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In NovostLaurik, he learned of some more southern conditions. The Lovati River, which is said to lead to Smolensk, went straight to the south. The Ostara people made some explorations, except for hunting. There are no new discoveries outside of some squirrels and otters.
The men are responsible for the development, but their hometowns in Northern Europe are all professional farmers.
The forest is quiet, and the infestation of birds and beasts further sets off the silence here. It seems that a large area of space to the south is no man's land.
"It seems that this is the southern border of the Principality, and some defensive measures should be taken to prevent accidents."
Rurik felt that his speculation was correct. Since the waterway can extend as far as Smolensk, it would be better for the other party to keep peace. If there is hostility, the other party can go down the river. Then New Ostra is very good. Sadly, once again became a battlefield.
Such speculation surprised Carlotta. She once again remembered the horror of being dominated by the tragedy of corpses in her homeland. As for how to deal with the crisis, she naturally needs the military asylum of Prince Ross. In addition, the city of New Ostara must also be fortified.
Rurik is very happy that the cattle and sheep here have the potential to thrive, that is, the hope of drinking milk and cheese on their own has been lost.
The fleet circled Lake Ilmen, and all the farms that surrendered were inspected by the prince.
Rurik had a very important harvest. He saw the farmland with his own eyes and compared the growth of wheat on different farms. It is obvious that Novgorod and Mstisk, which use drill technology, have a very good layout of wheat. The effect of earing on a regular basis is also better.
The seed drill technology not only brings the ultimate year-on-year high yield, but also saves labor during the harvest period.
The wheat harvest is finally here!
Rurik's fleet had just returned to Mstisk, and a light rain arrived unexpectedly.
The rain came very late, as if the gods were joking to people. The climate in Eastern Europe is always like this. Summer rainfall is always accompanied by severe cooling, especially in August. Even if it is a light rain, it makes people feel full of autumn.
Fortunately, this is only the rain caused by the fluctuation of the air current. If there is an arctic cold current going southward, it will cause severe frost disaster and will almost destroy this year's autumn harvest. The erosion of the cold current often occurs in September, although the possibility of appearing in August is not high. Once the crops are ripe, no one dares to confront the gods, and the autumn harvest will never be delayed until September.
The local Slavs are preparing long-handled scythes for the farm, and they are also assisted by a batch of short-handled scythes.
The method of autumn harvest is like this. Facing the large fields of the farm, the labor force of the entire farm is assembled, regardless of gender.
The mature men all handle the scythe with a long handle. They can be divided into multiple groups, and each group rotates the scythe to achieve the effect of always reaping the sickle. The scythe circulates in a semicircle in the farmland. This process is very dangerous. The wheat stalks are cut down frantically. If there are people standing in front of them, the scythe can cut off the calves of the predecessors under the swing of the man.
The chopped wheat stalks and the drooping wheat ears of oats were pushed to the sides by scythes. The women and children held hemp ropes and straw ropes to follow closely, and bundled the loose wheat stalks and threw them onto the two-wheeled trolley, or directly Directly resist walking.
Some flat grounds will be rammed in advance, and stones and wooden piles will be rammed into hard ground that is rare in the local area as a threshing ground.
Bundles of wheat stalks were unloaded here, and people holding wooden shackles kept ramming them.
Conditional farms will also carry out pre-processing, that is, the guillotine cuts off the wheat ears of the bundles of wheat stalks, and only the densely gathered wheat ears are rammed by the chain.
Because every grain of European oats is densely wrapped in bran, it is a physical task to beat the grains out, and it also requires a lot of labor from the farm.
Although oatmeal has its disadvantages in harvesting and processing, the local people have no choice in their long lives. People on the shores of Lake Ilmen traditionally grow only oats, and rye is a supplement.
