If there was a choice, several tribes of the Kovinsuomi people would prefer to live their lives in the forest and lakes forever and safely.
They know that they are from the south, but because they have no historical knowledge, almost all the tribesmen have forgotten that they have a very close relationship with the Finns, Tavastians, and even the Karelians, and they regard each other as brothers. .
Because of the competition for furs, ores and other supplies, the Kovin tribe finally had an irreconcilable conflict with the Tavastian people who settled in contemporary central Finland.
The population of the Corvins was too small. Compared to the overwhelming strength of the Tavastian tribal alliance, they had to retreat to the north.
The Covin people discovered a river with ferocious floods in summer. Because of the abundant salmon resources in the river, it became the key to nourishing the tribe's survival.
During this era, both the Finns and Tavastians began to gradually give up their old life of fishing and hunting. They began to cultivate wheat in the lakes near the settlements, and gradually entered agricultural life.
Losing control of the relatively warm areas in the south, the Kovin people had to continue their fishing and hunting life.
In a relatively barren land, disputes among the Kovin people have become serious over competition for catches and furs.
They seem to live in a small universe. They are the masters of a large forest and lake, and then bully the more backward deer herders in the far north.
Finally, a large group of black figures moving on the glacier broke the tranquility of the Kewen people's lives.
The Russian army had been marching up the frozen Oulu River, treading undisguisedly on the ice, as if conquering the Kovin settlements was akin to collecting taxes in Novgorod.
After leaving the mouth of the Oulu River, the warriors were in a good mood. Everyone was dreaming of getting rich. They even hugged two local women and became big winners.
They never thought about whether they would be injured or even killed if there was a conflict.
Because in everyone's mind, Kewen people are a bunch of fools.
There are Kewen hunters who hold bows. They go deep into the forest and use long arrows with bone arrow clusters to shoot down the snowshoe rabbits that occasionally pop out of their caves to watch the wind.
There were even fishermen who dug holes in the glacier and lowered their hooks to try to catch some fish.
The people of Kewen are used to winter, and they also know that they can still catch some animals while immersed in a world covered by ice and snow.
Even tribal warriors used their hands to assassinate a few wandering white bears.
These hunters were keenly aware of the unusual vibrations. After they hid, they gradually saw a large group of figures appearing on the glacier.
The hunters' eyes widened. In the short daylight, they suddenly saw the reflected light that must have come from the metal.
An unknown group of people, they all wear metal hats!
No! They are actually...
The Kovin people are not purely isolated from the world. They are worried that their neighbors, the Tavastians, will come north to snatch their hunting grounds. They are also more worried about the group of Varangians on the west side of the sea, crossing the ocean to capture slaves.
The Covin people who are good at doing business always take the peeled squirrel skins and transport them to the Finnish territory in the south to sell them in exchange for locally produced wheat kernels and flax. During the trade, they also learned a lot of news.
Especially regarding the situation to the west of the sea.
Those hateful Varangians, wearing metal helmets and holding precious swords in their hands, rowed long boats to raid the coastal villages of the Finns and plunder the local population as slaves.
Young Corvins grew up listening to these stories, which gave them an unusual fear of the seaside.
Young people don't know what "Varyags" are. In short, they are a group of scary guys, all wearing metal helmets.
Now, there are strange people appearing on the glacier. Are they not Varyags or what?
Suddenly a feeling of impending disaster came to the hunter's heart.
The work of the Kewen hunters came to an abrupt end. They sheathed their bows and ran towards the village.
Today should have been a normal winter day.
Women made linen or sewed leather in their semi-crypt homes, and children played without worries. They hid in a warm room, and only some men carried axes and went to the nearby woods to cut wood and burn firewood.
The Kewen people already knew how to smelt iron ore into sponge iron, and how to further beat it into usable tools. Simply due to the extremely limited productivity and the huge difficulty in mining ore, they did not have many iron tools.
Even so, the Covin people had a huge military advantage over the deer farmers in the north.
But in the eyes of the Russians, these advantages are simply not worth mentioning.
Many hunters ran back to the village in panic, yelling: "The Varangians have appeared, let's take refuge in the mountain fortress."
At first, the people in the village couldn't believe it.
Everyone knows that the Varangians exist, but no one has actually seen them.
Some hunters who insisted on hunting encountered a bear and were frightened out of their courage, hallucinating.
However, the situation gradually deteriorated, and a large number of hunters and fishermen fled back, reporting the same information in unison.
The hunter ran back to his home, first ordered his wife and children to pack the valuable things at home immediately, then carried them on his back and evacuated towards the nearby mountain fort.
The hunters were the first to evacuate, gradually causing a commotion throughout the village.
This Covin tribe, with more than 700 people, began to fall into chaos.
The leader of the tribe is an old guy over fifty years old, his name is Kehas. The name change refers to "spear" in the language of the Kewen people.
"What's going on? Varangians? I think you were frightened by the bear! Ulosivi, you should have the ability to hunt bears instead of telling me that you are cowardly."
