Chapter 390： Chief Otto returns to Mellaren

The warm south wind swept across the Gulf of Bothnia, and a large ship hoisted her unique jigsaw sail.

Look at this sail, its maximum length is abruptly more than twenty stikas, which is almost twenty meters. The slanted beam does have such a length, even if it is inclined, the maximum height of the ship is much higher than the mast.

Compared to the size of the ship, her sails are the most eye-catching. From a distance, the sail is gray as a whole, but from a closer look, it can be seen that it is stitched together by many small sails. Fan's loyal center position, there are two very obvious staggered stripes, which proves her identity.

The south wind blows this giant sail, which is slanted to the middle axis of the ship. It forms a quite perfect wing shape, making it easy for the big ship to make a fold line to go retrograde in the wind.

She is Aphrola, the flagship of the Ross tribe fleet. Only her stocky and strong body can undoubtedly be competent for this duty.

It was already April, and after the grand sacrificial event was over, more than 1,000 large and small fleets, carrying as many as 3,000 people, and even a wide variety of goods of staggering weight, rushed towards their respective goals.

A small team, with the purpose of obtaining ore, rushed to Fort Elon in the north.

A large fleet of ships, with Sorgon's team and a group of cargo ships, rushed to the east of Novgorod and Novgorod.

Here, the largest fleet, all ships are guided by the huge spinnaker of the Aphrola, and head straight to Lake Mälaren along the coastline.

As usual, Otto stood at the bow.

This time he couldn't commit the embossment of holding the bow of the ship anymore, because he couldn't hold anything at all.

Aphrora has a special foremast. It is a wooden pole that is slanted and pointed straight ahead. Now it has a number of wooden pulleys and ropes installed on it. The ropes pulled diagonally from the mast are tightly bound here. So if you count the cable stays of the mast, the whole ship can be said to surround the keel and mast, forming a mechanically entangled and stable structure. With the hard oak, the most critical material, the whole ship, if not indestructible, at least There is no need to worry about the existence of seawater erosion for many years.

Otto simply held on to the wooden railing of the ship's side. He sometimes paid attention to the torsion slingshot covered by the linen soaked with seal oil. The main energy was actually to look at the distant misty coast and the sea in front of him.

He must remain vigilant, even personally immersed in the sea breeze, acting as a navigator, because behind him is a huge fleet of thousands of ships.

He is enjoying a brand new sailing experience. For example, he can stand in a high position and see a lot of splashes on the bow of the ship. The keel of the bow protruded partly forward, as if it was arching the sea water to the sides. Why is this ship so designed? Otto didn't think much.

Because the Aphrora does have a bulbous bow, it is probably the only ship with a bulbous bow among the ships cruising in the entire Baltic Sea.

It is a finely polished protruding oak, a special presence of the tenon and tenon on the keel, which means that it can be removed by itself.

However, the existence of this bulbous bow is not only to reduce the disturbance of wave-making resistance to the navigation of the ship, but also some crude chromium iron strips with a certain anti-corrosion ability are riveted on the front end of it. The head of the bulbous bow became harder, which is what Rurik hoped.

Rurik knew one thing about the development of the navy, that even if the world entered the existence of armored ships, because the artillery shells and artillery technology at the time could not keep up with the ship armor technology, it was quite unrealistic to expect shelling to sink enemy ships quickly. In this situation, the collision tactics of the resurrection of the Roman era have an extremely realistic and necessary effect. They have realized the importance of the bulbous bow, so they can strengthen the hardness of the bulbous bow, making the collision tactics have the powerful ability to block the enemy ship and break it without any damage.

Rurik's idea is actually the same. It is not realistic to expect the six torsion slingshots on the ship to quickly sink the enemy ship, so it is better to directly collide.

He has this confidence that even if the Aphrora does not have a human-powered oar, its spinnaker has the ability to use any wind direction, and its speed is still amazing. The big ship can rely on its own iron head to knock down the enemy.

However, the resistance of Xingbo was greatly reduced, and because of her solid body, Otto, standing on the bow, saw the ship's high-speed advance, and the feeling of turbulence was extremely weak.

The big ship can move forward at a speed of six knots, even if her belly is full of cargo!

Large amounts of leather were bundled into bundles, soap was put in a pine patchwork box, and a large number of weapons that were to be sold directly to the leader were all stuffed into the cabin.

The Aphrora did not reach her full displacement, and even so, her displacement has exceeded one hundred tons. Now everyone has to face a gratifying reality. Only this ship is really used as a cargo ship. Not to mention that she is better than three cargo ships, and the speed is faster than that of a cargo ship.

The happiest one is probably the great merchant Gould. He never thought that the Aphrodite was so powerful, and the Gurdot should be stronger in the future.

The Aphrodite really deserves to be the flagship, her speed unexpectedly surpasses all the ships in the fleet, even if she is the heaviest. This caused her to often slow down by slackening the sails to accommodate the entire fleet.

On the first night, the fleet docked near the shore, and a huge bonfire was lit on the deserted beach.

