Rise of Rurik

Otto, the big leader of the Rus, finally felt that life could be calm for a while, and after he could rest for a while, he would make arrangements to go to Novgorod Sorgon this spring. As a result, the entire clan was going to be restless again, and the reason was only from the son's dream.

The warm home atmosphere was solemn, and Rurik sat here with a firm attitude.

One thing Otto was annoyed about was that his noble son was going to be a shipbuilder.

Otto made no secret of his displeasure: "If you want to build a ship, you can send someone to do it. You actually want to be a craftsman yourself? Carry a hammer yourself. You can give pointers here, as for mixing with those boat builders' children? You Think it's a pastime? Or do you think you can mingle with them and make yourself happy? Listen, you're just going to make a lot of people think you're not noble enough."

"Huh?" Rurik, who was originally smiling, froze awkwardly on the leather cushion.

"Tell me, do you want to continue?"

"I..." Rurik didn't expect Otto to see his mind clearly. Thinking about it carefully, a leader really gets along with craftsmen, and the leader will be self-satisfied because of his closeness to the people. As for whether it has touched everyone, it may be as Otto said.

Even so, Rurik made up his mind.

He cheered up: "Dad, it's my decision. It's my boat to build, and it only makes sense if I do it myself."

In fact, Rurik still had an idea, but because of his own bad taste, he was eager to cater to history. Because Peter the Great was an apprentice in the shipyard and later became the Holy Lord of Rus. History chose Rurik to lay the foundation for Ross, and he felt worthy of this responsibility. Being involved in shipbuilding in person has a strong symbolic meaning, it just doesn't resonate with others.

"Okay! That's your decision. My attitude is against it, but I won't stop you. There's only one thing you have to figure out."

"What is it?"

"You have to worry about a group of warriors who are good at carpentry, and you have to pay them at least daily food. Is it worth it? I checked, and a million pounds of grain is now less than 200,000 pounds of grain. Just keep consuming. Go down, the food will be eaten soon. The food can be exchanged for 20,000 silver coins, do you want to give it to them? Then this ship is extremely expensive. "

Rurik hesitated for a moment, he thought of something, and immediately clarified his attitude: "Dad, this is my decision, in the future you will understand that the ships we built at a great cost will also bring us great I don't want to describe an overly bright future, I just hope you don't have to worry about anything anymore.

I just want to get your approval now, and let you gather everyone to build a ship in the name of the leader. "

Otto pouted his mouth full of stubble: "At this moment, you can just raise your arms and shout. Do you still need me?"

"But you are the leader."

"Haha, I thought you forgot." Otto smiled bitterly, and sighed with a hint of sadness: "You have grown up. Well, I will help you."

Otto's attitude really made Rurik feel a little uncomfortable. For the first time, he noticed his father's old age. Otto's arms are still strong, and his beard is strong, but he still exudes masculine strength, even in recent years, his aging is obvious.

There is nothing older than an old heart. Seeing that his son is so active, Otto also intends to let go of power in order to become a happy rich man. Xianyun Yehe is an extravagant hope, and he is the big leader. Just as Rurik, who knows the rules, said, summoning the entire tribe to engage in some big things, only the big leader can speak.

No, Otto immediately pulled his son, and even a group of influential figures in the tribe together. In the end, it was he who issued the summoning order. At a time when the temperature was still cold, more than a thousand men and women dressed in heavy leather jackets happily gathered at the door of the leader's house.

Some news about speeding up shipbuilding went viral among the tribes immediately. These news were also made by Rurik to let his mercenaries deliberately speak out, so as to publicize the shipbuilding matter.

Those rumors obviously turned into legends. A large group of people spit out a thick white mist, looking at the leader standing at a high place, thinking about what benefits they can get from the shipbuilding.

Otto finally spoke!

A man holding a patterned steel sword, his dark beard blond hair and sunken eyes, further set off the weight of his words: "You all know something! Shipbuilding! The Avlora must have a mast installed within ten days. It's not enough to rely on those shipbuilders. For our cause, I call you now. You are the best of the Ross tribe, and only you can build our biggest ship. I order you! Go ship!"

In an instant, the crowd boiled!

This lively mood infected the entire Roseburg, and even the people who climbed up the snow-covered roof heard roars, clenched their fists and followed along.

Until now, Otto's actions against Rurik have been criticized as a "stupid waste". Otto has lived for half a century, how could he not know that heavy labor must bring serious food consumption? Especially in this damn winter, even women will become big eaters. He just felt that his son's generosity was a bit of a reputational gain.

