Rise of Rurik - Chapter 1134 The Returning Eastern Expedition and Arik's Wrath

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At the beginning of the period, the expedition led by Novgorod Governor Medvet himself went all the way to the east. He was ordered to find all the "people hiding in the forest", and he came across Lake Valdai, which means "a lot of water".

No one really wants to be a fisher-hunter in the forest, and all areas that can be developed into farmland are converted into permanent settlements as much as possible.

The geography of Lake Valdai seems to be similar to Lake Yin'ermen, with villages turned into towns.

A brand-new eastern expedition started after the spring ploughing in 841. This operation was led by Aric, who made a great contribution.

He led a team of more than 500 people, surrounded by surveying and mapping personnel sent by Rurik, and set off from the Msta River, which was injected into Yinermen Lake, and the long Viking longships lined up with long snakes were exploring in retrograde. Head straight to the waterways of Lake Valdai.

Lake Valdai was discovered many years ago, and the perch of the lake and the small beasts of the nearby forest are all living treasures.

"The Volga River? Only he knows that this river exists. How can I find it? Could it be that there is a correct waterway in this lake area that is actually the Volga River?" Arik's mind was a little confused.

If Rurik had not described or even sketched out the possible river course on the map, and the description of the mouth of the Volga River by the Pechenegs (thinking that the Caspian Sea is the ocean), Arik would have been willing to believe that the river was real, It's just that the world is so big, there are many rivers such as Lake Valdai, which one is the right way?

What's more, this lake is clearly not the real upper reaches of the Musta River. The Msta River is still wide, maybe it is the right channel to the Volga?

What is even more surprising is that when the team arrived in the town of Valdai, they spread out and started their own fishing and hunting. Some people formed a team to go south, trying to find the true southern shoreline of Lake Valdai among the lush aquatic plants.

The team has been completely dispersed, and when someone comes back with a marten that has not yet grown out of the pure white coat in winter, it stimulates the desire of the Ross hunters to explore.

Who are these people? Old Rus, New Rus from various Swedish tribes, Slavic hunters, and even Finnish Suomi hunters. Arik has a mixed team.

Who cares about poetry and distance? Brothers come to this undeveloped land to plunder animal skins. Unless the precious little beasts in this area have been captured, they should consider changing places to continue.

The scribes sent by Rurik were different. The two young men rode south in longboats, accompanied by hunters.

The scribes wrote and drew on the paper. Based on the basic sketching skills taught by Rurik himself, they tried their best to make environmental sketches of the sights they saw, and then used words to describe what they saw.

The nerd-like guy is very despised by the hunters. Considering that these two are the "house slaves" of the king, they must be provided with enough food, and they must be taken care of so that they can't get sick or injured.

Mink, fox and squirrel are hunted, the hide is stripped and the meat is skewered and grilled.

The young scribes tossed outside for three months, and the expedition they followed had long since lost contact with their fellow villagers in the north of the lake. The scribes were tossed and unkempt, and the wheat that the team brought with them had been eaten. On weekdays, everyone lived on the perch and the meat of the small beasts they caught. However, eating this kind of fat-deficient, almost-pure protein meal for a period of time is really bad. Until they hunted the bears that hunted wildly for the winter.

No one cares about the extreme shyness of male bear meat.

"Hey, you two young people really don't know our past. We can eat shark meat that is more nasty than urine, but we won't eat this bear meat? And this bear oil, you can feel better if you eat more."

The leader of the hunter is also a ruthless man who kills the enemy like a numb in battle. This time with a torsion slingshot, it is prepared for hunting big beasts.

He scolded the young people who had never experienced hardship for being picky. Fortunately, when the bear meat was grilled and sizzling with oil, and then sprinkled with a handful of coarse salt, the hungry people naturally came over to drink the oil.

All the scribes were well-dressed when they served under the king. They now live like wild men, or pure Viking hunters.

Only the record books they cherish keep are clean and tidy.

During the wet season, Lake Valdai is connected to several lakes in the south by streams, most of which can be passed by long boats with shallow drafts. When encountering hard-to-pass places, the hunters went into battle together, and even the scribes had to pull on the ropes, and everyone worked together to pull the boat southward.

Where exactly is the true southern shore of Lake Valdai? I'm afraid the South Bank has been found and passed. Now that's not the problem, they've discovered a whole new lake that looks bigger than Lake Valdai.

If you are not worried that the expedition is too far to delay the return journey, you can only stay here to build a wooden house and directly spend the winter. After staying in the newly found lake for a while, the hunter team officially returns.

It was a well-progressed adventure, and the scribe returned to Valdai at the end of August with drawn and handwritten information.

When they returned, they learned that some consciously satisfied hunters had rowed their own boats into the Musta River and went home. They go back early just to catch the autumn harvest.

There are still many people stranded in Valdai, who either lack land or whose families have hired helpers to harvest wheat. These people figured it out for themselves, and if the income from hunting furs outweighed the investment of hiring wheat reapers, they would stay in Valdai for a while for the sake of maximizing profits.

