Just as Rurik predicted, many aspiring young people failed the first middle-distance running test in the competition.

The amount of fine sand poured into the sand time meter was deliberately reduced, and the time left for them was so limited that even those who passed the first round of tests could not help lying on the grass after reaching the finish line. Not only did their lungs hurt, but their teeth also hurt. , her fair face flushed.

As soon as the sand clock ticked, the soldier in bearskin jerked the rope.

Even if it was only one step away, the young people slammed into the rope and crossed the finish line together with the rope, even so their qualifications were disqualified.

Failing to pass the finish line within the stipulated time is a fact, and the king will not allow a loser to pass the test here.

Rurik is indeed just and fair. He has been personally supervising it. It is said that anyone who has doubts can have the courage to come and hear the news. Of course, no one dares to do so, and he has no doubts about the result.

Of course, those who were brushed down also included the descendants of the old Ross, and the boy kneeling on the ground felt the shame of life.

But completely ignoring that he is too young, this kind of boy has always had a fluke mentality, but he does not know that even if the child passes the first round of tests, when Rurik investigates his age and finds that he is too young, he will be brushed off.

The first is the middle and long distance running to verify the endurance, and the second is to carry the wood on the shoulder to verify the strength.

Like weightlifting, a piece of pine that weighs nearly a hundred pounds is placed on the grass, and the young man has to pick it up on the ground, carry it on his shoulders and stabilize his footing.

One hundred Roman pounds, equivalent to a weight close to forty kilograms, is not a severe test for adults, but it is for boys.

Even if a child is too young, he has good legs and feet, and his strength is far away.

inferior to adults.

In this way, another group of people were brushed off in the weightlifting test, and the only ones left so far were some older boys.

But it was only the second test, and Rurik suddenly found that he could not recruit the 2,000 fighters he needed.

"I... seem to have really overestimated their quality? Damn, the standard has to be lowered."

In the end, Rurik recruited enough soldiers within the planned time.

It was a clear autumn afternoon, and the cool wind on the pavement was already mixed with a bit of the chill from the Arctic.

All the tested boys assembled in the wasteland outside Novgorod.

The sound of banners and drums shook the sky! The cavalry dressed in costumes acted as the king's guard of honor. For the first time, Rurik stood on a high platform made of temporary wooden boxes with a golden laurel wreath on his head, reviewing his newly formed four flag teams of citizen soldiers.

Candidates for the four banner captains have been completed. They are veterans from the Second Banner Corps who have been value-added in their prime.

For this purpose the four were ordered to rush to Novgorod from Novorosberg. They are: Sedrike, Olaf, Triggve, Tostig.

It doesn't matter if you are famous or not, because northerners always prefer to name some good words that show masculinity, and the rate of duplication of men's names is too high, so everyone will have one or more strange nicknames.

The source of the nickname is often because of the person's appearance and personal preferences, and it can also come from some special opportunities.

Now each of the four leads a new flag team and has an absolute obligation to

Trained to be able to go to war.

They have new nicknames, Cedric the eighth, Olaf the ninth, Trigwe the tenth, and Tostig the eleventh.

The officer system of each banner team was quickly formed, so the second and fifth banner teams had a lot of people.

Old Rus and Slavs are mixed to form the officer system, but the current banner captains are all from the Old Rus tribe.

The identities of the junior fighters are varied. Since the descendants of the old Ross who have grown up in recent years are preferentially absorbed into the standing army, the number of boys who are incorporated into the four citizen soldiers' banners is very limited. Slavic warriors became the mainstream, and boys from the three manors of White Tree, Calf, and Fisherman accounted for a large proportion.

After all, the result of military expansion satisfied Rurik's desire for the whole people.

Promise, all Slavic farms have more or less nephews who have successfully joined the army. Since soldiers were selected through competition, it objectively became an autumn event, and the entire Novgorod residents were both spectators and witnesses. Those who successfully joined the army won this honor through their own efforts.

Glory is only temporary!

Immediately afterwards, rigorous training is about to begin.