Only those cargo ships and the largest Aphrodite, the ships dropped their rivets and floated offshore.

The entire huge fleet basically set sail at the same time. They formed a huge team. After exiting the fjord into the sea, they gradually formed a team of six nautical miles long.

The Aphrora led the entire fleet and floated at sea for at least fourteen hours.

At the current time point, the sunshine time enjoyed by ancient Sweden has risen to fifteen hours, plus the time spent by the Buddha’s dawn and the evening atmosphere scattering sunlight, and it enjoys up to sixteen hours of light, and this time is still increase rapidly. Until the 28th of June in the Julian calendar, there was not even a second of night in Roseburg that day.

In the past fourteen hours, all ships have unfolded their sails and moved forward at an average speed of four nautical miles.

Although it is downwind, the traditional long boat can rely on the paddling assistant to directly soar to the ten-knot speed, but it is generally not too long. She is completely headwind and still has amazing speed on the Aphrodite. Only the leader is worthy of this magical ship. Those ordinary people control their own ships, and they can't catch up with the leader's flagship even though they try their best, and their dignity and inferiority are also reflected here.

If the ship continues to move forward at night, there will be ships rushing to the mouth of Lake Mälaren in just three days.

It is a pity that this mixed fleet is mixed with a large number of merchant ships. The merchants hope for a smooth sailing at sea. They will never take their own property to risk. This forces Otto even if he owns a fast ship, he can be slower than ever. Suddenly, it took five days abruptly, and finally entered Lake Mälaren composed of pure fresh water slowly.

A strange big ship lights up its magical giant sails, leading an astonishing number of ships into the Great Lake, just like a powerful crusade army that has always been powerful.

The first to spot them were the fishermen from Mellaren, and even some Ross fishermen from Tombstone Island.

As the Aland Islands approached, the fleet split. Those Sorgon fleets that will go to the east, under the leadership of Arik, will first visit Tombstone Island in the name of leader Otto, and stay here after correction. Continue to the east.

The Merlaren soldiers stationed at the mouth of the Great Lake, they saw the unprecedented scale of the fleet, their eyes fixed on the largest ship.

They can't help but start to wonder who is the owner of the big ship.

Speculation is probably superfluous, because the fleet comes from the northern waters. This year coincides with the visit of the leader of Ross to Melaren again in more than a decade. This historic meeting has made the young Melaren fighters a part of life. For the first time, I caught a glimpse of the elite forces of the Rus.

Just as Rurik and Otto had hoped, the giant sail of the Aphrora and the staggered blue stripes on the giant sail were just enough for the Ross people to earn a lot of face, and they were shocked to witness that the Mellaren people didn’t know. Take measures.

Otto, who was still sticking to the bow of the ship like a god, lightly pressed his big hand to his eyes, and then asked Rurik and Carlotta who were standing beside him.

"You two are familiar with this place. After those **** island groups, are we finally at Lake Mälaren?"

Rurik was surprised; "Dad, haven't you been here? Did you forget?"

"Me? Haha! Those are all the past ten years ago, I have long forgotten. Ten years ago you did not exist, Carlota did not exist. Too much has happened in these years..." Otto

I don't want to remember anymore, because more than ten years ago, my two sons hadn't accidentally lost their lives, my brother was still alive, and my nephew Arik was as old as Rurik.

Otto saw that there were a large number of small boats floating on the wide, large lake, and after a closer look, he could conclude that there were all fishing boats.

"Wuhu! Are they good at fishing?"

"They?" Rurik deliberately sneered: "How can they have our fishing ability."

"Hey, compared to us, at least they face a calm lake, and they never have to worry about wind and waves when fishing."

"Yes, but the fish they fished have a lot of bones."

Otto shrugged. He knew this was true. After all, herrings would break into the freshwater area only when they went crazy, and the news he had learned was that there were not many Merlaren people entering the sea to fish. In recent years, the Mellaren people have become more conservative due to the tense fighting.

Rurik did criticize the Melaren tribe, which mainly came from the leader of the tribe, Olegin. There are clearly visible rifts within this powerful tribe, and their society is quietly torn apart. Unlike the Rusians, although the settlements began to thrive in the style of "casting the net", although the tribe had a tendency to split, Rurik can be said to be a series of operations of his own, and he insisted on strengthening the power of the leader. Is gradually increasing the cohesion of the tribe.

If the Ross tribe is a rising sun, then the Mellaren tribe’s sun may have a tendency to set.

There are indeed a large number of fishing boats cruising on the lake, and most of the residents are forced to survive the pressure of survival, and this has taken care of the fisherman's old profession. In fact, they have sowed the seeds of spring oats. These seeds are the grain they have cherished for the whole winter, and they would rather starve than eat them.

Ordinary Buraku people’s food rations are about to bottom out. Everything stems from the severe harvest failure last year and the exploitation of the leaders. They must rely entirely on fishing for the next four months.

If they were worried about entering the sea and being attacked by Gotland fishermen, Pian'an and the Great Lakes were actively working as farmers. Now, under the **** of hunger, once the great lakes are no longer good for fishing, they rush into the sea and rob the Gotland people and even the Ross people of Tombstone Island for fish resources, even if they use force.

