Chapter 1005： Eye-opening Ludwig

The arrogant and arrogant Ludwig suddenly gave in, even if he himself was unbelievable.

The young King Ross was standing in front of him, but as a man, Ludwig was inevitably a little timid.

This man is tall and strong, and the most important thing is that he is very young.

"Sit down." Rurik pointed casually.

In this way, Ludwig sat down obediently, clutching the supplies, without fear or flattery, just sitting calmly.

Rurik immediately sat down and ordered the blue fox to continue serving as an interpreter.

"You are defeated." Rurik looked at the guy's face and said quietly, "I especially remember the curse you put on me on the battlefield. You were defeated! I am the victor. You are the curse that is completely invalid, your army And the whole army was wiped out.”

"Now, what's the point of you repeating this? Maybe, give me another chance..."

"Another chance?" Rurik smiled slightly contemptuously. "Your soldiers are dead! I heard that you sent more than half of your elite troops to conquer the North. Now that they are all dead, you have suffered a great loss of strength. You have not Second chance, the dead don't come back to life."

"I know. I mean..." Ludwig sighed, "If I had a second chance, I wouldn't be so persistent. We can really talk about it, what do you... desire?"

The two kings from the north and the south looked at each other here, and Rurik got the question of his soul.

"What do we desire?"

"What do you Normans crave?! Gold? Food? Slaves? Land?"

"I want it all!" Rurik replied without thinking.

"All? Greed! Then, even if I die, the war will not go on. The other Franks will avenge me, if that's what you desire."

"Of course it's not what I want." Rurik shrugged and asked: "So, what do you think of us Normans? I hope you answer truthfully."

"What do you think?" Ludwig's shriveled mouth showed a contemptuous smile, "You are devils crawling out of the snow. You are a group of pirates, and now you are horse bandits. You loot everywhere, and you believe in heresies. For the sake of Glory to the Franks, my ancestors conquered you and controlled you. In fact, there is no need for us to fight, as long as you convert to Christ and become civilized, everything will be peaceful."

"Is this what you call peace? You don't seem to be a king, but a missionary. Don't you tolerate other beliefs?"

"Maybe."

"Perhaps?" Rurik shook his head and pointedly pointed out, "In fact, what you desire is land, population, and wealth. You are not fundamentally different from us northerners, except that you believe in God and we believe in Odin. Your Frank Expansion, and now we Ross and all northerners are expanding. This war is inevitable, and I don't need to worry about who started the war."

Ludwig was a little confused for a while, he could feel the hidden friendship of this Rurik, the man seemed to be restraining his hand holding the sword, and his attitude became more and more subtle.

"So, what are you Russ trying to do? Now you are hanging out with Ludov, who betrayed me, and attacking Flanders, who is me."

"It's a new order."

"New order?"

"That's right." With that, Rurik stood up and motioned for Ludwig to wait, "I'll send someone to bring a map, and before that, we might as well talk about family affairs."

"The Guard is Here"

Gossiping about some trivial things in life may make this Ludwig gradually relax his vigilance. Since most of them are men, let’s talk about men in particular.

Showing the charm of men to the defeated is also an alienating military threat.

Rurik paced left and right here, constantly introducing how many wives and concubines he had, how many children he had, and even the general situation of people's livelihood in the entire Rus Kingdom.

For these things, the high-ranking Frankish nobles who were indulged in fighting, hunting and enjoying actually had no reason to pay attention to the daily life of the people.

When Charlemagne was still young, he reshaped the conscription system of the kingdom. The king was able to conscript the peasants of the whole country to a large extent, which made the military strength of the kingdom to be extremely prosperous. The glory is gone, the charismatic king no longer exists, and the conscription system quickly disintegrates. The power of the kingdom was quickly divided among nobles from all over the world. The feudal system, which used to make the kingdom long and stable, has now become a source of turmoil.

As a top nobleman, in addition to mastering an astonishingly large standing army trained by the ancestral conscription system, if he needed more soldiers, he could only order the nobles who were loyal to him to recruit peasants to join the war.

Therefore, Ludwig really did not have to care about the daily life of the farmers in the aristocratic territories, but only the generation of military households under his rule. To be fair, for Ludwig, who has the weakest overall strength, the military model he performed was the most cost-effective and experience-saving.

Unfortunately, his standing army suffered heavy losses, and the royal power was bound to suffer heavy losses. Now he was very shocked that Rurik, the king of Russ, as a chief, had already realized the way to military victory—many people.

In this day and age, the more soldiers a monarch controls, the more often he will be victorious. After all, Ludwig did not understand some advanced tactics, and as the supreme ruler of the newly conquered eastern regions, he always faced various Polish, Bohemian and Pomeranian tribes.

These West Slavic tribes fought without distinction between men and women, and the officers gathered to charge in a swarm with a variety of weapons. The enemy's tactical method is "pig rushing in", so that the East Frankish army has never been forced out of advanced tactics. Precisely in this kind of battle, as long as you pile up your own troops and then rely on the heavy cavalry to counter-charge, victory is almost at your fingertips.

