among the Melalen clan, Karl's reputation was not good. It was an arrogant man, also like an April bull, his eyes fixed on all the beautiful women in the tribe, hoping to take it for himself. His notoriety is probably like this, but he has not endangered the core interests of the people.

The deceased king Olegin's act of getting food last year was barbaric. Fortunately, this person led everyone to bravely conquer the Danes. He sacrificed himself for the war, and the people could not say anything else.

Everyone is just frequent people, hoping that the new king Carl is a little more merciful than his father.

However, the attitude of all the big landowners in Melalen is even more ambiguous.

A dark and windy night, a secret longhouse, a meeting with Carl behind his back.

There are as many as 20 wealthy landlord families in the entire Melalen tribe gathered here, each family or the patriarch comes in person, or the sons of their families are ordered to come. There is only one thing to negotiate, that is, whether to approve Carl as the new leader.

The young family members are gearing up,

Who doesn't like power? But gaining power and not being recognized by the elite within, power is meaningless.

A "respected" old man presided over the meeting.

He was an old man named Swain with buried eyebrows. Facing the gorgeously dressed men who sat on the floor, he leaned on an oak walking stick inlaid with countless amber and rubies, and spoke in a hoarse voice.

"Now... Origen is finally dead. The damned villain, along with his army. Next, our time."

Halfway through Swain's words, someone mumbled, "So, we shouldn't admit that Carl is the new leader."

"Yeah, why. Could he be king if he won the crown?"

"Olegin was alive with five hundred warriors in black supporting his power, and now he is dead! What is his family? Why should we bow down to his cubs."

Suddenly someone shouted: "Guys, we are all old friends living together, and no one is better. In my opinion, we should restore the old traditions! Just like the Norwegians, choose a leader who everyone agrees with, this person is not It is neither arrogant nor arrogant, it is just a representative of the brothers who encounters a major event or the brothers to discuss."

"That's a good idea."

"Yeah, we don't need a king to rule over us. Besides, Odin clearly didn't bless Olegin and Karl."

The wealthy big landowners are talking about it, they want to restore the ancient NORDIC, that is, the council of the tribal elites, the so-called leaders do not have much real power.

In this regard, the old Swain also agreed.

However, the old man was more serious, and did not think that the radicalization of the "young man" sitting was good for Melalen.

He urgently said in a hoarse voice: "The news has spread. Who would have thought that the Russ who left the lakeside and headed north would be so powerful that they could conquer the entire Gotland Island by themselves?"

"What? It's just them?" Someone raised his head suddenly, "Didn't our coalition forces shoot it down?"

"Worland, do you really believe Carl's nonsense? Could it be that our coalition's losses were caused by the fierce battle with the Gotlanders?"

"Oh, that's right."

They had some discussions again, and everyone's attitudes tended to be unified, that is, it was indeed the Rus who defeated the Gotland people permanently, but it was an indisputable fact that some Melalen farmers colonized the ruins of Gotland. fact. At least the latter thing is what Carl strongly advertises, the so-called trying to save the face of defeat.

The big family began to discuss the development of Gotland again. Compared with the limited flat land by the increasingly crowded Lake Mälaren, Gotland is warmer in the south. Not to mention, the old Gotland can make a fortune from this island. , Melalen's new immigrants arrived and naturally inherited this wealth.

People make no secret of their covetousness for wealth, and the things they discuss are completely beside the point.

"Let's suspend these things!" Sven tapped the wooden stick; "The most important thing is whether we support Carl."

Everyone looked at each other, and everyone's attitude was very clear.

However, Swain muttered against everyone's attitude: "But if King Carl is abolished, we will face chaos."

"Confusion? Why?" Someone questioned.

"Because of Carl, he controlled the most wealth in the early war. He currently lacks personal protection, and his brothers abolished his throne. Will Carl use the money to recruit an army and become king by himself?"

"Let's attack him! This nasty man once tried to get my sister's idea. I don't like him at all." The speaker was named Bjorn, a young landowner who sometimes called himself a warrior, although he Not yet thirty years old.

"Don't be impulsive, young man." Swain coughed twice: "No one likes Carl, but someone has to be a leader. If Carl dies, who will be the leader, is that you?"

When Björn heard it, he got excited: "It's okay, if I'm the leader, I'll listen to everyone's opinions. I'm not a stubborn person, my family and I are everyone's friends."

The elderly Woland also took the opportunity to mumble: "As Bjorn said, brothers need a leader who represents everyone's opinions."

"But not now. I don't want to cause trouble." Swain shook his head, expounding his opinion: "It is still temporarily admitted that Karl is the king, of course, only on the surface."

Swain tried his best to resist the public opinion. He is an old guy. People are willing to listen to him more, just to make everyone really agree with Carl, which is impossible.

Unless, Carl is willing to share the gold and silver he got.

Swain couldn't explain anything, "You just pretend to agree. We unite and ask Carl to spend a huge sum of money to buy our temporary identification. He will continue to be his own king, and we? Each of our families can Use this money to hire a private army, as long as there are enough private army, Carl is tough, but our puppet."

This is also a prudent plan. After some discussion, two plans were established.

First: Carl is willing to buy everyone's approval with money, everyone is happy.

Second: If Carl refuses, he will be abolished. Everyone restores the old system and elects a peaceful person as leader. At that time, there will be no king in Sweden, only the leader of the alliance.

How much silver did Carl control? Without a mountain of silver, and with the terrible attrition of wartime, it is believed that he has less than two thousand pounds in his hands.

