The preparation time given to the army for the expedition was very short. The soldiers took their money and made purchases at the market in Fort Ross.
They flocked to the blacksmiths' stalls to buy new mass-produced hand axes and spearheads to add to their weapons, and they also asked the women at home to do their best to make dry food.
At the market in the morning, a magical stall suddenly attracted hundreds of people to look at it with covetous eyes.
It was a booth composed of more than a dozen simple wooden tables put together, all covered with gray coarse cloth.
There are a large number of disc-shaped objects on display, and their yellow and white colors and the permeating aroma of wheat fully prove the essence of their sesame cakes!
Several women wearing coarse cloth headscarves shouted: "One silver coin and four pounds of wheat cakes."
They kept shouting, but the price of this pancake was really expensive.
The men poked their heads around to watch, chattering and whispering to each other.
Finally, someone who really coveted it came forward, took out a silver coin and shouted cheerfully: "Five silver coins, I want twenty pounds!"
"Okay!" The woman happily took the money and ordered the waiter to immediately get a scale to weigh the cake.
The young warrior did not worry at all about the accuracy of the stall's balance. He had a big appetite and naturally wanted to eat more. It was not appropriate to rely on the food provided by the Duke for future expeditions, so he had to stock up on some ready-to-eat food. Carry it in your backpack just in case.
Compared with the past bread made from pure oats, it cannot be made larger than a palm. Oatmeal cakes lack stickiness and are very brittle after being ground into powder, kneaded and baked.
But this wheat cake is clearly as big as three palms side by side. Is such a big cake still quite resilient when held in my hand?
In full view of everyone, the soldier took a bite happily.
Is that nibbling? It was clearly biting, like tearing the meat from the deer leg bone.
The soldier feasted in public, his eyes as wide as copper bells. He was eager to say something, and after swallowing it hard, he hurriedly shouted: "Sweet! This cake is so sweet!"
sweet? People looked at each other and took out their money out of curiosity.
This wheat cake stall belongs to Yaslaqi's mill. The slightly crude mill was completed twenty days ago. Since its completion, the processing of grain has begun, and how to grind flour is really a secret.
Aslaqi herself was not here, but fortunately she was very smart and showed her husband Arik's banner at the very right time.
She is Aric's little wife, a Gotland woman. The men who were watching all knew this. They thought it was the flag captain's wife's mill, and she had to support her. Now that the brothers had tasted a delicious food, how could they not happily buy the pie with their money?
The wheat cakes prepared by Aslaqi are selling out quickly, and this is all based on her prediction.
Now, she herself stayed in her mill and was inspected by Rurik.
The three granite slabs were polished very smooth, and they looked very solid standing on the stone piers.
Big holes were drilled into the stone slabs, and a hard iron rod was inserted inside.
Rurik saw two stone wheels made of granite on the stone slabs and pillars in front of him, with an oak shaft inserted into the hole cut out of metal in the center. The oak shaft has obviously been reworked, and is covered with a layer of bronze skin. The same is true for the center hole of the stone wheel, thus forming a hard-contact bearing that relies on seal grease for lubrication.
This wheel and axle system is like a wheel standing on a stone slab. The specially treated oak axle is the shaft, which is fixed by a bronze component and protrudes from a bronze collar, which is set on the raised iron rod on the stone slab.
Rurik was surprised to see it, and his ears were full of Aslaqi's explanation with great interest.
Rurik was informed in quite detail about how she selected stones, hired workers to process parts, hired workers after receiving the Duke's mission, as well as how much wheat she used from the Duke's granary, and how much she even purchased with her own money.
"You...really finished it! It's better than I expected! These are stone rollers, and the effect is no worse than the rotating millstone. It seems that I should dismantle the bronze millstone and give them to you now."
Aslaqi was waiting for this praise, so she said: "Since you have promised, give me the golden millstone."
"Well! You can make three stone mills quickly, and you can make more soon. I'll give you four bronze millstones."
"Actually, I only need one set." Aslaqi said softly: "I plan to use it as a souvenir. As for the remaining three, it can obviously be made into more weapons or daily necessities. Sir, We have to win the new war safely, and the way I see it, you can melt them down and cast them into arrow clusters."
"You..." Rurik stared into her eyes, feeling calm and embarrassed for a while, and then he slowly smiled. "Okay, it's up to you. Haha, you have broken your heart for the revival of your family! You said some inspiring words to me, I like to hear them, and I am also moved by your actual actions."
"I originally served Ross." Aslaqi immediately complimented.
Rurik looked at these stone rollers again. Aslaqi completed them based on the structure of the wheel shaft. In terms of structure, it was a little different from the Eastern stone rollers, but the efficiency of use was obviously acceptable.