He opened his eyes wide when fighting the Norman-Saxon coalition, paid the horrific price of annihilating more than 20,000 troops, and finally learned some new tactical knowledge.

If you can go back to Regensburg and promote some farmers as a standing army, you can usually organize an army of thousands of people at a cost. At that time, it is time to learn the tactics of the Normans using bows and spears on a large scale, and popularization of such weapons and equipment does not cost money.

He was also quite surprised and even envied Rurik, which came from the instinctive envy of men. The barbarian beliefs allow multiple marriages, so this Rurik wants to marry wives and give birth widely. With this king as an example, the following generals and soldiers are like this.

The entire Norman community is desperately trying to have children? This Rurik even organized a large number of boys and girls for military training?

If they had 100,000 women, the doctor could have five children who survived to at least fifteen years, half of them boys, that's 200,000 troops! Ludwig was able to calculate the account, and according to Rurik, it was all coming to fruition quickly.

"Actually, my army is divided into three parts. The bravest Normans, the Finns who are best at archery, and the Slavs who are the most populous. Once we were fighting each other, now all northerners are at armistice. I established peace, I organized them as brothers. Now all the women are having children, and the children are trained when they are at least six years old, and the best of them will become my standing army. Our Ross is good at shipbuilding, good at making salt, and has iron Mine, good at planting wheat, weaving and animal husbandry, that's why I can transport ten thousand soldiers from east and north to Saxony to fight with you safely. You can't do this..."

Rurik talked a lot, and Ludwig could understand some of it, but the parts that he didn't understand were beyond the line, and he could only listen with sweat.

Finally, there was a sound of footsteps, and the guard handed the rolled up paper map to Rurik's hands.

It's like a rolled up blanket, and when it's spread out, it's very light.

"Oh yes," Rurik thought suddenly. "I wrote you letters before, in Latin. I must have provoked you deeply by my words."

What a black humor, Ludwig now has to accompany a wry smile: "Indeed, I am very angry. Otherwise, there would be no expedition."

"What do you think of the vehicle in which I write letters?"

"Like parchment and cloth."

"It's papyrus (papyrus) of the north, and you've probably heard of it. My Rose can make it, and it's not expensive."

The words are so, for Ludwig, who has no need for writing, he doesn't need any paper, and he doesn't care about his words.

However, as Rurik himself spread the map drawn on the birch paper on the table, Ludwig shuddered when he saw the lines on it.

"Map! A map of the known world?!" He subconsciously murmured in surprise.

"Looks like you understand?" Rurik was also taken aback.

"This is a treasure owned by the kingdom. How can you have it? How did you... steal it?"

"Ridiculous. Why do you say stealing?" Rurik rolled his eyes at him, "I drew this myself." Then he pointed to his own head and said deliberately: "This is the knowledge given to us by Odin, the great **** of our faith, We just know how the world is. As kings, maybe you know the meaning of the map.”

"I... I understand." Ludwig had already gritted his teeth when he said this. He could conclude that the enemy had a fairly accurate map, and this was the only way to madly attack his own territory.

Now it's not about how they got the map. He has a devout belief in God, or Rurik won the favor of the barbarian god.

The map outlines the entire Mediterranean Sea, along with the British Isles and Denmark to the north.

The maps owned by the Frankish kingdoms were blueprints drawn by the ancient Greeks and later refined by the Romans. In this way, the regions around the Mediterranean Sea and Western Europe are described in more detail, and the labels of other places are almost guesswork. The Baltic Sea in the Nordic world is directly drawn as a circle, but Scandinavia and Jutland are marked, and there is a gap between the two peninsulas marked as a strait. So north and past are directly marked as "the sea at the end of the world".

Their map is also marked to the east very simply, except for the various West Slav tribes with clear identities, as well as all the steppe people represented by "Avar", it is a vast unknown land.

The Franks did not have the ability to explore the East endlessly. At least the East Frank King Ludwig expanded eastward frequently after he obtained the fief, and asked the West Slavs for living space, so that the southeastern territory completely bordered the northwest of Eastern Rome.

The power of the Frankish kingdom is now on the edge of the Balkans. The so-called "Osteria" area is in principle under the direct jurisdiction of Ludwig, but in fact, it is also a Slavic tribal chief who remotely commands the local submission.

Looking at the map that Rurik, the King of Ross, took out, Ludwig stuck his head out like a curious child.

"I can see it! Is this the unknown northern world? The sea at the end of the world really exists? There is also the unknown east, but it is not the unknown?"

"Of course." Rurik deliberately became arrogant. "What you call the Unknown East is actually my territory, where many people surrender to me. I have recruited many local soldiers, and you... have experienced their power."

The maps were all spelled out in the Latin alphabet, which Ludwig could easily read.

