Chapter 259： The Guard of the Salmon Lord Tribe

If there is a choice, several tribes of the Kovinsuomi people, they even hope to live their lives safely in the forest lake.

They know that they are from the south, but because they have no airborne history, almost all tribesmen have forgotten that they have a very close relationship with the Finns, the Tavastians, and even the Karelians, and they treat each other as brothers. .

Because of the competition and contention for fur, minerals and other materials, the Kovin tribe finally had an irreconcilable conflict with the Tavastians who settled in central Finland.

The population of the Corvins was too small, and compared to the strength of the Tavastia tribal alliance, they had to withdraw to the north.

The Corvins discovered a river with fierce floods in summer, because the abundant salmon resources in the river became the key to nourish the tribe’s survival.

In this era, the Finns and Tavastias began to gradually abandon the old life of fishing and hunting. They began to cultivate wheat in the lakes near the settlement, and gradually entered the agricultural life.

Losing control over the relatively warm areas of the South, the Kewen people had to continue their fishing and hunting life.

In relatively barren land, disputes among the Kewen people have become serious in order to compete for catches and fur.

They are like living in a small universe. They are the masters of a large forest and lake, and then they oppress the deer breeders in the far north that are more backward.

Finally, a large group of black figures moving on the glacier broke the tranquility of the life of the Kewen people.

The Rus army has been moving upstream along the frozen Oulu River. They stepped unconcealed on the ice, as if conquering Corvin settlements was similar to going to Novgorod to collect taxes.

Leaving the mouth of the Oulu River into the sea, the warriors were in a good mood. Everyone was dreaming of getting rich, and even hugged two local women from left to right and became big winners.

They never thought whether they would be injured or even killed if there was a conflict.

Because in everyone's mind, Kewen people are just a bunch of fools.

There were Corvin hunters with bows. They went deep into the forest and used the long arrows of bone arrow clusters to shoot the snow rabbits who occasionally jumped out of the cave to watch the wind.

There are even fishermen who cut a hole in the glacier and put down their hooks to try to catch some fish.

Kewen people have become accustomed to winter and know that they can still catch some animals while immersed in a world covered in snow and ice.

Even tribal warriors attacked and assassinated a few wandering white bears.

These hunters were keenly aware of the abnormal vibration. After they hid, they gradually saw a large group of people appearing on the glacier.

The hunters' eyes widened, and in the short daylight, they saw the reflected light that must come from the metal.

A group of unknown people, they all wear metal hats!

Do not! They are actually...

The Corvins were not purely isolated from the world. They were worried that the Tavastias, their neighbors, would come up north to **** their hunting grounds, and they were even more worried that the Varangians on the west side of the sea would cross the ocean to catch slaves.

The Kewen people who are good at doing business always take the peeled squirrel skins, and Fan Yun goes to the southernmost Finns to sell them in exchange for the locally produced wheat kernels and flax. During the trade, they also learned a lot of news.

Especially with regard to the situation in the west of the sea.

The hateful Varangans, wearing metal helmets and precious swords in their hands, rowed long boats to raid the Finnish coastal villages and looted the local population to become slaves.

It is the young people who grew up listening to these stories, which made them have an unusual fear of the sea.

Young people don't know what is called "Varyags". In short, they are a group of terrible guys, all wearing metal helmets.

Now, the strange crowds appearing on the glacier, are they not Varangians or what?

Suddenly a feeling of imminent disaster flooded the hunter's heart.

The work of the Cowen Hunters came to an abrupt end. They retracted their bows and ran towards the village.

Today, it should have been an ordinary winter day.

Women make linen cloth or sew leather in a semi-crypt home, and the children play without worry. They hide in the warm room, and only some men carry their axes to cut wood and burn firewood in the nearby woods.

Kewen people already know how to burn iron ore into sponge iron, and know how to further beat it into usable tools. Only due to the extremely limited productivity and the enormous difficulty of mining ore, they have few iron tools.

Even so, the Kovins have a huge military advantage over the deer breeders in the north.

But these advantages are simply not worth mentioning in the view of the Ross people.

Many hunters ran back to the village in a panic, yelling: "The Varangans have appeared, let's go to the mountain fort refuge."

In the beginning, the people in the village were unbelievable.

Everyone knows the existence of the Varangans, but no one has actually seen them.

Some hunters who insisted on hunting encountered a bear, but were frightened out of their courage and had hallucinations.

However, the situation gradually deteriorated, and a large number of hunters and fishermen fled back one after another, reporting the same information in unison.

The hunter ran back to his home, first ordered his wife and children to immediately pack up the valuable things in the home, then carried them on his back and evacuated to the nearby mountain fort.

The Orion took the lead to evacuate, and gradually caused commotion throughout the village.

This tribe of Kewen people with more than 700 people began to fall into chaos.

The leader of the tribe, an old guy over half a hundred years old, his name is Kaihas. The name change refers to "spear" in the language of the Kewen people.

