The talks ended within one day, and Rurik returned to Gould Island with the wooden board engraved with the contract.
It seems that now, Rurik and his guys just have to wait for the approaching harvest season.
But the problem may not be that simple.
After all, a big deal was finalized, and the entire Gould Island fell into joy. In order to celebrate the joy, several old sheep bought from the market were slaughtered, and the sheepskins were cut off as usual. Even though these were the poorest old sheepskins, they could be kept as protection against the cold.
The thin and lean old mutton serves as a reward for ordinary people, like Rurik. He is at the Gould family's dinner party. As the most distinguished guest, he naturally wants to feast on the most beautiful delicacies.
In the midst of the banquet, the sufferings of the Mellaren people naturally have nothing to do with all the Russians on the island.
Gould was slightly drunk, and Aric was also blushing.
"This time, we finally finalized the business. Haha, we don't have to worry about anything anymore, we just wait for them to transport the food."
Rurik kept his mind clear at all times: "Gould, do you really believe them? I think..."
"Are you a little worried? Are you worried that the food will not be in place?"
"Yes! After all, it's half a million pounds, which is double the amount of grain we transported last year. The farmland is really in bad shape this year."
"Are you worried about that guy Olegin? Haha." Gould giggled for a while and drank another glass of strong wine. "That man will try to raise food for his own face. You don't even have a deposit. Give it to him, if he really defaults on his debt, what exactly do we lose?"
"That's true."
"But!" Gould suddenly straightened his serious face emotionally: "He will exploit his own people and force them to hand over their food to him. Rurik, do you know about this kind of thing?"
do you know? Although Rurik had never seen it, based on his understanding of the concept of "landlord", he could certainly guess what extreme measures Olegin, as a super landowner, might take.
"I can think of it. Although the farmers have suffered, we Russians don't have to go hungry anyway. One silver coin is exchanged for eleven pounds of wheat, and we don't lose."
"Hehe, we still made some money, at least we saved nearly 6,000 silver coins. Rurik, you did a good job and successfully bargained with him."
After being flattered by Gould, Rurik naturally felt a sense of joy in his heart.
Rurik said with a sullen face: "I don't like that Karl, a stupid man."
"Oh, you mean him?" Gould said hey again: "A guy who likes women. To be honest, I envy him. It's a pity that I'm old. It's not wrong to like women, but it's stupid to humiliate allies." It was here that Gould had his own intention to criticize Arick. Considering Arick's noble status, he just wanted to stop there.
Gould held the glass high in his right hand: "Brave Arik, I salute you."
Arik blushed and filled another glass for himself, and the two men drank from it.
Drinking one glass after another, Rurik learned that Gould's police were stationed at the market again, and there were farmers selling home-brewed ale. The ale was immediately bought with wine and barrels, and now in the warehouse on the island No less than a hundred barrels have been piled up.
However, these wines seem to be a lot, but they are actually distilled to obtain flammable spirits. Each barrel is filled into up to seven small blown glass bottles. Based on a businessman's intuition, Gould estimated the spending power of the wealthy people in Mälaren. Melalen is indeed the largest tribe in the alliance, with a population of about 30,000, which is already a giant in everyone's minds. But for businessmen, this population only maintains a very narrow market.
I'm afraid you won't be able to make much money by brewing and selling spirits on a large scale. But wine is wine. Why should the people of Mälaren be the first to enjoy such a rare delicacy in the world? Of course, the Russians themselves will enjoy it.
Gould was inseparable from spirits. He always saved his inventory and only drank a few drinks a day.
I saw that Arik finally couldn't bear the alcohol, and combined with the physical and mental things he experienced during the day, he simply lay down on the animal hide and fell unconscious while snoring.
The confused Gould put down his wine glass, shook his head, and asked listlessly: "Rurik, there are some things you...should prepare for."
"What's up?"
"About the Fordgen who makes leather coats, there is also a master of shipbuilding."
"Oh, it's them!" The sleepy Rurik cheered up.
"I will...send people to tell them in the near future that the son of the leader of the Russian people is going to meet them. Haha, I have already sent people to tell them what our Russian people want to do. What do you think they think?"
"how to think?"
Gould laughed stupidly for a while: "They are businessmen themselves just like me. They said that as long as the price is high enough, they will base it on it. If they become Russians... they can get greater profits, they don't mind. What."
"Wow! That's great. I want to receive them, and I can represent the leader and recognize them as my masters. You know, I favor all kinds of skilled people for my use."
"This is the best. I will make arrangements, at least not today. Oh, I am too drunk." As soon as Gould finished speaking, the wine glass in his hand fell to the ground. He was like a fat pig that had eaten enough feed, lying on the ground. Sleeping soundly on the leather.
What else could Rurik say? He looked at Carlotta, who was eating dried fruit out of boredom, and the two of them smiled.
Three days later, more wheat enters the heading state.
