From Kotlin Island to the mouth of the Neva River, a huge area is enveloped by a whole block of hard ice floes.

The thickness of the ice layer is more than half a meter, and the large ships moored in the port are firmly trapped by the ice layer, and a large number of rowing boats are directly pushed to the shore and fixed to wooden stakes with cables.

Strips of snow are attached, and the towering wooden walls are covered with ice. The whole city looks like an ice sculpture, standing in the bay of Northland.

The sun dazzled the ice, and teams running wild on the ice generally wore sunglasses to shield them.

The team marched forcibly in the sun, and the whole scene was poetic.

It is no secret that the Royal Society will personally participate in this year's Hanukkah. As the festival approaches, the people of Shilla Fort are ready to welcome visitors from Novgorod.

However, before that, a group of guests from the hometown of Roseburg had already arrived at the port with supplies before the sea was completely frozen. Even after the sea was frozen, there were still sporadic sled teams transporting goods to sell.

As far as the permanent population is concerned, Fort Shilla is second to Novgorod. Due to the arrival of a group of merchants and hunters, the population of the city on the eve of the festive season has exceeded 8,000.

Eight thousand people living together is considered a big city?

Indeed, in a residential area a thousand years later, several rows of 100-meter-high "pigeon cages" can even swallow tens of thousands of people. Although the Duchy of Rus has the ability to build high-rise buildings, at best, only a wealthy man like the prince can afford to build a three-story or four-story wooden attic. Some resident wealthy people have indeed built large-scale construction projects in the city of Shilla Fort, and the three-story wood carvings with herringbone storage rooms have begun to appear in large numbers.

Tall buildings are limited to the urban area within the walls, and outside the walls are large areas of wooden houses.

The expansion of the city is entirely a pancake model, even so there is still a lot of vacant land in the city.

Therefore, the first image that King Ross gave Kagan was her hugeness.

A huge city must have a lot of rare things, and can live a huge population in the extremely cold north, the Ross people must have their brilliance. He really hopes to buy some treasures in the city, especially the finest salt.

The city wall was in front of him, and a dense group of woodcuts appeared on the south bank of the frozen river, and a large number of people walked out of the house and waved to the team.

The whole team slowed down. With this opportunity, Kagan yanked on the reins and drove the horse into Rurik's sleigh.

"Duke, are the prices you set absolutely stable?"

"You? What do you want to buy in the city?" Rurik yelled in excitement.

"Salt!"

"Salt? One pound of silver and ten pounds of good salt, you can buy as much as you want! Just don't make too much publicity in the market. Remember, you are visitors, and there are also a group of foreign visitors in the market. You are all warriors, thousands of people. Don't start a dispute with others, if something happens, I won't be biased towards you."

Kagan fully agreed, thinking about the Prince's words carefully.

There are still many foreign visitors in the market. Isn't it true that the place where you are is still not the northern end of the world?

How big is this world?

The team finally reached the end of the journey. Upon hearing the news, the Governor-General Konuzon and his son gathered together the militiamen who were patrolling the city defense, dressed in costumes, and then led a group of people to gather at the ice-bound pier to welcome the return of the prince.

A pregnant woman with a straight belly was dressed in a deerskin gown and a huge antler helmet on her head.

She was dressed like a wild elf in the forest, her rugged dress slightly concealed her young face. She was more anxious than others, and brought her team of priests to gather at the dock.

Lu Mia is still the same Lu Mia. She must act as the presiding high priest for Hanukkah this year, even if her second child is about to be born, which makes the current activities inconvenient.

I haven't seen the prince for several months. As a noble person, her heart is extremely lonely. Both her daughter and the prince are in Novgorod, and the two cities are not far away. However, her own duties make it impossible to leave.

She lives with the amber-inlaid wooden staff of the former high priest, which is a holy relic of the duchy and a testament to her nobleness.

Standing around the high priest were more than a dozen junior priests wearing plain white fox fur hats on their heads, and a noble deputy, the daughter of Chief Kewen, Lumi.

Seeing a tall and handsome young man walking down the sledge surrounded by many cavalry, to be honest, seeing the large number of Ross soldiers riding on horseback, Lumia was shocked.

Not only her, the people onlookers would never have imagined that the principality actually had a cavalry unit. What a dream! The horses are generally wrapped in white cloth stitched with blue patterns, which seems to have the effect of keeping the horses warm. The riders are wearing Ross-style shirts, and they are also holding Ross flags.

