The Brudny family had a lot of private wealth, so in order to protect their wealth, it was logical that they built their home to look like a fortress.
For safety, he also maintained a team of fully independent servants, more than fifty people in number, who were fully equipped with iron-tipped short spears and even broken-edged daggers around his waist.
In addition to these people, many farmers in Pine Needle Manor also have their own metal tools.
There is a blacksmith in the manor. Due to Novgorod's geographical location, it is very difficult to obtain iron ore. The blacksmiths knew basic metallurgical techniques, but due to the shortage of raw materials, they had no choice but to repair the residents' metalware.
If a war breaks out, the men in the manor can quickly assemble and attack the enemy with their iron sickles for cutting grass and wheat, hoes for digging the ground, and iron axes for felling wood. Because of these excellent "weapons", they clearly have an advantage in combat.
And this is exactly the task that Ligus of White Tree Manor gave to his eldest daughter Lilia, which is to obtain metal tools from the Ross blacksmith through in-laws.
Is it just that more farm tools make agricultural production more promising? Not just. Because these iron farm tools are weapons at critical moments.
Almost all the iron and bronze items in Pine Needle Manor were imported from Smolensk in the south using agricultural products. A small number of them were bought from a few lone ranger Varyag merchants from the southeast.
The team of servants shows the power of Brudne himself. Compared to the peasants with iron scythes, his servants are equipped with real weapons. This is also the key to preventing other tribesmen from having any unreasonable thoughts.
This team of powerful servants has an overwhelming advantage over the local residents.
In front of the Russians, their strength was gone.
Brudne's home was like a fortress. As long as the enemy could not break through the wooden walls he carefully built, it was very safe inside. The stored food and water can support a family with all their servants for at least a month.
However, Otto had never seen the so-called fortress of Prudne, the head of Pine Needle Manor, in all these years.
It's just a wall made of wood. How many times can it withstand an axe? !
The Russian army not only landed, they were walking quickly on the road to the manor.
Brudne's servant burst into the wooden wall with a mournful face and shouted: "The Russians are coming! The Russian army is coming!"
The roar frightened the gatekeeper into closing the door quickly.
The servant ignored any etiquette and went straight to the manor's chief's bedroom.
At this moment, the head of the manor, Brudne, was already sharing a sumptuous meal with his family, two wives, the eldest son and his wife, three daughters and the youngest son.
The appearance of the servant's gaffe made him very unhappy.
"Get out of here, how can you act so wildly?"
"But those Russians, they've already come in!"
"Didn't they come yesterday, and now they finally come to me?" Brudne put down the spoon and waved his hand: "You can leave. I will go to see the Ross leader in person later."
"But they have already..."
"Get out of here! Don't disturb my breakfast!" Brudne, who was so angry that he got out of bed, threw the spoon over, causing the frightened family to crawl away.
Brudne's youngest son, Vadim, hurriedly ran to pick up the spoon that his father had thrown away, wiped it back and gave it to his father. By the way: "Dad, why! Why do we give those robbers a large sum of wheat every year?"
"Why? Why else?" Brudne was still angry, "Because they are strong and we are weak."
"We are weak?" Vadim's big eyes revealed great confusion, "We can organize thousands of people to fight with them, how many people can they have?"
"We tried and we failed."
Brudne's words revealed strong frustration, and Vadim was clearly aware of it.
"Then keep fighting! Even if we die a thousand people, we must defeat them. We can't always be like this, giving them property year after year, and now they are getting worse and asking my sisters to be slaves for them. This How can it be done? We are humans, not sheep!"
According to Vadim, since last year, the Russians have added "young women" to their list of tribute requests. She was said to be a wife for a young Russian. According to past legends, Vadim was more willing to believe that she was a humble slave for the Russians.
Isn't this more humiliating than the humiliation of paying tribute to wheat?
The younger son spoke so forcefully, which made Brudne feel happy. He glanced at the slightly dull look in his eldest son's eyes, and he couldn't help but sigh in his heart, they were brothers born from the same mother, how could there be such a big gap in consciousness? !
In the future, would it be appropriate to hand over the position of head of the estate to the eldest son?
Thinking of this, Brudny, who was in a better mood, asked her younger son: "Vadim. If you had the opportunity to lead our people, how would you deal with these Russian bandits?"