Obviously, the leader Kehas not only distrusts the words of his own people, but also shows great disdain.
The leader said this, and the hunter Ulosivi panicked: "Chief! It's really a Varangian. Please get out of your warm residence and take a look at the situation outside. Everyone is already evacuating."
The leader glanced at the family members in the room, and then at his men. He pushed open the thermal insulation curtain and stood on the snow. What he saw was a group of tribesmen carrying their belongings to evacuate.
His eyelids began to tremble, his people were frightened to death by the unconfirmed news!
If the guys from the "Gray Squirrel" tribe come to attack at this time, will our own people still suffer huge losses? !
The tribesmen are all saying the same thing: the Varyag army is marching on the ice and attacking the village.
In this case, the leader Kehas also panicked.
He hurriedly asked the hunter: "Do you swear what you saw was a Varyag?"
"I swear!" The hunter simply knelt down on one knee to prove to the leader that his words were true.
"Did you see any other details?"
"Varyags?! I saw those guys, all of them wearing metal helmets. Just like the legendary story, they came from the west and must have destroyed our village. Chief, we must defend our home."
"Bah! I don't need you to teach me about this!" The leader felt like an ant on a frying pan. He anxiously took the lead in ordering his family: "Take the children and run! Take the valuable things up the hill. Fort!"
"What about you?" asked the leader's wife.
"Of course we are ready to fight! Even if the Varangians show up, we must defeat them. We have no way to retreat."
The leader Kejas put on his own leather armor, a piece of leather armor purchased from the Norwegians by a previous expedition. He took care of his own dagger purchased from the Norwegians and became a majestic old warrior.
In this Kovin village, in their concept, the Varangians refer to the crazy people on the land on the other side of the sea. As everyone knows, their hunting expeditions have set foot in Norwegian territory many times and conducted some trade with the Norwegians. There are even some men in the tribe who know a little bit of the Norwegian language.
The expedition actually carried out trade with the Norwegians along the northern land route, crossing the mountains and the Narvik Fjord. They never thought that the Norwegians and the Varangians were from the same ethnic group and spoke the same language. Having such a strange understanding is probably just because these Kevin people do not understand the geography of Northern Europe at a macro level. In their concept, the world is also flat.
This winter, the tribe did not send an expedition team. Instead, the gray squirrel tribe next door sent an expedition team to explore the outside world and find a new living space.
If the actions of the Gray Squirrel tribe had not been unexpectedly attacked by the Rus, I am afraid that they would have gradually moved to the mouth of the Tornio River and gradually turned into another brand-new ethnic group derived from the Finnish people - the Tornio. People of the Valle delle Nio.
The Russians unexpectedly planned this natural historical process, but history will continue to develop in another form. Because of that river valley, Otto, the leader of the Ross people, focused on the unexpected mine. He was determined to build a new settlement - Ironburg.
Kehas, the leader of the Kewen tribe, quickly gathered more than 200 men.
Hunters with bows and fishermen who speared fish gathered first, followed by a large group of young men who could hold short spears.
The leader stood on a snowdrift and announced his "war mobilization" in public.
"Men, there is a group of strange guys calling now. They are probably Varangians. They are here to destroy our village, kill all the men, and kidnap all the women!"
Hearing this, the bloody warriors were excited.
"Can we make them succeed?" Kejas asked deliberately.
"No!" Someone shouted first, and the others roared one after another.
Seeing that everyone's morale had improved, the leader reassured: "In the past, we have gained advantages in the fight against the Gray Squirrel guys. How can our hard-won advantage be destroyed by the Varyags? Men, you have been defeated. Gray Squirrel Tribe, now the Varangians are coming to your door. You can defeat them and take away their excellent weapons.
I don't expect that we can defeat them on the ground! We led the Varangians to the foot of the mountain fort and shot them with arrows! Just like our hunter partnership, which can shoot the most dangerous white bears, shooting Varyag intruders is no problem. "
In this way, the leader adhered to his past experience and determined that the intruders were relatively weak just like the nearby neighbors.
The leader did not feel that he had an absolute advantage. Looking at the tribesmen at hand, they could easily kill hundreds of intruders, which was really difficult for others.
The only thing the village can rely on is that all men, women, and children of the tribe come together to build a "towering" circular city wall with a large number of stones and wooden piles. It is the so-called mountain fortress, a defense system built by the Kovin people, and even all the Finns and Tavastian tribes, due to the tribal life.
The mountain fort has only one main entrance, or the opening of the city wall. It is like a giant turtle shell that can protect the village residents. When the enemy invades, everyone can retreat to the mountain fort. They sealed the opening with prepared stones and then organized all the men to guard it.
In a sense, the mountain fortress is not just a shelter for the village, it is also the village's granary and material storage place.