Because of shipbuilding, as the chief leader, Otto can issue an order, ordering the tribesmen to bring their own food and tools to participate in some shipbuilding affairs. As for the reward they can get, of course, they participated in this year's Sorgon voyage. qualifications.

Since the son insisted on taking out the food, he couldn't say anything else.

Otto resolutely brought Lurika to his side, and in front of everyone's eyes, the future chief of the tribe announced the specific work of shipbuilding and how those who participated would be paid.

Rurik solemnly announced his plan according to his own ideas and even the results of his discussions with those shipbuilders.

The big ship has to rush to work, and it is absolutely impossible to recruit some people who are good at fishing and paddling or are infirm.

Rurik hired all the other shipbuilders in the tribe if they wanted to get involved. The results of it? All the native boat builders are here! Behind Rurik's surprise, he couldn't think of Xiao Jiujiu from this group of people for a while.

What did the local boat builders think? There is a saying that foreign monks can recite sutras. The Rus people have never had the ability to build cargo ships for decades. They can only build extremely low-side long ships. Who would have thought that the Hortra family and their friends immigrated from Melalen , the first ship that group built in Roseburg was a behemoth.

Only fools would let it go regardless of their peers "building wonders", and they just took the opportunity to steal skills.

As for a group of muscular men, their registration is obviously very simple-the boring winter is boring, and the wife is pregnant, which makes life more boring.

A person with great experience will not decide to visit a month just because of a long hunt, and an ambitious person will get a bounty and yearn for more. They are all careerists, hoping to make a good performance in front of the leader for the future of themselves and their children to gain new possibilities. Of course, one of the most direct reasons is Rurik's crazy food supply.

Build large ships, and Rurik will not give them even a single silver coin.

But until the masts of the ships were erected, he would provide two pounds of wheat per person per day.

Although one silver coin can buy ten pounds of wheat, the exchange rate prescribed by the chief family has been stable for more than half a year. Even if they have money in their hands, it is now difficult to buy even a pound of grain.

As the so-called human body lacks the most, the instinct of the body will drive the mind to obtain it. The daily diet of the Rus people is almost occupied by fish. They are extremely deficient in carbohydrate intake. Therefore, after they began to eat wheat in unprecedented amounts, they could not bear the pain of losing it, because it really comes from the DNA that comes from the depths of every cell. shout.

Rurik recruited more than 500 people, who were either shipbuilders, or master lumberjacks, or good at wood carving, and even a few strong men who claimed to be able to pull long ships ashore by a single rope.

Rurik really needs a large group of men, because the first task given to this group is extremely challenging!

An astonishing number of blond and strong men gathered in front of the shipyard in Hortra, such a crowd of people, the head shipbuilders did not know what was going on.

As Hortra walked out of the workshop to negotiate with Rurik, he quickly showed a smile.

In just one day's work, the strong men who helped build the ship came? !

The entire majestic crowd took action, and they had been grouped by Rurik, relying on the more prestigious people among them as the so-called team captains to explain their respective duties.

Some groups specialize in logging, targeting the small pine trees near the tribe that are only suitable for firewood and charcoal.

Some groups are responsible for twisting existing thin cables into arm-sized cables.

Some groups began to use various tools to further cut the spruce poles used as masts.

Some groups use double saws, axes and scrapers to cut incoming northern pine into planks.

Some of the teams work so neatly, as if they have nothing to do with shipbuilding, they are just in charge of digging holes desperately in an area designated by Hotra.

There are only some participants, and they are involved in a very special way.

Building a big ship, how could such a big event be without the help of the Blacksmith Alliance of the Ross Tribe? How can we be without the most capable Clawson and Kawhi?

The first earth blast furnace of the Ross tribe, it just completed a casting operation in the severe winter. Those blacksmith apprentices from Novgorod braved the cold and returned with a herd of reindeer carrying ore. With just one casting, Kravasen completed all the ore smelting. He can't expect the power of a group of children to swing a pickaxe into a mine, nor how much ore the team can bring back.

After all, a batch of ore was transported back, and the blast furnace with huge stomach sacs only smelted a batch of iron ingots.

With an understanding of "atomic theory", blacksmiths throughout the Ross tribe understood the difference between pig iron, steel and wrought iron.

