Rise of Rurik

The preparation time for the expedition army was very short, and the soldiers bought money at the market in Roseburg.

They flocked to the blacksmiths' booths to stock up on new mass-produced hatchets and spearheads, and the women in the family did what they could to make dry rations.

In the morning market, a magical stall suddenly attracted hundreds of coveted onlookers.

It was a stand of more than a dozen simple, patchwork wooden tables, all covered with grey coarse cloth.

There are a large number of disc-shaped objects placed without hurt. Its yellow and white color and the pervading wheat fragrance fully prove the essence of its biscuits!

Several women in sackcloths shouted, "Four pounds of oatmeal for one silver coin."

They kept shouting, but the price of this cake is really expensive.

The men stuck their heads out to watch, babbling and whispering.

Finally, someone who was really coveted stepped forward, took out silver coins and shouted cheerfully: "Five silver coins, I want twenty pounds!"

"Okay!" The woman happily got the money, so she instructed the man to take the scale and weigh the cake immediately.

The young warrior was not at all worried about the accuracy of the balance of the stall. He has a big appetite and naturally wants to eat more. It is not suitable to rely on the meals provided by the Duke for future expeditions. Pack in a backpack for emergencies.

Compared with the pasta made of pure oatmeal, it can't be bigger than a slap at all. Oatmeal cakes lack stickiness and are very crumbly when kneaded and baked.

But this wheat cake is clearly equivalent to three slaps side by side, so it is quite tough to hold such a big cake in your hand?

In full view, the soldier took a quick bite.

Is that biting? It was clearly biting, like tearing the meat off the bone of a deer leg.

The soldiers feasted in public, and his eyes were as wide as copper bells. He was eager to say something, and after swallowing his stomach, he hurriedly shouted: "Sweet! This cake is so sweet!"

sweet? People looked at each other, and out of curiosity, they came up with money.

This wheat cake stand belonged to Aslaqi's mill, which had been completed twenty days ago.

The grain has been processed since it was completed, and how the flour is ground is a secret.

Asraki herself wasn't here, but she was smart enough to show her husband Arik's name at the right time.

She was Arik's concubine, a Gotland woman. The men onlookers knew this. I thought it was the mill of Captain Qi's wife, and it was necessary to join in. Now that the brothers have tasted a delicious food, why not buy the flatbread with money?

The wheat cakes that Aslaqi prepared were selling quickly, all of which were within her estimation.

Now she herself is in her own mill, being inspected by Rurik.

The three granite stone slabs were polished very flat, and they looked very honest on the stone pier.

Large holes were drilled in the slate, and a hard iron rod was inserted into it.

Rurik saw that on the slate and pillar in front of him, there were two stone wheels made of granite, and an oak shaft was inserted into the hole cut out by metal in the center. The oak shaft has also been reworked, that is, it is wrapped with a layer of bronze skin, and the center hole of the stone wheel is also the same, thus forming a hard contact bearing, which is lubricated by seal grease.

This set of axle system is like a wheel standing on a slate. The specially treated oak axle is the axle, which is fixed by a bronze component, and a bronze collar protrudes, which is attached to the raised iron rod on the slate.

Rurik could see it strangely, and his ears were full of interesting explanations from Asuraqi.

She told Rurik in great detail about how she chose stone, hired workers to process parts, hired workers after she received the Duke's task, and how much wheat she had used from the Duke's granary, and how much she had bought with her own money.

"You... it's done! It's better than I thought! These are stone mills, and the effect is no worse than a rotating mill. It seems that I should dismantle the bronze mill and give it to you now."

It was this compliment that Asraqi was waiting for, and she said, "Since you made a promise, give me the golden mill."

"Good! You can make three stone mills soon, and more soon. Four bronze mills for you."

"Actually, I only need one set." Aslaqi said softly, "I plan to use it as a souvenir, and the remaining three can obviously be made into more weapons or daily necessities. Sir, We have to win new wars safely, and in my opinion, you can melt them and cast them into clusters of arrows."

"You..." Rurik stared into her eyes, for a while of calm embarrassment, then he slowly smiled. "Okay, it's up to you. Haha, for the revival of your family, you have also broken new hearts! All you have to say to me are encouraging words, I like to hear them, and your actual actions also move me."

"It was for Ross." Aslaqi immediately complimented.

Rurik looked at these stone rollers again. Aslaqi completed it based on the structure of the wheel hull. In terms of structure, it was a bit different from the Eastern stone rollers, and the efficiency of use was obviously ok.

In addition to a few captured Northumbrian women, her mill also employed local women. She also bought reindeer as the animal power to pull the wooden pole.