So Rurik pointed in particular to the names of settlements such as Novorossburg, Novgorod, Smolensk, Kyiv, etc. He deliberately ignored some things, such as arrogantly pointing out that Smolensk was also in Rus within the territory.

In this way, the eastern part of the map forms a line, which ultimately connects to a great being, Eastern Rome.

Because Rurik was very intentional to mark Constantinople and Sevastopol (Sevastopol), even Odessa, Khersonus, and other Eastern Roman cities on the Black Sea.

What is terrifying is that they would not label these nouns for no reason. Since they are labelled, it can only prove that the Rus people have really made direct contact with Eastern Rome.

For the rest, Ludwig could not imagine that he had made a terrifying misjudgment of the Rus among the Normans.

They are not ordinary barbarians, but the most vicious barbarians.

They are in the north of the kingdom, and they are in the east! There is also the British Isle, where there are also small kingdoms established by the Normans.

Excessive knowledge penetrated into Ludwig's mind, and he was so shocked that the temperature was cold, and his body was full of steam.

"You... are you just using the map to intimidate me? I thought the most terrifying enemy was my brother Lothair, but you are telling me that the most terrifying is actually you? Why is your Rus Kingdom everywhere?"

That's what Rurik wanted, and "cognitive warfare" is part of warfare.

"That's the truth, and my kingdom is still expanding. Only in Saxony, I think our expansion can stop here."

"Oh, thank you for your restraint."

Rurik shrugged: "After all, it won't do us any good to kill you. If you die, your elder brother Lothair will occupy the entire Eastern Kingdom, and then your younger brother Charlie's West Kingdom will be alone, and your two brothers will be defeated, Frank. It will be completely unified by Lothair. This will never be good for us Normans, and your elder brother will definitely take the initiative to attack the north just to imitate Charlemagne."

"Hehe, are you still afraid of him? You can destroy more Frankish troops."

"It's time to stop. Even if you arrogantly rejected my emissary and humiliated me. But for my country, I myself can ignore your rudeness. In fact, we can unite, and you do not want Lothair to Can you defeat the one who lost your strength? We can be allies."

When Rurik brought up the alliance, Ludwig couldn't believe his ears.

The blue fox, who was still conscientious in translating, emphasized many times, so that he believed that King Ross had an alliance.

Instead, the victor announced his intention to form an alliance, a fact that surprised him. But...if the war had such an outcome, it would indeed be a decent truce.

"However, at what cost?! You are the victors! It is impossible to unconditionally ask me to form an alliance."

"I'm waiting for you to say that. You do have to pay some price." Rurik pointed at the map solemnly: "Saxony wants to become independent and use its identity as a principality as a buffer between you and the north. And Flandersberg Flanders, at least north of the Inn, should be independent and exist as a brand new country of the Netherlands. Note! This is just the attitude of our Rus. Maybe Ludoff, Duke of Saxony, has his own opinion, he may want to To get his Westphalia back."

"This... greed! Too greedy."

"You can talk about it! I have shown you Ross's bottom line with great mercy. Recognize the reality! Ludwig, do you still have the ability to control Saxony and Flanders now? Go back to your Alemanni And Bavaria, meet these demands, and I can promise not to attack you again."

Ludwig fell into deep hesitation. He felt that if he only lost Saxony, who could not control it anyway, and Flanders, who had been on the wall since ancient times, there would be no problem, but he was too embarrassed to say it.

Seeing its hesitation Rurik suddenly covered the map with a large hand, covering the eastern part of Bavaria and the subordinate Osteria region.

"Look here. Bohemia, Poland, mainly Moravia. You've lost some territories, why don't you continue to expand eastward? And my Rus kingdom is also actively expanding eastward. The news I got, this An area is full of Moravians, you can ignore them, but my kingdom will also expand from the east to the west. One day, the Moravians will be merged into my Rus After all, our two countries will directly border each other.”

"Crazy ambition, this world is too big, you..."

Ludwig subconsciously thought it was too absurd, but according to the map Rurik took out, it was not impossible.

"You don't think it's possible? You think I'm arrogant when I call myself Augustus? We can clearly join forces to divide Poland, Bohemia and Moravia in the future, and our two countries border in Central Europe. Just make sure Territorial borders and wars can be avoided.”

"I'm afraid this is not something a generation can accomplish."

Rurik laughed, knowing that success was unlikely, and deliberately said, "If I can't do it, my descendants can do it. Maybe you just want your East Frank to be a small country."

Ludwig, who was deeply stimulated, didn't want to say anything anymore. This Rurik was indeed an arrogant person, and his ambition was like Alexander, or indeed Augustus.

On this mountain of young kings, Ludwig suddenly felt the pioneering and enterprising spirit that his grandfather once possessed.

It's a pity that this man doesn't even believe in God! A barbarian anyway.

Only the peace talks and the alliance really need to be discussed, he just wants to get out of Saxony as soon as possible.