"What's going on? Varanga? I think you were scared by the bear! Urosivi, you should have the ability to hunt bears, instead of telling me that you are cowardly."

Obviously, the leader Kaihas not only distrusted the words of his own people, but also disdainful.

The leader was carrying this time, and the hunter Urosivi panicked: "The leader! It's really a Varang. Please go out of your warm residence to see the situation outside. Everyone is already evacuating."

The leader glanced at the family members in the room, then kicked his men again. He pushed open the heat-preserving leather curtain and stood on the snowy ground. What he saw was a group of tribes who were carrying their own soft and evacuated.

His eyelids began to tremble, and his tribe was shocked to death by an undetermined news!

If the guys from the "Gray Squirrel" tribe came to sneak attack at this time, wouldn't they still suffer huge losses? !

The people of the tribe are all talking about the same thing: An army of Varangans is stepping on the ice and attacking the village.

In this case, the leader Kaihas was also panicked.

He hurriedly asked the hunter: "You swear that you saw the Varangians?"

"I swear!" The hunter simply knelt on one knee to prove to the leader that he was true.

"Do you see any details?"

"Varyag people?! I saw those guys, all of them wearing metal helmets. Like the legendary story, they came from the west and must destroy our village. Chief, we must defend ours. home."

"Bah! I don't need you to teach me about this!" The leader's mood now is like an ant on a frying pan. He anxiously orders his family first: "Take the kids and run! Take valuable things up the hill. Fort!"

"How about you?" the leader's wife asked.

"Of course we are preparing for battle! Even if the Varangians appear, we must defeat them. We have no way back."

The leader Kehas put on his own leather armor, a leather armor purchased by the Norwegian by a previous expedition. He held his own dagger purchased from the Norwegian again and became a mighty veteran.

In this Kovin village, the Varanges refer to the madmen on the other side of the sea in their concept. As everyone knows, their hunting expedition has set foot in Norwegian territory many times, and had a trade with the Norwegians. Even individual men in the tribe know a little Norwegian language.

The expedition actually followed the northern land route, crossing the mountains and the Norwegians who had traded with the Narvik Fjord. They never thought that the Norwegians and the Varangans are the same ethnic group, and their languages ​​are exactly the same. With such a strange cognition, I am afraid it is only because these scholars cannot understand the geography of Northern Europe in a macro sense. In their concept, the world is also flat.

This winter, the tribe did not send an expedition. Instead, the gray squirrel tribe next door sent an expedition to explore the outside world and find new living space.

If the actions of the grey squirrel tribe are not accidentally hit by the Ross people, I am afraid they will really gradually move to the mouth of the Tornio River, and gradually become a new nation born out of the Finnish tribe—Thor People from the Ernio Valley.

The Ross people unexpectedly planned this natural historical process, but history will continue to develop in another form. Because of the river valley, the leader of the Russ, Otto, focused on the abrupt mine. He was determined to build a new settlement-Fort Elon.

Kaihas, the leader of the Kewen tribe, quickly gathered more than two hundred men.

Hunters with bows and fishermen with spearfish gathered first, followed by a large group of young men who could handle short spears.

The leader stood on a snowdrift and publicly announced his "war mobilization."

"Men, now a group of strange guys are calling. They are probably Varangians. They came here to destroy our village, kill all the men, and take all the women!"

Listen, the **** soldiers are excited.

"Can we make them succeed?" Kejas asked deliberately.

"No!" Someone shouted first, and the others roared one after another.

Seeing that everyone’s morale was up, the leader said: “In the past, we have gained an advantage in the fight with the gray squirrels. How can our hard-earned advantage be destroyed by the Varangians? Men, you have already defeated. The gray squirrel tribe, now the Varangans are here. You can defeat them and take away their excellent weapons.

I don't expect that we can defeat them on the ground! We led the Varangians to the hillside and shot them with arrows! It's like our hunters teaming up to shoot and kill the most dangerous white bear. Shooting the Varang invaders is not a problem. "

In this way, the leader inherited his previous experience and determined that the intruder was as weak as the neighbors nearby.

The leader didn't feel that he had an absolute advantage. Looking at the people at hand, he could easily kill hundreds of invaders based on them, which is really difficult.

The only thing the village can rely on is that all the men, women, and children who have fallen out come together, and a "tall" ring-shaped wall made up of a large number of stones and wooden piles. It is the so-called mountain fort, a defense system built by the life of the Corvins, and even all the Finns and Tavastia tribes.

The mountain fort has only one main entrance, or the opening of the city wall. It is like a huge tortoise shell that can protect the residents of the village. When the enemy invades, everyone can withdraw to the mountain fort. They sealed the opening with a prepared stone, and then organized all men to guard it.

In a sense, the mountain fort is not as simple as a refuge for the village, it is also the village’s granary and material storage.