At present, there is no sign of an extreme situation. The ordinary Melalen people and other tribes living around the lake can only say that the lives of everyone are worse than before.

The huge fleet actually started to part ways after entering Lake Mälaren.

Uppsala merchants ran towards a river channel leading to northern waters and returned to their home port.

The Yilmalen merchants went directly south, found the pebble-filled channel at the bottom of the river, and entered their Yilmalen Lake. Oh, they will first meet the Granite who builds a new home by the stone river.

The main merchant ships came from the Melaren tribe, and only this tribe had a large number of well-established and powerful merchants. These people are actually the masters of the bazaar, and of course the Gould family is one of them.

The Gould family is still regarded by business circles as not only the representatives of the Ross tribe, but also closely related to the Ankras tribe from which it originated. Look, the few Anclas merchants, this is not still mixed with Gould, even their merchant ships are allowed to carry out a supply repair on Gould Island.

On this trip, the Gould family was authorized by the Ross leader and under direct supervision. Rurik really didn't need other Ross merchants to have to sail for many days to come to Mellaren to do business. Originally, their business was just exchanging some furs, and then exchange them for some daily necessities. This year's situation is very special, because Roseburg has rapidly formed a restrained market, and the work of a variety of craftsmen has made the main daily necessities self-produced and sold, so there is no need for individual people to take risks.

The Gould family and the leader family are all-round strategic alliances, so that the fleet has an absolute official nature.

This year's situation is really special, because the leader of the Rus, he not only entered the Mälaren, but also visited Gould Island, which was turned into a wooden fortress on the lake.

In a sense, Gould Island is an enclave of the Rus tribe in the area controlled by the Mälaren people. Here, the Rus have the final say. When the chief comes here, the residents of the island cheer and hope to pay their respects. The majesty of the leader!

However, with the arrival of the huge ship, the hull and mast of the Aphrora, the overall height is higher than the wall. The garrisoned mercenaries standing on the wooden wall accepted this reality in a thrilling manner.

The port slot that could have squeezed two cargo ships can now only be squeezed into a large ship.

Otto, Liurik, and everyone on the boat, with great excitement, stomping and cheering, watching the boat slowly enter the slot, as the bulbous bow hits the mud on the shore. The big ship stopped due to loud noises and violent vibrations.

"Fully rewind! The winch starts." The sailors, who were raised by the Gould family, acted immediately under the command of the sailor.

The huge sail was gathered by the rope mechanism, and finally wrapped around the inclined beam. In the end, the beam also turned from sideways to stand up. At first glance, the Aphrora only had a soaring mast but no sails. .

The cable securely fixed the ship, and at this moment, other cargo ships were also calling at the port.

The once deserted Gould Island has restored its excitement. No, all the sailors, even Rurik’s mercenaries, and the warriors carefully selected by Otto, they all turned into porters, and they began to be nervous and nervous. Important unloading work.

Coming to Melaren again, setting foot on the road controlled by the Ross people for the first time, watching the wooden walls and towers erected on the island, Otto felt a dream.

He hesitated a bit, but Rurik decisively took his father's rough hand: "Dad, let's go, here you can enjoy everything you can enjoy in Roseburg?"

"Huh? Really?" Otto raised an interest, and his beard trembled.

Gould hurriedly complimented: "Master Rurik said it was pretty good. My island has undergone some transformations, and I think the chieftain will be satisfied."

"Really?" Leaving the trestle, Otto deliberately stopped: "I want spirits, I want barbecue, I want to take a comfortable bath, I want..."

Gould continued his efforts: "Big Chief, when the wooden door opens, all your requirements will be fulfilled. If you want, I can even find a beautiful woman to satisfy you."

When Gould said this, Rurik frowned suddenly, and he used a color to make Gould realize that he was not speaking properly.

Otto didn’t realize this. He actually itched his heart that reason is firmly in his mind: "Hehe, you are very interested. If I want, I can enjoy a hundred in Novgorod. The service of a young woman, but I don’t have one. I’m old and it doesn’t make much sense to me. Let’s talk about business."

"Ah! Yes!" Gould let out a sigh, and hurriedly put on a businessman's professional smile: "I am willing to help you."

Otto waved his hand: "I will give you a reminder first. I will send a messenger to see Olegin soon. You are familiar with Mellaren, you come and do this."

"Yes. But, Chieftain. Olekin has a secret appointment with us in Rus. Maybe you can go directly."

"Absurd!" Otto gave Gould a glance, "I didn't think he was a hero ten years ago, but he still is today. We expedition, we expanded, we beheaded the Gotland enemies, and the Mellarens shrank in the lake. , Like a coward. Maybe, he should see me in person, not I go to see him right away!"

Sure enough, the two leaders of Ross, the father and son, both criticized the Mellaren people, and were full of fighting spirit, arrogance and ambition. Gould regretted that he was talking too much, and remedied: "I will do this well."

"Just know. Let's go, let your people open the wooden door."