Rurik was standing on the high wooden platform, his tall and strong figure was like a statue.

"I see! There are four new armies made up of my loyal subjects. You are all young, like the sun just rising. You join the army at the age of most potential. You will serve Rus in a new war. Great work. No matter what your origins, being a warrior of Roth means honoring you.

This king needs you to continue laying down territory for Ross, and you also need to defend Ross' territory.

but! as soldiers you now

Now is not enough. Just this winter, you are not afraid of the severe cold and will become true warriors in the rigorous training.

The ugliness comes first! Those cowards in training will be weeded out, forever losing their chance to serve in the army. You must persevere in training, even if it may cost your life. Those who die in training will be posthumously awarded as warriors and will receive a pension.

You must think about it, if you are cowardly, it is still too late to announce your withdrawal, and you will not be punished. After this opportunity, you will lose your chance to exit, unless you are expelled! Let me see, does anyone dare to quit? "

Quit out of cowardice? Relatives and friends have high expectations for me, and I have gone through the test desperately. If I quit, I still have the face to live?

As for future training...

The boys all felt the hardships revealed in the king's words, maybe that is not a training that humans can bear? It shouldn't be. What the king wants is a warrior who can fight, and there is no possibility of torture for fun.

"Very well. You have chosen this path, and any pain will be yours. In the end, after the winter, you will all be worthy fighters."

Rurik didn't have a lot of time. After the opportunity was over, the four new flag teams began to train intensively.

A group of boys received two years of school education, during which they learned subjects such as individual combat, array punching, and archery. After all, it was a simulated battle, and now they brought real weapons!

What Rurik got now was the bodies of soldiers, even if they were citizen soldiers, all supplies during the training period came from the treasury.

Nor can it be expected that the boy's parents will be able to spend money on buying weapons to equip their sons. In order to ensure the consistency of combat effectiveness,

In terms of armor, weapons, luggage, and daily necessities, Rurik intends to be consistent, but the price is a large financial expenditure.

Due to the large-scale preparation experience three years ago, planning a new expedition, it seems that it is enough to repeat the strategy at that time.

The two longships looked after each other, and the messengers on them were ordered to send the king's urgent orders to the capital.

All orders are written on paper, and they are all in duplicate. The courier is required to deliver the order safely, and it is related to military affairs and must be defended with life.

Among them, there is an urgent order submitted to the "State-owned Blacksmith Shop".

That was actually a huge military order from Rurik to his old subordinate Kamne.

3,000 low-carbon steel swords, 100,000 cast arrow clusters, 5,000 javelin heads, and 500 overall forged breastplates (front).

The news about the king's intention to conquer the Franks and fully intervene in the civil war has long spread.

The expeditionary force set off this spring is only the vanguard, and eventually the king will gather the elite to launch the second and real expedition.

Everything is a continuation of the War of 840!

So throughout 842, the situation in the capital was turbulent, and anyone with insight was talking about war. There are many businessmen who come and go, and the news about the king's intention to conquer Frank quietly followed the merchant ships to Lake Mlaren in Sweden, the port of Narvik in the extreme north, the Norwegian community in Oslo, the Danish world, and even a year ago. Latvian Riga.

For the Danes, the war against the Franks was not something to discuss at all, because it was happening.

Denmark's free fishermen turned into pirates, a

Some people accompanied the Ross Expeditionary Army, like vultures following a lion group, the army looted along the Maas River, and these pirates followed the looting and passed the news to the north in advance.

Due to the geographical distance, there is a time difference. In addition, Danish businessmen will hardly break into the frozen Gulf of Finland to spend the winter in the capital of the Ross people. The Ross Expeditionary Force plundered the Maas River and the Nassau Army with a strong Ross identity. The incident of plundering the Moselle River and the Saar River was not reported back to New Roseburg in late autumn.

Even, it seems that the expeditionary force disappeared. They have not sent back any news, not even news about the Netherlands or Saxony. Rurik doesn't even know where his sworn brother Ragnar, king of Denmark, is getting rich.

