Since then, Smolensk has been included in Rus' territory.

However, Smolensk is really a huge concept in this day and age.

In other words, it is a collective name for all the Krivichs in a large area centered on the main city of Smolensk.

There are not only Krivichs here, but communities of Viadzic and Ladimic. The latter two live in a remote place.

The constant snowfall has finally stopped, making an already snowy world even worse. It can be called a white hell. After the snow stops, the vast snowfield is full of knee-deep snow, especially in the southern area of the lumpy forest. The snow is piled up by the wind into a snow wall as high as a person. If it is submerged directly, snow holes can be dug directly in it to make winter hunters temporarily evade.

After all, the main settlement of Smolensk along the river is on the right bank of the Dnieper River (the current north bank). The ice in the wide river channel is already half a meter thick. The strong north wind swept across this relatively large open land, and most of the snow was blown down. The south bank has forcibly created a snow wall visible to the naked eye, and the snow in the open area is not thick. At least personnel, cavalry, and sleds can still move freely.

Although it is a white hell, it does not mean that it is impossible to move an inch. All the tributaries, large and small, were frozen, and only the bottom of the river still had flowing water. The river water freezes very harmoniously, and their overall performance is that the ice layer in the center of the river channel is slightly raised, but the whole is still very smooth.

The sky was still gray, and the white earth was extremely cold.

The frozen river channel is extremely black, the ice layer has large and small swelling lines, and the ice layer looks like a deep abyss.

Reindeer are born with special hooves that can move at a higher speed on the ice layer, and then can pull the sled to move quickly. Horses are much worse on ice, and one has to do something with the hooves.

The Ross Cavalry went a step further, and every autumn is the time for a large-scale renovation and replacement of horseshoes. Trim the horseshoe intensively with a scraper, clean up the dirt from the hoof, and then nail the newly built wide carbon steel horseshoe with nails.

This has been the case for several years, it has become a routine every autumn and winter, and it is also true that the Ross cavalry can maintain a good fighting condition all year round.

Of course, large-scale mobilization of cavalry for combat will greatly curb the breeding of horse herds. In particular, Rose often chooses mares as mounts. The quality of mares is naturally weaker than that of stallions. The advantage is that they are docile and easy to control, and they will not be irritable in April. The major disadvantage is that these war horses cannot breed foals in case of war.

The battle that Rurik will fight now and in the future will really overdraw the stamina of the Ross cavalry. He is seriously short of spare horses now, but in the next six months and even the entire year of 843, the cavalry will face high-intensity battles.

Especially after solving the Smolensk issue, the cavalry is about to participate in an unprecedented and epic expedition.

For this reason, soldiers must take good care of their horses.

The snow stopped and the weather became colder.

In the peaceful days of the past, in the free collective farms adjacent to various tributaries, the general public was unwilling to stay outdoors. At most, they went to the firewood storehouse to get new firewood, and then threw out the excrement in the swill bucket. The whole village will live like a hibernating bear in the "cave" built of wood, guarding the built-in bonfire pit until spring and the end of the turning period.

Now the villages have to make tough decisions.

In many villages, when the snow first started, the messengers sent by the messengers had already secretly reached an agreement in the woods.

If they had fled their homes and got rid of the control of the Ross bandits, the whole village would have fled to the settlements upstream with the soft and frozen Dnieper River.

These villages did not flee, not only because many people lost their minds due to timidity, and when they hesitated, they dragged themselves to dangerous snowfall. It is also because many smart people realize that those bandits have huge cavalry and overwhelming infantry riding reindeer sleds.

The strength of the army seems to be equivalent to the army assembled by the leader Vadim. Someone who escaped said that Vadim was captured, and all 4,000 troops died in battle.

Why? ! Why does the **** Vadim still have the face to live? !

Each village sent more or less personnel to participate in the war, especially the speakers of each village, who were elected

He came out and was empowered by everyone. Due to the order of the big leader, the speaker had to send his nephew to join the battle to make a difference. Now all the people sent by the villages are dead without a place to bury...

The whole village fled to seek their own death. If they escaped in the white hell, they would all freeze to death in the extreme cold in January, right?

Even if they escaped, since those Ross cavalrymen ignored the wind and snow and launched a strong attack, it must be easy to launch a pursuit.

More than 30 villages have reached a secret agreement, so-called collectively go to the large settlement by the river on the agreed date and surrender to the Ross people!

However, sending people to surrender to the plane seems insincere. If some goods are paid as tribute, it may satisfy the greed of the Ross people and make the leader forgive everyone.

Tribute! There are also particularities.

It is not allowed to pay tribute to rare and rare treasures, otherwise the Ross people will feel that the villages have accumulated a lot of wealth, and they may be ransacked by them. Of course, even ironware is extremely expensive in the miserable villages, so what treasures can there be?

Rus bandits are probably also a kind of Varyag people. Whatever the Varyag armed merchants in the past wanted, everyone just gave them according to the old rules.

