A lot has happened in the Western world in just a few months. Otto couldn't help but lament that the once peaceful and ordinary days had become turbulent.
Since all this is fate, the Russian ship must ride the waves, and there is no way out for everyone.
At least God said he was favoring the people of Ross. Just like New Rossburg, there was no trouble in the past year, and the population and wealth were also increasing rapidly.
Otto felt that the visit of Rurik and Arik was to make everyone more vigilant. Now, it has become very important to erect the wooden wall as soon as possible before the first snowfall.
This night, Rurik, who was tired from the voyage, slept next to his father. He was forced to do this to relieve an old man's anxiety.
No, Otto, the old guy, kept stroking Rurik's silky hair as if he were stroking an orange cat.
It was Otto's snoring that tormented the exhausted Rurik into falling asleep.
New Roseburg was born in the mist in the early morning. This place is full of water, dense forests and flat terrain. Water nourishes this northern land. The small alluvial plain at the mouth of the river is a good place to build a city.
There are few good places in Northeast Europe, but the Neva Estuary is one of them. It is also an estuary into the sea. Peter the Great built this place desperately for its strategic value.
The thick and humid autumn fog fills the earth. When the fog dissipates, the pleasant autumn sunshine shines on the world.
The earth has not become warmer, no, everyone who works outdoors has put on thick clothes.
Standing outdoors, Rurik could easily tell who were Russian immigrants and who were Slavic immigrants.
Look, those women wearing blue-gray linen headscarves and thick aprons woven with colorful hemp ropes hanging around their waists are Slavs. Men of this ethnic group also mostly wear linen, and all wear trousers (their ancestors encountered nomadic forces when they desperately immigrated eastward from the Vistula and Po plains, so they learned from the prairie people), using a thick hemp rope. As a belt.
What the Russians have always praised is the Novgorod people's high level of shoe manufacturing. This is a matter of course, or because of the encounter with the steppe people on the immigration road, there are many bootmakers in Novgorod who sew leather boots, felt boots, or boots that mix a variety of materials.
The Russians are inferior to Novgorod in all tailoring skills. In fact, the tailoring level of the entire alliance lags behind that of Europe at the same time.
The Russians' clothing is mainly made of leather, so in terms of temperament, they naturally appear tough and rough.
However, once they got used to wearing clothes woven with soft linen threads, eating porridge and baking soft big ribs, and adapted to this more comfortable life, the immigrant Russians began to spontaneously become Slavic.
Now, no one in Russia thinks this is wrong. Making life more comfortable is everyone's instinctive pursuit.
The two groups live together, and they almost all have signed a tax payment agreement with Otto. At least in terms of tax payment obligations, all immigrants are equal.
From the beginning, those Russian immigrants looked down upon the Novgorod immigrants, claiming that they were a group of cowards and defeated generals. However, in daily close contact, as mutual understanding deepens, a group of immigrants have completed intermarriage in New Roseburg, and the past barriers are quickly dissipating.
When Novgorod immigrants show excellent farming skills, even for food, the arrogant Rus must still need their help. The barren and cold Rossburg has caused a large number of Ross people to forget how to grow wheat.
Rurik had to stay at Novorosberg until the day of departure, which was not far off.
"My dear, you can stay in a warm room and someone will take care of your daily life." Otto really didn't want his son to be cold outdoors.
"That's not okay. I haven't fully appreciated this city yet." Rurik retorted without thinking.
"Didn't you watch it yesterday?"
"Huh? That doesn't count? Just squint with the corners of your eyes. Before setting off, I want to go around the settlement and have a look at the farmland."
Otto looked at his son's determined face, and he probably couldn't convince him. "We won't go back for another two or three days. The brothers your cousin brought are really great. I'm going to organize them to build the wall right away. Who will accompany you?"
"Then... myself. Let my mercenaries accompany me."
"Then let Conuson, let that old guy accompany you. Maybe you have many opinions about our new home, just tell that man."
Rurik's mind suddenly changed and he said, "That's it."
After a while, Konusong came to see him. He has no objection to the next task. Isn't it an honor to be able to personally take the future leader to appreciate the future main city?
"Dear Rurik, if you have an opinion, please raise it and I will take the brothers to solve it." Konuson knelt down on one knee, and his obedience made Otto very happy.
In fact, Konuson wished he could kneel down with his family in order to get the promise of stable power in the future from Rurik. In short, Cornuson knew that now that Ross had become bigger, wouldn't his family be the hereditary leader of a corner of the country?
