Chapter 436： Flag team

Every year, the Ross people import a large amount of flax stalks from the south. The hemp stalks harvested have no added value. The Ross people buy them and process them on their own.

The original flax stalks are scattered and hemp is treated to obtain a large number of khaki, brown coarse fine threads.

These clumps of hemp threads can be woven by themselves, but they are too rough. Apart from being woven into cloaks, sails and sacks, they seem to have little new use.

The women of Ross inherited ancient craftsmanship, and there is no essential difference between them and the Frankish craftsmanship, and the productivity of the two is also the same.

The earthy yellow coarse linen thread is boiled in a pottery urn, and then put in a bit of natural thenardite dug in the mountains. They didn't know the principle of this, but the twine boiled for a period of time not only turned into a milk-like color, especially the woven cloth was extremely delicate.

The essence is the combined effect of natural and easily available bleaching agent and boiled water. The natural pigments and gums stored in the flax thread are all removed, which makes a comfortable body feel.

It is not a troublesome technology, but it requires a lot of labor for the processor to come back.

Gould imported essentially three types of linen. The khaki cloth is the roughest and the cheapest, and its quantity is actually not much. The largest quantity is white cloth, which has a large output and a large annual sales volume.

Only linen dyed sky blue, they are precious.

Although the white cloth is easy to get dirty, the Rus people are not very particular about it. Now the people have widely used soap, and it is not a hassle to wash their own linen cloth.

With the linen poles bought last year, Rose’s women have been doing their best to weave in the short daylight hours during the boring winter.

The Ross tribe was short of cloth, but the tribe has been the largest leather supplier to the Southern Allies for decades, and the tribe has never been short of leather. In recent years, trade with the South has become more frequent, and the scale has become unprecedentedly huge. Linen cloth, which was once relatively scarce, is now ordinary.

It is said that Lord Duke spent huge sums of money to buy a large number of finished linen cloths, and the purpose is to make uniform clothes for the soldiers who have been enlisted?

Soon after the arrival of the Gould fleet, the women of the entire tribe, including the hundreds of girls under Rurik, gathered on the beach to receive Rurik’s order.

Soon, each piece of white cloth was torn into three halves, that is, three pieces of cloth about 4 meters in length and 1.3 meters in width.

This kind of cloth can make a white robe for a strong warrior, and there is even a lot of surplus cloth, which requires women to use their imagination to make some other textiles.

In all the cloths, there are as many as ninety packs of pure white cloth. In theory, there will be more than 1,300 robes finished.

There are also thirty packs of crude khaki linen. They are also used to make robes, and these new robes must be made quickly and then supplied to the new mercenaries from Mellaren. Taking into account the problem of saving materials, 30 packs of burlap can make 600 sets of coarse robes.

Only in the supply of his main equipment, Rurik is willing to spend a lot of money, and only if their morale is high, the victory will really belong to Rose.

A vigorous garment making operation has begun! This is a women's war!

In essence, the women shouldered the logistics of the Russian army to a great extent. They had spent time cutting wood and cooking salt, but now they use the extremely long daylight in summer to work with high endurance.

Although in Rurik’s view, the women of the tribe were sitting together, talking and laughing with knives to cut cloth, bone needles, coarse iron needles, and a very few people used extremely precious steel needles (the place of origin is actually the Tang Empire ) To sew uniform robes.

They can obviously employ more labor, but unfortunately they will never be able to become assembly line workers in the concept of Rurik in this life.

Because they lack key discipline education, and given the current living conditions, they do lack the motivation to work hard.

Ask yourself that Rurik doesn't blame them for dragging along. If they dragged along, it would be more efficient than the Mellaren, and the Gotland, who is also an enemy, would not be able to prepare for battle with such speed.

Every woman who receives linen must complete the production of the gown within two days. In order to earn a sum of money, but also for their husbands and sons who are on the expedition to be prosperous, they really completed the work earnestly.

On July 15th, all white cloth gowns of surprisingly similar styles were handed in one after another, and Lurik also began to organize a new batch of personnel to perform secondary processing on these white shirts.

A recognized strong man in Ross wore chain mail, and then put a white cloth without sleeves on him.

What Rurik wanted was this wearing effect. With the cowhide belt around the brawny man’s waist, a neat and brave warrior came into being. Compared with his previous appearance, onlookers praised him. This new look.

Just this is not enough!

Through this strong man, Rurik determined the exact positions of the so-called sides and waist of the gown.

The finishing process is the front and back of the gown. There are two blue strips of men's three-finger width stitched on them in a cross pattern.

