The huge tree trunk was dragged to the ice-covered dock by the combined efforts of crowds and deer, where further processing awaits the big tree.
The pier at the pier was covered with snow, the vast river was covered with solid ice, and on the shore, a group of ships were covered with a lot of snow. It seems like this is a scene of death? This is not the case at all.
The wharf has become not only a storage yard for lumber, but also a place for processing logs.
The big tree was just dragged to the dock, and Rurik turned around and fulfilled his promise.
The promised reward of three pounds of wheat to the laborers immediately became a reality. This favor is not only for the Russians and mercenaries, but especially for the fighting tribesmen.
The scope of the favor has expanded. In this dinner alone, the current residents of Ironburg have consumed as many as 500 pounds of oats. For the children of the tribe, it was the first time in their lives that their little stomachs were actually filled with a lot of wheat. The feeling of fullness was what they considered happiness.
This is just the wheat eaten by people. The hard-working reindeer simply consumed nearly a thousand pounds!
Only when Rurik got serious about counting grain consumption did he realize that his previous estimates were naive.
Indeed, seventy thousand pounds of grain arrived here, weighing over twenty-five tons.
A thousand years later, only one heavy truck will be needed to transport this amount of grain instantly and easily.
In the current era, the Russians use a large number of cargo sleds to transport them. Sleds are generally made recently, and the materials used are mostly oak, so the overall structure is quite solid. Sleds can generally carry up to two tons of supplies, and there is no problem in transporting grain on them.
The current problem is that even if there is so much food, if the people in the entire settlement are ordered to do high-intensity winter material production in the long run, especially felling, transporting, and deep processing of wood, the food will be completely consumed in two to three months. .
Although the large amount of grain arrived was to provide sufficient security for the labor force, they needed to do a bigger job, which was to provide surplus grain to the residents of Ironburg, which could also be regarded as a useful feedback after taking away a large amount of iron from their hands.
Extreme logging should come to an end.
Trees still need to be cut down, but certain restrictions must be made.
No, those ordinary small trees no longer need to be cut down. Digesting the tree trunks all over the ground is a difficult job for Ellenburg.
The focus of felling was entirely focused on those tall spruce trees that "stand out from the crowd". In order to get them, Rurik had to send a large number of strong men, as well as the strongest group of reindeer, and provide a large amount of wheat as their strong backing. Only then, on the eve of the Rus' Hanukkah, were five large fir trees cut down and transported away.
The height difference between them is quite large, but the shortest one has more than 20 stikas.
Overall, their height is too extreme.
While the brave ones cut down the tallest trees, others are doing a very delicate job.
That still has to start with the arrival of the team transporting supplies.
The deer herders are taking part of the deer herd for winter grazing, and they will not consume a single bit of Ironburg's supplies. The people who stayed in the settlement were essentially hired by Rurik for their active logging, and it became natural to provide them with wheat as payment.
Life has added challenges, and the feeling of boredom seems to have been diluted a lot.
On a quiet night, there were only a group of mercenaries taking turns lighting bonfires outside the various gates of the wooden walls of Fort Iron. They were ordered to serve as night watchmen, with blazing bonfires to drive away the chill.
Rurik didn't want to go to bed early that night.
A bundle of tree trunks, which looked gray under the oil lamp and were as thick as an adult man's thigh, was carried to the meeting hall of Rurik's mansion by the mercenaries.
Mechasta, the leader of the tribe, is naturally sitting here. Today he was asked to sit down by Rurik because he was ordered to witness these trees.
Rurik didn't know if this person knew the "Ash Tree" as well as Jevro did.
"Do you recognize this tree?"
"This...could it be cut from the forest?" Mechasta's expression fully demonstrated that he had no idea.
"Huh? You really don't know?"
"Yes. It seems that the color of these tree trunks is very special, just like the pebbles in the stream, most of them are gray."