The people of Novgorod City are also preparing for the autumn harvest that is so traditional that they can no longer be more traditional. They do not have more advanced wheat harvesting tools, and Rurik is currently not thinking about making any harvesting machinery. Wheat harvesting is still a labor-intensive job, and the advantage of crowds at this time is fully demonstrated.
It is sunny after the rain, and the pleasant sunset gives the immigrants a great sense of security. As the temperature rises, the process of wheat earing and yellowing is greatly accelerated.
The drooping ears of wheat turn yellow, and they should be harvested with a sickle.
Even if the immigrants from the Ross headquarters are planting wheat on a large scale by themselves for the first time, everyone knows the timing of the wheat harvest.
They will personally break the dense bran of oats and use chewing to determine whether the wheat is ripe.
After waiting for the whole warm period, Rurik stood here with his army. All the conditions were ripe, and the first oats sown had reached the harvest season!
The entire labor force (including children) that can be mobilized in Mstisk is as many as four thousand people.
Rurik has no time to manage the wheat harvest in Novgorod not far away. He is concerned about the work in the main grain-producing areas that he can firmly control, especially his own acreage.
The wheat is also heading, and the ears are still dark green. Their appearance makes the people quite curious. This is naturally not uncommon for Rurik. On the contrary, there are oats everywhere. This situation makes Rurik strange and regrets that low-yield oats have been planted in the fields.
In Rurik's concept, the change of wheat ears from dark green to yellow is a very rapid process. Maybe the first ripe oats are harvested and the wheat can be harvested too.
Nothing is more important than wheat harvest now.
It was a clear morning. The sun in early August was still warm. The morning mist that filled the lake gradually dissipated. The people who were ordered to assemble stood on the flat ground next to the dock of the lake outside Mstisk. The comprehensive unloading yard of ship materials reserved here is now the most ideal gathering place for personnel.
Facing four thousand men, women and children, Rurik was rolled into a trumpet shape, standing on a slanting wheelbarrow, holding a paper trumpet to preach to his tribe.
"Our immigration work is over! You are all the Russians who immigrated to the Novgorod region! The land under your feet was conquered by you with the sword and axe of Ross, you planted the seeds, and now the wheat is mature! Odin Bless us, now we are harvesting the wheat and we have to complete it successfully in two weeks!"
He repeated similar words. At first, scattered people cheered and gradually turned into a crowd.
Look at these people! Among them, the men are carrying scythes on a large scale, and the Ross people, who have huge iron resources, can use carbon steel tools unscrupulously. A batch of long-handled scythes made in the homeland are now wonderfully used. .
Strictly speaking, oats, wheat, and rye are all derived from green grasses similar to setaria. Their essence is grass. The so-called autumn harvest is similar to the way of collecting pastures for livestock.
The whole Europe used scythe to harvest crops. This is directly related to the agricultural technology radiation of the Roman Empire long ago. Many barbarians converted from fishing and hunting to farming, and the first thing to do was to learn Roman agriculture. They were Slavs who lived in the northern border area of Rome. Even if they immigrated to the distant Lake Ilmen, the Roman skills they learned would not be lost. As for the large Germanic tribes who served as mercenaries to the Roman Empire for a long time, such as the Franks, Frank's expansion was by the way spreading agricultural technology to the north.
Even if Roman agronomy was not savvy and was continuously lost in the process of spreading northward, the two techniques of harvesting wheat with scythe and ramming and unhulling with flails can be said to have been inherited by the three ethnic groups of the North Germanic, Slavic, and Baltic.
There are more than one hundred scythes here in Mstiysk. At the critical moment, they also made magical changes to their steel saber, because the hilt of the sword is mostly a wooden block sandwiched by a core iron piece with hemp rope and tendons. The hoop was wound, the hilt was dismantled, and the sword was tied horizontally to the wooden pole, and a simple scythe was born.
The strong men of the First Banner team have started to split up, and they rushed to their own fields with their wives and children. The man manipulates the scythe to cut the wheat like killing an enemy, and how happy it feels to cut everything. Women and children are busy gathering wheat, and everyone dare not rest more. This is related to the important matter of the whole year of next year's livelihood. Even if they are tired almost coughing up blood, they must continue to struggle.
