The Lord was about to die and his morale collapsed. The courage of the Karelian army that was condensed by hatred and rage collapsed in blood again.
It was a total collapse, and they were struggling to escape the encirclement.
Those who can escape seem to have a chance to survive, while those within the encirclement will be ruthlessly crushed by the wheels of history.
Rus will surely conquer Karelia, and Rurik completes this major victory a generation ahead of schedule.
Multiple spears pierced Aesailas' body, and he fell into a pool of blood after being stabbed several more times.
"If I had known this, I might as well have taken the tribe and retreated quickly..."
The Great Horde tribe has not perished, but it is not far away. The demographic advantage of this most populous Karelian tribe is a thing of the past.
The men in the encirclement were being crushed into powder, and another group of Russian troops had begun to hunt them down.
Once they break into a rout, their pursuers will chop at their backs mercilessly, and the most exaggerated results often come from this.
The fleeing people were confused. They saw many pursuers similar to themselves. They were all short men with black hair, completely different from those blond giants.
Because they are Suomi people.
Once upon a time, the Suomi people, who had tried to avoid the Karelia people when they encountered them, boarded the Russian warships and seemed to have gained the courage of the principality of Rus. This pursuit was not only about killing, but also about robbery.
Or maybe the Suomi people have little desire to kill fleeing enemies. Killing enemies is just a matter of convenience. Their biggest purpose is to rush into the enemy's camps and grab the spoils before enjoying killing all the Varyag troops lost in the blood. .
Because the Duke has already said that robbing means robbing based on ability. The Suomi people will seize the opportunity to rob, and the loot won will be recognized by the Duke.
Arik no longer knew how many enemies he had killed. His robe was stained red with blood, and his helmet was sticky and gave off a strange smell of rust.
He has been directing his men to fight, and the battle has turned into a chaotic battle. The Russian army has basically turned into a personal chaos.
He finally saw that the people with cloth strips on their heads had rushed far enough, and reason finally returned to his head.
"Oh no, let those servants take the lead, they will get more!"
Arik raised his two swords in the chaos, "Brothers, those Suomi people have gone to rob. We don't want to fight, follow me and rob!"
He yelled as hard as he could to get the attention of his brothers, and his efforts seemed to have some results.
However, the Suomi people who were the first to take action had already rushed to the enemy's core camp area, and the looting had already begun.
A group of tents made of wood, linen and animal skins. How many treasures are hidden here? !
The Suomi people had been reduced to pieces, and they were looking around with sharp weapons, even allowing hundreds of Karelian warriors to escape.
Sure enough, they had gained a lot. Some people found trembling young women. They huddled up with frightened eyes. Some even held iron daggers in a state of resistance.
There were also men who were hiding. When the tent curtain was opened by the intruding Suomi warriors, they stabbed them directly with short spears.
This is a kind of desperate resistance. The person who was stabbed was pulled away by his companions, and the resisting enemy was mercilessly killed by the subsequent intruders.
The women who were found were all disarmed, dragged by their hair or dragged out of the tent by their feet, and then their hands and feet were tied with hemp rope.
A Suomi warrior with a bandage on his forehead controls a woman who is his trophy.
Rurik warned his men at the campfire last night not to kill indiscriminately. When they arrived at the Suomi servant army, they did not kill indiscriminately. The resisters were naturally killed and everyone else was captured.
They are more keen on finding young women. After all, many Suomi men are difficult to marry. They enthusiastically accepted orders to participate in this large-scale war, just to capture a woman.
Many people gained something, and all the inexplicable women who stayed in the tent were arrested. More than 400 people were arrested.
Once the woman was captured and some daily necessities were collected from the scene, a Suomi warrior tried to leave the chaotic battlefield quickly. They used various means to escort the prisoners towards the lake. This move really surprised Arik, followed by anger and contempt.
"This group of short women is obviously only liked by these guys who are also dwarves..."
