Rise of Rurik Chapter 1584

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A long boat floated upstream on the Evina River during the dry season. Its huge paddles paddled the water quickly. When the river narrowed, people on board got off the boat one after another and dragged the empty boat upstream with cables on their shoulders.

Even female villagers have joined in the boating operation. Compared with those village women who can only work at home due to the control of the priests, these village women in Sologne-Fontaine have no restraints because they have to survive hard in the forest and have no choice but to work. It's not as good as the men who work, but they are all very capable now.

It was as if they were female Vikings in a longboat.

They were on the leading warship, so they had indeed become Vikings.

The empty boat was used to carry prey. When they arrived at the bridge camp, they saw a crowd gathering.

There are a large number of horses here, and there are a large number of armed men. Everyone thinks that Lord Bruno's hunting team is not so luxurious, and they can't help but worry.

However, they saw a few blond warriors, and the Saxon flag hanging high in the camp was still flying.

They continued to move forward in doubt until they heard shouts and waves from people on the shore.

At the same time, Aribert, who had slept comfortably in the wooden house for a night, had already been wandering outdoors for a while. The coldness of the morning made him very alert. After eating some cooked wheat porridge and barbecue, his spirits were restored very well.

He was also surprised. Since Bruno gave Bruno some horses yesterday, the boy decisively took out some grain to feed the horses.

It can be seen that this young Saxon nobleman knows something about horse breeding. He didn't expect to have a sumptuous meal here. Thinking about yesterday's misunderstanding, he felt even more guilty.

He noticed a strange ship floating down the river. He took a closer look and saw that it was a standard Norman warship with a dragon head.

He had heard a lot about the Normans, but he had never seen such a ship. When he saw it today, Aribert couldn't help but be more vigilant. He stood on the shore and subconsciously clenched the hilt of his sword.

Bruno noticed that this guy was acting strangely.

"Are you scared?"

"Me? What are you afraid of?"

"That's our ship. Are you worried about it? Are you worried about thirty blond warriors jumping out and attacking us?"

Aribert hesitated and sighed: "Probably not. That... seems to be Baron Shannon's ship?"

"You guessed it right, now it is my cargo ship." Bruno didn't have time to explain, because he still had a lot of aftermath to do.

Let's talk about the peasant women who came to the boat to paddle happily. They were horrified to see some corpses lying on the ground. If they looked carefully, they actually had their own husbands and sons!

My relative is actually dead!

Although hunting in the forest involves huge risks, if a hunter separates from the large group, he may be targeted by forest wolves and bears. Especially in the last moments before the big beasts hibernate, the hunter may become the prey.

However, the deceased was obviously killed by a sword or spear, and it was obvious who the murderer was - the foreigner on horseback who was entrenched in the camp.

Moreover, the Sologne-Fontaine villagers are very alert. Maybe they are the aristocratic army who consider themselves as gangsters and wantonly encircle and suppress them.

But they couldn't show their hatred, so they silently pulled the bodies of their own people, dragged them into the cabin, and then glared at the soldiers with murderous eyes.

This is a very strong threat!

In the past, ordinary peasant women did not dare to look directly at the nobles and their retinues. The warriors from Poitier could not stand this kind of gaze. In the past, if ordinary peasants winked and glared like this, their riding whips would be whipped away.

Now no one dares to look angry, so they can only look away.

The one who stared was not necessarily the peasant woman, but these guys who came in a long boat. Maybe it was the wild Norman women brought by Lord Bruno from the north who provoked these guys... maybe the Normans were killing them like crazy. Legends may become true.

"Your people killed their children and husbands yesterday, and they are very angry." Bruno informed Aribert.

"This is an inevitable misunderstanding."

"Indeed, but this is impossible because you gave me a few

The horse is finished. "

"You...are still criticizing me?" Aribert thought that he just let it go yesterday, but now he was murmuring in his heart.

Bruno did not answer directly: "When I see Charlie, I will tell him."

"This..." Aribert couldn't help but be startled, thinking that Bruno was going to complain.

Bruno continued: "I am willing to cooperate with him, but I am too weak. I hope he can lend me some soldiers."

"So...you want this?" Aribert breathed a sigh of relief.

The dead on both sides were placed on the longboat, and more than twenty deer hunted were also thrown on the boat.

Bruno suppressed his own anger, and he also couldn't put a smile on Aribert's face.

In a solemn atmosphere, infantry, cavalry and a long boat drifted toward the village of Shannon, both by land and water.

Now Alibert has learned from Bruno that the new Baron Shannon is training the army. It is said that the young man intends to train a thousand peasants.

Did Little Shannon really have a thousand soldiers? What does training mean? Listening to Bruno's talk, don't expect that all you will see is the baron gathering a large group of disheveled farmers with farm tools. That kind of idiot doesn't know how to fight.