Hunting with flags on the ice, horses and deer dressed violently, and the cavalry in the sun has a sense of pressure like a hill. The fact is that the strong Nordic men riding the tall Turkic horses give people absolute strength. The sense of.

A man walked out of the majestic team and became a mighty background, which also brought out the powerful strength of Prince Liurik.

The governor and his son, who were trembling to death by the mighty aura, walked cautiously, and involuntarily asked about the origin of the cavalry.

"This? This is what I have done in Novgorod in the past few months. I tell you that our cavalry will be more and more. When the cubs of Shilla Fort grow up, I will recruit a group of people. Be a cavalry and enrich our army's land warfare strength." Liurik made a magnificent outlook.

Little Conusson will be the next governor of Shilla Fort, or mayor, without accident, and he will also have the obligation to organize the civilian army to respond to the king's call and fight in person.

Those pretty boys are riding tall horses, why isn't Little Conusson curious?

Because there is a rider who is clearly Arik!

They are all the same age, all are brothers who walked out of the Roseburg Fjord, why is this guy so beautiful? The other brothers also had to learn to ride horses, and Shilla Fort had to have a standing cavalry squad, which would at least be good for daily patrols.

The brief greeting was broken by the woman who thought she had lost her calmness.

Lumia hurriedly walked, ignoring the men's small talk, her pot belly, or even the words of the onlookers.

"Mastra!" she yelled until she rushed in front of her man.

She threw herself into her man's arms under the gaze of her many eyes, and her eyes were full of tears...

The prince blessed by the gods held the high priest in his arms. Who would dare to say that they were not cherished.

Only Lumia has the right to call Rurik Mastra, the so-called master. This was appointed by Rurik, the exclusive power of Lumia, and a symbol of friendship.

Such an intimate scene made Svetlana and the other women jealous, and the other concubines each knew themselves, but as a queen, Lanna saw that the prince and the high priest were intimacy, what was the depression in her heart? She patted her face vigorously and forced her to calm down to make a smile.

Rurik was a full head taller than Lumia. She was already twenty years old, and she was crying like a child.

Rurik buried his mouth in his ear: "Obviously, I am a mother again, so I don't cultivate in the temple and risk welcoming me."

"I... just miss you. And our daughter."

"I miss you too. I will live in the city for a while, and the other women will walk away, and we will be with you day and night for some time to come." Rurik made a promise, in exchange for Lumia crying even more. Sound, she was howling with excitement.

No, four-year-old Velika came over and hugged her mother's legs, calling her mother milkyly in her milk. Lumia, who was overjoyed, used amazing strength again, and she lifted her daughter in a daze. After a sudden kiss, he squeezed it into the arms of Rurik, who was his father.

Noble princes should pay attention to pomp and need to set an example for the people. What's more, Rurik learned that a group of Swedish allies simply took the goods to Shilla Fort for direct trade in winter, so-called saving freight and purchasing cheap oriental leather. In this way, the prince is even more pompous!

A small triumph becomes extremely important.

Just like the first crusade against the Karelians that year, the Russian army assembled in Shilla Fort, and the army lined up in a matrix on the Harvest Square outside the palace to be inspected by the princes. After that, they walked around the city twice around the road under the city wall, and the army was beautiful. Run to the battlefield of the expedition with extremely high morale.

This time is naturally the first show of the Ross Principality Cavalry, and it must leave a very positive impression on thousands of people.

Ruriek, who was on a sleigh, turned into a knight. He led the entire cavalry into the city and walked on Nevsky Prospekt.

The tall wooden wall obscured the grand occasion in the city, and the Pecheneg people on horseback were probably brought into the city with weapons to strengthen the prince's prestige.

Take a look at this city!

Kagan opened his eyes wide, and he saw a group of double-storey wooden houses on both sides of the road, some of which were even covered to the third floor. Even some houses have stone bases, or simply piled up stones (bricks). As seen in Novgorod, there are drainage ditches on both sides of the road in Shilla Fort. Obviously this is the key to keeping the city clean, even now the ditches are frozen.

Residents cheered and whistled on both sides of the road, and even found all kinds of things to beat to create momentum. For example, a young boy picked up his father's buckler, held it in his left hand, and beat it with a wooden stick in his right hand.

The cavalry team is followed by the reindeer sleigh team, and the whole team has grown up and entered the city.

In the end, people gathered in Harvest Square, which had become a winter market.