Arik mocked the servant army's useless style with contemptuous eyes. He led his brothers to continue to hunt down the remaining enemies, but unfortunately the last Karelian warrior had escaped far enough. The pursuit did not last long and ended when the last enemies fled into the dark green forest in the distance.
Isotalwa has collapsed. There are a layer of corpses lying strewn around the lakeside. A large area of the lake has been dyed dark red by the blood-colored stream.
The red warriors stood on the pile of corpses. The Rus and Balmoks, these pure Viking warriors, checked the corpses everywhere. If they found the dead or pretending to be dead, they immediately stabbed them to death with an arrow.
The occupied tent group was full of sword-wielding warriors, who destroyed the tents wantonly, cut off the wooden supports, and looted the leather for anything useful.
This place has been explored by the Suomi and Veps, and the pure Viking warriors who followed were in a sense picking up leftovers. The brothers thought they would be able to catch a lot of leather, but they didn't expect that all they found was rubbish.
Negativity was spreading, and the bloody Viking warriors scolded the servants for taking too much, saying that they just wanted to rob and watch the remaining soldiers successfully escape.
Arik's head was so angry that more than a dozen brothers were complaining to him about not being able to find any useful trophies.
He bumped into Yevro who was also collecting trophies with his men in the Isotalwa camp area, and the two met quietly.
The old man who saw it, Jevlo said hello with good intentions, but of course he was harshly criticized.
"What did you Suomi people do? You took away all the good things, so that my brothers couldn't get anything."
The startled Jevro suddenly came to his senses. When it came to looting the loot, the poverty of reality made him angry: "Brother, you are blaming us for taking too much. God is watching us, you can't mess around." explain."
"Why are you not talking nonsense? I saw with my own eyes that your tribe was the fastest and you were busy robbing the enemy before they were eliminated."
"Does it mean we robbed a group of slaves? Do you have a crush on those short women?"
"Of course I don't like it." Arik continued to criticize: "You must have grabbed gold and silver, but now my brothers and I can only grab a batch of rags."
"You? You are slandering me!" Yevro stabbed his sword directly on the ground in anger, took off his helmet and opened his arms, "Lord Rurik will make the judgment! It was the Lord who gave the order, and everyone looted and looted according to their ability. Those who can't get it are not allowed to complain. Besides, we didn't get any gold or silver, and these Karelians are incredibly poor. I'll stand here, and you can search me."
"You..." Arik was restrained, mainly because his brother gave the order. As a cousin, one should not disobey the orders of a Duke's cousin. Arik, who prided himself on being generous, did not want to leave a bad reputation for others.
He hesitated for a moment and sighed: "However, we did not wipe out all the enemies. You are responsible."
"I am responsible. The pincer tactics allowed some enemies to escape due to the mistakes of the troops I was responsible for. As for how much responsibility I have and what kind of punishment I should accept, this matter should be judged by the Duke."
Having said this, Arik felt very uncomfortable and had no intention of asking any more questions.
The battle was over, and the sun finally shone miserably on the post-war land at noon on a cloudy day.
The enemy's wounded will eventually succumb to excessive blood loss, and the Ross army's last-ditch attack can be considered a cruel mercy.
Even the seriously injured members of the Ross Army, those who were obviously only breathing one breath, were killed by their companions to end their pain.
The war was so cruel, and the lake wind began to carry the smell of blood. In wars in the cold weapon age, when the battle ends, the battlefield is always muddy, and the blood and flesh are as miserable as the meat minced by a meat grinder.
However, Rurik was completely immune to such cruel scenes. The fleet had all anchored, and he took all the subsequent soldiers ashore.
"Is this the core camp of the enemy? They are really a polar nomadic tribe..."
The groups of conical tents made Rurik first think of the Inuit. But wait, when it comes to blood and culture, the Karelia people and the Inuit do have a connection, so it is not enough to have commonalities in building tents. No surprise.
Soon Rurik saw the Suomi warriors sitting on the ground. The battle was over, and the men who had grabbed some trophies were chatting happily. There are also a group of women sitting here, who are obviously prisoners. Rurik can already guess their ending, and that ending is what he is happy to see.
