Chapter 879： Westward expedition

Chapter 879

Large-scale marching in a snowy world is never a good idea unless the logistics are plentiful.

From Novgorod to Novgorod, the capital city at the mouth of the Neva River, it takes five days to float on a boat when the weather is sunny. Frozen rivers and lakes gave the sleigh team a shortcut to run wildly. The infantry sat on a large number of reindeer sleds, and the cavalry cherished horsepower, sitting on the sled as well, and then carrying a large amount of materials, especially a large amount of food, to start the attack.

In this era, the most efficient logistical transport was water, followed by mules and horses, and the last by manpower.

The logistics of manpower shoulder-carrying and shoulder-carrying logistics, with the lengthening of the logistics line, the loss of materials in the middle also increases exponentially. There is a logistics line of 1,000 kilometers. The fact that only 20 servings of grain can be transported to the front line .

The mule-drawn cart-type conveying greatly reduces the loss in the middle, but the requirements for reliable roads are more stringent.

Ultimately, the cheapest means of transport is water, which is more constrained by rivers, lakes and canals.

Therefore, although the straight-line distance between Novgorod and Novorossi was only more than 100 kilometers, Rurik's army had to go around a big bend to reach the staged destination.

At least the frozen world provided a passage, and Rurik's "horse army of mules" moved at the speed of a ship drifting downstream in the frozen river.

The army will continue to march in this way for the foreseeable future until it reaches Sweden.

A big problem lies ahead for Rurik - the climate is getting warmer.

The so-called freezing three feet is not a day's cold, and its final melting is not a matter of three or five days.

Finally, the army entered the frozen Neva River. The ice journey is not a serious challenge to everyone so far. The soldiers look forward to arriving in Novososburg for a good rest.

Behold! A sudden city wall appeared on the flat farmland covered by snow and ice in front, and a tall tower stood out from the crowd!

Look again! A large number of ships stand on the ice like sculptures, it is a fleet surrounded by ice, and those masts are as dense as a forest!

The people of the capital have been preparing for the war since September last year, and today is already the beginning of March, and they have been preparing for the war for half a year. All the services related to the war, including the military industry, provide the people with a lot of job opportunities, and the temporary prosperity brought about by the war is like a chicken blood for everyone.

The prosperity of the war charter is a double-edged sword, and no one knows this better than Rurik as king. He has mobilized manpower to produce a large amount of war preparation materials. It is said that if you have a good sword, you must kill the enemy. Any delay is fatal to the country.

The people not only welcomed back their great king, but also a fierce army.

The huge sleigh team stopped directly on the ice of the Neva River, and the soldiers who sat all the way down came down one after another to relax their muscles and bones.

Due to the long distance, many people came to the capital very rarely, and because of the rapid development of the capital, seeing you today is like seeing a brand new city. They used to be proud that Novgorod was a big city, and now it seems that Novgorod has made a new definition of the city.

Rurik looked around with his sword, and arranged for his cronies to order his subordinates who looked left and right.

At this moment, the city wall was full, and a large number of people walked out of their homes to pay their respects to the glory of Master Wang on the frozen river. The people who were chiseling ice fishing also stopped their activities, and threw down their fishing rods and came to watch the event.

Among the many onlookers were the Governor Conusson and his son.

The big old hand of the father pressed on his son's shoulder: "The king is here, this time, you will take the army to participate in the expedition."

Not surprisingly, little Conuson will succeed his father's position and be appointed by the king as the next governor of the capital. This is an extremely honorable position. Although it cannot be regarded as a fief noble, the family is expected to be responsible for the defense of the capital in the era and gain great honor as a close minister of the king. Therefore, the small Konuson must be rewarded.

"The king's army is gathering, and it is time for me to gather the second banner to meet the king," he suggested.

"Go for it! Assemble the brothers of the second flag team as much as possible."

The old guys were either too old to lift their swords or passed away, and the Second Flag Team was transformed into a youth unit. A few old warriors who are still able to fight form the branches of the flag team, a small number of old Rus young people living in the capital are young shoots, and a large number of young people from other Viking tribes form the leaves. Such a second flag team lacks a record, and most of the recruits' swords have not yet seen blood, but they are full of youthful vitality and eager to use their military exploits to gain honor for themselves.

Little Conusson was in a hurry with King Rurik. When he made an emergency rally in Harvest Square and managed to reorganize the second flag team, he ran out of the city non-stop to merge with the main force of the army that was about to enter the city.

Uniformly dressed and uniformly equipped, the king's army marched on Nevsky Prospect in neat steps, accepting the ambiguity of the people. The newly assembled second flag team also joined the event.