These are not important, the warriors on the expedition have their own protection from the gods, and the warriors who stay in their hometown don't have to worry about them, and soon the new warriors will go to the western world...

The messenger sent the news to the state-run blacksmith association, arrow-making institution, engineering weapon institution, navy, and large shipyard in the capital as quickly as possible.

The decisive royal decree was handed over to the Governor Konuson the Younger and the High Priest Rumia.

The people of the State-run Printing Bureau took full action after receiving the order. They were ordered to reproduce the content of the king's order. After the typesetting was completed with movable lead type, they began to print with all their strength.

This is much more efficient than the Governor standing in the Harvest Square to preach to the people of ***.

The state-run paper mills never stop working, due to the increasing demand for various papers in the whole society. Businessmen are willing to accept an easy-to-write carrier, and a written business contract has become a rigid need. People also need to add fun to boring life

, a magazine full of vulgar jokes, because paper is used as a carrier, people are very willing to buy it for fun.

Papermaking has become a profitable business, and the people of the capital are eager for the royal family's state-run publishing organization to do more new tricks.

The news about military expansion and preparations for war is no longer "a statement". Documents in black and white are spread everywhere. It comes from the royal publishing house, and it is believed that the content is the meaning of King Rurik himself.

Throughout the 840-year war, the vast majority of people have enjoyed the war dividends.

The new war is not small. Those who got the bonus last time still want to continue to drink oil and water, and those who unfortunately missed the opportunity don't want to let it go this time.

There are many ways for soldiers to participate in the war to gain benefits. They directly bring weapons and supplies and act as volunteers to fight for the king. This is the most direct way and it is very risky.

If you sell military supplies to the king, you can get real benefits, and if you participate in the production of military supplies related to war preparations, you can get benefits immediately.

Camne, he's not the skinny boy he once was.

He is still Rurik's personal servant, so his status is not low. In the capital city of New Roseburg, Kamne is in charge of managing the state-run blacksmith shop, which is an extremely large metallurgical complex on the battlefield. The whole kingdom mines Most of the iron, copper, lead, chromium and other ores will be forged into finished products here.

A large number of loggers, potters, charcoal burners, and miners are the downstream industry personnel of this "big state-owned iron factory".

In the end, as many as 10,000 people lived in the industrial chain shaped by the state-run blacksmith shop. Heavy industry caused economic prosperity, and it was also the war machine of Ross.

The courier personally delivered the king's order to Kamni

hands.

This hulking Slavic man now lives like an old Russian, although he no longer forges iron, and his children have already participated in the metallurgical industry.

At the beginning of the period, he could not be calm at all holding the order document in both hands. After calming down, he organized his subordinates to start mass production operations. Everything seems to have returned to the autumn and winter in 839, when the sky was full of heat and the wind was biting.

The king's request is to force everyone to challenge the limit, and there is no mention of extra rewards.

Everything will be like in the late autumn of 839, everyone will work overtime, labor wages will remain the same, everyone will be exhausted, and when the war wins

Get a big bounty after profit. Therefore, only when the war is won, people's complicated labor is meaningful.

There are hundreds of blacksmiths in the entire state-run blacksmith shop, and everyone's interests are completely tied to the royal family.

Forging three thousand new low-carbon steel Ross swords is not difficult in this era. The techniques of burning pig iron in blast furnaces and frying steel have matured, and the most critical iron ore, the Swedish world owned by Ross, is the most indispensable thing in the world. quality iron ore.

Therefore, the king ordered the navy to be notified. Admiral Goldlund would rush to the north to bring back cast iron ingots and even pure ore as much as possible before the bay freezes.

The hometown of Roseburg in the north and Fort Ailon Orava, the two cities guard the mines and also have the kingdom's blast furnace group. The soil blast furnace can only smelt molten iron, and Kawei completely takes over from his old father. He is responsible for providing ores and primary finished products for the entire kingdom, and also undertakes the production of some iron weapons and tools.

Rurik has a long list of metal munitions, and the entire winter capital

The blacksmith's shop may not be able to complete the production, which requires the efforts of Roseburg's old family...