The work of cleaning up the battlefield has been fully launched, and an astonishing number of arrows are being carefully recovered. Whether they are enemy or own arrows, whether they are useful or broken, arrow collectors are patiently searching for them.
The enemy's arrows are all of poor quality. The only thing that satisfies the searchers is that the arrow clusters of the enemy's arrows are mostly made of carefully polished deer bone fragments. The bone fragments have a wide blade. This kind of arrow is very effective for hunting. It's okay to kill the enemy, but it's a pity that the quality of the enemy's bow is really poor.
A large number of short wooden bows were seized, and rather than the bows themselves, the bow strings were what searchers were most willing to collect.
The bows of the Karelian people were of poor quality, but they were good for use as fire sticks. However, more than two thousand bow strings were found, and the number surprised everyone.
Reindeer are full of treasures, and the economic life of the Karelia people almost entirely depends on reindeer breeding. Reindeer can be said to be the only large herbivore in northern Asia and Northern Europe. Male deer often grow very tall and strong. The big sinews on their backs are used by the Karelian people to make special strong ropes and bow strings.
Deer tendon bowstring may not be as good as beef tendon, but its quality is at least much better than oil-soaked hemp rope. Rurik was surprised to find so many ready-made bowstrings!
There were surprises and astonishments. What shocked the entire Russian army was that everyone expected to capture an astonishing number of reindeer here, but only found a few dozen reindeer. What was going on? Don’t the Karelians here live off their reindeer?
What's even more strange is that Rurik ordered his men to prohibit the killing of women and children, but except for Suomi and the Vips servant army who captured three to four hundred women with panic-stricken eyes, there were really no other prisoners.
There were some old men among the dead enemies, but apart from that, no enemy's sons or other women were found in the entire tent group.
The brothers under his command did not kill indiscriminately. There is no evidence of indiscriminate killing. Facts have proved that when the Ross army landed, the entire tent group had already lost all women and children!
As for the alarming number of women who were captured, the situation was extremely abnormal.
Brauriurik went to investigate in person, and Jevro had already brought surprising results of the interrogation, and there was even major news brought by Terravis on behalf of the Vips.
The battle was over, and thousands of bodies had been examined.
The bodies of the Russian dead were pulled out and moved to an empty lakeside to be arranged in a matrix.
It's a pity that Rurik hoped that the Viking brothers in the army would not suffer any losses, but ten unlucky guys were pierced through vital parts of the neck by the enemy's spearheads, and the dead basically died from this.
The largest number of casualties came from the Suomi people. There were as many as 150 short corpses lying here. Their heads were all tied with red bandages. This headdress allowed the body pickers to determine their identities. There were various wounds on their bodies, and onlookers could confirm that if they had all been wearing metal chainmail when fighting, most of the dead would not have died.
In the chaotic battle, the combat effectiveness of the Suomi and Karelia people was only half the same. Even if the former accepted part of the change of clothes, they faced an opponent who was trapped and still fighting. They pecked each other like novice chickens, and their fights were extremely ferocious.
This was the total loss of the Russian army. The total number of casualties was less than 200, and there were also 200 wounded. Almost all of the wounded were Suomi servants.
As for the enemy's corpses, the exhausted Russian army did not carry the corpses for detailed statistics. People made estimates and judged that the enemy must have killed 3,000 people no matter what.
In the evening, the arrogant generals dressed in dirty clothes lit a huge number of bonfires. They looked down on the enemy's shabby tents, and resented the enemy's poverty for not being able to grab many good things, so they used the materials from those tents as firewood. The rotten leather was also used as fuel, causing the campfire to always emit a special smell similar to barbecue.
The largest bonfire was where Rurik held a post-war military meeting.