It looks like this is already a lot of money.

As a king, with only this amount of money, it is impossible to convince the public, so the families do not expect how much money they can extort from Carl.

Everyone wants to make a lot of money, how to make money quickly? Sell ​​food!

Who will buy the food? Of course the Russ.

In the past few years, the Russ people have become more and more aggressive in buying food. Before the war, they simply thought that this was a big profit, but now they have fully understood it. Behind the desperate efforts of the Rus to sell food is that they really have a large population to feed.

Merchants say that the fjords of the Rus are bitter and cold, where only a few onions can be produced, and the wheat is destined to fail. The Rus people sell strange goods and high-quality leather and ironware. They have indeed made a lot of money in recent years, but the money is used to buy food...

Since the Rus people are rich, the families are willing to sell.

Even if Swain is an old guy, he is just like everyone else, why should he care about the thinness of ordinary Mellarens. All he cares about is his own family and the family of his friends, and even the life and death of the serfs and servants in the family. Ordinary yeoman farmers are just a group of dodders parasitizing the Meralen tribe and benefiting from them. They can leave at any time. For example, they suddenly "mutinied" to become Yermalen people, or even ran to the Uppsala Temple. settle down.

These peasants and ordinary fishermen, they occupy the land of the Melalen people, and they must pay an arrears to buy the security of the Melalen tribe.

Twenty families did not make any noise on the issue of obtaining food, and they even set a unified purchase price.

Then, a crucial task was given to Bjorn, who claimed to be interested in doing something good, that is, the young man represented each family and had a good talk with the Ross caravan who arrived late.

The secret meeting came to an end, and a few days later, this group of people gathered at the door of Carl's house.

Olegin died, and what happened after his death made Karl devastated.

The father left many children, and Carl, as the eldest son and the owner of the crown, did not hesitate to announce the abolition of all brothers' inheritance rights.

Are his brothers all giving up?

Karl, who was afraid of losing his power, took the few remaining private soldiers with him and carried out a terrifying purge against his family.

Being a king sometimes means being a villain!

Although Carl had some lingering fears, he still acted as a cold-thought killer and cleaned out all the competitors in the family. He felt that perhaps his position would be secured in this way.

The bloody affair was covered up. He took out a sum of money to recruit idle members of the tribe, and even gave a group of slaves working in the family the power to be private soldiers. He organized a private army of about 200 people. Of course, apart from more than a dozen veterans who survived the war, the rest were just armed farmers.

Carl buried the dead body secretly, and then secretly took all the women and illegitimate children he had flirted with at home.

It seems that an era belonging to Carl has come!

Why is there a bunch of gorgeously dressed people at the door?

Carl put them into the house with an uneasy mind, and the wealthiest families of the entire Melalen tribe gathered together.

Swain was still the same Swain, and the old man approached the "king's palace" with the help of several maids.

The old man didn't say anything polite, and he didn't even congratulate Carl on becoming king.

Swain's words were very straightforward: "Olegin is dead, and you are king again. To get everyone's approval, you must take out a hundred thousand silver coins."

As soon as this statement came out, Karl was almost stunned with brain congestion.

He blushed and asked why.

"Why? With strength! Carl, you don't have the prestige of your father, and everyone is questioning your throne. Some people say you murdered your own father, and others say you murdered all your brothers when you came back, just because they were your competitor."

Swain's face remained unchanged, and Karl's blushing face turned pale in shock. He suspects that there are ghosts in the family. How can they know something that is obviously secret?

Carl asked with a cold face: "What do you... what do you want?"

"Twenty families, five thousand silver coins each, I know you have so much money. Give money, or you won't get our support."

Carl understands, these guys are here to extort. His face began to redden again, and he secretly scolded these guys for keeping quiet when their father was ordained, and now they have become greedy.

It's a pity to see this battle, I refused, I am afraid that the power will be lost today.

He bluntly said that he did not have this much money, and he gathered to strive for this money at the expense of thousands of people. Why should a family that did not send troops ask for too much.

I have to say that what Carl said has some truth, so the two parties negotiated, and the money that was bought to support still had to be given, and the amount was reduced to 3,000 silver coins.

On the same day, the landowners left with the 60,000 silver coins they had extracted, which was not much to be honest. At least one thing was confirmed—in order to gain support for the arrogant Karl, he gave in.

And all this is just the beginning.

The people are aware of the infighting between the rulers of the Meralen clan, which may not affect them.

They were wrong.

Carl has all the family, they started a large-scale expropriation of food. They resorted to any reasonable or unreasonable means, such as forcibly buying the farmers' grain at a low price, and they pressed the price to a silver coin to buy twenty pounds of wheat. Although this year is a good year, the price of food in the market should not be so low.

But Carl went even further. He realized that those big landowners were actually competing with him for food?

This is an unacceptable blow from the bottom of the pot, not to mention that these landlords are now rampant, he is still thinking of the safety promise of the Rus people. But it takes 800,000 pounds of wheat to buy protection from the Rus!

Carl was short of money, but he had a group of private soldiers on hand. In the attitude of a king, he ordered the people to pay taxes, and even sent private soldiers to forcibly buy food. His purchase price was as low as a silver coin for twenty-five pounds! In order to raise food quickly and in a more economical way, Carl did a complete villain.

In September, the Melalen tribe was finally caught up in the chaos.

Swain didn't want that, but the big villain was Carl, and the people thought Carl was a villain, so it was all right.