Farmers have been busy for a year (in fact, they did not spend much time taking care of their farmland), just waiting for the autumn harvest. For them, fishing and logging are their only means of survival. Only after harvesting wheat and selling the surplus grain at the market can they get cash that is very important to the family.
In fact, this year's situation is very special.
Olegin and Rurik signed this year's food agreement. He has already passed the news of collecting a huge amount of food and issued orders to the tribe through his private army system. This is a big deal! A group of businessmen who are waiting for new wheat to come on the market and gather together to plan this year's grain prices, what else can they do?
What merchants who purchase grain do is buy it at a low price during the harvest season, and then sell it at a high price after the spring famine, in order to make big profits. This year's harvest is destined to be bad, but they have a lot of silver coins! Farmers and merchants are naturally competing for pricing power. The farmers of Mellaren are scattered, and the merchants have not formed a grain merchants guild. If the price is set too low, farmers will not squeeze out their rations in exchange for money; if the price is set too high, grain merchants will lose money.
As a result, the Russian order was like a bolt from the blue, a heavy blow to grain merchants, but it also gave ordinary farmers who did not know the specific content a glimmer of hope. Those farmers who own acres of land are willing to believe that their leader will offer a very good purchase price. Although their harvest is bad, they can still get a sum of money from selling grain. After all, they always need to reserve a sum of silver and copper coins for emergencies.
The farmers had hope, and the entire tribe had a limited number of professional craftsmen, but they saw the malice contained in it.
Potters, carpenters, blacksmiths and even shipbuilders have become pure craftsmen. At most, they use their own fishing boats to occasionally catch some fish. Most of the time throughout the year, they are taking orders and selling their products to make money. They represent the industrial and commercial practitioners of the Melalen tribe. In today's era, they are actually more vulnerable than farmers.
What conclusions did some craftsmen draw from the information revealed by the leader?
First of all, the Ross leaders began to actively intervene in Lake Malaren's own trading system as never before. They would no longer retreat behind the scenes and be represented by their own merchants as before.
Secondly, the Ross leaders are very wealthy. Their intervention will inevitably cause the water of Lake Malaren to become muddy. It is not something ordinary businessmen can do if they want to fish in troubled waters.
third. This is a crisis and an opportunity. Since the Russians are also recruiting talents, if you are willing to accept the most critical conditions they propose, just join them.
After a real inspection, Fo Degen was fully prepared to immigrate.
On the island he controls, the slaves and servants have been ordered to stop work.
What’s very interesting is that this guy Vodgen is really an active person in buying slaves. Different from those wealthy households, they can live a comfortable life relying on a large amount of land and the rent paid by tenant farmers. The purpose of purchasing slaves is mainly to serve as slaves for cultivating the land and as maids to serve in daily life.
This was not the case for Fordegen. He was fond of the Britten slaves brought over by the Norwegians, and he paid special attention to the female slaves. This is not about focusing on the beauty of women. In fact, he deliberately chooses some women with worse looks first, so that the purchase price can be kept as low as possible.
What he needed was the slave's tailoring ability. After some contact, he figured out the identities of the female slaves he had raised for many years, and even the new female slaves who were slowly increasing every year.
When the slave women began to understand Norse, they began to mention some small place names, and even larger place names.
Northumbria? Bamburgh? Kent? West Saxony?
A rare slave girl with orange-red hair was describing a Pictish title.
It doesn't matter what the roots are. These are probably the names of tribes on that distant island. He did notice that these women were carving some wooden blocks into intertwined shapes and making them into necklaces to hang on their chests. Every morning, these women would gather together and read some strange words in the language of their hometown.
This is their belief, which is the belief spread by the legendary men in black from Rome.
If they say something to calm them down and work, Fo Degen will naturally say nothing.
Anyway, these abducted women were peasant women in their hometown. In addition to cutting wood and fetching water, their daily work also assisted men in farming. Their greatest ability was spinning and sewing, and they had extremely rich sewing experience.
Up to now, Fodegen's weaving workshop is not only continuing to improve the work of purchasing leather and sewing leather clothes, but also training female slaves to complete the one-stop work of pounding flax rods to punch out fibers, weaving linen cloth, and tailoring into linen clothes.
What he paid the most to the slaves was to ensure that they had enough food. The slaves ate even more than they did in their hometown. This was definitely not a sign of mercy from Fordgen. He was really a calculating businessman who knew that if his slaves How can I get more high-quality output when I'm hungry?
After experiencing the horrific encounter in the south last summer and the field trip to Fort Ross in the winter, it was necessary to move. As Gould's old friend sent another messenger to deliver the official summons from the son of Chief Ross, he had already Be well prepared.
The wheat harvest will only happen in the next three or four days. Although there is no possibility of a large amount of wheat heading, the wheat that is heading is turning yellow quickly. A small number of oats have genetic mutations that make them more cold-tolerant. The farmers in Mälaren have no concept of this at all. They can only passively collect the earing wheat and save part of it for planting grain. This is a passive "scientific selection", so that year after year, the Nordic oat varieties can only become more and more cold-resistant.
