Will those Tavastian invaders increase their numbers? How many people will they send? Did they give up because they had second thoughts?
As far as the available intelligence is concerned, those intruders will not run away until they are beaten violently.
Go to the east and fight, maybe kill a thousand enemies? This kind of good thing allows Rose's warriors to sharpen their swords early.
But even if this war is won, Rurik estimates that he will not get any benefits from the war. Although this can be a training battle, after all, the enemy has little oil and water. He does not want this battle to last too long, so he must beat the enemy to the point of vomiting blood for three liters in one battle, so that he will not dare to invade for a long time.
The Russian army should dispatch elite soldiers and use elite weapons to win with as few casualties as possible.
After the first message was sent, Arik's messengers brought new messages every five days on average, reporting what they had seen in the occupied old Gray Squirrel Hill Fort.
But the thaw of the sea was unstoppable, and the sea melted before the land-based snow. This forced Arik to have his new sleigh ride around the entire bay by the end of March, around Ironburg and back to Roseburg.
A new messenger has arrived, and this man has returned from his travels, with only one sentence to report.
Even one sentence is exciting news.
Now this news has spread in Fort Ross, where hundreds of strong men are shirtless, showing their chests full of golden chest hair, holding axes and swords high to cheer the enemy's reinforcements!
Sea ice is melting at a rate that is visible to the naked eye, and ice and snow on land are melting at an alarming rate.
The courtyard of Rurik's palace reappears with a flat concrete floor. The servants had already cleared away the snow, and almost under the influence of John Ingvar, these Lambs of the Lord became more willing to work.
The frozen ground gradually turned into mud. Under the noon sun, the ice hanging on each house was dripping rapidly. In order to avoid sudden falls and injuries, people were already removing these dangerous objects.
Rurik hurriedly invited the messenger to the first floor of his palace, and summoned the elite forces of Fort Ross.
Especially the banner captain and centurion who were conferred by him during the previous expedition to Gotland. A group of arrogant warriors sat in two rows with great interest.
Rurik sat proudly on the bearskin throne in the main hall, and asked the messenger to repeat the news that had already spread.
"Yes!" The cross-legged messenger drank some ale and ate wheat cakes. He announced energetically: "We have been wandering near that mountain fort, attacking the Tavastian hunters. We saw it a few days ago When a large number of people with spears and bows entered the mountain fort, Lord Arik asked the brothers to stay away for the time being. We have conducted reconnaissance and can estimate the enemy's strength."
"How many? Really a thousand?"
"Yes. At least a thousand people, maybe more."
"But they are very weak, aren't they?" Rurik asked deliberately, causing the brothers present to laugh.
The messenger was also laughing wildly, and threatened: "We think too highly of them. If we had sent not fifty but five hundred people, the enemy would have been completely wiped out. Sir, we have been conducting ambush operations for more than a month, and there is still no one." casualties."
Rurik nodded, looked at the confident faces of the men on his left and right, and asked himself, if a strong expeditionary force had been sent out before Kejas issued the alarm more than a month ago, the war problem should have been solved.
Now it is he, the decision-maker, who decides how many troops to send, and the brothers are waiting for him to make a decision, because the sea is about to thaw.
"Okay. Spring comes early this year, so wheat from far away can be sown in advance, and there will be another bumper harvest in the autumn."
With that said, Rurik stood up: "I was cautious and thought they were strong enemies. In this case, I decided to respect this group of enemies who invaded Ross's territory."
Otto was keenly aware that his son had some hidden whims, and suddenly said: "You...won't you also send a thousand people to attack?"
"No! The greatest respect for them is to kill them all. Why should I fight with them with equal strength? Is the bay very wide? Our sailboat can reach the east of the other shore in as little as one day. Besides, after the sea ice melts, Many fishermen also want to go there to fish. I will send out two thousand people to show them how good I am."
Two thousand people, this is really the best of Roseburg.
While all the centurions and flag captains were here, he immediately made arrangements.
Rurik's troop deployment is as follows:
Warrior First Flag, Mälaren Flag. These two flag corps have a strength of 1,000 people.
The shooting flag team also has a strength of 600 people, but the flag team is a hodgepodge of various long-range arms.
There are also Rurik's elite guards here, and there should be a hundred men going into battle.
As a result, the Rus sent a team of 1,700 men, and the remaining 300 warriors were naturally filled by the Balmoks.
Even the Ostara people will send out warriors as a token token, but Carlotta and a small group of her selected female warriors will be organized into the shooting flag team to participate in the battle.
As for why the Second Banner was not brought in, in Rurik's plan, the Second Banner, in addition to guarding the rear and waiting for opportunities to provide support, followed Otto to Novgorod to ask for tribute.
