Rise of Rurik Chapter 1317

In one day, the noble group that had controlled Smolensk for hundreds of years fell apart.

Perhaps these local nobles did have some Roman blood, and whether they were noble or not, everything is meaningless. They died, and their families were uprooted one by one. The Ross coalition forces who rushed into the main settlements "pulled the nails" one by one, and then slaughtered each fortress indiscriminately.

Even if Rurik learned that some tenant farmers and serfs might take refuge in the fortified mansions of the nobles, since they chose the local nobles as their backers, they would have asked for their own killing...

Rurik personally led the cavalry to intercept all the escapees. It was seen that some noble families were chased and killed by the cavalry just after fleeing, and those fortresses that had not yet collapsed could only hold on desperately. But even if the trapped beasts are still fighting, they are also inferior beasts, and their inferior fangs become meaningless in the face of the real strong.

In the evening, all the noble fortresses that were visible to the naked eye were captured, and the soldiers hardly survived, and after killing everyone, they began to plunder wantonly.

One village after another escaped attack by the Rus' army throughout.

The Rus army could mount a foray, especially cavalry, and sack villages with just a slight turn of their horses.

Rurik led the main cavalry unit. He stuck to his plan and did not take the initiative to expand the attack target, even though he saw many people in plain clothes dragging their families out of the village and fleeing to the nearby forest through the snow.

Just in the main settlement, there are still a large number of simple villages, and the local people are all serfs of the nobles. These people were exiled by the nobles this morning. One by one, they just returned home. Some had nowhere to go but stayed at home, and some planned to escape desperately. However, those who planned to escape had not yet taken action. At noon, the main force of the Ross army kill.

These people hid in their homes and shivered, seeing through the cracks in the shabby houses that the strong fortresses of the former landowners were collapsing under the attack of the boundless Ross bandits.

Seeing those nobles being killed, many people were a little secretly happy for a while.

Even if this kind of dark refreshment may be just the last comfort before the doomsday.

Will the Ross Army let go of the many villages in these encirclements? There was no brutal attack on these villages, but the soldiers with **** swords were also quite rude.

The main battle has ended, and the soldiers are busy beheading the dead under the king's order—they will be piled up as sacrifices on the Gnezdovo Altar to build a more appropriate Jingguan, as a special sacrifice to Odin.

Another group of soldiers was also ordered to enter the village and violently drive the screaming people out of their homes.

It was pushing and driving, and those who did not cooperate were all treated as enemies and executed.

The woman was holding the frightened child, her eyes glazed over as she moved in the snow. The men lost their fighting spirit, and they no longer dared to resist after witnessing the killing.

The captured villagers gathered together in a dense crowd, like a herd of driven black sheep. They gathered more and more at the designated place. They sat or stood waiting under the watchful eyes of the Varyag warriors carrying round shields. Unknown fate.

The traditional aristocratic system in Smolensk has been destroyed, and the serfs do not know their future fate without their masters.

The setting sun shone on the faces of these people, and the expressions of decadence, depression and uneasiness were vividly displayed.

It only needs to be seen with the naked eye that Rurik has captured an astonishing number of prisoners. He is still operating in the outskirts with cavalry, and so far has not taken any measures against further villages.

As night began to fall, the cavalry army led by Rurik began to return to the main settlement.

Fisk clearly saw the gathered people, and couldn't help asking: "It seems that our people still captured a lot of prisoners of war. Your Majesty, how do you plan to deal with them? You can't execute them all, right?"

"Of course I can't kill them. I still need to check their identities. If there are nobles among them, they will naturally be executed immediately. I don't want to leave any hidden dangers." Rurik replied without thinking.

"I heard from that Hagen that most of the farmers here are actually slaves. Since they are slaves, there is really no need to execute them."

"Then become our slave. Don't worry."

Rurik glanced at his good brother Fisk with an indescribable smile, and said again: "We will be good masters."

Of course Rurik knew that the natural evolution of serfdom in the Slavic world naturally had its internal logic.

What is inner logic? Just look at the current natural environment and you'll see a thing or two—it's just too harsh.

During the long winter, all the villagers in the naturally formed villages had to huddle together to keep warm. The tools for production and life are very expensive, and what's more, there is an ocean of forests as far as the eye can see. The forest does not mean fertile, and the efficiency of cutting down the forest with simple tools is too low. Even if the land is cleared from the forest and transformed into farmland, its fertility is destined to be limited.

The problem of limited fertility can still be offset by expanding land reclamation and mass planting to offset the impact of limited fertility on grain output. However, the long winter is undoubtedly the most powerful restriction on planting.

The spontaneously formed head family in the village accumulates wealth from generation to generation, and can become a ruler even by relying on normal land sales. Loans can be made with money and food in hand. Once the free collective farms face natural disasters and fail to harvest, these new land nobles can borrow food to keep them alive, and then buy their land at a low price.

Natural disasters will not happen every year. As the scale of developed farmland becomes larger and larger, the power of these nobles will eventually become unshakable.

The Krivich tribe in Smolensk only migrated to this area two hundred years ago. The small leaders of the immigrant army must have political power innately, relying on this power to consolidate this area in the turbulent development. This power finally formed the current aristocratic group.