"My mercenary captain told me that this is an ash tree, the best material for making bows." Rurik asked again: "I thought you knew. Unexpectedly..."
"Is it a good material for making a bow? To be honest, I have never seen it. Master, can I touch it."
Rurik shrugged: "Of course, you can do it yourself."
The ash tree is an ash tree, and its bark is generally grayish in color. People who are sensitive to color can easily spot it in the woods. In addition, one of the characteristics of wild ash trees is that their trunks are very straight.
This is indeed the first time in Mechasta's life that he has seen an ash tree. Since this material is a good material for making a bow, it must at least show good elasticity. He untied the hemp rope, found a wooden pole that was much thicker than his forearm, and tried to bend it with his feet.
The results of it? The tree trunk had a very obvious bend. When Mechasta released his strength, the tree trunk instantly returned to its original shape.
This magical tree trunk named "Grey Tree" completely refreshed Mechasta's understanding, and his whole expression changed from cautious to ecstatic.
"It's really a good material for making bows, much better than the oak we commonly use."
"Of course." Rurik shrugged, "I think it is expedient for you to choose oak. Oak is very hard and should be used to build ships. You Kovin people are very good at archery. Now I order you to use this wood to make a batch of Longbow. I will ask no other tribute from you for this. Once you have made the bow, it will be your weapon. My only request is that if my army is to fight the enemy, you must send some archers to fight for me. war."
Mechasta immediately understood that the wood for making bows was not as simple as a reward. His tribe handed over thousands of hand axes and spearheads as tribute, and the tribe shouldered a heavy burden. As a result, while collecting tribute, Rurik also gave back a batch of wheat and these bow-making materials. It really felt like a business deal between them, even if Rurik didn't say so.
The more Mechasta thought about it, the happier he became, and he couldn't help asking: "My master, where did you get these precious woods?"
"From a magical island."
"Oh..." Mechasta's cheerful old face was a little stiff. He felt that this was a secret kept by the Russians, so he didn't continue to ask.
The fact is that Rurik told the truth.
Although this area of Europe is not suitable for the use of sinew composite bows, in the 15th century, a batch of composite crossbows made of wood and beef tendons were already put into battlefields. Of course, with the mass production of steel-arm crossbows and their lower maintenance costs than the former, steel-arm crossbows have become the mainstream of long-range weapons in an era.
Longbows made of rosewood have almost become exclusive to British residents. In order to obtain the rosewood produced in the warm Mediterranean, they paid a high price.
Many single bows in other parts of Europe are made of various types of oak. After all, this is a stop-gap measure. After shooting five hundred times, weight loss is inevitable.
It’s not that they don’t understand the subtleties of using ash poles to make bows, but the distribution of ash trees in Europe is also very strange. They mainly grow in the south. Even if this species can endure the extreme cold of minus 20 degrees, it doesn’t mean that it can It grows widely in areas such as Finland.
For example, the ash tree does not exist in the Oulu River Basin where the Kovin people once settled, and it is even less present in the Kemi River Basin further north. Even the saplings were artificially moved to Ellenburg for planting, but they still froze to death in the winter.
Rurik believed that the "hard stone island", that is, Gogland Island, due to geographical reasons, the Finns and Estonians were unable to touch it. There is an ash forest.
Of course, using ash wood to make a long bow is still not as good as yew, but it is also much better than an oak bow.
Rurik asked the key question: "Now that the wood is handed over to you, how many can you make? Remember, I don't want short wooden bows, I want you to make a batch of long bows that are similar to your height."
This gave Mechasta a little trouble.
"Well, maybe... twenty is fine."
Rurik knocked on the wooden floor hard and asked loudly: "How many men do you have who can draw a bow? Are there thirty?"
"Yes! If you count some boys who are about to grow up, there must be thirty of them."
"That's thirty bows, which must be as long as your height."
"Ah this! Isn't it too extreme?"
