Chapter 1322 Rurik in Yartevo

The Ross cavalry was still rushing forward on the frozen river.

The daylight hours were now very short, and the cold environment posed a more serious challenge to the cavalry advance.

Rurik did not dare to force his horses to advance desperately. Even if he could travel two hundred miles a day, he still required all soldiers to advance at a normal speed for the sake of safety.

Even so, the cavalry is fast enough.

They first ran to the southeast, then turned northeast, and camped in a river delta area that evening.

The horses panted violently in the white mist, and the setting sun illuminated the earth orange. The Ross cavalry, which was lightly armed but carrying a large amount of supplies, was ordered to camp in the nearby woods.

"We have reached the end. If the direction is completely correct, our first priority is to set up camp and then ask the guide which river is the real Dnieper River." General Fisk persuaded Rurik.

"It seems so." His back was illuminated orange by the setting sun, and Rurik was indeed a little confused standing in the delta.

This place has gone beyond the understanding of the Russians. Even if Rurik knows a lot about the eastern world, it is at best an unpractical understanding. Only when the current army stands here can we truly feel the vastness of the world.

Youdao is a white hell. The current environment is cold, lonely, empty, and full of unexplainable dangers.

Rurik waved his horsewhip to indicate to the whole team the discovery of the camp, so each flag team turned their horses and rushed toward the woods in the northwest.

The cold blowing snow built a wall of snow on the south bank of the river, while the north bank was very flat and had little snow.

At first, each team brought their own dry charcoal blocks, tinder chips, saltpeter and spirits for combustion. The tinder is ignited by a bow drill. After the combustion accelerant is instantly ignited, the charcoal gradually ignites.

Next, nearby cut down pine trees were laid on the fire. At first, there was thick smoke that made people cry, but gradually a blazing flame appeared.

The sun finally set, and a bonfire array formed in the Ross camp under the forest. The tired soldiers laid blankets around the bonfire to prepare for bed. They used the bonfire to boil some snow and drink some hot water.

The war horses took off their saddles and tied them one by one to nearby tree stumps. They were fed a large amount of oats and then held together closely. They knelt in the pine needle meadow where the snow had been cleared away by the soldiers' assault and gradually fell asleep.

The bonfire crackled, and Rurik, who was warm all over, was no longer tired for the time being.

Four cavalry captains walked here and had dinner with the Rus' king and all the Smolensk guides.

After all, this is an area that even the resident Varyags have never set foot in. Perhaps some Danish businessmen sailed past here by chance. They evacuated in frustration because they could not find any living people and the environment here was no different from other places.

At least Hagen and his guys couldn't be the guides.

In the past days, the situation in Smolensk was of course directly related to the people in the Aran stronghold, especially the serfs in the hands of the old nobles. Serfs can become good confidants for nobles.

The serfs had new masters, and some of them were put to good use because of their special talents.

There are four people serving as guides for the Ross Cavalry. Each team has a guide and one person. Rurik deliberately arranged this configuration to prevent each team under his command from getting lost. It is better to be cautious in unknown areas.

Rurik did not believe that these people would lie. Because of the important use of a slave by his new master, the entire lowly family could live a good life through merit. The family documents of these four people are in the hands of the newly built Smolensk Governor's Palace, and with the hostages in hand, Rurik expects them to not care about finding their way around.

Of course, subjectively they would not dare to give random directions. However, the frozen rivers in the world are vast and white. In the past day, the team had encountered many frozen tributaries, and there was even a tributary that seemed to lead to the southeast easily. It may be misleading and ultimately lead to misunderstandings.

Rurik took out a folded piece of cardboard from his leather pocket. On it, he had used a wooden stick dipped in sticky ink to outline the general direction of the upper reaches of the Dnieper River, and even marked some misleading tributaries.

"Okay." He looked at the four nervous guides: "Now we are in trouble again. There are two rivers in front of us. Which one

Is this the real Dnieper River? What is the name of the wrong river channel? "

The four of them were stunned for a moment, then an old man with a thin face explained: "The wide one is the Dnieper River, and the narrow one is Hermost."

It sounds like nonsense, but if you think about it carefully, it is.

Rurik scratched his head: "It's strange. At the confluence of the rivers, I really can't see which river is really narrow. Besides, the river we're going up has narrowed greatly. People who know me know the situation on the other side of Kiev. , how wide is the Dnieper River there?"

The four people were left speechless. Because they were serfs of the nobles, they were restricted from leaving their hometown. They had at least heard some news about everything in the distance, but it was really hard for them to imagine the "broad river".

Because even in the section of the Dnieper River where Smolensk is located, the average width of the river channel during the wet season is only 70 meters, and some areas can expand to 100 meters. For the serfs, this was the only big river they knew.

The forest in the upper reaches is getting denser, and there are still a lot of bushes in the riverside areas.

Dry, snow-covered bushes could easily be cut down by the roots and made good fuel, and the encamped cavalry were more than willing to burn it. After clearing the bushes with axes and swords, there was a flat place to lay a blanket and sleep.