But it's all over.

Rurik estimated that those who became serfs had ancestors who were also members of the Free Farm. Harvest failure and failure occurred in autumn, and the disaster largely came from the sudden frost disaster, which caused all the wheat that was actively heading to fall down and freeze to death. Immediately after the disaster was the cold autumn rainy season, followed by a cold current that could last for half a year in winter.

The collective farms that ran out of food even had few opportunities to escape. After all, they could not face the possible extreme cold of minus 20 degrees under the condition of expensive and scarce food.

In order to survive, he had to sell everything, and begged those nobles who still had food and money to give them a chance to survive.

Every winter is an opportunity for the traditional nobles to gather strength, and it is also an opportunity for new nobles to be born.

In some seemingly peaceful free farms, the elected leaders are also re-engraving the road to becoming a new rich.

In addition, the Krivichs in Smolensk have always had transactions with Varyag merchants. Selling their sons and daughters is also a means of earning money. Once the serfs in the hands of the nobles cannot pay enough rent, they can only use their own families to pay off their debts. Then the nobles can resell these children to the Varyags to make a fortune, and the income can greatly exceed the debts owed by the serfs.

Exploitation in it is a bad debt, Rurik can see that, but...

Of course, it was impossible for Rurik to establish a universal fair system in the Smolensk area, and he would definitely not betray his royal power, nor could he deprive the descendants of the old Rus of the privileges they had in the kingdom.

So, King Ross came with a mighty cavalry, lined up on the wall to face the decadent and fearful prisoners of war.

At this time, Medved, the governor of Novgorod who was ordered to take care of the prisoners temporarily, rushed over.

"Your Majesty, welcome back."

Rurik got off his horse, squinted his eyes to look at the messy prisoners of war again, and asked, "How is the capture going? Is there any confusion on the way?"

"Everything is normal. As you can see, all the living people are here, and those villages have been cleaned up." Medved frowned slightly: "As you expected, there is indeed no property in those villages, and some are just search It's just a small amount of food.”

"Perhaps because they are mainly slaves. It is you who have the most experience managing them."

"That's natural." Medved couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"How many are there?"

"It's...they are too many, I can't count."

"Estimate one?"

Medved took another look at his masterpiece and said casually: "At least there are five

Thousands of people. After all, this is the riverside plain area, where the best farmlands and their large buildings are all here, and there are more people. Maybe...the ones who got away are still here and more. "

Hearing this, Rurik took another look at the last twilight of the setting sun: "According to Hagen, there must be at least 10,000 people living in this place. Now including our army, there are really 10,000 people."

"The king was joking."

"Then stop joking." Rurik looked into Medved's eyes and immediately began to order: "From now on, these people will all become slaves! Of course, they are all slaves of this king. This king has the right to dispose of them. It is up to me to decide whether to stay or not.”

"That's natural."

At this moment, Medved had already guessed the fate of the slaves. slave? Falling into the hands of King Ross, these people are probably left with the status of slaves, and their living conditions will change rapidly.

Slaves, don't think that poor, high-level slaves may live more comfortably than free people. Those Lapps who raise deer for a living are legally all slaves of King Ross. They control the royal family's deer herd, and they also serve as stewards in winter battles. They and the king are a community of interests. Although they are slaves, they resolutely maintain the authority of their masters because of their real interests.

Rurik here subjectively sympathizes with the miserable lives of the serfs, and objectively will never betray his authority. Killing all the local nobles in Smolensk, just because of the deep-rooted conflict between the enemy and ourselves, has nothing to do with saving the serfs. It is these people who are not worthy of being saved-they need new masters.

Why must it be Medved, the brother-in-law and governor of Novgorod, who led his soldiers to arrest people everywhere?

For one thing, both sides are of Slavic ethnicity, and the dialects are different, and the whole can understand it.

Secondly, in the Slavic flag team of the Russian Army, many fighters were descended from the Krivich tribe who marched north, and they had the same ancestors as these Smolensk residents. They were expelled to the north, and now they are also waiting for an opportunity to vent their anger for the grievances of their ancestors.

Three, the Slavic flag team has been busy arresting "hidden people" in the area around the Yinlmen Lake for these years. One after another, free farms hiding in the depths of the dense forest were forced to relocate and raised up by the lake. Thirty immigrant farms are a testament to the huge population of hiding people and the executive power of this army.

Maybe with Medved's talents, he could be a very good governor of the newly occupied area, but it is not necessary, there are already other candidates for the governor.

Rurik held the hilt of the sword first, and accompanied by the guards, he approached the messy slave camp.

Those people were not stupid. Seeing that a tall and strong blond man was the most gorgeously dressed and mighty, they took it for granted that he was the leader of the bandit.

The serfs retreated one after another, and there was a low humming sound from the already chaotic scene.

"Are you afraid? Afraid that I will kill you?" Rurik muttered silently, his sharp eyes followed the last natural light to examine them closely.