Human and animal power alternately push the wooden pole to achieve the crushing of the wheat by the stone wheel, especially the working women, who are instructed to perform work in front of the duke.

Rurik saw that oatmeal and wheat were mixed and crushed over and over by two stone wheels until they were crushed into powder.

The whole-wheat flour made from these two kinds of wheat was mixed, and Aslaki, the miller, would not waste even a pinch of wheat bran.

Rurik touched the freshly milled whole wheat flour and asked again: "You have already processed a lot, so you should have made a lot of scones! I know that you have set up a market and are selling it, since it is you who personally I won't ask much about the cakes made from the purchased wheat. I just want to know what has become of the wheat I authorized you to get from my warehouse. Is it a lot of wheat cakes?"

"It's bread, a lot of bread." Aslaqi's emotions were so eager that her eyebrows flew up, clearly showing some interesting baby.

"In your warehouse? Take me there!"

A few moments later, a newly-made wood-carved box standing on dozens of wooden stakes was what Aslaqi called a bread warehouse.

Rurik noticed that the waterproofing of this building was better than that of other buildings, and looked at its gabled roof, which was covered with stone tiles and terracotta tiles. "This woman is really willing to spend money on this, Arik, you must give your pretty little wife a lot of money."

Rurik's speculation was completely correct. Aslaqi was a woman who combined beauty, wisdom and skills, and she was much smarter than the simple Novgorod village girl Pelavina. He loves his concubine, and he feels deeply guilty when he thinks that her son cannot inherit his family property. Now giving her a huge sum of money is Arik's compensation, and he hopes that the concubine can create a business of her own.

Of course, Arik knew even more that by helping his concubine Aslaki now, he was actually helping his brother Rurik. More importantly, if the mill is a big success, it will be a great thing for all the Ross brothers.

The door to the warehouse was opened, and Asraki personally lit the oil lamp placed at the door.

Rurik held his nose, and a refreshing smell of pine resin came to his face at first, and the thick aroma of wheat lurked in this breath.

Through the dim light, he saw that there were still many shelves made of wooden slats in the longhouse of the warehouse, and all of them were actually...

"It's all big bread?! It's big!"

He stepped forward and stroked it, subconsciously shouting the Slavic word "hleba".

Asraqi was startled: "You... actually said the same words as my sister (Peravina)."

Rurik ignored her for a while, and continued to caress the dry, stone-like bread in front of him with both hands.

Coincidentally, the pronunciation of bread by the Slavic tribes is basically hleba. The Viking forces basically pronounce the word "life" as libe.

Although the two ethnic groups that have been divided for thousands of years have become language incapable of communicating with each other, they are reunited here in the Principality of Rus.

Bread is life. Two words, almost one pronunciation.

That's how real big leba is, or how traditional medieval European bread is baked. It's so huge, it's baked that way on purpose! From Rurik's point of view, it is almost half a meter long, and when it is about to be picked up, the weight is also amazing.

In the dim light, Aslaqi smiled and watched Rurik fiddling with bread. She knew that her mission had been successfully completed, and her plan to capture Duke Ross must have been successful for a better future.

"Sir, are you satisfied?"

Rurik still didn't answer directly, and asked again: "Tell me, what ingredients you use to bake bread, how to bake it and how to bake it often, and tell me all the work you have done during this time! Damn, these bread smells really good Comfortable, but hard as a rock."

The duke was asking, and Aslarch explained it all.

It turned out that the stone mill, the mill building, the large clay oven and the warehouse longhouse were built at the same time. She took the huge sum of money that Arik gave and easily recruited a group of relatively idle people in Roseburg to work for it.

Many local women in Ross would drive people crazy just to take care of the newly added children at home, but there are many children in the family, so they must find ways to buy food and meat to make a living. Practical reasons prevent them from working far away, but even if they stay at home and work as tailors, this area of ​​work is already saturated. Hearing that Aric's concubine was ordered by the Duke to build a mill, and she was paid well, the sisters naturally came in droves.

Men and women have made it all for Asraki, and the struggles of the women of Ross are of great value.

It is unrealistic to expect women to do heavy physical work. They are arranged to use traditional stone-grinding sticks to grind the face to make flour, then mix flour from wheat and oats, add a little water, and work hard to knead into a large dough, which is finally weighed by a scale as Five pounds of dough is waiting for the collective to bake. In fact, this work is not easy at all, and it is also too comfortable to be logged and transported wood.