This is the exclusive "paddle-style coat of arms" of the Rus, and it is also a symbol of Rus in essence.

There are twenty packs of blue linen. From the beginning, Rurik didn't plan to use all of them as clothing. They must be matched with various cloths.

Speaking of which, the "Cross Oars" heraldic pattern chosen by the Rus people since ancient times is simple, and the blue cloth reserves are sufficient. It can not only sew the marks of Rus on all the elite warriors, but also enable the ships of Russ Floating Rose's logo.

Only those clothes made of burlap will be rewarded to the newly recruited mercenaries who take their lives for the future. It is good to wear new clothes. They have self-knowledge and know that they have no right to choose between them.

Therefore, the six hundred people from the Melaren tribe all put on new clothes the next day, a simple belt made of hemp rope, and a pair of simple leather shoes.

They soon learned of their real job-joining the Rus army and attacking Gotland.

Some young people are excited about it, and some old people are deeply confused about the way forward.

Young people just want to express themselves in battle, and then take advantage of the opportunity to get the spoils. The elderly think more about possible death and the sorrow of not being able to fight for the Mellaren.

They immediately accepted the status quo, and saw that the entire Rus tribe in the legend, all tribesmen, including young children, were preparing for the war.

After all, the Russ were also a part of the new kingdom of Sweden, and I am afraid that the following wars were also instructed by King Olekin.

They comforted themselves that they finally got involved in this great war, but the way they got involved was very peculiar.

The six hundred Mellaren's new force, their initial weakness was largely due to the torture of boat and cart labor. They changed their clothes and ate enough fish to fill their stomachs, and then they began to accept the transfer order from the gold master, the Duke of Ross, to help the Ross people cut logs.

They also learned about their weapons and equipment in future battles, and it was really simple to say, it was the lumbering hand axe issued by the Ross people, and the short spear that was about the same height as their own. The key shield? The Ross people don't distribute them, but fortunately, some Mellaren carry their own shields and even small axes with them. The remaining people make their own round shields by cutting wood.

Ross' elite troops have been doing traditional combat drills in recent days.

For fighters who are good at archery, including a kind of children, Rurik asks them to focus on practicing the arrow pattern of "fire all arrows" and alternate shooting.

With a total of 150 people, we can say that they are veterans who have survived the war. Although they had some luck in their survival, it is undeniable that they survived after all, which represents their strength. They are a team of elite warriors. They have been hit by the crossbow once, and now they have the right to touch the steel-armed crossbow of the Ross people.

Of course, the Kowenmen are also users of all longbows, and they have become the core of the shooting force.

All kinds of people were training, and Rurik even forced Gould to surrender the right to use all his mercenaries, housekeepers, and sailors at the moment. This is a full-scale war. Although many members of the Gould family are non-combatants, now that the rise and fall of the Principality is once again a battle, they naturally joined Ross and must fulfill their obligations.

The sailors and Gould's mercenaries carried out very special training, which was to carry the torsion slingshot ashore, put it on a two-wheeled trolley, and shoot at the wooden handle.

The torsion slingshot also took the opportunity to carry out important repairs. Taking into account the previous battle damage, the slingshot's torsion rope has seen a lot of small breaks, although it can still be used, but the pounds will drop faster and faster in the future. All the slingshots lost pounds, which is one of the reasons why it was difficult to sink them at close range when they encountered the Gotland patrol ship.

All torsion slingshots were quickly repaired, the hemp rope on each side was raised from twelve strands to fourteen strands, and its torsion was also improved a bit. This received extremely positive feedback during training.

The soldiers wore the same clothes and appeared in a neat line on the battlefield. The threat of the army must scare the enemy to shudder.

Of course this alone is not enough!

Fisk's mother Broma was ordered to supervise the work of the women. She has always been favored by Rurik, and now she wants to make new contributions.

Rurik found her on purpose and ordered her to organize and sew some flags by hand.

Sewing a banner? Sew the flag of the Rus’ oars? Like the pattern printed on the first sail of the leader's flagship?

On a white cloth with a width of nearly one meter and a length of nearly one and a half meters, Broma cuts blue strips and sews them on the cloth herself.

If only this is the case, everything is quite normal, until Rurik asks to sew the Norse language marked with the Rune alphabet on the deliberately 600 area under the flag with a blue cloth strip.

There are five flags that need to be marked in text. They are:

KRIGAREET (Warrior One), KRIGARETVA (Warrior Two), HIUTARE (Shooter), (Slavs), (Melaren).