If there are warrior-like figures mixed in, he can tell, but all he sees are people with puckered faces. They look like they have been in a state of half-starvation for a long time, so men may not even have the strength to pick up a spear, even if there is one. It is not enough to pose a threat to the regular Ross army in iron armor.

Rurik learned that the casualties of today's raid were negligible, no one was killed, only a hundred soldiers were injured for various reasons during the operation, and even their feet were sprained due to slipping of the soles of their feet.

After walking around the prison camp, he had a clear understanding of the situation of these people.

It was pointless to kill them, and it was far-fetched to expect them to be immediately available to us.

The first thing to bear the brunt was that their weak bodies immediately recovered. Considering that the Ross army was traveling lightly, the rations they brought were basically only enough for everyone to eat for three days.

The Ross Allied Forces will never use their own food to feed the large-scale captives.

The method is very simple, as long as the granaries of the noble mansions are opened, enough food is enough for these people to survive.

To put it bluntly, the huge amount of food was originally the output of these serfs and tenant farmers, but almost all the food was robbed by the nobles, and now part of it is used to show the benevolence of the conquerors against the serfs.

Mercy, Rose has nothing to lose.

As night fell, the Ross coalition army lit bonfires everywhere. After the soldiers cleaned up the corpses, they took possession of the noble mansion that was about to be stormed.

The various buildings in a mansion can fully accommodate a battalion of infantry, even if the soldiers are crowded when they sleep.

Soldiers lit bonfires everywhere and cooked captured wheat in captured earthenware urns. The winter food stored by the nobles was all returned to the Russian army, and the food was suddenly full, and everyone squandered it wantonly.

The soldiers were a little puzzled. The king sent people to various noble mansions to collect food. He actually set up a bonfire matrix to cook the wheat in a large scale. Grains flying up and down...

All this was clearly seen by the prisoners of war, who still stayed where they were and waited for their fate in the dark.

The air was filled with smoke and smoke, followed by the strong smell of boiled wheat, which immediately aroused everyone's greed, and people instinctively leaned out and moved towards the pottery urn, until they were stopped by the Ross warrior with a sword.

"You guys, do you want to eat that much?!" A deep voice suddenly came, and the speaker was Medved himself.

He continued to announce in a deep voice: "You! You are all slaves of Rose! You will not die! You will have food! Look at these pottery urns, and when the wheat is cooked, it will be given to you!"

Rurik stood aside, observing every move of the slaves.

Any promise is not as meaningful as an open meal, especially for these serfs who have lived in a state of semi-starvation for a long time. They don't understand verbal promises, and they are extremely poor, and their expectations for outsiders are extremely cheap, and they are willing to follow their new masters as long as they can eat and survive. If the new master can give more food than the old master, that is the benefactor that must be followed.

It is enough to cook the wheat half-cooked one after another. It is time-consuming to cook the wheat on a large scale with Daweng to hope that it will be cooked thoroughly. It is indeed half-cooked, and slaves under their status feel that eating this kind of food is better than livestock, which really satisfies the arrogance of the conqueror.

Rurik ordered Medved to start, but things turned out to be more chaotic than he thought.

The sense of queuing did not exist at all. As soon as they heard that the meal was ready, the people driven by instinct rushed towards the pottery urn matrix in a disorderly manner, and the Ross army on guard immediately organized a shield wall to suppress it.

Relying on pushing and beating, the riot was quickly suppressed. It's just that the Ross army was not gentle, and the sword came out of its sheath to kill some of the most violent jumpers and immediately deterred those who followed.

"You are not allowed to mess around! Everyone has a share! Those who try to scramble will be ruthlessly executed!" Medved shouted at the right time.

The effect of shouting is not as effective as killing people and standing up. The people who were intimidated finally began to line up honestly under the coercion of the shield wall.

The wooden spoon directly scooped out half of the boiled wheat, and after skimming off the hot water, the violently steaming oats were poured directly into the pockets spread out by the slaves in sackcloth. The soldiers who were ordered to do things only scooped up a spoonful, and that was enough.

Even children have half a spoonful of wheat to eat. At this time, families with more children will benefit more, but families with too young children will suffer a bit.

Those who got the wheat sat down to eat and sell it in the new camp on one side. It didn't matter whether it was elegant or not. In fact, they didn't eat as much as the war horses and reindeer of the Russian army. These big animals opened up to eat the captured grain.

However, after experiencing a magical day, they never thought that not only would their lives be spared, but they would still have food to eat.

Things are also developing in a more magical direction-people who have finished eating are told to go home and sleep~www.mtlnovel.com~What are those Ross bandits going to do? have no idea.

But it is impossible for everyone to sleep on the snow, and at least they will not freeze to death in their simple houses.

They went home one by one, all under the supervision of Rurik, and even the limited guidance of soldiers with torches.

"Just let them go?" Fisk couldn't help but question the king's mercy.

"Why do you think I let them go?"

"They all went home."

"Go home? No." Rurik shook his head, already confident: "After eating the food I gave, I want to eat another meal,

Even if they escaped, they would tell other farms that the Ross people had given them food. Of course, most of them can't escape. This huge riverside plain is already our territory, the largest settlement in Smolensk, and now we are stationed here. "

Chapter end