Why doesn't Fordgen want to live a good life eating bread every day? He has saved enough capital, and the silver coins he has on hand are not only 20,000 but also 18,000. This is all the wealth he has accumulated throughout his life. He can rely on this money for the rest of his life. Now that he is old, he naturally has to consider the things behind him and the prosperity of his descendants.
He had to think more, if the Ross people were as the messenger said, as long as they paid a tax every year, they could get the security promise of the Ross leader and even the military guarantee of the Ross warriors, why would he have to spend a lot of money to raise a group of people every year? What about private security? After all, the cost of hiring mercenaries is a huge expense in a year, even higher than the so-called taxes.
In the final analysis, his change into a hard-core immigrant was mainly driven by the pursuit of market and profit considerations.
However, a group of aspiring shipbuilders not only pursue profits, but also appreciate Rurik's lofty goals. After all, as craftsmen, they yearn to create miracles in the shipbuilding industry throughout their lives.
They are eager to build big ships, and they are eager for their descendants to build big ships from generation to generation! They are admirers of Thor and crave a challenge.
In this way, the two groups of people landed on Gould Island on the eve of the wheat harvest on the agreed date provided by the messenger.
Among the visitors were the richly dressed Fo Degen, and as many as ten strong men of various ages dressed in simple and capable clothes. They do have one thing in common, that is, their beards are tied into various braids.
Yes, even for a man like Fordegen, he tied his short beard into braids so that it would not get in the way when he was eating bread and soup. None of them have thought about cutting off their beards. Of course they have the tools to cut off their beards, just because they follow a very simple logic of doing things - it is difficult to do things with a hairless mouth.
What awaits these people is a feast under Rurik's instructions.
At this point, everything is under Rurik's calculation. Gould's suggestion is good. Those businessmen from all walks of life who are invited to pay homage are ultimately seeking wealth and stability.
In order for the Russians to stabilize these talents, they must put on a grand display in public so that their most fundamental demands can be satisfied immediately.
Gould Island was deliberately arranged to be busy, and the hired sailors, slaves, and even the gathered children were all assigned work. In fact, it is just moving all kinds of goods packaged in wooden boxes around, and there is even nothing in the box. They deliberately move around the pier just to show visitors what a "busy pier" is.
For the mercenaries and Rus warriors, Ryuri ordered them to wear chainmail, with shields hung on their backs, swords and axes swung around their waists, and a short spear that could be thrown in their hands. In order to show the luxury, Gould also hung some white fluffy fox furs on their bodies, and temporarily decorated the gray goose flight feathers with rosin on the top of their helmets.
They were ruthless characters who fought wildly against Gotland fishermen on the sea a few months ago. Everyone's eyes could show murderous intent. They had basically received formation training (Otto had ordered it), and this time they completely acted like the Russians. guard of honor.
They formed a passage leading straight to the gates of the wooden fortress at the heart of Gould Island.
The Rurik brothers and even Carlotta, who were dressed in bright and gorgeous clothes, and the Goulds were waiting at the pier and saw several rowing boats coming.
"They are coming! Pay attention! Stay alert!" Rurik shouted, and the well-trained soldiers straightened their bodies.
After a while, three boats docked, and those in rich clothes and those in simple clothes boarded the trestle one after another. They were the invited ones.
However, when they saw the array of Hekhwulfs, they couldn't help but feel timid. Unbelievable? You have never seen such a warrior before! Is this the style of the Ross Warriors?
Vordegen quickly saw Rurik and Carlotta. Even though they were wearing gorgeous clothes and hats, they had grown a lot taller in the past six months. Because they had been in close contact with each other, he recognized them at a glance. Two people.
He didn't feel comfortable having an acquaintance here. Those ten shipbuilders saw the Ross warriors for the first time. As for the two short, gorgeous children, should they be the sons of the legendary Ross leader? One of them must be Rurik!
The shipbuilder followed Vodgen cautiously and saw him approaching a boy, taking off his hat and saluting: "My friend, here I come."
"You're finally here. Have you thought about it?" Rurik asked with a smile.
"Of course! I will take all my family and slaves with you. I hope to be recognized by you as soon as I arrive in Rossburg. I also want to be a new Rossite."
Rurik nodded with satisfaction, and he was actually ecstatic in his heart, because this guy Vodgen is certainly a snobbery, but the people under him are all master tailors. "You will. On behalf of the leader, I can recognize your mental identity now."
"Oh! That's great."
Rurik originally thought that this guy would kneel down and salute, but he never thought that he would turn around and introduce his new friends with cautious faces with a smile.
Fordegen also changed his title in an instant: "My leader, please allow me to introduce these ten shipbuilders from Melalen. I can say that they are the best shipbuilders."
In fact, Voldegen was bragging, and Rurik didn't feel it at all. His eyes widened, and the joy in his heart could no longer be suppressed.
He rarely became emotional and suddenly stamped his feet: "Okay! Shipbuilder! Shipbuilder who can build big ships! I need you so much! Hurry! Come with me."