In addition to a few captive Northumbrian women working in her mill, there were also hired local women. She also bought reindeer to use as draft animals to pull the wooden poles.
Human power and animal power alternately pushed the wooden poles to crush the wheat with the stone wheels, especially the working women, who were ordered to perform how to work in front of the Duke.
Rurik saw that oats and wheat were mixed together and crushed over and over again by two stone wheels until they were crushed into powder.
The whole wheat flour is made from a mixture of these two types of wheat. As a miller, Asraqi will not waste even a pinch of wheat bran.
Rurik touched the whole wheat flour that had just been crushed, and asked again: "You have processed a lot, so you should have made a lot of scones! I know that you have set up a market and are selling them, since you are doing it yourself I won’t ask more about the cakes baked from the purchased wheat. I just want to know what has become of the wheat I authorized you to take from my warehouse. Is it a large amount of wheat cakes?”
"It's bread, a lot of bread." Aslaqi was in a very eager mood, and her eyebrows were about to fly up, clearly she wanted to show off some interesting treasure.
"In your warehouse? Take me there quickly!"
In a moment, a newly built wooden ridge standing on dozens of wooden piles was what Aslaki called the bread warehouse.
Rurik noticed that the waterproofing measures of this building were better than other buildings. Look at its gabled roof, which was paved with stone tiles and terracotta tiles. "This woman is really willing to spend money to buy these things. Arik, you will definitely give your beautiful little wife a lot of money."
Rurik's conjecture was absolutely correct. Aslach was a woman who combined beauty, intelligence and skills. She was much better than the simple Novgorod village girl Peravina. He loved his little wife, and felt deeply guilty when he thought that her heirs could not inherit his family property. Now giving her a huge sum of money was Arik's compensation, and he also hoped that his little wife could start a business of her own.
Of course, Aric knew better that by helping his young wife Aslaqi, he was actually helping his younger brother Rurik. More importantly, if the mill is a success, it will be a great thing for all the Ross brothers.
The closed door of the warehouse was opened, and Aslaqi personally lit the oil lamp placed at the door.
Rurik straightened his nose, and the first thing that hit his face was the refreshing smell of rosin, and hidden in this breath was the thick aroma of wheat.
Through the dim light, he saw that there were many shelves made of wooden strips in the long warehouse room, and the things placed on them were...
"All big bread?! So big!"
He walked up and touched it casually, subconsciously shouting the Slavic word "hleba".
Aslaqi was startled: "You... actually said the same word as my sister (Peravina)."
Rurik ignored her for the time being and continued to touch the bread as dry as a stone in front of him with his hands.
Coincidentally, the pronunciation of bread in various Slavic tribes is basically hleba. The pronunciation of the word "life" by various Viking forces is basically libe.
Although the two ethnic groups have the same origin but have been separated for thousands of years, their languages have become incommunicable, but they are reunited here in the Principality of Rus.
Bread is life. Two words, almost the same idea.
This is what the real Da Lieba looks like, or this is the baking style of traditional medieval European bread. It's huge, and it's baked like this on purpose! According to Rurik, it was almost half a meter long, and its weight was astonishing when he picked it up.
Under the dim light, Asraqi smiled and watched Rurik playing with the bread lively. She knew that her mission had been successfully completed, and her plan to seize the Duke of Ross for a better future was more than half successful.
"My lord, are you satisfied?"
Rurik still didn't answer directly, and asked again: "Tell me the ingredients you use to bake bread, how to bake it and how often you bake it. Tell me all the work you have done during this time! Damn it, the smell of these breads is really It’s soothing, but it’s as hard as a rock.”
The Duke was asking, and Aslaki spoke eloquently.
It turns out that the stone mill, mill building, large clay oven and warehouse longhouse were built at the same time. With the huge sum of money provided by Arik, she easily recruited a group of relatively idle people in Fort Ross to work for her.
Many local women in Ross are driven crazy just to take care of the new children in the family. But with so many children in the family, they must find ways to find money to buy food and meat to make ends meet. Practical reasons force them not to work far away, but even if they stay at home and work as tailors, the work in this area is already saturated. Hearing that Arik's young wife had received the Duke's order to build a mill, and the reward she gave was good, the sisters naturally came one after another.
Men and women have made all this happen for Asraqi, and the struggle of Rus women has highlighted great value.
It is unrealistic to expect women to do heavy physical work. They are arranged to first grind the dough with a traditional stone mill to make flour, then mix the flour from wheat and oats, add a little water and work hard to knead it into a large dough, and finally weigh it on a scale. Five pounds of dough each, waiting to be baked together. In fact, this work is not easy at all. It is too comfortable to cut down and transport wood.