He wanted to believe that they were real soldiers.

Alibert has learned that Baron Shannon is firmly opposed to Emperor Lothair and has the same interests as his master Charles. These thousand warriors will attack Orleans.

It's unbelievable that Baron Shannon was so aggressive, because that was a thousand soldiers!

If... Baron Shannon and his army stand completely on the side of the little king of Aquitaine, then it is equivalent to the joining of a big noble at the level of an earl.

Pooh! Baron Shannon is the king of Mercia.

As an old aristocrat, Aribert knew one thing very well - a title is meaningful only if it matches his strength.

Aribert didn't know how Baron Shannon used magic to conjure a thousand warriors. If it was true, this force must be won over.

If the baron was worried, he would have crawled over like a hound, knelt in front of him, and begged Reglaf to form an alliance with his master Charlie. Because he knew very well that only when Charlie won could his family be revived.

On the other hand, the weather today is just right. Although it is a bit colder than the previous few days, the training of the new recruits is still going on.

Regraf had nothing to do, so he took some veterans to supervise the training ground.

The gallows serves as a deterrent, and the King of Mercia's banner flies.

Reglaf not only trained soldiers, but also arranged a special task for the people in the territory: dyeing and cutting cloth to make blouses.

Just like the Russian army completely unified uniforms, the Mercian army in the old era also spontaneously tried its best to unify the color of its clothing so that it could clearly see the enemy and ourselves during battle.

Compared with iron armor, leather armor is relatively simple to make. After tanning, lightweight cowhide will dehydrate and become dry and hard, while maintaining strong toughness. It is resistant to cutting but not stabbing. Riveting iron sheets on it can make a high-grade plate armor, which can be described as double defense, but the cost remains high.

The elite soldiers of Mercia in the old days wore leather armor mixed with chain mail, but most of the soldiers only had civilian clothes. The main colors of their cloth robes are messy, but there must be a lot of yellow cloth strips stitched on their bodies.

To make variegated linen plain white, just boil it vigorously in a pottery urn.

The locals used chrysanthemums, madder, dried roses, and even some red wine to prepare a vat of yellowish red soup, and added alum to dye the prepared white cloth.

The dyed fabric is still easy to fade. After dyeing, it only needs to be washed a few times to turn the orange color into yellow again, and then wash it again and turn it into light yellow.

This was enough. What Reglaf wanted was for the military uniforms to be tidy and add Mercian characteristics. He could not forget Ross, so he decided to cross-stitch orange subsidies on the new cloth robes, euphemistically calling it "St. Andrew's Cross". ” Seal it on your clothes.

In fact, it is only different from the Ross Army's cloth robes in color selection.

The Shannon area does have its riches. There are many kinds of local plants that can be used for dyeing. What makes Regrave uncomfortable is that the local people put a lot of them into it.

The energy is used to grow grain and neglected to grow flax. Because the Earl of Tours family needed a large amount of military rations in the past, they increased their demands on Shannon, forcing farmers to grow wheat as much as possible on the limited arable land, and not to plant flax or vegetables.

Reglaf opened the mountains and forests and announced a tax reduction, which means that farmers can cut trees freely and use man-made wasteland to immediately plant flax in the new spring that requires very little water and fertility. There is no tax on flax, at least for a few years.

Now Shannon's flax reserves are not much, and it is too late to make twine weaving. Your Excellency wants to buy new clothes for the army. Every household looks at the surplus on hand. Only the families of free people who go to war are willing to prepare tailors. Use the fabric for new clothes to make burqas for your men.

The will of this kind of family is very strong. The women in the family are responsible for the tailoring work. The women know that if their burqas are well sewn, their husbands will not be accidentally injured by their own men during the battle. If they get separated, they can immediately find friendly troops and return to the army.

The Baron does not allow soldiers to fight alone. Five hundred men must gather together to advance and retreat together. So as long as his husband does not act stupidly, he will not die in the battle.

The new cloth robe not only strengthens the military's power, but also protects the lives of one's own people. Poor warriors who came from serf families, they even lacked daily clothes. Even their shoes were made of wood and leather, but there was no spare cloth.

Regrave adopted a new method—elementary war finance.

Because Rurik taught him that all the people felt that they could benefit from the war, so they would send people, money and food to support the war.

When necessary, the lord could make a promise with credit that he could not touch or see. He could borrow money and things from the villagers, promising to repay him twice as much if he won the war.

Reglaf was convinced that he would win and publicly announced the "national debt".

In the name of the King of Mercia, he promised all villagers who were willing to provide financial resources that if they provide one pound of wheat today, they will receive two pounds of wheat in the autumn harvest of 844. He also promised that if the king could not produce enough wheat, he would cancel the creditor's tithe for that year.