The Kingdom of Ross has not yet entered a state of wartime mobilization.

At that time, it was still the era of the tribe, and the leader gave an order, and the men and women of the whole tribe could devote all their energy to fighting the war. At that time, Ross was too small and had few soldiers available. Because poverty had nothing to fear, he dared to gamble with the fortune of the country.

Ross's stalls are too big these days, and the way of life in the north is very different from that in the heart of Eastern Europe.

"Tsarist Russia is too big and bloated. It takes at least a month to mobilize the army for a full-scale war." No one understands the difficulty of gathering an army in Russia better than Rurik. If the population is not mainly concentrated in Nov For the two major settlements of Gorods and New Roseburg, the work of combat preparation is even more troublesome.

New Roseburg is a commercial city, and it is the most powerful "industrial city".

Who will participate in the expedition? All men with military status will return to their own flag team. Most of them have received huge war dividends in previous wars, and they are full of expectations for the new war. They are even more powerful consumers. In order to protect themselves and plunder more wealth in the new battle, they spend money on repairing and adding weapons, buying replacement clothing, belts and gloves, etc. Even food is now being purchased, so the capital city The cheese was sold out in a short period of time, and the honey was also sold out...

The "war demand" begins to give rise to a special prosperity, which is a process of redistribution of wealth. Those who plundered huge bonuses in the previous wars began to transfer some of the bonuses to ordinary people in the form of silver coins.

Those who provide these people with cloth, leather, cables, dry food, etc. needed for the next expedition.

What Rurik didn't know was that the ruler of Finland's Suomi, the de jure acting count, and the loyal Geflo personally escorted a batch of Finnish specialties for sale in the capital.

Evro was also shocked that he had not seen Rurik himself, but saw the combat preparation order for the Frankish expedition.

He found Governor Konusson Jr. to learn more about the situation, and then went directly to High Priest Rumia to hear the news again.

Forget it, in the community formed by Finnish migrant workers in New Roseburg, he organized people to mobilize for war and announced that the families stranded in the capital must serve in war service this winter.

Gevro will support Rurik's new expedition in his own way.

How to support? The Counties of Finland will assemble an unprecedented elite army to serve Ross, and it will not cost the king a single copper coin. Such a decision had an element of Evro's personal feelings. He himself regarded Rurik as a relative. At the same time, it is also for the prosperity of Finland, especially even its own huge Suomi tribe. This is a once-in-lifetime opportunity to reap the dividends of war, and a still impoverished Finland will improve life by plundering Frankish raids.

However, the first snow swept the world earlier than usual. At the beginning of the period, people were highly alert to it, thinking that it was a severe snowstorm, and every family had to hide for a few days before going out to clear the snow. After the snowstorm, they started winter life ahead of schedule.

The reality is not as harsh as people think.

First it was light rain, then endless snow, the gray days lasted for three days,

The terrifying blizzard did not come, and the dark Kronstadt anchorage was surging ~www.mtlnovel.com~ The world was wrapped in a thin blanket.

After all, it is the first snow, and winter life has just begun!

It was at this juncture, just like in previous years, that two commercial cavalry teams from Kiev and the Grassland walked the very mature "Amber Road" and finally passed the rising city of Vitebsk. Without stopping, braved the light snow to reach the big Luki that also rose from the ground.

There is light snow in Novorosberg, and more in Novgorod.

The southern caravan successfully arrived at the city of New Ostara at the south end of Lake Ilmen at the traditional time. They really brought the detailed news of the southern expansion of the Principality of Aostara. In charge of the city of New Ostara, he even learned of the royal orders recently issued by King Rossprepare for war! Prepare for an expedition.

As for Rurik, the smooth arrival of the southern caravan was a surprise!

Horses and recurve bows are the fist products of the Pechenegs exported to Russia. They are really military weapons. Until this period of military expansion, it is obvious that the military equipment of the third and fourth cavalry has been secured due to the strong arrival of allies.

reborn carambola