After the meeting, Rurik spent two days refining his troop arrangements.
Even after just hearing about this number of troops, the Bjorn brothers in Balmok were very envious.
Bjorn, he envied Rurik's strong appeal. He was obviously just a teenager, but he raised his arms and more than 2,000 people responded.
But the subsequent gathering of troops gave Bjorn a complete shock.
What a neat scene this is!
The first flag team of the Warriors, the flag captain should have been Arik. Since he was still improving guerrilla tactics across the sea, Harold Zuosen temporarily took the position of flag captain.
As for the Mälaren Banner, most of its troops are composed of allied tribes that defected to the Rus, and there are even Danish Grund and his friends who surrendered on the battlefield. The flag captain is still the Mälaren tribe of Heligel. Old warrior.
No matter where the warriors came from, they were all Rus' warriors now.
The Principality of Rus has essentially become a hodgepodge of various ethnic groups. The Rus tribe occupies the highest military power, and Rurik cannot refuse other people's pursuit of status. The Principality of Rus is an imaginary community. If people's hearts are broken, the Principality will also disintegrate.
In terms of strengthening the community, the completely unified dress of the soldiers must be a concrete expression.
All Rus warriors were now dressed in exactly the same attire, regardless of what they wore on the inside, which consisted of knee-length white robes sewn with interlaced blue stripes on the outside.
Everyone's bucklers no longer have a variety of paints. Of course, soldiers can pursue their own personality and make a personal shield. However, when going to war, everyone must prepare a uniform one, smearing rosin and chalk mud on one side, and then dyeing it with woad. A buckler with a blue cross pattern.
The entire army must highlight the white and blue tones, echoing the flag of the Principality of Rus.
Even the selected boys and girls from the "Child Troops" sent out by Rurik were also dressed in this way.
The weapons held by the young men are all crossbows, and only these weapons can give them a tactical advantage.
The mature warrior not only carries a sword and shield, but also a short spear in his hand, and there is also a blue and white cloth tied under the spearhead.
They gathered for the first time and formed a matrix, which shocked Biyongni and his men to shame. Compared with the uniformity of the Russians, his own people were extremely useless!
After all, they are brothers, and Rurik can feel comfortable seeing his brother's troops acting like fools. Rosberg had been purchasing flax rods on a large scale before, and now the flax has been turned into these white shirts after a certain process. There was still a lot of white cloth in stock, so Rurik sold it to Biyongni at a fair price, just to distinguish it from the real Russian army. The three hundred warriors of the Balmok army were just wrapped in white shirts.
The first muster was just preparation for the actual parade.
Rurik is all about the military parade, and the military parade itself is just a ceremony among the high priests this spring.
Every year when the sea ice melts enough for navigation, it is the time of spring for the Russian people. This year is so different from previous years!
Once upon a time, after this sacrifice, fishermen resumed normal operations during the warm period, a large number of merchants returned to Lake Mälaren with northern furs for trade, and Ross's Sorgon fleet would also rush to Novgorod.
This year, two major events will be added to these foundations: the launch of four new ships and a military parade before the expedition.
Everything is being prepared in an orderly manner.
Rurik's wives and concubines all had to serve as priests in the ceremony. Even Svetlana, whose face was so beautiful, had to stand in a prominent position in plain clothes and a crown of pine buds.
Although the concept of confinement does not exist in the Nordic world, due to the cold weather and snow everywhere, High Priest Rumia actually did confinement after giving birth to her child. This spring sailing of the High Priest can be described as her comeback, and her physical condition has been fully recovered.
Nolen and the ten Slavic maids from Rurik are now all serving as musicians. They will play flutes and drums to make the ceremony more sacred. It was for this purpose that Rurik not only brought all the Kovan longbowmen from Ironburg, but also the local priestess Borla, and asked the old shaman to play with the mouth reverb. The piano adds to the music and moves away.
Finally, on the tenth day of April, everyone can now conclude that the ice floating on the sea is not a threat to ordinary fishing boats. The entire port area has essentially thawed. After just a ceremony, everyone can enter the sea to fish. Fish.
The ceremony was held early this morning.
All the residents of Roseburg walked out of their homes, and ordinary people saw a large number of white-robed warriors standing densely on the beach.
Under the gaze of all kinds of people, a small fire tower burned brightly.
Rurik stabbed a deer with his own hands amidst the complex and sweet music, let the deer's blood flow into the ocean, and then threw the deer's body into the fire tower and burned it.
Rumia raised her jeweled wooden staff and looked up at the sky, telling God the long-cherished wish of the Rus people.
People standing on wooden walls, people using simple tower cranes on the pier, or people already sitting in fishing boats, the rituals they have witnessed so far have only added some new tricks compared to last year.