They are blacksmiths, just like shipbuilders. Although they believe in Thor, they are relatively other existences in the Ross tribe, and they represent the highest technology of the tribe.

They are full of innovative spirit, especially after learning "atomic theory" from Rurik, their world view has been greatly subverted.

Kawhi, he didn't even need Rurik's own instructions. Knowing the main components of air and the main components of cast pig iron, this young man has realized the "steel frying method" to make steel.

However, it cannot be said that Kawei is a genius with an IQ of 200. He was trying to forge cast iron butts with a hammer, but when he was strong, he smashed the iron ingots into a pile of pieces, and then angrily threw these things into the small stove. He hoped to keep blowing, so that the gas with the so-called symbol "O" would take away all the damn "C" in the iron ingot. As a result, these small iron pieces were fused into a lump in the furnace, and when they were fished out, they could finally be forged. As he became more proficient, Kawei's use of the stir-fried steel method became more convenient, and the efficiency of forging steel swords was greatly improved.

The father and son of Kavey and Kravassen were busy making steel swords, Lilia was also staring at the glass die-casting in her spare time while nursing the child, and Kamne, with the child, was intently staring at the distillation of spirits.

Until the returning Rurik gave the blacksmith an order: make a batch of nails.

Of course, the Rus people know what a nail is, but it used to be very expensive, not to mention that the tribal shipbuilders all use tenon and tenon structures, so why do they need nails?

Only now, Rurik needs a lot of nails, but they are not used on ships.

The heavy preparatory work is also the first job for the strong men. They received Rurik's death order, and in fact it was the death order of the big leader. Due to the unquestionable majesty, everyone went out.

They were working hard, and the preparations still lasted up to seven days!

Rurik fulfilled his promise, and he actually paid as much as eight thousand pounds of oats to make up for the physical loss of the strong men. Even so, the strong men are still eating the jerky stored at home, or buying the hard-frozen seal meat and cod meat from hunters.

Rurik mobilized his group of children as usual, but what can these children do? They just follow the arrangement, collect the branches and wood chips everywhere, use them as fuel for cooking, and do some auxiliary work as much as possible. They even got together to sing the folk songs of the Rus people, or hum some of the melodic songs that Rurik urgently taught them, to relieve the tension and anxiety of the strong men from their heavy work.

The heaviest work here is two.

A group of people are using scrapers to cut the mast wood with a diameter of about half a meter into a third of a stika, and the other end to only a fifth of a stika. Even for this large ship, it still doesn't need a huge mast, according to Hotra.

There is also a group of people who are actually making a mast kit, that is, a beam with fifteen stika long, that is, "the beam on the mast", its design requirements are too long, so it has to be two wood Tenon and mortise and tenon and mortise, and tied with hemp rope at the same time.

Any Ross longboat has a horizontal beam, but the one made now is very special, just because it must be slanted and hung on the sail, so that it becomes a huge jib when sailing, which is the so-called "Latin Sails". Its advantages are obvious, that is, it makes the Caravel-style boat extremely fast, but also has the ability to move quickly in any wind conditions.

Another kind of heavy work is to build a mast that stands on the gravel ground, and a scaffolding that slopes.

A ten-meter-long spruce that has not been processed further was dragged to the pit by more than 30 strong men, and then 30 strong men lifted it, and another 30 strong men pulled the cable before it stood on the ground. in the pit. In fact, this work is a rehearsal of the mast of the big ship, which is to ensure the safety of the hull, and no one dares to act recklessly.

The sloping scaffolding was made for the transportation of mast wood, and the ship must pass through the Avlora. The height of the ship's side can reach three stikas. It is also the tallest ship that all Rus people have ever seen! For the rapid establishment of this scaffolding, Rurik did not have time to tolerate his subordinates using the tenon-and-mortise structure to do things, so a batch of iron nails made by surprise was put to great use.

Until the eighth day, everything is ready!

A hundred strong men and thirty sturdy stags were designated, especially those pretentious strong men, begging for mercy, and Rurik placed them in the most critical place.

The ground was still covered with snow, and although the wind was not so aggressive, its cold still made the clean water freeze.

Everyone ate an unprecedented meal of wheat porridge in the morning, and this was Rurik's order!

At the same time, there were at least 4,000 people, men, women and children in Roseburg, and even those merchants who lived in guest houses, gathered near the Hortra shipbuilding factory, or even any place where the wonders could be viewed.