The two large clay ovens placed in the wooden shed were successfully completed. The inside of the ovens formed a low-temperature baking environment. Each oven could bake twenty doughs at the same time. The baking work began as soon as the ovens were built. At the beginning of the period, because the amount of flour processed by the traditional stone mill was too small, the stove could not bake much bread at one time. With the completion of the three stone mills, flour production has increased dramatically, and the ovens have recently had to be put into operation around the clock.
They are like clay ovens for baking naan. The big bread is naturally larger than the sesame pancakes, and because it needs a period of fermentation before baking, it takes some time to bake the bread, but as long as the oven keeps running, the baking The efficiency is still amazing.
Basically, a batch of coarse flour has just been crushed, and then sent to the other side to be kneaded into dough and then weighed. It is placed in a wooden basin to wait for natural fermentation and then sent to the stove.
This one-stop service is served by nearly fifty servants and helpers, and Aslaki can proudly say that her current task is to monitor everyone's work.
The two ovens can bake a total of nearly 200 pounds of bread at one time. In theory, it can be baked around the clock and 25 ovens can be baked in a day.
Aslaqi's mill and baking oven are still working at full capacity, and the inventory in this warehouse, Aslaqi made it clear - is close to 30,000 pounds of bread.
Thirty thousand Roman pounds, isn’t it equivalent to just over a ton? This sounds like a huge number, but when divided equally among a thousand warriors, each person received only one kilogram of bread.
what is this? Thousands of years later, the Soviet and German armies' wartime rations on paper required nearly one kilogram of bread, biscuits and other grain products every day. Only in this way could they cope with a soldier's daily calorie consumption of 4,000 calories.
Those were the most brutal war conditions, and it was still unclear whether the food rations on paper could be implemented.
It was only the ninth century, and Rurik didn't think that his warriors would really have the chance to consume four thousand calories one day. Moreover, due to the special factors of this space-time war, the outcome of a real war would be determined by one or two battles within a few days. .
Even so, the bread reserve is still too small. Think about it again, this is only the result of Aslaqi's mill, which has just been opened for a month. It is just two ovens and three stone mills. If she gives time, she can do better. .
Compared to thin-wheat bread, a major problem with whole-wheat bread is that it dries out too easily, causing it to become as hard as wood. In other words, this is a good thing. Because of its natural dehydration, this kind of bread has become an extremely shelf-stable emergency food. Looking at the dark and dry environment again, Rurik estimated that all this was done intentionally by Aslaqi.
Before eating these dry and hard breads, they obviously need to be cut into thin slices with a saw. It's okay to even beat it into crumbs. After all, when bread and wheat cakes enter the stomach, they will inevitably turn into a ball of paste and be absorbed by the body.
In this dark warehouse, Rurik announced directly: "All the bread ingredients are my wheat, and what you pay is labor force. Aslaqi, I will pay you according to the previous agreement. Let's talk about it in business." Shang, I will give you money immediately."
"Thank you." Aslaqi said happily.
"You're welcome. I have full confidence in you now. It seems that you should build another mill in New Roseburg. How about we go to Roseburg together on this trip?"
"Okay, I've had this intention for a long time. Especially since it is my desire to build a new mill in New Roseburg where my father lives, it just so happens that I can bring little Gustav there."
Rurik nodded: "Then make preparations quickly. You arrange for capable men to continue the mill's operations. Excellent mills must not stop production. I will also sell you additional grain. The army will give priority to purchasing the bread that will be made in the future. .”
"As you command!"
"Then let's continue. By the way." Rurik thought about the wheat cakes: "As for those cakes, I just learned that you paid a very expensive price. Even if it was the wheat you bought yourself, Why is baked food so expensive?”
"Just right! I still have some urgent sales here." Aslaqi smiled and arranged for someone to bring the warm pancakes and hand them to Rurik.
This cake is baked on an iron plate and has a slightly charcoal-black puff pastry underneath.
Compared to bread that was as hard as a rock, this cake was indeed very soft. He smelled the smell and opened his mouth...
Rurik closed his eyes and chewed silently, then trembled all over.
"Sweet! Did you put honey in it?"
"You discovered it. It's honey, and only a little bit was put in each cake." Yaslaqi hid her face and smiled: "In this way, you won't be surprised if I raise the price."
"No surprise! It's really good. I accepted this pancake. It seems that I will have to order you to make more honey-filled pancakes in the future. Brothers are fighting outside, and eating delicious food is also the key to victory."
"Honey is hard to come by," she said.
"It doesn't matter. Novgorod people always pay tribute to honey. In the future, beekeeping will develop there and everything will be fine. It's time for me to leave." Rurik patted his clothes and still held the honey pancake in his hand. "I Let’s go and see how the new slingshots and trebuchets made by the carpenters are doing. Those guys must be worthy of the money I gave them!”