There are actually more than 150 villages, large and small, living in each tributary! The largest village has nearly a thousand people, and the few have only a few dozen people. They are quite scattered, and villages that are too remote no longer use the main city of Smolensk as their economic center. If they exchange materials, they will go to Rzhev and Toropets (currently still using the old name ).

Smolensk is not the only economic center of the local Krivich people, because it is the largest and most powerful, and the Mic and Viadzic tribes of La are nearby as allies. making it the leader of several Krivich communities.

The rich are almost all in the main city of Smolensk, and now they have been looted by the Russian army.

The greatest wealth that remote villages can afford is actually people.

Children are actually a kind of "talking animals" for the whole farm. In other words, all the people are struggling to live in the barren land with simple farm tools. They may not be as good as animals. After all, cattle and sheep can survive by eating grass.

Many children died for various reasons before they grew up. Since those Varyag merchants intended to obtain slaves, instead of their own villagers being robbed, it would be better to take the children who could not support them to Smolensk and hand them over directly To the Varyag people who have been stationed there for a long time, in exchange for the extremely important ironware of the village.

Therefore, the logging axes commonly used in these villages are often imported Nordic goods-hook axes.

In fact, because even stones are extremely expensive in this area, there is naturally no iron ore. They know how to smelt. When the iron ax in their hands becomes blunt, they will heat it a second time to forge and polish it.

Exchange a group of children for axes, shovels, and spearheads, no matter how you think about it, you can make money.

No, every village took out a group of children one after another, and it didn't matter that these children were crying. Those who were obedient were put on nice leather clothes by their parents and placed on the sled, while those who were disobedient had to be tied up.

They comforted themselves that all the children handed over would meet kind masters in distant places and live a stable life in the new world. Even they know that this may be self-deception.

Now the villagers don't care too much. A group of children and a small amount of honey are the most valuable tribute they can get.

In order to avoid being misunderstood, some villages took the lead in sending envoys to Smolensk.

The messenger dragged a sleigh with bare hands, on which were placed several pottery urns of honey.

The appearance of the messenger was extremely abrupt, and the gray and black tone looked like a brown bear.

The cavalry who had resumed winter operations immediately captured him. Seeing that he was not a threat, and he kept emphasizing "tribute" in Slavic, the cavalry who was on alert took him directly back to Rurik's palace in Smolensk.

In the end, Vadim spent the past two years in the entire settlement, and he built the best house for himself after he held a hegemony. Rurik already knew this, and immediately defined the wooden house he built as his palace, and it was also the official residence of the governor of Smolensk, his cousin, and even the garrison of the army.

The news about Arik's becoming governor was sent to the Gnezdovo camp on the same day as the cavalry rode on the horse after the snow stopped.

The nervous emissary was shoved to Rurik.

There were five people who came, and when they saw Rurik with pure golden hair and blue eyes, they all knelt down subconsciously.

After all, from their point of view, Ross, now wearing a polar bear fur coat and temporarily wearing a gold laurel crown, was tall, neat and mighty, like a **** in myths and legends, completely different from the Varyag businessmen they had seen in the past.

Seeing them all kneeling down, Rurik couldn't help but feel good about them, as well as the pleasure of being a conqueror.

"I heard that you are the envoys of the villages? It seems that you have understood your situation. You have made a very correct decision, and I am very satisfied."

Opening their mouths was in Slavic, which surprised and trembled the five kneeling people.

Rurik continued: "I am the king of Ross, the ruler of the north, and now your leader. So..." He deliberately paused, and ordered sharply: "Everyone, look up into my eyes!"

The five had no choice but to do so, and had to look at Rurik in horror.

"You surrender to me, to Rus, from now on you are Rus people. You will be protected by Rus, and you will live a better life. All disputes between you and the north will end here! Go back and tell your friends, Rus Subjects will no longer be killed, but rebels will all be executed."

Things completely overturned the expectations of these five people. They did not dare to bargain with King Ross, and continued to listen to King Ross's description of the previous war actions.

They were greatly shocked. Unexpectedly, King Rus planned to use the captured Vadim as a sacrifice at the altar of Gnezdovo at the end of December? !

The conqueror of Rus ordered that the surrendered villages must send their village chiefs to the altar to witness Vadim's death.

Now, it was finally the messengers' turn to speak.

Flattered, they immediately talked about their village's wishes...

"What? Give me a group of children as a tribute? As a slave?" Rurik pinched his golden beard and was slightly surprised, but he was relieved after thinking about it. "Okay, this king accepts your tribute. You can go back to your respective villages and tell your people that these children will be properly dealt with in my hands and will be cultivated into warriors loyal to Ross."

They didn't dare to hope that at least the ruler of Ross was willing to accept the tribute, which was to prove that Ross accepted everyone's surrender with practical actions.

The honey they brought at the first time was immediately accepted by Rurik. Of course, it was used as a way to win over, and some captured iron tools were thrown to them as rewards. These clumsy wrought iron products need to be reworked in Ross, but they are still treasures for farms living in the deep forest.