"It's not extreme. Listen, only a longbow can shoot long arrows and make the arrows go farther. Just do as I ask. When you are done, we have to hunt a few bears to try the effect."
In this way, Mechasta began to organize people to use the newly obtained high-quality wood to process bows of extreme lengths.
They used the traditional method of cutting the wood first. Since the advent of hard and sharp scrapers made of chromium iron, choppers, axes and saws, the efficiency of processing wood has reached an unprecedented level.
The wood is cut into a nearly cylindrical stick as thick as a child's forearm. After processing, the bow's excellent elasticity and good hardness are demonstrated. It's just that it is a cylinder, and Rurik gave a big order, that is, the Kovin people who asked to make the bow, use a scraper to flatten it, that is, it becomes like a pole.
They have never processed bows in this way. In fact, they just don't know the benefits of doing so.
In this era, the arms of European single bows were all made of a cylindrical wooden stick. Their poor structure caused a serious waste of their power storage capacity. Only flat bow arms are correct.
The flat bow arm is heated on the flames, which is a heat treatment operation that utilizes the heat and bending of the wood. A crude bow string made of hemp rope is tightened on it, and stones are dropped for bow training.
There are exactly as many as thirty bows being processed, which is considered a mass production operation. Mechasta's men are forest hunters, and they make their own bows. Due to the quality of the oak shortbows in their hands, they often have to make new bows, so everyone has rich experience in making bows. .
In order to make these thirty bows, they spent more than ten days, but even then they were rushing to work.
The length is fixed at 1.6stika, but it is actually 157cm. Thirty longbows are all of this length, and they are all guided by the height of Mechasta himself.
Yes, the man Mechasta was a dwarf himself, and his people were all dwarves. They are far less tall and strong than the Russians, and they are well aware of their natural disadvantages, so they are very careful in archery training.
The pewter pole longbow was all completed. On November 11th of the Julian calendar, when the day was so short that it was almost a "god's charity", Rurik gave it to the bored residents of Ironburg in public. , showing off the style of these brand new longbows.
No, a team of thirty archers suddenly appeared. Among them were Covins, Rosses, Melalen mercenaries, and even a Finn named Jevlo.
The arrow shafts are all made by women and the material is pine wood. The arrow feathers come from birds captured in traps. The flight feathers are bonded to the arrow shaft by rosin. As usual, it also has three tail feathers. In order to pursue a gyroscopic effect, the bonding of the arrow feathers is slightly inclined to the arrow shaft.
As for the arrow cluster, it is also very high-end. It is made of chromium iron by the Kowen blacksmith, and is finally tied to the arrow shaft with rosin and hemp rope.
The iron cluster arrows that were extremely precious to them in the past have now become standard equipment.
Thirty people were holding the longbow, and every person who pulled the bow felt the unprecedented power of the bow.
Because in the past, their short wooden bows weighed only twenty pounds at most. What about this long bow? All weighed in at forty pounds.
Even the Kewen people are short in stature. They have done a lot of heavy manual labor in the past, and their food arrangements are much better than before. They have become stronger, and it is easy to draw the bow with twice the strength.
Of course, even if it is a 40-pound single bow, don't expect it to really break armor when it fires armor-piercing arrows, but its arrows do have the ability to penetrate the fur of polar bears. Youdao is that the power does not need to be too big, just the right amount.
A shooting range appeared in Ironburg, and thirty people were asked by Rurik to line up in a dense formation and shoot at the crudely erected wooden wall fifty meters away.
With Jevro taking the lead in roaring, they fired their arrows.
These rotating arrows left a shocking and beautiful pattern in the air. They formed a rain of arrows. Each arrow rotated crazily and flew towards the target in a parabola cluster on the ground. Soon after the target was hit, there was a crackling sound of the arrow hitting the target.