"It's now, let's get started!" It was actually Otto who gave the order, and in front of him were a group of menacing, golden-breasted strong men carrying cables on their shoulders, as well as a group of reindeer.

Someone roared, and the entire team began to move slowly.

At this moment, Rurik, even his Carlotta, Ella, and even Lumia took her Lumie and stood at the top of the scaffolding, looking at the hull of a large ship, being slowed by the Rus people. Pull out slowly.

The Ross tribe has no dry dock yet, and any ships must be built ashore and pulled into the sea by hand. The Avrora, which imitated the Caravel ship, was estimated by Rurik to have a standard displacement of 50 to 60 tons, which means that the ship was a 50-ton giant!

Fortunately, there are ice and snow everywhere. There are many people from Rus who are pulling the boat. The hull of the boat is like a cicada that has just shed its shell. Amid the roar of their red heads, they were pulled to the correct position.

The hull came to a standstill, and the burly men hurried to rest for breathless rest. Another group of people immediately moved into action and put the prepared pine wood on the lower end of the boat keel to play the role of sleepers.

No doubt about the sleepers, they encircled the hull and made her a tumbler on the snow.

"It's up to you now! Hotra! You're in command!" Rurik, who was standing on the scaffold, gave an order and immediately evacuated.

All the frantic efforts are for the present, and Hortra slapped his old face hard, ordering those who were prepared to act.

The ropes caught the prefabricated mast, and its volume was reduced so much that its actual weight was now weak to only 800 kilograms.

This is still extremely heavy wood, there is no way, it must be the core wood of spruce, which is the toughest and hardest part. It was machined to fit nicely into the base in the cabin, and the installation has begun!

The mast, which had long been on the ground, was also eight meters above the ground, and it was a solid fulcrum to hold the cable. In this one, there were as many as 30 strong men dragging the cables, plus more than a dozen people pushing and pulling at the rear, the mast quickly tilted and pushed the thickest end deep into the cabin, and smoothly resisted the preset baffle. .

The next thing is that the principle of leverage solves the problem. In fact, if the mast was not so heavy as never before, the Hortra family would not have come up with this idea. They can install a mast on the cargo ship and make a scaffolding, but it is just a scaffolding, and it is also a skill that the local shipbuilders in Rus do not know.

Those Ross shipbuilders who sneaked in to learn techniques are now bursting with laughter in their hearts.

In the end, as many as a hundred strong men were involved in the handling of the mast, the heavy mast became frivolous, and it and its stable stance just stuck in the preset position.

The mast is perfectly perpendicular to the keel, and it's so vertical only because of the "pendant method" used by the Hortra family.

The mast was stabilized, and it was straight up against the sky.

The scene fell into a temporary silence after a muffled sound, and after a while, everyone cheered for it.

"Ah! We succeeded!"

"It's God! God has blessed us!"

"This ship will be able to sail soon after installing the sails!"

"Unprecedented ship in Ross..."

All kinds of cheers were roaring, and Rurik looked at the mast that he had worked so hard and paid a great price to erect. He wanted to laugh wildly, but for a moment he felt unable to laugh.

If it wasn't for Rumia hugging him and cheering excitedly, Rurik barely managed to squeeze out a smile.

This smile is a wry smile...

To be honest, it's strange that Rurik can indulge in laughter. Count the funds invested in Elrond Castle (food is also counted, equivalent to 70 pounds of silver coins), and the funds invested in the surprise these days (food equivalent to 9 pounds of silver coins), plus the promised remuneration to the Hortra family (reduced Edition) of eight pounds of silver, the Avrora, the rough calculation of the current investment capital is eighty-seven pounds. .

Wait a minute! Eighty-seven pounds is less! Rurik estimated that with the subsequent laying of the boat and a huge sail, her actual price was less than a hundred pounds?

The Avrora is really a 100-pound lady, and her cost is seriously ten times over budget!

This is the case, but all the research and development costs and the costs of supporting equipment are added to it.

Rurik pondered, if a torsion slingshot for ships was built, that would be another sum of money!

"The navy is really expensive, even a big ship has a big stomach for gold!" Now, Rurik really understands why the navy is a noble arm. Just a replica Caravel, the price of the first ship is twenty times as much as Ordinary cargo ship!

Just think about it, at least the Russ have finally increased the tonnage of a single ship to the fifty-ton level in practice.

Even if she just floated at sea, Rurik believed that the Avlora would be able to look down on the entire Baltic Sea.