Arik was willing to stay for a while. Like other stayers, he was pleased to hear that the guys from the southern expedition came back to watch their harvest. When he saw the long boat full of furs, he was first shocked, then jealous and regretful.

"Damn, I knew that there were more good things in the south of the lake, why should I stay in the north?" Many people have such an attitude.

There were Slavic settlers in the town of Valdai, and the village chiefs took over the Boyar nobles. Although their strength in all aspects is very bad, they also try to expand the surrounding area as much as possible. Shooting small beasts directly, or even chasing down killers like bears to kill them can't do it, tricks like laying nets and traps are fine.

There are not many small beast resources on the north side of the lake. Unlike the southern area, the real squirrels run around, so that the hunters who are equipped with crossbow on a large scale have turned into sharpshooters. They are chasing squirrels and killing them. Most of them are squirrel skins that have been initially tanned by alkaline water boiled with plant ash. Tanning with grass ash is far less effective than Glauber's salt, but there are really many leather goods. They stay in the south for a long time. This is the only way to avoid accumulation of leather goods and rot.

Squirrel skin is a common leather product in the market of the Rus Kingdom. Its hunting volume is so great that the price of a single piece of leather is low, which can be affordable by ordinary Slavic farmers. It is this kind of leather that is more suitable for making hats and gloves. Many so-called squirrel fur coats made of mixed leather and linen are not of good quality to keep out the cold, but it is a good choice to make a mattress.

As long as there are furs, the state-run textile mills in Novgorod and the many seamstress women can play with flowers.

Relying on the absolute numerical advantage, the hunter team of the southern expedition is recognized as making a fortune.

The people who were still stranded by the gathering in the autumn rain had to hide in many new wooden houses in the town. They tried their best to keep their furs dry. A common method was to pack a large amount of grass and wood ash with sackcloth, and then pack the sackcloth with the furs. Mixed together to become a special moisture-proof bag. When they decided to leave, these burlap pockets discarded all the grass and ashes, and the furs were packed as much as possible.

So when Rurik and his entourage took shelter from the autumn rain on Tombstone Island, this cooling down in the Valdai Lakes deep in Eastern Europe manifested itself as a bleak drizzle.

It lasted for nearly ten days, and the ground became muddy after the rain stopped.

The local Slavic residents were busy stocking up food for the winter. They harvested wheat and stockpiled some catches. They even got the meat of small beasts from many hunters.

The brothers only wanted leather, and a lot of squirrel meat was given to the locals for free. The little animal meat that the hunters can't eat is processed into almost completely dehydrated bacon by the locals with a smile, and then they are hoarded as food storage.

"It's time to go home! Go back to Novgorod! Sell the furs and make a lot of money!" Arik gave an order, and everyone in the assembled fleet shouted to the sky.

The return journey was smooth, as long as everyone controlled the rudder to avoid collisions on the Musta River.

In fact, in a large sense, the lake found by the southern expedition team with the participation of scribes is essentially one of the water sources of the Volga River.

Who is the source of the Volga River? If defined solely by the longest tributary as the source of water, it is on a hill in the western part of the lake group that includes Lake Valdai. This extremely trivial lake area as a whole is the largest source of water for the Volga River.

Although the water source is large, the terrain here is too flat and lacks a large geographical drop. The Volga River drawn from this is too narrow and the water flow rate is not high.

Macroscopically, the lake group is like a big snake coiled together. The expedition team saw only one corner, and it was impossible to explore the whole picture, and it was impossible to find the correct river channel.

The king never expected to complete the feat of exploration in one go, and the scribe with a large amount of geographical data felt that he had completed the task very well, and he was waiting to meet the queen to receive the reward.

What is the reward? money? status?

The scribe wanted it, and was sure he could get it. What is geography, the original intention is to survey and map the earth. In time for the summer solstice, the two used Professor King's solar shadow method to accurately measure the dimensions of Lake Valdai, and even at the time of the expedition to the southernmost point, through some calculations, they still used the solar shadow method to estimate the new dimension. . After further calculations, the two of them abruptly calculated the dimensional gap between the farthest distance reached by the southern expedition team and the town of Valdai Lake, and they could further estimate the straight-line distance.

These geographic mapping data are worth gold. The two felt that since they stopped this kind of guy, they were better than other scribes. Presumably after debriefing to the king, the two of them became the person in charge of geographic surveying and mapping in Ross, and they could also be promoted to a kind of senior scribe. That means real money and social status, a stable and prosperous life, and some interesting challenges.

Arik came back happily, rested in Mstissk for a while, and took his guys to Novgorod with a huge amount of oriental furs.

The guys from the Eastern Expedition who returned first have sold their furs. For an old guy like Verdegen, who manages a state-run garment factory, he bought the leather at a low price because of the poor quality of the leather.

The hunter is indeed wrong. Good leather must be tanned with thenardite. This is the specialty of the old Rus people. Of course, the quality of tanning with alkaline water with grass and wood ash is not good.

Fordegen's rhetoric makes sense, but it also conceals the nature of his deliberately low prices. Novgorod is indeed a big city in Rus, but the personnel engaged in leather processing industry are limited. When it comes to where the most people in this line of work are concerned, nowhere is the capital city.

