Stekander has already sent envoys back to Riga ahead of schedule. Among the envoys are old guys from the Danish community and local Latvians who participated in the operation.

Riga's rapid dispatch of troops to support the attacked Polotsk has actually demonstrated the attitude of the locals. Now the arrival of the sleigh flying the Ross flag shocked the entire city.

The defense of Polotsk has been won! King Ross personally conquered Smolensk with ease! The mastermind of the war was beheaded by King Ross himself!

And the glorious King Ross will arrive in his loyal Riga tomorrow, and King Ross's army is not far outside the city.

The people who heard the news were looking forward to it. They all learned that King Ross was a handsome and tall young man. He was extremely neat, with golden hair and deep eyes. God of Sgard.

Therefore, when Rurik's army was officially inferior to the coastal city of Riga along the frozen Daugava River, what he saw was a large number of people who had been waiting, and then he heard cheers from afar.

"I'm really welcome? Seems like this place is full of smart people," Rurik said to Strkander.

"Of course. Your Majesty's glory is beyond doubt, and they sincerely welcome you."

Strkander seized the opportunity to say good things, and Rurik responded with a satisfied smile: "In this way, I feel at ease. They will definitely be fully prepared for the war, and I will also pay for their future efforts." Money that everyone is happy with. Come on, chest high!"

After that, Rurik then ordered the accompanying trumpeters and drummers.

So these trained fighters carefully played the "Throwing Bullets" with Nordic musical instruments.

The melody of "March of Soldiers", of course, now this tune is named "March of Soldiers".

All the infantry got off the sled and lined up in a marching column. The cavalry and the infantry accompanied the rhythmic tune and stepped on the drums. Many soldiers carried hunting banners to Riga.

This is unheard of in Riga! For a moment, they didn't know that the rapidly approaching white thing was an army, and they didn't see the details until the opponent approached.

This is the real Ross Army? The orderliness of the team, everyone upholds the same action, this orderliness makes the spectators immediately think of "shield wall" and "simultaneous oars", and the Ross Army can carry out the sense of orderliness.

The army walked by with the sincere welcome of the people, and their eyes could see all the details of the Ross Army!

Even their clothes are uniform, their round shields are painted in the same way, and the hats of the same style all have huge feathers on them. At first glance, they even look the same.

They have been exuding a majestic atmosphere, so that the Riga people only dare to observe their might, but no one raises their legs and walks close without authorization.

Smart people noticed some subtleties, or a kind of murderous intent, and when they thought that this army had just completed a victorious expedition, everything made sense.

Never before had such an imposing armed group entered Riga with absolute superiority in force.

You must know that Riga cannot afford 3,000 troops to gather the armed forces of the entire large settlement. Even if all the personnel capable of fighting were organized to make up three thousand, it would be nothing more than a mob.

But then again, why should Riga be nervous about the Ross army?

Those nervous people are just a group of idiots who don't know the affairs, but they don't know that this Ross army can be counted as its own army.

Because Riga's strongest combat force, the armed merchants of the Danish community, they have suffered a lot in a series of conflicts in Smolensk. More than 100 strong men died in battle and as many as 100 were injured.

One hundred people may not be anything, at best the combat power of three longships. They are all first-class fighters in the city. Even if Riga pieced together a "monster", the only Danish immigrant fighters who can really fight.

Those Latvian villages have long outsourced their safety to the people of the Danish community. They are spending money to buy peace, while the Danish immigrants use the form of mercenaries to protect the safety of these local nobles and people. The relationship between the two parties is quite good. harmony.

Now, a group of Latvian nobles have left the village and arrived in Riga after receiving the letter. They happened to see the majesty of the real Russian army. Originally, they thought that the well-dressed Earl of Saaremaa Island was the leader of Ross's army, but now everyone actually saw King Ross himself!

It is self-evident who is the real leader, especially the Spuut of Saaremaa Island. People saw this Ross nobleman leading his king's horse.

Right in the crowd, several pairs of vigilant eyes stared carefully at the Ross army and the legendary King Ross cautiously through the crowd.

These sneaky guys are not evil, but they have heard good things about Ross and King Ross, but they didn't expect that they were doing business in Riga and planned to go home after the spring planting season. They accidentally saw it in the severe winter king ross

deity.

They are Pskov merchants.

Rurik already knew that there were Pskov merchants in Riga.

All the noise gradually dissipated, and the Ross army stayed in Riga and set up their camp in a snow-covered wasteland.

No one dared to stop the behavior of the Ross people, and the city people saw a forest disappear into nothingness in a short period of time amidst the endless noise.

The cavalry is stationed, and the men need to live in suitable houses, and the most precious war horses need to live in stables that are warm and sheltered from the wind.

Taking advantage of the abundant manpower now, Rurik gave the soldiers a surprise logging order, so the people with double saws and long axes began to move quickly, especially with the high-efficiency blessing of the "high technology" of double saws. There is nothing left of the pine forest in one day.