"Of course we will attack them proactively!" Vadim blurted out without even thinking: "Gather all our men who can hold sticks and women who are strong enough. We will attack their army and defeat them with sheer numbers. Maybe we are weaker, but if our entire estate takes action and joins forces with other estates, we will definitely be able to defeat them."
"Oh? What if some manors don't cooperate with us?"
Vadim was stunned for a moment, and then said with a strong attitude: "Then destroy them completely. Dad, we are the leaders of this great lake, and we are their masters. I heard that all those bastards in White Tree Manor are willing to be Ross Human hounds, they betrayed us. We should completely eliminate the White Tree Manor and let other manors understand that it is only right to follow us."
"Okay! Very ambitious!" Brudne patted her youngest son's head, which was only ten years old.
Hearing the fighting words of his youngest son, Brudne became bold. Now that the Ross people are here, let them wait outside for a while.
He just wanted to leave them alone for a while to show his insult.
Of course, Brudne's decision clearly overestimated his own strength, and his actions will definitely bring losses to himself.
The family still eats together, as if the world outside the wooden wall has nothing to do with them.
As everyone knows, although some servants are living on the food provided by Brudne, at the critical moment, they may not be truly loyal and work hard for him.
The servant who was rolling and crawling immediately should have reported that the Russians became a little strange this year.
That group was a group of people wearing metal helmets that reflected sunlight. The number was amazing. They were obviously ready for battle with their weapons.
Due to the current situation, the servant thought with his toes and could estimate that there would be a bloody storm next.
Many people on guard quickly chose to avoid it out of instinctive fear and quietly slipped away through a small door. Only a few people still stay in the owner's housing community because they firmly believe that no matter how arrogant the Russians are, their purpose is simply to ask for money.
This was very embarrassing. When Otto arrived under the wooden wall, he saw no one to respond. All he faced was a wooden door with a huge latch and a wooden wall with no other reliable entrance.
“Chief, something is very wrong.” A powerful Russian warrior came over and said, “When we came last fall, that guy named Brudne brought his family and his group of trash-like people. Our men greeted us.”
"Maybe they saw us looking like a pack of wolves and ran away?" another person speculated.
"Forget it. Let my ax take care of the problem."
A strong man stepped forward, his shield slung behind his back and a recently purchased steel sword stuck at his waist. When it comes to weapons preferences, he still loves his long-handled axe.
This ax is equipped with traditional Viking-style felling techniques, which can skillfully and quickly chop down a large tree up to one meter in diameter.
What's the big deal about a mere wooden wall?
He was about to violently break through the door with a big axe, but Otto hurriedly stopped him.
It wasn't that Otto had any kind thoughts. On the contrary, he already had opinions about Pine Needle Manor after hearing the description of White Tree Manor. Now that he was rejected, he felt a bad feeling in his heart.
"Leader? No more cutting!?" the strong man asked.
"No, Stark. I'm so angry right now! Of course you could easily cut down this weak wooden wall, but that still wouldn't quell my anger."
"Chief, what do you mean..."
Otto smiled: "Are you tired? Have you seen the houses around here? Go and grab what you need. The only thing is to drive away the residents as much as possible and take away the grain and dried meat."
Just telling a strong man was certainly not enough. Otto immediately looked at his army and issued permission to plunder.
Losing their restraint, all the Rus immediately threw themselves into a feast of plunder.
The residents living near Brudne's house are basically the richest group in the entire Pine Needle Manor.
In fact, when the mighty Russian army marched on the still muddy streets of the manor, most of the residents had already taken emergency refuge with their families.
The Russians began to plunder!
Including Kawei, who is a blacksmith, he never thinks that looting is wrong, or he doesn't understand whether it is right or wrong to do so. In short, he just follows the leader's order to loot. The basic principle is that if you are not your own kin, allies or servants, they are your enemies by default.
Escaped residents often stuffed some wheat rations into sacks and evacuated and hid with their families. Most of their belongings, enough to last through this year's wheat harvest, were left at home, but all were confiscated by the Russians.
These seizures are of course not within the scope of collecting tribute.
The air began to fill with a burning smell. It was someone maliciously setting the fire, and this was Otto's acquiescence.
The faces of the Russian warriors were filled with the joy of the harvest.