Why send leather goods to the capital? It's all seasons like this. Now that I go to the capital, I can only wait until next spring to come back.

The Rus people who have already received the wheat just want to quickly cash in the fur, and then live a leisurely life of wives and children on the hot kang head.

Now, Arik is back with even bigger hides, and leather prices in Novgorod have once again plummeted. Squirrel skins have become too cheap, and taupe mink is no longer expensive. What can hunters do? They do not understand the invisible hand of the law of the market, and they know that if they set the price high, the biggest buyer, Fodgen, will not buy it.

Even, Arik angrily grabbed the collar of the old man Fodgen: "You just give us such a low price? If you don't work for the king, you will screw your head off."

Fodgen did not cowardice, nor did he quarrel with the king's cousin, and motioned for his own people to step down.

"Young man, let go of your hand. It means that you set the price very high, and the price given by others is not high. If I buy yours, what will happen to others? Besides, I have limited funds, so I can buy you at a high price. Yes, the other brothers can't sell. You really don't have a choice, because I'm the biggest fur buyer in Novgorod."

"You... coerce me?"

"I don't dare. I'm just a businessman. If you go to the capital, there are the most people doing fur business there. But even if you go there, your squirrel skins still won't be worth the price."

"Why?" Arik still didn't let go.

"Because, those Suomis are also busy selling squirrel skins. You have five hundred and they have fifty thousand (speaking casually). Aren't you old friends who fought side by side with the Count of Finland? How about their people, you Isn't it clearer? Maybe they have more squirrel skins, how about you? Think about it."

Arik was just unwilling to go hunting with his brothers. In the end, 20 good squirrel skins could be exchanged for a silver coin. This ridiculously low price had surpassed his imagination.

Even the capital wouldn't have such a low price, would it? !

He let go of his hand, and the offended old Fodgen smiled and said nothing.

After all, Fodegen really got a bargain. Even if this Arik is the blood relative of the king, he is not willing to suffer when it comes to purely business issues. Because the state-run garment factory is to a large extent his territory, and his family lives like a taxpayer, and the net profit is divided with the royal family. Even if the share of Fodgen's side is very small, as long as the base is large enough, it is also owned by the family. The huge sum of money, which is the origin of his deliberately low price.

Led by Fodgen, the leather-making craftsmen around Yinermen Lake were moved by the wind.

In desperation, a large number of furs were sold at too low prices.

Arik took the brothers, and the sale of fur-loading carts in Novgorod had already attracted an onlooker, and he was almost doing it with Verdegen to attract an even larger crowd.

Even old Otto learned of this, he couldn't say anything, after all, he had retired to take care of himself.

In any case, Fodgen was very happy to give the money, and Arik, who got the money, was drinking in a pub in the city.

But the atmosphere soon became active again. Even if the price was low, everyone hunted a lot, such as mink fur, which sold for a good price. People who had money drank together, and Arik, who was in a happy atmosphere, also Laughed with the guys.

Ale blended with honey, or kvass, or even some special wines…

The wine shop in Novgorod is also run by the royal family, and its business model is similar to that of a state-run garment factory. Even if the distinguished Arik comes, he still has to pay.

Anyone in the city can essentially build a liquor store, as long as the financial resources can keep up and pay their taxes.

The reality is that no one has more capital to manage this matter than the royal family. Alcoholic beverages are still precious, and the brewing and distilling workshops of the royal family are unable to achieve huge production capacity. . In this way, the wine shop launched a special blended wine, in fact, the base wine distilled to 96° is blended with water, and then poured into honey, chrysanthemum water or pine needle water to become a low-alcohol blended wine with a unique taste, and the cost is not high. Price.

They chatted in the tavern, thinking about going to the East next year to catch more little beasts, and criticized Fodgen for being a greedy businessman.

Naturally, some people imagined: "The king just said that there will be no war this year, but I heard that the Ostara people are expanding in the south and fighting against the aliens. It seems that the king is going to send an expedition next year."

"That's right! There's another Smolensk issue." Someone immediately interjected: "I also heard that Vadim, who ran away back then, didn't die~www.novelbuddy.com~ had to kill him."

"Maybe, the king just sent the Ostarans to investigate. Since there are rumors that a fight has already started, maybe next year will be our expedition."

"Not necessarily, what if you still go to Frank? The guy over there is richer." Another humane said.

For a while there were different opinions.

Everyone was very concerned about the chance of war. Arik was so sensitive that he had an erection. Because of his drunkenness, he even overturned the wooden table with rage. Another slap on the chest, to quell all the drinking guys with a shout.

"Brothers! There will definitely be a war next year! We've been tricked by that guy from Fodgen! Let him go to hell! Let's sharpen our swords this winter, there will be a new war next year, and we will kill the enemy and make a fortune, that's the truth. A shortcut to gold and silver!"

The frenzy of war stimulated this group of ruthless men. They beat the oak cups to make a lot of noise, and they screamed violently, as if they were about to jump on a long ship and start an expedition.

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