The Russian army did not enter the city itself, and there was no need for Rurik to plunder the city that surrendered to him. Although he learned that a Rus community has risen in Riga, it was built under the auspices of Spuyut and is now home to some immigrants from Saaremaa Island. Does not fit - not enough space.

After all, the vast majority of infantry will be evacuated after staying in Riga for three days. Rurik self-planned that the main force of the army is Riga's passers-by.

Of course, the appearance of the army is an obvious threat to everyone. Even if they remain silent, the Russian army is capable of sweeping Riga and looting at will, and even looting all the Latvian villages.

Rurik would not be so stupid as to cut off his own arms, but he was worried that the Latvians with the largest number would be afraid.

this kind of thing doesn't

It's not a wild idea. A few days ago, the army stayed in the territory of the Selong people. Even if the Ross army treated them well, it is reported that three villages abandoned their homes and fled for their lives because of fear.

The army camped outside the city, and this act itself immediately stabilized the hearts of the people in the city.

After Rurik gave some instructions, he took all four cavalry teams and circled the entire settlement. They swaggered across the city to let the locals see the might of Ross's army, and the cavalry withdrew, leaving only Rurik Stay within the Rose community with a handful of cronies.

The Danes worship the strong, especially the sworn brothers of King Ross and the King of Denmark.

The men and women of the Danish community quickly surrounded the Ross community with their families, and the air was filled with joy. Those elderly people also saw the true face of King Ross with their cloudy eyes, and couldn't help sighing: "He is really a king. "

Blonde hair, golden laurel wreath, deep eyes, elegant beard, tall stature, neat and gorgeous clothes, exquisite swords, and even exquisite leather boots.

Those local Latvian nobles who temporarily lived in the city also followed the trend to pay close attention to the majesty of King Ross, and they got their wish. Isn't the arrival of these people an opportunity for me? Rurik thought that he didn't have to publicly call out the local nobles to come to the meeting. They came uninvited, so the surprise meeting was held in the long room of the earl's mansion in the Ross community.

The content of the meeting was clearly discussed at the bonfire last night. The Ross community of the native tribe will definitely follow suit, and the Danish community will follow suit as **** servants. How about Latvians? It is said that they may have a scale of 30,000 people, and it seems that

The population is small, but such a number is already considered a giant in Northeast Europe in today's era.

Most of the local nobles arrived in Riga by horse-drawn sleigh and reindeer sleigh, and many of them arrived just yesterday. Since King Ross is coming, he should show his loyalty in front of the king, or at least show his face. This is another insurance for the safety of his village.

So Rurik still followed the old method, and all the Latvian village leaders who were present at the scene, one by one, were named boyars, and they had to obey the withering of Earl Skander in terms of law. An old Danish immigrant became a great nobleman of the entire Latvian tribe. It seems that this will make the locals furious, but it is not the case. Over the years, Ristkander is a good man, and the military power he holds is also what the Latvians rely on.

Has life changed? The terminology has changed, but the essence does not seem to have changed.

It's just that everyone was surprised to learn that the Selons who live in the hilly area are equal to the entire Latvian tribe. What can those guys hiding in the ravine woodland do?

Anyway, you have not had much contact with the Selons since ancient times, and they don't care what they do to you.

Now King Ross has given everyone a chance to make a fortune!

Grain, dried fish, smoked animal meat, salt, honey, cloth, leather products...all the necessities related to travel and excursions that Latvians can produce, they are all within the scope of Ross's procurement.

Even shade-dried lumber for building ships is on the purchase list.

The most important thing is horses and finished arrows.

Rurikro made a list. Regarding the market price of these materials in the Gulf of Riga, everyone is a shopping mall

Old fritters, after some discussion, there is no talk of blackmailing each other. How much is an arrow worth, what is the price of a horse, how much is a pound of fish jerky, what is a pound of salt, all materials are listed and the price is agreed upon.

Since this is the largest batch of orders ever received by the city of Riga, specifically the first order for military supplies, even the elders in the village have never seen this kind of battle.

Everyone has concerns in their hearts. They dare not openly question that King Ross may break the contract after submitting a large order. After all, if the contract is broken, the eager Latvian people will produce a lot without benefiting, which will be a big loss. They took the most traditional method, doing a small-scale sacrifice at the altar of the city, with the gods as witnesses, to ensure that King Ross's promise would come true.

Of course Rurik could afford to pay a huge sum of silver coins, and besides, what about huge sums of money?

The silver coins that have been circulating in the Baltic world until now, and even a large number of Frankish silver coins, have flowed into the core area of Ross's rule due to the dividends of Ross's expansion wars. Ross continues to suffer from imported inflation. To alleviate this pain, external expansion deliberately consumes On the contrary, state money and private wealth are a method.

Because war requires material reserves, the Slavic people, with a population of 300,000, are bound to get a share of the prosperity of deliberately manufactured military supplies as producers, and a lot of hot money that is rotten in their hands has gradually flowed into the hands of these villagers.