Rurik held a long-handled wooden chain yoke, and looked at the top of this thing was a three-section stick tied with a rope. Relying on the whipping effect, he flicked the chain yoke and whipped it **** the oatmeal poles piled in small hills.
The prince is showing to his own people. He is doing a show and not entirely doing a show, because the pile of oats is legally the property of his cousin. He was a prince then, but now he is more willing to help his cousin with farm work as a younger brother.
He sweats like rain and must use great force in the process of ramming. The accumulated exhaustion has caused him to speak unintentionally, just repeat the ramming action, and endure the fatigue of his arms until the night.
The moon rose, and Rurik, sweating a lot, sat in a bonfire. He was accompanied by an old man, and these were all young cubs under his command. Everyone was busy for the first day, but now no one was silly after resting.
Everyone sweats a lot, and the old clothes have just been handed over to the women to wash them, and they are being placed in pieces by the campfire to bake. Everyone put on spare clothes. Everyone felt that they would sweat out their entire lives in one day because of their weakness.
Fisk felt cold all over, and his three wives were sitting beside him and warming themselves, feeling the same chill.
"Rurik..." Or he opened the chatterbox first, "We help them harvest the wheat, and wait until our youth city...they will help too?"
"Hey, it's all from Ross, you worry about this? As long as I give an order, the soldiers must obey."
The work of Rose's young cubs, Arik, is in sight, and he follows his brother's words to assure: "Fisker, you can rest assured that I will not only help you, but also help you build the city."
"Oh! That's great. Thank you so much..."
"No thanks! Boy, your father and my father fought side by side and died for Rose in the same battle. You are now the flag captain of the Sixth Flag team and have a bright future in the future. I am also your brother, and I should help you. "
But how can Fiskholt be brothers with Arik? But the other party's words are very heartwarming, more comfortable than this flame.
The iron pot pottery urn is cooking freshly made oats. The boiled oatmeal is filled with some yellow root carrots and locally collected freshness and nutrition, and then a lot of salt is poured frantically.
The way that the Principality of Ross obtains salt has never depended on the supply of the Balmerks in Narvik, which faces the Atlantic Ocean. The Balmerks provide the best salt. The price of buying this salt is not high, but the time cost of logistics. It's ridiculously high.
No matter how low the salt content of the seawater in the Gulf of Finland is, it is also seawater. Even if you have to pay more for firewood, the work of getting seawater and boiling salt has been done in Shilla Fort. Fortunately, there are inexhaustible wood resources in the local area. Salt is nothing but a job to add more firewood.
In this Novgorod region, no one can eat salt more unscrupulously than the Russians.
The people who were forced to rest at night achieved significant results on the first day of the autumn harvest. For the time being, everyone did not want to talk because they were exhausted. When the hot salty wheat porridge was cooked, everyone regained their strength after a feast, and then went to the bonfire to talk about the mountains. Link.
The men boast about how much wheat they have cut this year and estimate their wealth of wheat. They show off their sturdy arms and boast that one person can cut several hectares of wheat without knowing what exhaustion is.
They finished bragging about their strength, and then started talking about women.
There are always comparisons where there are people. They show off their regular wives and concubines, boasting that they can give birth to children whose hands cannot be counted. At this point, some people began to tease their princes. Wouldn't the so-called more than a dozen wives and concubines give birth to a total of 100 children? They don't doubt the abilities of Prince Rurik. First of all, the "April Bull" is tireless, not to mention that it is a son of God, which is of course different from mortals.
Rurik smiled when he heard a comment about himself.
They can talk about having children desperately with his wife, which makes him gratified. The Ross people have changed. When every man has a lot of wheat, a couple bid farewell to the past life. They no longer have to selectively cultivate offspring due to limited resources, but have the capital to reproduce unscrupulously. . Besides, this autumn harvest is a very realistic demonstration of the fact that the number of people determines the efficiency of the autumn harvest.