Submit tribute, get rewarded, and back and forth, the conqueror of Rus showed his first benevolent image.

The backs of those messengers gradually disappeared in the forest, and Rurik and Arik silently witnessed their disappearance...

"Are you being too kind to them? Obviously these villages have sent people out to attack us." Arik was puzzled, "We can retaliate."

"Brother. The killing is enough. The remaining villages are extremely poor. They must have been forced by Vadim to send troops. You see, the main thing is to use the children of the village as tribute. If it weren't for the extreme poverty, how could it be so?"

"That's true." Arik had to admit it.

"Brother, since you want to govern yourself, these villages must follow your lead. You are equivalent to becoming their leader. In the future, you should treat them better! Besides, the south will enter peace in the future, and our trade with Kiev and the grasslands It will be more frequent, people coming and going can be stationed in Smolensk, and it will prosper quickly.

"I'm hoping for a better future."

"It will definitely be prosperous." Rurik looked forward: "The good place will naturally be controlled by me. I don't feel at ease entrusting others to manage it."

"Haha, of course it's only me and my son."

"right."

Now, it is Rurik's rational choice to let his cousin Arik and his descendants manage Smolensk on his behalf.

But history also strikes a subtle coincidence here. Jill, a relative of Rurik himself, was destined to become the ruler of Smolensk.

It's just that in another plane, Jill is the prince of Smolensk, and also the first new principality established after the northern Ross expansion to the south. The next step is Jill's further southward invasion, co-ruling Kiev with his brother Askad, and the birth of Southern Ross.

In this plane, Jill is just the next generation of Smolensk Governor. Rurik did not give his cousin's family legally complete power over Smolensk, so legally, it is still the king's direct jurisdiction, but the current situation is that there is an OstarPolots in the middle Dukedom.

When the envoys returned to the village, the overly good news made the people unbelievable.

The Ross gangsters who have always killed and plundered are really like a king. The noble young Ross king promised a better life for everyone in the future, even better than when Vadim was king.

Empty words are nothing, but the ax and spearhead bestowed by King Ross have become real tokens, making those doubters shut up.

Because it has never happened, whether it is Vadim as the chief, or the previous chiefs. The nobles living in the main city by the river have always only asked for, and never given property to the villages.

Perhaps, being ruled by Ross is a good thing.

Maybe this kind of good thing should be shared with people far away? No! Maybe

The leaders of each village and the speakers who were elected, brought their own tributes to form a team of envoys. They were as many as thirty-five teams at full strength, and after gathering, they suddenly formed a team of as many as two thousand people!

They arrived at the riverside area in a mighty manner. Such a large team made the Ross cavalry highly alert, so under the **** of the cavalry, the huge team arrived in Smolensk smoothly.

The children were driven off the sleigh one after another, and instead of whips and sticks, wheat cakes and dried salted fish were greeted to these confused and helpless children!

Originally, there were a large number of half-children among the Ross cavalry. They were too young, because they had good food on weekdays, and they looked like grown-up men at a young age. Most of their mothers were Slavs, so naturally they also spoke Rurik's Slavic language.

The young man gave these children some dry food by order of the king.

The food donation was carried out in front of the village leaders. Under the amazed gaze of those people, the little slave who had been offered as a tribute was devouring the food given by the Ross cavalry. Take a closer look at the Ross cavalry, they are all muttering Slavic that they understand?

"Is this... the army of the Varyags? Or the army of the Slavignes in the north?"

Everyone thought this way, and then thought about it again, maybe what King Ross said was truethese slave children might have become soldiers after more than ten years, otherwise it would be impossible to explain that there are a large number of Slavic-speaking people in the Ross cavalry.

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The village chiefs knelt down to the governor in unison. UU Reading www.uukanshu.com Although they didn't understand the meaning of the word "governor", they probably meant the leader.

In the past, these people had to declare their loyalty to Vadim by half-kneeling, and they had to kneel on their knees in the face of the more powerful Ross. They would not feel humiliated, just because King Ross announced that in the future, he would give all his subjects iron weapons, better seeds, and most importantly, "no promise of war."

It doesn't matter if you kneel down, you can get down, if King Ross can really fulfill his promise, everyone can do whatever they want.

As a result, some village leaders went one step further and became extremely obsequious.

Someone blatantly reported to Rurik: "Aran (Yartevo) in the east, a large number of dissatisfied people have gone there. Since the king has a strong army, he can easily capture him. Farther east in Alan is Via Dichi people, they will not accept the rule of Vadim in the past, and they will certainly not submit to the rule of Rus. Those who disobey will definitely be concentrated in Viadzic, and will always be your threat, how about..."

Hearing this, Rurik, who thought the matter could come to an end, realized that the matter was not simple.

Rurik burst into flames: "Alan? Could it be Yartevo? Viadich? Isn't it Vyazma? Tell me about it!"