Give the Latvians a sum of cash they are very scarce, and these people dare to move to the south in partnership with Danish immigrants. Silver coins are the hard currency throughout Europe, and their purchasing power in many regions is astonishingly high.

Latvia

The village leaders in Asia are not simple peasants. These local nobles have been semi-Vikingized. Who would dare to say that they are Latvians if they change their clothes, and a group of Varyags who run the inland trade line. As long as you have cash, you can take them to various places to buy many high-quality and cheap things, and you will definitely make a fortune in the end.

The two sides have a tacit understanding, and when Rurik personally participated in the small sacrifice of the locals, this tacit understanding became a contract. What surprised these local nobles was that King Ross attached great importance to the contract. He wanted to write the contract on paper, engrave it on a yellow-white pine board, and make multiple copies to form a written document. The quill is signed in the traditional runic script common in Scandinavia.

Therefore, in the eyes of the Latvians, King Ross is a great honor based on everyone who is not glorious. Everyone knows their exact strength, and thanks to King Ross who thinks highly of everyone spiritually and has actually given everyone a chance to make a fortune, naturally they must be loyal to him!

because! King Ross is already paying cash!

It was a batch of silver coins looted from the local nobles in Smolensk. They didn't weigh much. According to the rules established ten years ago, half of all the looted coins should be handed over to King Ross.

How much money did the soldiers loot? Rurik didn't have the time and energy to investigate, he did hold a batch of silver coins in his hands. There are not many silver coins, and it seems that the remaining ones are less than fifty pounds.

In the capital city and Novgorod, this money is still a huge amount of money, which is nothing to Rurik. Converted into official grain, it is 50,000 pounds of oats, and the new oats that have been hulled and have a high moisture content during harvest, you can buy

to eighty thousand pounds.

And the annual grain income of the royal family's official land has reached more than five million pounds! And this is based on the fact that the Kingdom of Ross has suspended the collection of food taxes. Without him, most of the good fields plundered by the war belonged to the royal family, and a group of Slavic mikes were hired to take care of them. Even if it was a relatively rough farming method with a sufficient area, the harvest was still extremely impressive.

The use of new farm tools, preliminary irrigation systems, the introduction of leguminous plantings, and the use of crop rotation systems can be described as a kind of intensive cultivation compared with the past era, which has indeed led to a steady and small-scale increase in the unit output of grain.

Even though Rurik still feels that his own agricultural level can still be described as "rotten", it is actually twice as strong as other ethnic groups in this area in terms of grain output per unit. After food loss, it will be three or four times stronger.

In an unfavorable environment, relying on the improvement of traditional agriculture, the yield per mu in the grain core area of the Ross Kingdom is approaching the limit of the current technological level. After all, Rurik knows that even if he uses chemical fertilizers, he will not be able to increase the yield per mu. An agricultural miracle of a thousand catties - even if this cold and rotten land is sprinkled with golden keratin, and in time for a bumper harvest, it will produce at most four hundred catties of winter wheat per mu.

The agricultural environment in the Gulf of Riga is at the same level as Novgorod, and Rurik does not expect the locals to provide a large amount of food for the army. It is possible to make smoked herring jerky and rough sodium salt in batches, and since ancient times, the old Russians have regarded herring as their staple food, but wheat is a rare thing.

If the Russian army once again lived on fish and fish oil, Rurik reckons

There is nothing wrong with that.

Furthermore, the Ross army has carried a large amount of plundered food up to now. When the cavalry troops are stationed, the food that people eat and chew on horses does not need the locals to provide.

However, the people of Riga have already taken action. Women carrying baskets boldly approached the camp outside the city of the Ross army, selling homemade salty cheese, large salt ingots, and freeze-dried dried fish~www.mtlnovel.com~even, There are young women who betray their lust...

This is true for women, and it is also true for men. When everyone understands that this Russian army is their own force, a large number of Latvians think of making money immediately, and they have a sum of cash in their hands, even if they are very young Russian soldiers. Buy some souvenirs for a toothbrush festival. After all, there are really ice-piercing fishermen selling hard-frozen big cod. The appearance of the Ross garrison directly led to the depression of the fresh fish market in Riga, or from another perspective, the fish trading market is not depression, but Moved to the camp of the Rus.

Without him, Ross fighters really give money, even generously!

A bigger cod is exchanged for a silver coin, which is a good deal in the three views of young Ross soldiers, and it is generous in the eyes of the less advanced Latvians.

Immediately, the reputation of the Ross army as rich and self-willed spread throughout Riga, and then quickly spread to nearby villages, so more villagers stopped watching and moved towards Riga with their own local products, for fear that those Ross soldiers would run out of money. I threw myself to nothing.

This was unexpected by Rurik, and it is reasonable to think about it: "We, like the US troops stationed in Korea, are creating a special boom in military supplies."