The Ross army has become a behemoth that people recognize today. To command such an army, they must be divided into groups.

People nowadays really can’t expect them to have a high level of discipline. Good discipline requires enough time to train. Of course, Rurik boasts that he has the ability to make the entire Ross army do basic orders and prohibitions, but that takes time, and it is precisely because he lacks. It's time.

Rurik had planned and did try this three years ago. That is, a group of thirty people in a long boat will select a "captain" commander. Then one hundred and twenty men in the four boats can complete a hollow infantry phalanx and are also capable of making complex formations. In this way, a "centurion" is selected. This kind of weaving probably also has the meaning of a hundred men.

So when the strength of the army reaches 500, it is time to set up a "flag team."

The flag team is a large-scale weaving of the feudal armies that existed widely in Western Europe to Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. Its positioning is like the positioning of an infantry division in a massive war, such as a giant war with tens of millions of people.

The infantry flag team and the infantry battalion are similar in terms of strength. In fact, the strength of a flag team often reaches 800 or 1,000. A similar establishment was used by the Romanians and Germans in World War II a thousand years later.

For this war, Rurik plans to set up five flag teams, each with a strength of between 500 and 700.

In his plan, the future Russian army, especially the army, should also have such a basic organization.

He couldn't help but fantasize that the so-called Sixth Division of the Son of Heaven, one division is equivalent to 10,000 troops. In the Eastern world, 10,000 troops are not a lot, but in the current Western world, they are really huge.

To really organize an army of tens of thousands of people that has always been neatly organized is a test of the commander's organizational ability. In this era of poor military order transmission mode, Rurik also lacks the experience and confidence in this aspect for the time being.

"Three infantry flag teams paired with a marksman flag team, if we can arrange a formal logistics flag team, plus some auxiliary personnel, it will form a corps of close to 3,000 people? Then the three corps constitute a division, so That’s okay. The emperor has six divisions, and I have to have them too."

There must be a limit to dreaming, and Rurik knew that he was gathering heads everywhere at the moment, in order to piece together an "army" with a strength of close to 3,000.

Among them, I am afraid that only 1,000 native fighters of the Ross tribe are the qualified backbone, that is, the two "Warrior Flag Teams". As for the other flag teams, they are mainly used for support and transportation.

Soon, the flags of the five flag teams were sewn, and they were all hung on special flagpoles.

The flagpole is like the mast of a ship, and the flags are hung upright with cross beams staggered with the flagpole, just like a small sail. On the top of the flagpole is a wood carving of a hideous dragon head, just like the eagle emblem of the Roman legionary flag. This dragon head flag is the symbol of the flag team and must also represent the honor of the entire flag team.

If the flag falls during the war, it represents the shame of the entire flag team soldiers! It will also cause the highest commander to be unable to see clearly the movements of his soldiers, which is a disaster for the course of the war.

After the flag was completed, it was issued to the army of Roseburg, a fighting flag team was born, and Rurik appointed the captain of the flag team.

The five hundred elite soldiers of the Warriors First Banner Team, Captain Arik, are currently stationed on Tombstone Island.

The Warriors Second Banner Team, with a strength of six hundred, and the captain Haroldoson, this old guy must shoulder a heavy responsibility in this decisive battle.

The Archers Banner Team has 700 troops, the archery master Fleiser is the captain, and is responsible for leading the young children's archers (up to 300 men and women), one hundred and fifty Kewen archers, one hundred Fifty steel-armed crossbowmen composed of older Ross people, as well as a hundred sailors and mercenaries who plan to manipulate ten torsion slingshots.

The Merlaren mercenary flag team has six hundred troops. An older man named Heliger is the leader of the flag team because he was a "leader's private soldier" for a period of time when he was young. They got uniform new clothes and seemingly reliable weapons. During this time, they were also comfortable with food and clothing. They saw the Ruths really moving. Then they are no longer resisting the expedition to Gotland. Hope. For example, after the war is over, just stay as a native of Rus. The war he participated in was an act of surrender to the group.

The Slavic flag team currently has five hundred troops, and the destined brother-in-law Medveit will fight for the flag team. Rurik estimated that when the assembly is complete, the force will rise to seven hundred men or even more. Because they have sent people to Novgorod to continue the conscription, the local tribes do not deal with each other on weekdays. In the end, the core of the contradiction lies with the local manor owners. The lives of ordinary people are generally poor. If fighting is the way to get rid of poverty , Rurik felt that he could really recruit a large number of people who worked for him.

Calculated in this way, the Ross army has reached 3,100 men, and the final strength can be a little more.