Konuson happily accepted this task, and in a moment, as a tour guide, he took Rurik and his mercenary entourage straight to the dock on the Neva River.
"Wait? Are we going to the dock now? Are we going to go on a boat trip?" Rurik was puzzled.
What Conuson is most proud of is the construction of the wharf. If there is not even a stable large-scale wharf, how can Sorgon's fleet dock for supplies? "Sir, do you have other plans?"
"Go to the granary first. Listen, the key to survival is never to starve."
"Okay, let's go."
"That's right." Rurik's mind suddenly flashed, "Where will you build the granary?"
"At the heart of the settlement, I hope you're satisfied."
"not bad."
Rurik Sulai lacked understanding of the ancient granary system, and it seemed that all he needed to do was build a special house to stack grain, regularly check for moisture and eliminate rats.
A group of people walked through the wooden houses arranged in an irregular manner. What made Rurik happy was that the houses were all separated by large spaces. Some open spaces were trampled into roads, and the places where few people stayed were filled with withered yellow grass. A small amount of The sheep with their necks tied up were munching here in boredom, and occasionally three or two skinny chickens scurried past. There are also some trivial empty spaces in the settlement. They are obviously suppressed by some heavy objects, or simply pounded. The gray-black land appears flat and hard. What do they do?
Rurik does not feel pastoral. Even if it is surrounded by wooden walls, it is still a large village. In this "village", the traditional Viking longhouses built with wood, mud and thatch are rare, and Slavic woodcuts are the mainstream.
"Maybe this is what Novgorod is like. Yes! It must be like this, that's where many immigrants come from."
Rurik thought so, and estimated that even the granary should be in Novgorod style.
A group of special longhouses are where Novorosberg's granaries are located. The settlers from Novgorod transplanted their more advanced storage technology to their new home.
The granaries are all fence-style longhouse-type buildings, and the interior is supposed to be rectangular. The large number of columns under the wooden floor are much higher than the wooden rugs. They are built on higher ground to prevent erosion from heavy rain and sea tides, and take into account fire prevention. Due to the necessity, the granaries are relatively far apart.
Compared with residential buildings, these granaries are arranged in a more orderly manner. They are arranged in a matrix, and there are thirty warehouses in total.
Rurik looked around inside the granary area and immediately asked, "Kanusson, so many houses are filled with wheat?"
"In addition to wheat, there are also some cabbages, which are soaked in pottery. You know, everyone can make sauerkraut. There are also some houses with dried meat hanging on them." Bayi Chinese website
"Then I want to take a look."
Rushing food is a life-saving means for human beings, so warehousing seeds is a more advanced life-saving means.
No, Rurik got into the granary and saw the sacks piled up into a wall. Naturally, they were filled with grain.
Cornuson introduced that part of the grain was tax paid and would be shipped to the ship soon. The other foods are residents' rations and particularly precious seed grains.
The current settlers in Fort New Rose only total about 800 people, men, women, old and young, and it is not difficult to manage them.
It is natural to form a society in a difficult place, so when the food is received, most of the food is thrown into the shared granary by the residents. The running-in period of more than a year has passed, and the Russians and Novgorod people here have actually become a community of destiny.
This alliance made Rurik secretly happy. Perhaps this was fate. The Russians who colonized Eastern Europe were not simply conquerors, but helped the East Slavs do groundbreaking things. Everything started with the fusion of blood.
Rurik's excitement was not intuitively expressed.
For the parties involved, this alliance has practical needs, and the essence of alliance is to stay together for warmth.
Because they used the curved shaft plow to open up the land wildly, they all used up the grain they originally brought. They have reached the limit of their output with limited agricultural technology in the cold years.
Cornuson gave an estimate of approximately 1,500 pounds of wheat harvested across 100 stika fields (slightly less than one hectare).
Rurik calculated in his mind that the harvest was equivalent to ninety kilograms per acre.
It seems very weak, but I am afraid that this is already due to the high value of grain production in the New Roseburg area thanks to the nourishment of the Neva River. If we encounter an extremely warm and humid year and add some farmyard manure, it is very possible to achieve a yield of 150 per mu.
After getting off the granary and listening to Konuson's eloquent introduction, Rurik acted like a leader listening to the report.
It was a bit funny for an old guy to talk endlessly to a pretty little boy.
After all, Rurik is mentally an adult. He can be childish about the war, but he can look past it after experiencing real bloodshed. In Mellaren, he saw clearly the bottomless pursuit of interests by snobs. Snobs of any nation or era will always be the same unkind people.
"I come from Mälaren, and I found that the fields there are not as good as ours."