The sunset did not exist. It was supposed to be dusk, but the sky in the west was dark yellow. People with experience felt that there would be rain in the future. The weather in August is like this, every rain means cold. Anyone who knows something about the eastern region far away from Roseburg's hometown knows that September in the Julian calendar is the rainy season in the east. There will be a high probability of rain for the first half of the month, and the world will become muddy. If When the time comes to launch a war, the soldiers will really have to fight fiercely in the cold, wet, and mud. Maybe the soldiers will not die in the battle, but will lose their lives due to the cold and sudden and inexplicable diseases.
The flames dissipated the coldness of the night.
Rurik saw that everyone was not happy after the victory. He already knew very well what the captains and centurions of each banner were thinking.
Of course, he knew something about the enemy better, which was a series of information that Yevro easily gleaned from the mouths of a group of female prisoners. The contents of those messages are basically the same, so it can be concluded that these messages are true.
Many people couldn't hold back their words. When Rurik asked the brothers to speak freely, everyone shouted so loudly that the campfire was noisy.
"Take your time, everyone, tell me one by one!" Rurik ordered.
They were asked in order to tell their thoughts about the battle, especially the reasons for their gloominess.
Perhaps most of the people who had the right to hold a meeting here had reservations. When they saw the two fierce generals Aric and Khelaphid complaining without reservation, the brothers followed up without any scruples.
Many people were pointing at the Suomi servants, accusing them of not being busy killing the enemy but busy looting, resulting in an incomplete pursuit and allowing some people to escape.
As for despising the enemy for being too poor, that is another matter.
This is a bad sign!
Rurik gritted his teeth and asked himself, how could the proud Vikings look down on a group of Finnish servants? After all, the appearance of the enemy they fought was indistinguishable from the servant army. The accusations of the Viking warriors are not unreasonable. Since they are servants who dare to keep pace with the main force, how can this be done? !
"I have to coordinate this matter well. If the interests of some people must be sacrificed, then the Suomi people's must be sacrificed..."
He thought about it, calmed down the agitated people, and then preached: "The Suomi people and the Vips people have captured some prisoners. After my investigation, I found that these women are slaves of the Karelian people!" They are not slaves themselves, but women captured from other places, or even women given to the Karelia people as tribute. Some of them are originally Vips, originally Suomi. Our servants The soldiers found their lost tribesmen, which is why they failed to seal the siege."
This is a fact, but only a very small part of it. The children of slaves are still slaves, and that's how it's done here in Karelia. The slaves did come from the Vips and Suomi people, and a large part of them actually came from the Tavastian people who had completely collapsed.
Slaves, these female slaves dare not go to war, and they have almost no thoughts of their own. They are like docile lambs being led away by the new conquerors. They were timid at first, then showed signs of submission, until they learned that the conqueror would treat them as wives capable of bearing children, and the situation changed completely.
Rurik was very satisfied with the actions of the servant army. From a perceptual point of view, he felt that this was the last warmth on the violent battlefield. From a rational point of view, the Suomi community could get a group of fertile young women.
This is war, so let’s calculate the economic accounts carefully!
Allowing the servant army to obtain spoils of war is a useful means for the monarch to maintain the loyalty of the other party. In most cases, it is more effective than military deterrence. The expansion of Rome was based on this set of tricks. The Roman army naturally ate meat every day, and the outstanding servants also ate meat dregs every time. Even the most inferior servants had broth to drink.
However, if his base army, especially the brothers who came out of Old Roseburg, feel that the Duke has wronged his brothers, then the monarch is shaking the foundation of his rule.
It is undeniable that this trend seems to be sprouting.
Rurik continued his words: "The warriors of the servants can enjoy the women they catch, the Rus, the Balmoks, the Melalens, all the warriors of Odin, I know what kind of women you like! You guys You need to be tall and young, have a pretty face and be good at working. You like girls of your own race, and you also like Slavic girls who are similar to your own race. You don't look down on these short women at all, so let the servant army get them! Apart from that! , all their seizures will be deprived of them! This is the punishment for their wrongdoings!”
If this is the arrangement, all the pure Viking warriors in the team will be satisfied. To be fair, more than a hundred people died in the servant army. After all, they shed their blood for the Principality of Ross, so they deserved some spoils. However, the crime was also very serious. In such a way that the merits and demerits were balanced, those prisoners who were short and illiterate and did not look down on the Viking warriors were allowed to be taken away by the servant army.