What kind of business are merchants from all walks of life doing now? A man dressed like a bear cordially watched this majestic cavalry team, and Prince Rurik received endless glory...

In fact, it was this square that gave Kagan a huge shock. Although it was an infinite flat land on the southern Russian grassland, a huge and very hard flat land appeared in the city, which gave him a huge shock.

Because this flat land is really unusual!

The governor Konuzon and his son have been implementing the orders of the prince, at least until now. The father and son, out of their moral and tribal warrior honor, dare not embezzle frantically. Meal needs. Shilla Fort itself is a huge tax source, and merchants must pay taxes on their economic activities. This tax has been set in the hometown of Rose Fort that year and has been implemented for many years, and merchants' tax payments are also adjusted annually.

Rurik was deeply involved in the economic development of the Novgorod agricultural area, and the taxation work of Shilla Fort appoints Governor Konuzon with full authority.

Cornuzon actually became a tax packager. He was ordered to build a magnificent city for the prince. The infrastructure must be paid for, and he should not rely on national treasury funds as much as possible to complete the construction by relying on local taxes as much as possible. These are Cornu. Song needs to report to Rurik himself.

A part of Fengshou Square is paved with cement. As long as you pry off the solid snow that has been stepped on, you can see the hard gray road surface.

The "Plaza Cementing Project" can be described as beneficial to the country and the people. After being fully cemented, it will become a super-large threshing floor, which can basically meet the work of drying oats in the area. The same non-agricultural busy period incarnates the harvest plaza of the market, and merchants and customers do not need it. Worried about muddy potholes.

The base of the wooden fence continues to be reinforced with cement, and the cementing project of all roads in the city is slowly proceeding.

Rurik did not lack the financial resources to hire personnel to lay the cement, because the key lime, iron ore slag, and sandstone came from different places and needed to be transported to Shilla Fort by ship. Not only these three materials are transported, the barge is also transporting whole pieces of granite and pebbles into the city. The transportation of these heavy materials relies on the summer transportation marked with transport ships. The half-year-long winter and the freezing of the sea have greatly restricted the efficiency of the construction of Fort Shilla.

What's a good way? On both sides of the Neva River and even the huge Valdai highlands including Novgorod, there are too soft mud everywhere. The most scarce thing is stone, because this huge area has no mountains at all. Of course, it is precisely this reason. Lurik consciously must train a cavalry. In winter, when the convenience of the summer water network is lost, the cavalry is the key to ensuring the duchy's winter operations.

Even if the construction is slow, the current construction results have made Rurik very satisfied.

He was very happy that a large number of scaffoldings were placed in an open space next to the Winter Palace that he ordered to build. Although a batch of stones were laid out on the ground in a disorderly manner, the granite base was indeed being pieced together.

The original Winter Palace was a large long house combining the advantages of the woodcut and the Viking long house. According to Rurik's new needs, the new Winter Palace should have the style of the old palace in Roseburg's hometown. It is essentially an enlarged version. A wooden four-story castle with a stone base. The tenon-and-mortise structure widely used in ship construction is used for palace construction. The new Hermitage in Rurik will be shown with a stable structure similar to a pyramid. It is also the tallest building in the city, and even the tallest building in the Nordic region!

Naturally, there is no need to worry about the wood for the construction of the palace, and the huge red pine and spruce everywhere in the area provide sufficient materials.

They are also good materials for shipbuilding. Except for the keel and ship ribs, they are constructed from the dry oak found in the forest area, and the other parts are made of spruce. Therefore, there is an extra walled area on the riverside, which is where the "Neva Shipyard" of the Hotra family is located. A huge spruce stands on the soft riverside to form a frame structure. Two indoor shipbuilding workshops were completed and put into production. The standard cargo ship from Shilla Fort has been launched and put into the business network of the East and North Baltic Sea. The new cargo ship is still under construction.

The New Winter Palace just built the base and erected a large number of load-bearing spruce columns. The winter construction of the migrant workers is proceeding step by step. Look, some of the load-bearing columns have already laid wooden beams, and the frame structure of the second floor is already under construction.

Kagan could not imagine the grand occasion after the completion of the new palace, he noticed some other magnificent buildings!

Just like the largest temple in the Duchy of Rus, a stone temple inlaid with countless precious stones that reflects intensely in the sun.

The first temple of the Principality has been completed. The sculptures of the gods inside have been visited in random, and hundreds of people can kneel and pray inside.