Rurik arrived in his loyal capital in high spirits, and now the real expedition has just begun.

The king arrived with the main force of the East, and many officers gathered together to eat barbecue and drink hard liquor.

All "ship" captains, officers equivalent to platoon commanders, were all on the invited list. Dozens of people accompanied the king and the king to drink and listened to the king's speech.

"If it is just to crusade the Jotalan people and just destroy a few villages, I can't afford to assemble an army of thousands. This year, this king will sweep the entire Jotalan! Those who are willing to submit to us will be our compatriots! Those who dare to fight, Will be completely wiped out by our army! Odin bestowed my blessing and gave me a mission. The mission of this king is to conquer, and those villages and tribes that speak the Norse language will all be classified as Rus! What we need is a great Rus! You all Will be honored in this war, and more to come..."

Rurik said a lot, but he never mentioned that war would bring killing, emphasizing that it was a glorious battle, and it was a battle that conformed to the will of the gods.

As soon as they heard the glory promised by the gods in the battle, the warriors were excited. They don't want to stick to ordinary life, they envy the heroes in legends, and they long to live like legends themselves.

This time, Rurik allowed the whole army to enjoy a drink to wash away the fatigue of the long journey and to prepare for the more arduous journey that followed.

The whole army is on vacation for three days, and the soldiers can buy some needed materials on the spot with their own money. After all, it is a war, and the handicrafts in the market sell very well. There are a large number of lucky elf wood carvings, and even small sculptures of gods such as Thor and Frey. They are widely worn around the necks of the soldiers as body guards, and they are at ease.

Rurik was not idle either. As a recognized "one blessed by Odin", he didn't need the protection of these amulets, because in a sense, he himself was the amulet of the entire army.

The key to winning a war lies in having enough troops, the right timing, and adequate logistical support.

In particular, the issue of logistical support is often ignored by European generals in this era. In this regard, the Rus army should try its best to make plans.

During this half year, the weather was extremely cold, and Rurik's sister-in-law Aslaki's royal mill continued to be busy. The wheat was crushed into powder, the wheat bran was mixed with refined flour and kneaded into a ball, supplemented with some whole oat flour. Plenty of dry hard whole wheat biscuits. At the beginning, they all contained a lot of water, and the water was frozen into ice during storage. The first batch of sesame cakes was last year’s product. Outdoors, the sesame cakes in the large refrigerator were essentially freeze-dried and turned into a large number of dehydrated and hard cakes.

Such biscuits are not easy to eat, and they bite hard and grind their gums. It is superior to being an extremely storable ready-to-eat military ration, and the reserves of nearly half a year are now finally available.

Not only the ready-to-eat sentinels, but a large amount of dehydrated salted fish jerky piled up the warehouse, and now they are all pulled out, stuffed into a large number of shopping bags and thrown on the sled.

If an army of 5,000 men is mobilized, a soldier will eat three pounds of oats a day to cope with extreme physical exhaustion, so that if the campaign lasts for six months, the army can consume 2.7 million pounds of oats.

This is only the consumption of personnel. If you add the loss of animal power, it is normal to consume five million pounds of oats in total.

Rurik set the standard for his army based on the scientific military ration standard a thousand years later. He especially considered that all kinds of things would happen during the war. The only thing that can stabilize the army's heart is sufficient food and grass.

During the break, a high-level military meeting was held under his chairmanship.

The atmosphere in the venue was warm and quickly turned serious.

The old Konusson tried his best to advocate his son's loyalty and bravery, and the young Konusson also took a selfie with his chest and vowed not to disgrace his old Ross blood.

"Anything aside in advance, now, Governor Conuson, I want you to count all the stocks in the granary and prepare, in addition to throwing away the normal consumption of the people, you must prepare a strategic reserve of two million pounds of oats for me, And wait for the king's call."

Old Konusong was half-understood and half-dazed, "Your Majesty must have a profound plan."

Rurik then said: "It's very simple, this king must be fully prepared, if the war becomes anxious, I will need a lot of rear supplies to make up for the front consumption. You... You can't hope that our army can loot Jota. The food of the Lan people? This king doesn’t think they are very rich. Therefore, the original sale of food to the people has now been suspended, and the warehouses are all blocked. How much food is there?”

Old Konuson was taken aback, but the king had given an order, and he had to carry it out. Fortunately for him, it is his great responsibility to control the granary, and the current inventory is extremely gratifying.

"There are more than 3 million pounds of oats, and 200,000 pounds of wheat. You know, the country's granary is the largest in the country. If there is a real shortage of food, in fact, there are still a lot of grain reserves in the private sector. If we encounter problems, we can Collect food from the people."