Someone continued to explain: "Stretching down from the northwest is the Hermost River. Its upper reaches are narrower and will eventually become a creek. Some people live in its upper reaches."

"Oh. How is the local population? Is there a leader?"

The speaker realized that King Rus had another intention to conquer, and hurriedly explained with his fingers: "There are only less than ten villages, and they grow some food and rely on fishing to make a living. There is no leader there at all, and the king can easily get it."

"Very good. It sounds like the population is too small. I have no intention of capturing them now. The governor will help me complete the conquest in the future."

Rurik believed the guide's explanation, and until now, the four of them had indeed led the way correctly.

Someone else was eager to express themselves: "Your Majesty, your cavalry arrived at the Hermost River in just one day, which means..."

"You? Say it quickly."

"Yes. Your cavalry will continue to set off tomorrow morning and will most likely arrive in Arran before evening. We will continue to move along the correct river path and will soon encounter the place where the Worli River flows into the Dnieper River. You no longer need to worry about taking the wrong path. , because that intersection is where the settlement of Aram is.”

"Is this so?" Rurik asked the serfs to describe it again, and then drew a dotted line after the solid line on the paper, the so-called estimated path.

He stopped writing and glanced at all four people: "You have done well so far. When the matter is resolved, your whole family will no longer be slaves. Your children can work beside the governor, become warriors, and gain wealth. Even... Become a noble."

Slaves become nobles? This kind of thing is beyond the cognition of the four people. They were born slaves and didn't know what it meant. In short, King Rus made a big promise, and all the prerequisites were to be good guides.

They were so happy that they lay down and kissed Rurik's leather boots. There was no greater courtesy for a serf to his master than this.

For this reason, the four flag captains couldn't help but hide their faces in glee when they saw the slaves' funny behavior.

After laughing, the Ross Cavalry Corps now had a clear marching direction. The captains who returned to the flag team camps quickly summoned the centurions again. The message has to be passed layer after layer, and finally reaches every soldier.

Then when the whole army fell asleep, everyone realized that tomorrow afternoon would be the moment of battle.

Rurik formulated a preliminary combat plan based on the guide's intelligence.

It is said that since the confluence of the Worli River and the Dnieper River is the largest settlement in Syria, it is enough to capture it and force all the local leading figures to surrender, not to kill the surrenderers, and to ask for a batch of tributes.

As for whether the escaped Vyadzic leader Hedoda can really be caught locally, let's just leave it to chance!

There is even a possibility that Heda froze and starved to death on the way to escape.

After all, along the way, the cavalry had discovered fugitives who had frozen to death in the riverside forest. The number of corpses was truly terrifying.

The vast majority of soldiers do not

Afraid of these frozen corpses, they remained calm even when they saw a forest wolf seemingly munching on the corpses.

Dead bodies exist like landmarks. The dead are all refugees. Their ability to concentrate deaths means they know where to survive. However, those who freeze to death are really unlucky.

But speaking of the Hermost River, the shipping value of this small tributary in 842 had not yet been developed by the Varyags. Its source comes from a small lake in the southern part of the watershed, and the Gobuza River can be found immediately after passing through the watershed hills. Starting from the Gobuza River, sailors will float all the way into the Kaspriya River and then reach the upper reaches of the West Dvina River.

Travelers continue sailing, and the next step is to reach Vitebsk, Polotsk, and finally enter the Gulf of Riga and the Baltic Sea.

The Hermost River is essentially an optional remote route and is one of the components of the "Road to Shiva". It is only a branch path. However, in the current era, even the route from Lake Kaspriya to Smolensk has not yet been discovered. The main route of the Khiva Road is still the more western "Amber Road". The commercial value of this place has not yet been developed. The area is full of barbarism, and development is progressing at a snail's pace.

Now comes the Sturm und Drang Ross.

The Russian cavalry will also be the first Varangians to enter Syria. What they bring is definitely not goods and transactions, nor is it a small-scale sneak attack.

Come and solve the problem in one package.

In the early morning, after eating some dry food, the entire army mounted their horses one after another. They didn't even care about the smoldering campfires. There were only a series of traces of camps left by the cavalry. If an eagle took a bird's eye view, you could see a gray-black army with a lot of blue mixed in. A colorful, snake-like existence quickly twists and moves with the changes in the frozen river.

This is the advancing Ross Cavalry. There are four flag teams totaling twelve centurions. Each centurion is further divided into three platoon-level units of more than thirty people, forming as many as thirty-six units that can independently perform combat missions. The fighting group rushed towards the Klivich stronghold, which Rurik called Jartsevo but was actually Aran.

Rurik had already thought about it. He was not even willing to conduct reconnaissance anymore. He wanted to take advantage of the other party's negligence to immediately complete the occupation of the main settlements.

Naturally, they saw dead bodies again along the way, and their number was not as small as the ones they saw yesterday.

The corpses were briefly inspected. Among all the dead, the elderly and young children were the most common. However, there was no clear corpse of an armed person here.

Optimistic news spread throughout the team.