The people called the first temple the "Gem House", and some even praised it as the "Valhalla on Earth". It has been pasted with a layer of stained glass and colored glaze. These chaotically shaped crystal clear objects are all mass-produced, and they are not valuable in themselves. The expectations of the temple.

Harvest Square can be described as the core area of Fort Shilla. The square is surrounded by the Old Winter Palace, the new Winter Palace is under construction, the huge Rose Duma Council Chamber, the magnificent First Temple, and the heavily guarded granary area on the artificial highlands.

The people who had gone through the long journey finally settled down. After the daytime scenery passed, the cavalry including the Pecheneg people all enjoyed a meal of roasted venison.

Military events and festive rituals, these major events will be formally discussed in Rosduma tomorrow.

Tonight, everyone needs a full meal and a comfortable sleep.

After the scenery, Kagan waited for the Pecheneg to surrender his horses, and all the horses were under unified management. At the same time, he also learned that there were 20,000 reindeer wandering around Shilla Fort. They were domesticated creatures, most of them. It is the property of the royal family. There is a group of people called "deer-raiser" who is loyal to the royal family and is ordered to take care of all the deer. Even the high priest of the principality himself is a "deer-raiser".

There are so many wonderful things, what Kagan has seen and heard is inexhaustible freshness. He is also like a poor boy who has just arrived in the big city. He is novel and has a low self-esteem. He really needs a little time to adapt.

More than Kagan? Ragnar, who was in exile a few months ago, was not allowed to enter Shilla Fort because of his Danish status. The whole family of women and children were "detained" in Novgorod. Only then did the thirty brothers who accompanied him enter the city of Russ. .

In a daze, Ragnar had an illusion that this big city was in a sense like Frank's Bremen burned down by himself. The same is the big square, the same is the structure of the aristocratic residence and the big temple, as well as the pier on the riverside and a large number of ships. Only in terms of scale, Shilla Fort is the most magnificent city he has ever seen.

In fact, because Rurik built the Silla Fortress in accordance with the old city structure of St. Petersburg and Moscow in the impression, she was carefully planned out an inner city from the beginning. The structure of the residential area in the outer city is quite chaotic. Zhi, just like her title of "Harp City", the straight road is like a string, there are a large number of standard crossroads, and even a good harvest is also a square.

The palace of the prince is called the Winter Palace. Without him, the Winter Palaces of the two planes are in the same place. Another plane of the Senate Council of St. Petersburg, the original plane is the Duma Council of the Duchy of Russ.

Even the small sandbar just north of the Hermitage is called Rabbit Island. There is indeed a small wooden fortress built there. While guarding the entrance of the Neva River, taxes are imposed on merchant ships, except for those of people from the Ross headquarters. (temporary).

Of course, the people who wander here all believe in the Nordic gods such as Odin, Thor, and Freya, and at most there is Peron, the Slav **** of fire.

This is a famous northern city favored by Odin, at least Odin will not reject warriors who believe in him.

Ragnar was more self-aware than Kagan and other steppe sons. He signaled his subordinates not to run around in the city, let alone the fact that he was a Danish.

The people who have returned have eaten a big meal and took a steam bath. The floral essential oil soap washes away the dirt on the body, and the body smell has become a floral fragrance. After the boat and cart labor is eliminated, the whole person is also limp~www.mtlnovel.com~ not at this time When do you sleep more?

A large number of people live in a warm, vacant warehouse. Lagla takes the brothers to lay the floor together, the fireplace warms the air in the house, and they fall asleep when the barbecue is full of the aroma of essential oils and soap. Kagan waited for the Pecheneg to sleep in another vacant warehouse. Naturally, their weapons were temporarily kept, and only the money for the purchase of supplies remained on them.

All the young Ross cavalry were treated well. They directly arranged the governor to patrol the soldiers' dormitory. It was a warmer house, and it was convenient to go to the toilet or eat supper. As for the homes of horses and deer, they are naturally in the deer pens, and they also enjoy a very sufficient supply of hay and oats.

This night, the pregnant Lumia hugged her Rurik, and the two eldest daughter Velika slept in the middle, twisting her body playfully, enjoying the rare parental love.

Such intimacy is better than a thousand words, as if they were the closest family members, really the other wives and concubines of Musharurik.

Svetlana, Nolen, Carlotta, and others, as well as Saiporava who came here from Elronburg, the girls gathered together to talk, talk, laugh and laugh, they were happy, they played Chase in the palace and stayed together. To welcome the dawn.