"That's great!" Rurik's serious face overflowed with a smile: "I will block the granary immediately, and I will post a notice to inform the people. Anyway, everyone has surplus food at home. When the temperature returns, people will go fishing again. Before We Rus people eat fish all the time, and we can only eat some wheat during Hanukkah. Although wheat is a common delicacy now, the old tradition of eating fish must not be abandoned, especially now during the war, we can only temporarily suffer the people. "

"They will understand us, as long as we get the glory, everything will be fine." Old Konuson said some glorious nonsense, and he may promise to cooperate with the king in the rear with a lot of practical actions.

Rurik found many people to hold a meeting, and also gave the governor old Konusson a major task, especially the event of dividing the army into the army.

Of course, after waiting for the ice and snow to melt, the material consumption of marching by sea will be less. In that case, the march will be delayed until May, and the war time for the Kingdom of Ross will be too little.

The main force must do everything possible to reach Stockholm, Sweden as quickly as possible, and must wait until the first ten days of April to prepare the total force and start moving south. At that time, the Gulf of Bothnia and most of the Gulf of Finland were still full of ice floes, which were not good for navigation.

In the capital city of New Roseburg, an allied force of only fifty people, consisting of Veps and Rudys, joined the king's division under the leadership of Earl Telavis. Telavis himself is a Kowen, and now he has become the Count of the Veps who was canonized by Rurik. His territory is on the west bank of Lake Ladoga. A station-like existence that hunts toward the northeastern world.

Telavis's army all carried bows. Because of his friendship with the Finnish Count Yevlo, his army was equipped with the "ash tree" longbow. In blood, they are all a tribe under Finland, and will also be part of the Confederate army. Rurik didn't ask them to send many troops, anyway, there were not many men, and it was Terravis who did his best to make fifty.

According to Rurik's plan, after the army assembled in Novososburg, they participated in a grand expedition and memorial service, and the army went all the way west on the north shore of the frozen Gulf of Finland. The army will absorb another army in Helminki (Helsinki), the trading town of the Finnish count, especially the Finnish count Yevlo himself, who, as once, was attributed to Rurik's direct rule.

A grand sacrifice was held under the auspices of High Priest Rumia, and more than 10,000 people gathered in Harvest Square, making this large square seem cramped.

The well-dressed people rubbed shoulder to shoulder. They kept their distance from the assembled army out of awe, admired the military might of the army from a distance, and waited for the grand occasion of public sacrifice.

After all, this is a national war, and Ross also dispatched the largest army in history.

Another 111 reindeer were pulled out, and the brawny men with their golden chest hairs bare upper body held sharp knives and bleed the stags one by one in front of the Great Temple. The savage and high-level sacrifices ended, and the collected deer blood was consumed by the warriors. Severe fishy smell is a problem, but these sacrifices must have been ordered by God Not to mention, it is said that men who drink deer blood will become more masculine. The soldiers actually ate the blood of the deer, but the skin was stripped off, and the venison was rectified. It was frozen into cold meat in the cold weather, just as food on the journey.

The Russ army ushered in an extremely important supply in the capital. A group of heavy weapons was shipped with sleds, and the combat troops, along with a variety of non-combat auxiliary personnel, swelled to 3,000. The number of sleds pulling people and goods has reached 600, and only 3,000 reindeer and more than 300 horses are pulling the sleds.

After the army left the capital, it went all the way to the west. The army marched according to the formation of the flag team. Although the distance between the teams gradually increased, it was divided into multiple modules. Each sled in each module set up a flag, and a large number of flags gathered together. The presence of attention that cannot be ignored. There are as many modules as there are flag teams, and the 3,000 people are divided into seven modules and run towards Helminki City.

Rurik was convinced that his loyal Yevlo had prepared a capable archer corps, and would follow the king's order to organize a Finnish flag team of about 500 troops, and bring their own dry food waiting to be merged into the royal army.

The army will never get lost in the world of ice and snow. They advance along the frozen coastline, rest at night, and continue to march during the day. Adequate grain reserves ensure the consumption of reindeer, horses and personnel, and the specially selected route also allows reindeer to open their heads on the snow to eat hay under the snow while resting to reduce material consumption.

The army finally arrived at Helminki. Seven full days and nights had passed since they left the capital, Novrosburg. At noon on the eighth day, Rurik finally saw the first building of the Finns built by his order. A city of eight classics.

The loyal Yevluo has brought his six-year-old son Kelha to wait for the arrival of the king.