"Haha, the Yartsevo people have no army. We will take them lightly."

"It doesn't matter whether Hedoda is captured or killed. It's enough that we can capture a new city."

"Maybe Hedoda is indeed in Yartevo. He definitely has no soldiers. We will capture him easily."

Many warriors still hope to capture a leader alive. Whoever can capture this person and present it to the king will receive a high cash reward, even if everyone only recently learned about a person named Hedado and the existence of the Vyadich people. and general direction.

The next action was already familiar to the Ross cavalry.

The weather was exceptionally clear, and the entire army, wearing sunglasses, suddenly saw the obvious large settlement in the distance.

Rurik would not dawdle, or even make some disguises for the army.

On the contrary, he ordered the soldiers to blow the melodious Nordic horn, and the deep sound seemed to come from the divine world.

Rurik gave the order: "Attack the whole army, follow me and occupy the settlement!" He flicked the reins, first led the first cavalry, and then led the three rear groups to advance with all their strength.

Therefore, at the peak of the melee, which was suddenly falling into a civil war and the first phase of the civil war had just ended, Hedoda, who was a leader, devoted all his energy to organizing people to collect food and planned to end the conflict with the local people in Aram within a few days. internal friction.

He made a new promise to the Krivic people who were determined to be loyal to themselves - we will go with the supplies, and all of you will spend this year's fire sacrifice in my Vyazma.

Heda thought well, and the armed militiamen under his command were exhausted. Their enthusiasm for a better future made them completely let down their guard.

Why not relax? hide in

The people deep in the hilly area of ​​​​Woli River are just holding on. They have no intention of taking the initiative to attack, so there is no need for everyone to attack them. After all, everyone has no concern for Alan.

It was at this time that the Russian army arrived.

Of course Heda was aware that the Russians would do evil to his Vyadzic in the future. He could never have imagined that what might happen in a few years would happen to him in just a few days.

Heda has two things to know about the Russian army: it is good at using cavalry and its clothes are blue and white.

The blue hue is quite obvious in the pale world, not to mention that some warriors, in order to pursue magnificence, deliberately add yellow and red cloth strips on their bodies and horses for decoration. Because the Slavic locals of Yin Ermen Lake were weaving flower cloths as a special craft, the soldiers were spontaneously willing to dress themselves up gorgeously to highlight their nobility and extraordinaryness.

Hedoda's riverside camp was completely undefended and he didn't even have time to mount a defence. When he really heard the low sound of the trumpet, the gorgeously dressed Ross cavalry had already entered the largest settlement in Aram.

The armed villagers resisted almost instinctively. Anyone who raised a wooden spear, a long-handled flail, or a variety of farm tools in an attempt to resist was considered a warrior by the cavalry.

The greatest courtesy to an enemy soldier is to kill him, and the young Ross cavalrymen killed him painfully.

The battle became without any suspense. The cavalry, which had a huge advantage in strength, killed a group of resisters, and the rest dropped their weapons and surrendered.

Now that they surrendered, Rurik had no intention of killing them again. In the final analysis, they are just a group of armed refugees in shabby clothes. The clumsy weapons are not for war at all. They are just to guard against polar bear attacks.

[In view of the general environment,

There happened to be some people here wearing chainmail and carrying iron weapons.

After a short battle, the armored men were suddenly defeated by the cavalry's armor-piercing arrows.

Heda was stunned! He took more than 20 of his surviving subordinates to hide in a residential house. The goods he planned to transport back to his hometown were completely occupied by the Russian army.

And he was in an extremely miserable state hiding in a simple haystack house. He was not at all as high-spirited and ambitious as he was a few days ago.

At this moment, Ross flags were flying everywhere in the largest settlement in Aram, and a large number of frightened people knelt down and begged the Ross army not to kill them. Only this time, after receiving clear orders from Rurik, the entire army showed extreme restraint.

The entire large settlement along the river was controlled, and only those who tried to escape were shot and hacked to death as a warning. Now others would not dare to escape.

An armed man who was obviously wearing armor hid in a haystack room and looked for Shuyuan www. zhaoshuyuan.com Their status, special clothing and weapons and equipment are definitely nobles.

The news immediately reached Rurik's ears.

"Could it be that I really caught Heda, whose name I only heard about? Who knows who this person is. Even if he isn't, it doesn't matter."

Rurik felt quite bored with the easy victory in the invasion of Yartevo, but he became excited after hearing the reports from his subordinates. This brought the cronies from the 1st Cavalry to surround the target haystack house.

"Tear down the house? Kill the people inside?" Fisk asked.

Rurik's face was filled with a faint smile, his golden beard was blowing in the wind, and sunglasses covered half of his face. He was riding a war horse and looked extremely arrogant: "No need. Attacking and killing a group of armed farmers is nothing. Now It’s like I met a real warrior. Ah! I almost won without honor. Now let’s ask who the guy inside is.”

"Hedoda? Who knows?" Fisk shrugged, still hoping that Rurik would kill him directly to avoid future troubles.