The two large clay ovens placed in the wooden shed were successfully completed. The interior of the ovens formed a low-temperature and sultry baking environment. Each oven could bake 20 doughs at the same time. Since the ovens were built, the baking work began. At the beginning, because the amount of flour processed by the traditional stone-grinding rod was too small, the furnace did not bake much bread at one time. With the completion of the three stone mills, flour production has soared, and the oven has had to be put into operation around the clock in recent times.

They are like clay ovens for baking naan. The loaves are naturally larger than the biscuits, and because they need to be fermented for a period of time before baking, it takes some time to bake the bread, but as long as the oven keeps running, the baked Efficiency is still amazing.

The semolina flour is basically just rolled a batch, and then sent to the other side to be kneaded into a dough, weighed, placed in a wooden basin for natural fermentation and then sent to the stove.

There are nearly fifty servants and servants in this one-stop service, and Aslaqi can proudly say that her current task is to monitor everyone's work.

The two ovens can bake a total of nearly 200 pounds of bread at one time. In theory, it can bake 25 ovens in a day.

Aslaki's mill and baking oven are still working at full capacity, and the warehouse's inventory, Aslaki explained clearly - is close to 30,000 pounds of bread.

30,000 Roman pounds, isn't it equivalent to just over a ton? It sounds like a huge number, but even if it is spread over a thousand soldiers, each person is only divided into a kilogram of bread.

what is this? Thousands of years later, the Soviet Army and the German Army had to eat nearly one kilogram of grain products such as bread and biscuits every day for their wartime rations. Only in this way can a soldier consume 4,000 calories per day.

Those are the most brutal war situations, and whether the food ration on paper can be implemented is largely unknown.

Now it’s only the ninth century, and Rurik doesn’t think that his warriors will have a chance to consume 4,000 calories one day, and the real war will be decided within a few days by one or two battles due to the particularity of war in this time and space. .

Even so, the stock of bread is still too small. Thinking about it again, this is only the result of the Aslaki Mill, which has just opened for a month. It is just two ovens and three stone mills. If she can do better with time. .

One of the problems with whole-wheat bread is that it tends to dry out too easily, making it hard like wood. In other words, this is a good thing. Because of the natural dehydration, this kind of bread has become an extremely durable emergency food. Looking at the dark and dry environment again, Rurik guessed that all of this was deliberately done by Aslaki.

Just before eating these hard, wood-like breads, they obviously need to be cut into thin slices with a saw. It is even possible to beat it into crumbs. After all, the bread and wheat cakes will be absorbed by the human body as a gooey when they enter the stomach.

In this dark warehouse, Rurik directly announced: "All the bread ingredients are my wheat, and you pay for the labor. Aslaqi, I will pay you according to the previous agreement, we are talking about business. Merchant, I will give you the money immediately."

"Thank you." Asraki said happily.

"No thanks, I have confidence in you now. It seems that you should build another mill in New Roseburg. How about we go to Roseburg together on this trip?"

"Okay, I've always wanted to. Especially when my father lives in New Roseburg, which is what I want to build a new mill, and I'm just taking little Gustave there."

Rurik nodded: "Then hurry up and prepare. You arrange for a competent person to continue the operation of the mill. The excellent mill must not stop production. I will also sell you additional grain. The bread that will be made in the future will be purchased by the army first. ."

"As ordered!"

"Then let's continue. That's right." Rurik thought about the wheat cakes in the field: "I just learned that you paid a very expensive price for those cakes. Even if it was the wheat you bought yourself. Why is it so expensive to bake?"

"Exactly! I still need to sell it here." Aslaqi smiled, and arranged for someone to bring the warm pancakes to Rurik's hands.

This cake is baked on an iron plate with a slightly charcoal-black puff pastry underneath.

Compared to bread that is as hard as a stone, this cake is indeed very soft, sniffing the smell, he opened his mouth...

Rurik closed his eyes and chewed silently, then shuddered.

"Sweet! You, did you put honey?"

"You found out. It's honey, and I only put a little bit in each cake." Aslaqi covered her face with a smile and said, "So, you won't find it strange that I increase the price."

"It's not surprising! It's great. I accepted this pancake, and it looks like I'll have to order you to make more honeyed pancakes in the future. Brothers are fighting outside, and being able to eat delicious food is also the key to victory."

"Honey is hard to come by," she said.

"It doesn't matter, the people of Novgorod always donate honey. In the future, if you develop the beekeeping industry there, everything will be fine. It's time for me to leave." Rurik patted his clothes and held the honey pancake in his hand, "I And see how the new slingshots and catapults the carpenters are building. Those guys deserve my money!"