Many people have begun to carry linen bags filled with oats, and some people are carrying a few dried salted fish and happily walking out of empty houses. Since the leader wants to punish Pine Needle Manor for its arrogance, wouldn't lighting a fire make the leader very happy?
More than a dozen rooms were ignited in flames. The thatch on the roof had absorbed a large amount of rainwater. The flames gradually ignited the thatch, causing thick smoke to billow from the roof. The large amount of evaporating water vapor only highlighted the terror of the smoke.
The air in this era is very clear.
The farmers of Baishu Manor working in the fields noticed the black smoke coming from the southeast. Many people thought it was a forest fire for a while.
Rigus stopped the panic immediately. He told the panicked people that this was the Russian people's crusade against Pine Needle Manor.
Of course, he himself was murmuring, could it be that Leader Otto couldn't hold himself back and launched a military offensive against those people?
Otto planted the patterned steel sword on the ground, holding its ruby-encrusted hilt with both hands. He looked sharply at the wooden wall, waiting for the person inside to give him a formal response.
Almost no warrior has found enough wealth to satisfy themselves.
According to the new rules set before departure, all tributes officially collected, except those distributed to the priests and chief families, were divided equally among all participants.
Now all the property looted by the soldiers belongs to the owner. People's abilities are indeed different, and so is their luck. Some people plundered little, and some people could hardly carry the captured wheat kernels.
In the end, everyone gradually ended the looting because they were basically satisfied.
It was during this process that the residents who had been unwilling to leave and tried their best to keep their food rations became the ax victims of the Russians.
What happened to those people was really sad, and Otto didn't care at all.
Finally, the burnt smell in the air reached the wooden wall, and Brudne, who was immersed in the illusion that he was a strong man, suddenly woke up.
"Come here! Go and see what's going on? What good things did those Russians do?!"
The servants who were always on call seemed to have disappeared.
"It's really disgusting." Brudne stood up and ordered his weak-minded eldest son, "Boike, go and see what's going on."
"Dad, is it really me?" Fear was written on the young man's face.
"Idiot, you are going to be the future head of the manor, why..."
Brudny, who was angry again, stamped his feet and directly ordered his youngest son: "Vadim, your brother is a coward. You are braver! Go and see what's going on."
"good!"
Vadim immediately stood up and ran outside.
These two boys, who are almost ten years apart in age, do have the same mother, and there are three girls between them. Perhaps it was precisely because the Brudne family was considered pampered that all the children they gave birth to survived.
Vadim is only ten years old, and he behaved very ambitiously in front of his father today.
But he had no intention of usurping his eldest brother's position.
As the saying goes, a newborn calf is not afraid of tigers. He has never seen war or bloodshed. From the mouths of his parents and tribesmen, he learned about the ongoing humiliation of his estate and even the entire Novgorod region, as well as the despicable faces of those shameful traitors.
Do we still need a reason to use force to counter the invasion?
A brave heart brewed in Vadim's little heart. He had already seen the Ross people, and even met the abominable Ross leader, and clearly recognized this furry and bearded face.
They are indeed strong, but that does not mean that the Rus are invincible. If a peasant is bound to lose against a Russian, what about ten? As long as everyone unites and is not afraid of sacrifice, isn't it natural to defeat the Russians?
However, when he saw the sky dimmed by smoke and dust from across the present, fear also emerged in his brave heart.
His dexterous body approached the wooden wall, and through the narrow gap he saw that the outside of the wall was densely covered with people!
These are all Russians!
Most of Vadim's bravery suddenly disappeared. What he saw was a large number of axes and swords, as well as the ferocious faces of the Russians.
A figure suddenly swayed behind the wooden wall, and Otto keenly noticed this sneaky little figure.
"There is someone there. Let me take a look." Otto gave an order, and three strong men rushed over immediately.
The three of them were all holding big axes, and they were trying to chop the wooden wall into pieces.
They rushed over like three brown bears. Although they were separated by a wooden wall, Vadim suddenly panicked due to the instinct of fear and fell to the muddy ground.
He didn't care to get rid of the dirt on his robe, and ran towards the hall of his home, crawling and crawling, to report the terrifying fact to his father - the Russian army was wreaking havoc!
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Chapter 146 Brave Vadim