If you encounter rainy weather, you have to grab the wheat. The weather is rare now. But everyone is totally immersed in the joy of harvest. In line with the good habits of the Rus people to store wealth, each household is eager to put their own money in two or three days. The acres were harvested clean, and finally they were stuffed into their own granary, and then they took out one-tenth to pay taxes to the princes.
The strong Russian man is generally a head taller than the traditional Slavic farmers in the region, and his stature is stronger, which is reflected in the greater efficiency of the wheat harvest.
The first sown oats were harvested in just three days, and all the wheat kernels were husked and shoveled into coarse cloth sacks with wooden shovel, and bales of land were moved into the house.
As early as six years ago, the Russians began to improve their homes. Rurik played a huge role model in this regard. He made another improvement to the traditional woodcut of the Slavs. The addition of closet facilities enhanced winter heating. The wooden floor above the ground greatly avoids moisture. This kind of woodcut can be directly used as a granary, although everyone will still face the problem of rat haunting, the latter is completely a small problem.
In this era, the Ross people even used mice as a kind of food. It was a kind of meat like squirrels and minks, but the leather of mice was useless. In the past, under difficult circumstances, the Ross people naturally had what to eat, and the rotten fish could not be eaten by mistake. As for the diseases caused by diarrhea, no one cared.
The problem of rodent infestation that cannot be eliminated by the original storage technology is a problem, but Rurik has not thought about eliminating the problem of food loss caused by moisture and rodent infestation. He needs the people to quickly stuff the harvested wheat into their homes, and then continue to sweep the remaining fields.
People want to harvest the leftover wheat for Prince Ross. For this, the prince only provides free food during the harvest.
The men have no complaints, because everyone knows how the princes used wheat in the past few years. Everyone seems to be harvesting wheat for the princes. This is true, but the ultimate benefit is also the general public. The prince still owns an astonishing area of land. Now the wheat here has reached the point where it can be harvested. The promise of the prince remains unchanged. Every month there will be a batch of wheat for sale. Its price is constant regardless of the famine year and the good year. Everyone can buy a batch of wheat every month, and then make delicious soft glutinous scones at home, which is impossible with oats.
The Principality of Rus implemented a de facto food-based policy. The princes prohibit runs. They also stipulate the amount and price of wheat sold each month in the form of laws. The purchasing power of every silver coin is fixed, that is, ten pounds of oats and rye. Or nine pounds of wheat, and the price of salt is also anchored by wheat.
To ensure the economic stability of the Duchy of Ross~www.mtlnovel.com~, it is necessary to ensure that a large amount of wheat is stuffed into the prince's "national granary" in the homelands of Novgorod, Shilla Fort and Fort Ross.
The people's ideological awareness is not that high, and their vision is not very long-term.
They are more aware of the fact that when the prince convenes an army to fight, each soldier does not need to bring his own dry food in theory, and the army's grain is paid by the state granary.
Now the wheat is also mature, which is completely different from the drooping oat ears. The whole wheat ears are straight up like a spearhead, and the density of wheat kernels is also significantly higher than that of oats. Of course, the wheat ears here are not so dense that they can't be used. The yield of wheat fields without chemical fertilizers and even farm manure will not be high. Even so, they are stronger than oats, and the most notable feature is naturally wheat ears. There can be as many as 20 grains on the ears, and everyone has to admire the natural high yield of a British hardy wheat species!
The men lined up like a battlefield. The scythes swept across and the wheat stalks were cut down. This was the first large-scale planting of wheat on Novgorod's land. The experimental planting had a huge amount visible to the naked eye. As a result, Rurik made a firm decision to plant wheat in the beginning of spring next year, and let Novgorod, Mstisk and Youth City use wheat planting as their business.