"Oh, it must be because this is the land where the Rus people enter. Odin gave us a favor for your sake, my lord."
"Enough!" Rurik waved his hand. He couldn't stand the disgusting words. "In my opinion, this place has just been developed and the land is fertile. However, if you continue to plant food, the yield will decrease."
"Ah? There is such a thing?" Konuson felt incredible.
"Absolutely true."
“If that’s the case, we’ll just have to create new farmland.”
"You!" Rurik suddenly grinned, "Are you really ignorant or are you stupid?"
"Um?"
"Your people can't..." Rurik had something to say, and suddenly thought that these guys didn't know how to fertilize at all.
I really can’t criticize them on this matter, but they don’t have the awareness to fertilize, or they have never made a logical contrast between filthy things like feces and the vigorous growth of seedlings.
Rurik did know about the cutting-edge theory from another time and space, that is, the end of land agriculture was not far away. The land's own nutrients will be quickly absorbed by the crops, so desperately spreading chemical fertilizers is not a long-term solution. People today are not qualified to consider those things. For all the residents living in New Roseburg, Rurik does not expect them to do anything bigger. They just need to collect all the excrement of themselves and their livestock and poultry, instead of doing what they did in the past. Or just dig a hole and bury it, throw it into the Neva River, and sprinkle it on farmland to fertilize the fields.
"You can collect human and animal excrement throughout the winter and spread it on the fields before spring plowing. In this way, when the harvest season comes, you will get more food. Oh, by the way, don't use charcoal ash for heating and cooking wheat and baking bread. Throw them away and spread them on the fields to increase yields."
After listening to Rurik's words, Konuson really couldn't figure out the causal relationship between feces and ashes and high grain yield. Considering the technical level of the residents, collecting plant ash and dung was the only way to obtain nitrogen and potassium fertilizers for wheat, although the efficiency of fertilizers was far less than that of later generations of chemical fertilizers.
"Sir, is this okay?"
"It can be done! It must be done! Just remember that the leader's order to you is that each household pays a tax of two hundred pounds of wheat. The rest of the grain is yours. You have absolute autonomy. I will give you a proposal You can try ways to increase production or do nothing. Remember, the increased food production is your own wealth."
Even if Cornuson didn't understand the reason, he understood the importance of increasing production.
A strong farmer with limited physical strength, and a large family, can manage only two hundred stikas vertically and horizontally.
Generally speaking, Rurik's attitude towards the granary is good.
He slapped his hands hard to get rid of the ashes: "Just collect the feces, don't be afraid of getting dirty. The soap is also here. If you wash your hands with it frequently, you can wash away all kinds of filth. As for this granary, you must take good care of it, Qian There must be no fire.”
"Yes, we will definitely protect it properly." Conuson asked flatteringly: "Sir, where do you want to visit next?"
"Oh. For you, nothing is more important than farming. Come on, take me to the fields to see."
Rurik quickly did not have any wonderful hopes for the land that the Russians could cultivate.
When it comes to intensive farming, the farming nations in the East still have skills. In other words, the intensive farming of Eastern peoples is forced by the natural environment. Since the fields given by heaven are naturally arid, in order to survive, they have to work hard to take care of this field. When water is scarce, an irrigation system is built. When the land is barren, manure is collected to fertilize the fields, and it has even developed to use the residue of grinding tofu as nitrogen fertilizer.
Standing on the Russian farmland, Rurik couldn't tell for a moment that it was really farmland.
There are no irrigation ditches in the fields, and even bringing in water from the Neva River is just a matter of digging a diversion canal.
The fields are set with some boundaries, which are low raised earth mounds. They are so low that they can distinguish the fields of each household, but I am not confident that I can't tell them apart.
He could see some sparse wheat stubble and a small amount of dead grass. Looking at the density of these wheat stubbles, it completely proves that the current situation of less than 100 kilograms per mu is a fact.
Suddenly, a gust of north wind hit him and he wrapped himself tightly in his leather clothes. The feeling of desolation made his whole body uncomfortable.
Cornuson didn't think there was any problem. He introduced the fields with great interest, describing the beautiful scenery of oats earing, as well as the grand scene of the whole settlement residents harvesting wheat and even the whole family working in the threshing floor at the same time.
Wait, threshing floor? !
"Your threshing floor? Where is it?" Rurik asked.
"Just within the walls, there are many open spaces." Konuson said.
"Huh? I just saw some solid land. Could it be that..."
"Hey, that's our threshing floor and drying floor."
"Let's go and have a look at the threshing floor."