Chief Kejas gave the last order: "Masters of the salmon, we all withdraw to the mountain fort. Take all your bows and arrows, and prepare the javelin. We don't have to fight the enemy, just shoot them with our bows and arrows. Don't worry. No matter how fierce the enemy is, it will not be able to break the fortress."

Therefore, the name of this tribe is called "Lord of Salmon". They are a relatively strong tribe of the Kowen people. They are not only different from the "gray squirrel tribe" that Otto deliberately attacked. Because of the interlocking hunting grounds of the two tribes, there have always been conflicts between the two tribes for the sake of interests.

But Ottoman can't do so much. His trip is not aimed at the "gray squirrel" tribe, but intends to attack the Corvin tribe as much as possible so that the Rus can get as much benefit as possible.

Otto, who was on the march, did not expect that the Ross people's unconcealed actions had already begun to draw the nearest Kowen village on full alert.

It was another long journey, and the Ross army camped on the banks of the ice again.

The long march crazily consumed the fighting spirit of the warriors. Gradually, everyone felt that the prisoner who led the way had impure motives.

Yup! In fact, Woima Kashad, who led the way, did not have pure motives. His only pure intention was to see the Ruths fight against the "Lord of the Salmon" people, and it would be best to lose both. This is called, with the sword of the Ruth, behead the biggest competitor of the "Gray Squirrel" tribe.

In this way, even if nearly fifty members of the tribe were killed, the "gray squirrel" tribe eventually got a larger living space, which is also a benefit.

But Otto was really impatient.

Otto put a "dog chain" made of twine on Woima Kashad and ordered him to lie down to imitate the barking of the hound. Woimakashard had to behave like a loyal dog in humiliation. Otherwise, he believed that if he did not cooperate, the hemp rope around his neck would become his own noose, and finally become a dog. Frozen corpse that is getting up quickly.

Because the village of "Lord of the Salmon" will soon arrive.

The tribal warrior, who was boring by imitating the dog's trick, laughed. Lurik couldn't laugh, but he didn't interfere.

Rurik accidentally noticed that those deer breeders were very happy to see Woima Kashad being humiliated. They even wanted to see this person smash dung, and even more hope to see the Russ attack the Corvin’s village. Killing.

The deer breeders just want to vent their anger. The so-called hope that the Kewen people will experience the same suffering, and then praise the wiseness of the Ross people.

Rurik didn't want to say anything about this. After all, the men who followed his father were not his own confidants. In the days to come, he felt that after the Ross tribe he controlled, he would no longer need these madmen. Those young children trained will eventually become the backbone of the Rus army. They will be fighters with principled bottom line built according to Rurik's wishes.

They will definitely not make such a joke to humiliate the prisoners. Rurik firmly believed.

As the Ross warrior keenly noticed that the glacier had been excavated, the warrior who was originally a fisherman subconsciously determined that this was a hole cut by the fisherman, even if it had thin ice again.

The news came back to the Rus camp and immediately attracted everyone's attention.

These, Otto fully believes in Woima Kashad's rhetoric, and realizes that this person is still useful up to now.

By the bonfire, Otto summoned the prisoners who had removed their leashes.

"It looks like it's really going to your village. Will your people kneel down and surrender me?"

Woimakashard falsified the question.

Otto arrogantly said; "They shouldn't take the initiative. It's a pity, I'm going to kill your people."

Woimakashard heard it secretly. He deliberately said: "Anyone who does not want to surrender should be killed! I am willing to be your loyal dog."

Otto was amused and laughed, then dropped a piece of grilled snow rabbit meat.

"Eat! My faithful dog, lying down like a hound, I want to see you eat this piece of barbecue without your hands."

In this case, Evlo’s translation is no longer needed, and Voima Kashad knows what to do. He really did, so in Otto's mind, this guy really became a loyal dog.

On a new day, when the day was light, the Ross army began its final march. And this day was the ninth day of the appointment, and it was obvious that Woimakashad did not lie.

The Ross people still took the glacier as their path They walked, and after passing a bend, they saw the village houses on the river covered with snow.

"This! It's really a big village." Rurik was a little shocked, but he also felt a little strange. "It's really strange, how can I not feel the popularity?"

Rurik couldn't help but suspect that Otto, with his consent, gave the mercenary captain Jeflo a very bold order to take all mercenaries as pathfinders and set foot on the territory of the suspected "gray squirrel tribe".

The mercenaries, under the leadership of Jevlo, cautiously marched towards the enemy village, holding the winding crossbow. Behind them there are thirty-meter melee warriors holding swords and shields.

Otto sent fifty scouts to explore the reality of the village. The warriors were very happy. The order they received was to take the risk and enter first. They attacked immediately when confronted with enemies. After winning, they distributed the spoils and they got more. a little.

Except for these fifty people, the rest are waiting for the good news on the ice.

Everyone is also ready. If you notice that a fighting is erupting in a distant village, the rest will rush to help the scouts to resolve the battle.