After all, Vikings such as the Rus and Balmoks are no longer what they used to be, and the brothers already have the economic ability to be picky. If you must marry a woman, isn't there a ready-made method? They discovered that they could go to Novgorod with a sum of money and buy the marriage of their daughter from a local Slavic farmer. This is actually a win-win choice. The Viking warrior can marry a woman he likes, and the wife's natal family also needs the protection of the Viking conqueror through the in-law relationship.
Due to their aesthetics, when it comes to the identity of their wives, their first choice is Vikings, followed by Slavic women, and finally these short women from the East.
As for the fact that the high priest of the principality is a deer herder, this is a special case, and it is a special case appointed by Odin, and everyone has no doubt about it.
If we say that people in the society of the Principality of Ross will be divided into three, six or nine grades based on their origins, the grade will all depend on their mothers. It is not surprising for a Viking man in the Principality of Rus to marry two women. A person whose parents are both Vikings has the highest status. On the one hand, they are Slavs, the second is their identity, and on the other, they are the Finns from the eastern land in a broad sense, and their identity is third. The last one is that both parents are from the East.
Regardless of their ethnicity, hereditary nobles have another chain of contempt for their noble status defined by the Duke.
The Principality of Rus is currently unable to achieve the so-called equality of all people. Rurik, who gave up his naive delusion, based on realistic considerations, knew that he must support the high and low of the people in the ninth century AD. He can temporarily not set a very clear hierarchical arrangement of monarchs and ministers, and the unspoken rules that arise spontaneously in society cannot be inappropriately denied.
The interests of the Vikings in the principality must be maximized, and among them, the people of Ross must enjoy the highest interests. This is the fundamentals of the principality. Although the current fundamentals do not seem to be large, through the efforts of the men to cultivate the land, the interests of the Vikings must be maximized. Old scalper, a huge Rus nation can be created out of hand.
It's a pity that before the war, everyone dreamed of plundering the enemy's 100,000 reindeer in one battle, but this finally came to nothing. As much hope as there is disappointment, it is reasonable for people to come into the meeting with grievances.
As for why this group of enemies is so poor, Rurik has already heard the description of the captives relayed by Jevro and knows the exact reason.
He began to preach about this matter solemnly, and finally asked Yevlo himself to stand up and speak out...
"It turns out that they fled all night. Tens of thousands of women and children had already escaped, driving 100,000 deer!" Someone stood up in anger and answered.
Others shouted: "We can't let them escape! We have to pursue them!"
"Since this is not all the Karelia people have, and their chief has not been killed yet, we must carry the war to the end! We must not retreat without grabbing a large number of deer!"
…
The strange thing is that those who had complained just now have lost their resentment towards the servant army. The battle will continue, and the Russian army will continue to fight the enemy. Even if the battle may last for many years in the vast new world, the battle cannot stop until the Karelia people are completely defeated and a large number of reindeer are plundered!
They were so determined that Rurik just went along with it.
The little leader who knew the identity of the subordinate officers of the servant army was present. Rurik loudly announced: "Continue the war! As a Duke, I only want 30% of the loot! The first, second, and third flag corps, as well as the shooting flag corps, Austrian flag corps, Brothers of the Stara Army, you have the right to share the remaining 60% of the spoils. Servants of Suomi and Vips, because of your wrong performance in the decisive battle, you can only get the last 10% of the spoils in future wars. .”
In response to such an order, all the Vikings welcomed it. The servant army felt that the spoils they could enjoy were pitiful. After all, they were busy looting and letting a group of defeated soldiers run away. If they were wrong in the first place, they would not do more. Said.
The situation is not bad. If the Russian army really makes a major capture, such as grabbing 100,000 reindeer, according to this duke's order, Suomi can also get 10,000 deer, right? All living brothers can get ten deer. Isn't this a major reward?