In any case, "cancellation of the current year's 10% tax" is a debt-saver.

Realizing that they could get the dividends of the war without direct help, the yeoman farmers who trusted Reglaf and the church responded one after another when they saw that someone actually offered food and cloth.

Regrave was very confident that the army's early rations could be raised with Shannon's local strength, but there were still many gaps in the materials for making cloth robes.

"At worst, I'll let the soldiers tie the yellow cloth strips to their foreheads and tie them to their spears." Reglaf thought.

It has been almost two months since arriving in Shannon, and the war enthusiasm in Shannon is unprecedentedly high.

Abbot Bode is completely unhappy. The people are happy to fight. This violates many commandments, but...

Bode was personally merciful, and he also knew that Archbishop Vivian of Tours supported the war. He didn't know whether the high priest's choice was consistent with his faith, and he pragmatically understood that he should keep his mouth shut.

Bode also had some unreasonable thoughts. He himself was old and had no offspring because marriage was prohibited. He had a favorite pupil, a young priest named Guillaume Hart. He intends to recommend this young man who is regarded as his son to inherit his career, but now, maybe Reglaf will take this man to Mercia in the future.

Guillaume Hart might even become the Archbishop of Mercia, so the old man warned his "son": "No matter what Reglaf has to say, you can't understand it and you are not allowed to object. Just do things for him honestly. Only In this way, when you become Archbishop of Mercia, you can carry out your benevolent claims."

Guillaume Hart, who was born as an orphan, swore his approval. At the same time, he also swore to Reglaf that the so-called new Mercian army would join the new expedition. Since the army was already very formal, there must be accompanying priests in the army!

Just like when the Rus army went on an expedition, the army had auxiliary personnel such as priests, cooks, and doctors, so the new Mercian army must also have them.

At that time, Reglaf arrived in Tours with some support staff, especially some women from Mercia and Northumbria. They were taken captive to Ross and worked in the army, and now they continue to work in the hands of Reglaf. This bank.

The army arrived at Shannon first. After the situation stabilized, Regla

The husband then used a boat to bring this group of logistics personnel back from Tours. Among them were his wet nurse, a Slavic woman named Kaya, and her husband's family.

There are cooks in the Mercian army, and this team can be expanded further.

As for doctors, the priests of the Russian army once also performed the work of doctors. The core medicine used was spirits that were constantly distilled like water, followed by honey and isatis root.

Reglaf did not understand the technology of distilling spirits. He looked at it on his own and knew that the isatis root (woad) used as a dye could be taken internally. He also knew that applying honey to wounds can speed up the healing of the mouth.

Like Ross, drinking boiled, cool water was implemented in the military to avoid bad diarrhea.

All this is because Reglaf is trying his best to imitate the Ross army that he and the veterans know, so-called "pixel-level imitation."

So~www..com~In order to prepare for next year's war, the entire Shannon did not rest and recuperate because of Regrave's good governance. It was precisely to further increase the price of the war, so that now the farmers all over the territory have invested too much, and have entered the "unacceptable" state. ” the point.

If you support Lord Reglaf with 100 pounds of grain, you will get 200 pounds of grain next year, which will at least exempt you from the tithe tax on the 200-pound share. If the eldest husband returns with spoils of war, the family will make a fortune.

If her husband dies, if Lord Reglaf is defeated by Orleans, everything will be over.

The more you cannot fail, the more likely you are to win.

As a result, a group of elderly villagers accepted Reglaf's request and began to cut down some large trees purposefully. Some of the large trees were to be made into engineering hammers for hitting doors and walls, and some were to be made into long ladders.

Regrave thought about it, and organized a death squad to climb up the Orleans wall when the time came. There was a lack of preparation for the previous wars, so we could not be unprepared for the siege next year.

Regraf is not worried about military rations now. What he is worried about is that the new recruits have poor weapons, almost no armor, and they are also worried about not being able to prepare all the uniforms. He is responsible for the massive expansion of the army. He has been training the army for nearly a month with little success, but he will have to incur additional costs in the future.

He found that he was already on the verge of death, and the whole of Shannon was filled with a familiar atmosphere, just like the Kingdom of Ross, which was actively preparing for war in the autumn of 839.

Reglaf's pride makes him unwilling to go to Tours to ask Robert for supplies. Instead, it is a pragmatic choice to go to Poitiers in the south to ask Prince Charles for supplies.

Besides, both of them have the title of king and their status is relatively equal. Now they are helping that guy fight the war. Shannon has sent thousands of troops to one place. Charlie should be rational and send money and gifts!

Regrave had this idea, just as the messenger from Charlie came straight to Shannon in great force.

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Chapter end