The leader Kejas gave the last order: "Masters of salmon, we all retreat to the mountain fort. Bring all your bows and arrows, and prepare your javelins. We don't have to fight with the enemy, just shoot them with the bows and arrows we have on hand. Don't worry. , no matter how fierce the enemy is, they can't break the mountain fortress."
Therefore, the name of this tribe is called "Lords of Salmon". They are a relatively strong tribe of the Kovin people. They are not only different from the "grey squirrel tribe" that Otto intends to attack. Due to the overlap of the hunting grounds of the two tribes, there have always been conflicts between the two sides for the sake of interests.
But Otto couldn't bear that much. His trip was not aimed at the "Grey Squirrel" tribe, but he planned to attack the Covin tribe as much as possible so that the Russians could gain as much benefit as possible.
Otto, who was marching, had no idea that the Russians' unconcealed actions had already begun to put the nearest Kovin village on full alert.
It was another long journey, and the Ross army camped by the glacier again.
The long march crazily sapped the fighting spirit of the warriors. Gradually, everyone felt that the captive who led the way had impure motives.
yes! In fact, Voyma Kashad, who led the way, did have impure motives. His only pure intention was to see the Russians fight against the "Salmon Lord", and it would be best for both parties to suffer losses. This is called borrowing the sword of the Russians to kill the biggest competitor of the "Gray Squirrel" tribe.
In this way, even if nearly fifty tribesmen died, the Gray Squirrel tribe finally gained a larger living space, which was also a benefit.
But Otto was really impatient.
Otto put a "dog leash" made of hemp rope on Woima Kashad and ordered him to lie down and imitate the barking of a hound. In the humiliation, Woima Kashad had to behave like a loyal dog, otherwise, he believed that if he did not cooperate, the hemp rope around his neck would become his own noose, and he would eventually become a corpse. Get up frozen corpse.
For, the village of the "Salmon Lord" soon arrived.
The tribal warriors who imitated the dog's tricks made the bored tribal warriors laugh. Rurik couldn't laugh, but he didn't interfere.
Rurik unexpectedly noticed that the deer herders were very happy to see Woima Kashad being humiliated. They even wanted to see him excrement, and they even wanted to see the Rus invade the Kovin village. A killing spree.
The deer farmers just wanted to vent their anger, so to speak, hoping that the Kovin people would suffer the same suffering, and then praise the Russian people for their brilliance.
Rurik didn't want to say anything about this. After all, the men who followed his father were not his close confidants. In the days to come, he felt that after the Ross tribe under his control, these madmen would no longer be needed. The young children who are trained will eventually become the backbone of the Russian army. They will be principled and bottom-line warriors built in accordance with Rurik's wishes.
They would definitely not engage in such tricks as teasing and humiliating the captives. Rurik firmly believed.
As the Ross warriors keenly noticed signs of being dug into the glacier, the warrior, who was a fisherman, subconsciously determined that this was a hole dug by fishermen, even though it was covered with thin ice.
The news spread back to the Russian camp and immediately attracted everyone's intense attention.
Otto completely believed in Voima Kashad's words and realized that this person was still useful until now.
By the campfire, Otto summoned the prisoners who had taken off their leashes.
"It seems we are really coming to your village. Will your people kneel down and surrender to me?"
Voimakashad hesitated at the question.
Otto said arrogantly, "They probably won't take the initiative. Unfortunately, I'm going to kill your people."
Woima Kashad was actually secretly happy to hear this. He deliberately said: "Anyone who is unwilling to surrender should be killed! I am willing to be your loyal dog."
Otto was amused and laughed, then threw down a piece of roasted snowshoe meat.
"Eat! My loyal dog, get down like a hound. I want to see you eat this piece of barbecue without using your hands."
In this situation, there is no need for a Javlo translator. Voyma Kashad knows what he should do. He really did as he was told, so in Otto's heart, this guy really became a loyal dog.
On a new day, at dawn, the Ross Army began its final march. And this day was the ninth day of the agreement. It was obvious that Woima Kashad was not lying.
The Rus people still used the glacier as their path. As they walked, after passing a bend, they saw village houses covered with snow on the river bank.
"This! It's such a big village." Rurik was a little shocked, but he also felt a little strange, "It's really strange, why can't I feel popular?"
Rurik could not help but suspect that Otto, with his consent, gave the mercenary captain Jevro a very bold order, that is, to take all the mercenaries as pathfinders and set foot on the territory suspected of the "Grey Squirrel Tribe".
The mercenaries held loaded crossbows and, under the leadership of Jevro, cautiously advanced towards the enemy village. Behind them were thirty meters of melee warriors holding swords and shields.
Otto sent fifty scouts to explore the reality of the village. The warriors were very happy. The order they received was to take the risk and enter first. They immediately attacked the enemies who resisted. After winning, they distributed the spoils and got more. a little.
Except for these fifty people, the rest were waiting on the ice for good news.
Everyone is also prepared. If they notice that a fight is breaking out in a distant village, the rest of the people will rush over to help the scouts resolve the fight.