They all have good abilities in handling short wooden bows. Now that they use long bows, they generally feel that their skills have improved. This was not what they felt, because when checking which arrows had hit, Rurik saw the arrow cluster that was sunk into the trunk of the pine tree. To pull it out, it actually required a strong man to hold the arrow with his own hands and pull it hard. In one moment, many arrow shafts were broken.
Still have any doubts about the longbow? Rurik even lamented their excellent eyesight and even their excellent archery ability which was suppressed by inferior short wooden bows.
After that, these thirty people stood outdoors again and shot at a 45° angle to the ice in the distance. It was later found out that most of the arrows had flown an astonishing 200 stikas, or 200 meters. The killing distance of this projectile is already more than twice the ability of the oak short bow! Didn’t it shock the Russians greatly?
Because two hundred meters is already a very astonishing distance, it can give the Russians a huge tactical advantage. If this is used together with a crossbow, it will be a smart Eastern tactical method.
People's understanding of arrows has been refreshed.
Five days later, a hunting team led by Jevlo, armed with longbows and steel-armed crossbows, hunted two wandering polar bears using only longbows in an unexplored forest further north from the mine. . Just the long arrows fired from the longbow achieved results, and there was no need to use the powerful steel-armed crossbow.
Jevlo's main purpose is to improve his life by hunting, and his secondary purpose is to find big cedar trees. Even if you don't cut down the tree immediately and take it away, you can still get it after marking it.
The equipment of the pewter longbow once again enhanced the strength of the Iron Squirrel tribe.
It was precisely because of this work that Rurik thoroughly understood the fighting power that the tribe still possesses.
It can be said that the combat effectiveness of those Corvin women needs to be ignored, because they will gradually become potbellied, and the fathers of their children are generally Russians. Every child will find his own identity. Is he a Covin or a Rus? For the sake of honor, financial status and even future, they still have a very simple bloodline. They cannot deny that their fathers are Rus and their home is one of the many settlements in Rus.
After a disastrous military defeat, the Steel Squirrel Tribe has only about thirty string controllers left, and these people are destined to be a tiny fraction even as servants.
This Kewen tribe has an absolute population disadvantage, and it will not take long for it to be assimilated by the Rus.
Making excellent longbows made the days before Hanukkah a little more fun. People in the entire settlement saw those holding longbows playing target shooting as a game, and they were eager to try it.
The Rus' Hanukkah has finally arrived. In fact, on the day of "complete darkness", the Rus' of Ellon lit a large number of bonfires to celebrate the most important festival of the tribe every year.
The people of Kewen were also performing sacrifices, especially the priestess Parla dressed as an owl. She was beating a small leather drum and playing a harmonica. The strange and solemn sound made the sacrificial ritual complex and diverse. change.
Yes, Rurik was happy to see the two groups performing sacrifices on the same day. As usual, he beheaded a sacrificial stag with his sword, showed the deer's blood to the Northern Lights, cut open the deer's liver, and announced in public: "Guard Rus. Odin wishes that the castle of Elon-Olawa will be in peace and that the people will be prosperous."
Everyone was cheering, and Rurik knew that he had won the hearts of the settled Rus fishermen. He also understood the oracle made by the priestess Coven, that is, "the gray squirrel tribe surrendered to the Rus with the permission of the mountain god and river god." In fact, the words of the priestess had political considerations. After all, the noble Rurik understood their language, and the words were spoken to Rurik, which was a clear statement of surrender.
Rurik naturally understood it tacitly and told her his relief with his eyes.
"Now that Hanukkah is over, I also played a guest role as a priest. Otto, it's time for your winter hunting army to come back. When you come back, I will control the sled, pull all the wood I have prepared, and take me People have returned to their hometown." Rurik has already planned the next thing. The "Avora", the first Russian ship to imitate the Caravel ship, must install the most critical mast as soon as possible. , it must be launched into the water for trial navigation after the sea thaws.
No, it was no longer a trial voyage, but was put into use to become the best transport ship and the most combat-effective warship.