The truly magnificent scene now finally begins.
As many as six large ships will be launched today. Compared with reviewing the soldiers, this is the most spectacular!
A wooden path smeared with whale oil was laid out on the ground, and the large ships rushed towards the sea one after another, pulled by ropes pulled by more than a hundred strong men. Finally, taking advantage of the terrain, one large ship after another slid into the ocean.
Every time the big ship stirred up a splash of water, the people on the shore were shocked and cheered.
Until they saw such a strange-looking ship, they screamed for her.
At this moment, among the several strong men inside the ship, the leader shouted excitedly: "Let's move and let the other brothers open their eyes!"
This is the Mercury, and her human propeller system has been activated! Although the speed was not very fast, this time under the attention of nearly ten thousand people, she had not yet installed the sails. When she entered the water, she drew a track line at the stern of the ship, and sailed into the fjord sea visible to the naked eye. What is even more magical is that It turned a big circle under the control of the rudder!
The miraculous performance made Otto's old face tremble with shock, although he knew that this was not a miracle, but a complex mechanical combination. Sure enough, the son did it. The ship can move forward in the harbor area without being restricted by the wind direction. Once it enters the rowing boat, where is her oar?
Otto naturally knew that the Mercury had a magical propeller, but the majority of Russian people did not understand!
People were screaming and cheering, and they were able to move forward without sails or oars, claiming that this was the divine power given to Ross's ships by Odin.
Today is a grand event after all. Eskil, who was essentially imprisoned, was released to participate in the event. After this ceremony, Eskil should also be let go.
The old missionary, leaning on a wooden cross, witnessed a ship moving freely without wind or oars. He exclaimed, "This is the power of the devil." It was completely different from the surprise of the Russian people. He was more afraid. Eskil was not a fool. He saw the reflection of the Russians' spearheads and helmets in the morning sun, and then looked at their uniform uniforms. This military appearance alone was a hundred times stronger than the Earl of Bremen and the Earl of Hamburg.
Because the two earls, in addition to their own retinues, could not even think of raising a thousand "army" from the peasants in less than three weeks.
Their army is definitely not going to attack the south...
Rurik's voice was limited, and he knew that shouting at the end of his throat would not make his heartfelt orders resound throughout the entire army. After the ceremony, there was no need to say what actions the Russians would take. Rurik personally waved a flag, and the waiting seaside army began to march in a circle in a majestic manner. This is also important. The so-called letting God see the true appearance of the Russian army also means letting all the Russian people, visiting businessmen and all kinds of people see the strength of the Russian people.
Their movements are not uniform at close range, but from a distance, what people can see is just a few white square formations walking in neat steps.
So far, what I have seen and heard in the territory of the Ross people has completely exceeded Eskil's highest estimate. There are as many as nine large ships and densely packed small boats floating on the sea. A group of troops with completely uniform uniforms even walk in uniform. .
A powerful force has emerged in the north! This force is also obviously hostile to the Danes! Its leader’s attitude towards sacred belief is also very ambiguous! Perhaps they will soon develop into new believers, and even accept the canonization of the Pope as a northern kingdom and form an alliance with Frank...
Eskil cannot help but think about many things. After all, he is not a simple missionary.
He kept what he saw and heard deeply in his heart, and Eskil was not happy to learn that he had been released. In other words, he couldn't wait to return to Hamburg as soon as possible to meet with the Count of Hamburg to report the matter. Then go to Bremen, and finally run to Reims to report this shocking secret.
How could Rurik care about all that Eskil was thinking?
The Russians cheered and cheered to prepare the army that was eager to go out. This battle was very special. They no longer hoped to get a lot of loot through the war, but simply warned the invaders of the stupidity of their actions through killing, and even proved to Odin that they were indeed A true warrior.
Only the Tavastians are still unaware of the powerful enemy on the other side of the sea!
Now with reinforcements in hand, Vateyala was so confident that he began to go out to hunt down the lurking attackers, and small-scale battles naturally broke out one after another. The newly arrived Tavastian warriors finally encountered an unprecedented vicious battle, but it seemed that the enemies hiding the attack were running farther and farther away.
Some bold rumors are circulating among the Tavastia people. The so-called Corvins and Rus are abandoning this place, and the wonderful mountains and rivers have become the new territory of Tavastia.
In fact, when Arik saw the ice and snow melting, he hurriedly retreated to the small island at the mouth of the sea due to the pressure of lack of food. Naturally, he and his friends took advantage of the melting of the sea ice to fish quickly to satisfy their hunger.
Only then did the opponent seem to be retreating, and Arik no longer cared.
He and the guys spontaneously looked at the sea in the west where the waves had returned. Everyone knew that the fleet from his hometown was about to arrive.
