Chapter 1040： 2nd Cavalry

With the completion of the autumn harvest, Ross's school in Novgorod resumed classes.

The school only teaches cultural knowledge to enrolled students for two academic years, and one academic year only refers to the period after the spring plowing and before the autumn harvest. Because all children, even if they are only five years old, are small laborers in the family. A small labor force suspends production to study, which is a good thing for everyone in the long run, and a short-term trouble for the child's family.

Therefore, all enrolled students enjoy free meals, and the cost is borne by the king.

Of course, these kids aren't just learning and doing nothing. They only learn knowledge in the morning, and in the afternoon they have to work voluntarily and exchange the fruits of their labor for the food they eat.

Child labor is a common occurrence in this era, or anyone who cannot work will be rejected by fellow villagers and even close relatives.

Boys often arrange physical work, such as learning the orthodox "Viking-style directional lodging logging" with an axe and a double saw, or cracking flax fibers to make fine hemp rope, or stripping trees with knives and small hand axes. The bark, and then the trunk is made into a large number of vertical small wooden sticks for arrow shafts. Those children who showed the potential of great strength at a young age were sent directly to the blacksmith shop in the city as apprentices, and the future of such children was also shaped as a blacksmith that was popular with the public.

Girls are often assigned to apprenticeships in state-run paper mills and garment factories, and even wear cloth masks soaked in water to tan leather in a foul-smelling environment.

They are mainly descendants of the old Rus, followed by the descendants of the Vikings of the New Rus, and thirdly the Slavic children from White Tree Manor.

The education that Rurik currently promotes can only benefit its core population. As for other Slavic farms, except for the children of Boyar nobles who are recruited, the rest of the children can almost only repeat the traditional life of their ancestors for thousands of years.

So, from the very beginning, a noble ethnic group has expanded, they can come from multiple tribes, even from the Slavs, and now they all call themselves "Russ".

During the War of 840, the cavalry in the Kingdom's standing army was always granted the privilege of independent action. Rurik did not give them a very clear task, but after setting a general direction, the commander fought freely, and the cavalry became a surprise soldier.

The standing cavalry suffered no small losses, but the parents of the deceased had received a large amount of wealth and glory for the family from their sacrificed sons. At the same time, a cavalry vacancy appeared. The younger brother of the deceased could inherit his elder brother's position in the army, or the parents of the deceased could appoint a relative to take over when there was no suitable son to replace.

The first cavalry team quickly revived, after all, there are many cubs who want to become noble cavalry.

Do you want to ignore the long-cherished wish of the screaming cubs?

Do not! Ross' cavalry had to expand to meet the needs of the kingdom's activities in the eastern forests and grasslands.

The busiest period of Novgorod is temporarily over. Some warriors are exploring east, and some ruthless people are going south to build new settlements.

The area around Yin'ermen Lake has entered the period of "mass production for all", but the farmers are adhering to the pattern of sunrise and sunset. Even though the daytime is very long, their overall rhythm of life is still extremely slow. They have a huge potential that needs to be tapped urgently, and Rurik is not in a hurry to exploit them, because the current economic chain of the kingdom does not require the production of various materials by the whole people.

In the past, the local Slavic farmers were trapped in extremely backward agriculture, struggling with hunger and hunger, and at the same time paying tribute to the conqueror Rus.

Now that everything is getting better, the warehouses of every household are finally beginning to have surplus grains. Farmers finally have the qualifications to accumulate wealth, and then according to the king's newly reclaimed land tax exemption for the next year and three years, a little calculation, a piece of newly reclaimed farmland has a total of five years of tax exemption policy. Even if tax collection begins in the future, it is the scribes of the kingdom who determine the grading of the fields after cultivating the fields, and receive grain in a corresponding proportion according to the grading. How to calculate that as long as the farmer family chooses to reclaim the land, it will be more and more profitable in the long run.

Very smart people have noticed a loophole in the policy - growing vegetables is not taxed. So until the king adjusts his tax policy, multiple dishes are profitable.

Any child over the age of twelve is considered an adult, and the Slavs are no exception. They have already begun to marry their adult sons, and families with daughters are also trying to marry off their adult daughters as soon as possible.

There is naturally another problem here. The ordinary families of the submissive farms hope that their daughters can marry a boy of old Ross blood.

In recent days, farmers have been paddling boats to Mstissk and Novgorod to sell their daughters to the locals. Those pretty girls were of course snatched up and became the daughters-in-law of the old Rus, and gave the girls' parents a handsome gift.

This was a normal intermarriage, and Rurik and everyone knew very well the purpose of the marriage of the farm people. Rurik liked this kind of situation very much, as long as the people spontaneously made the relationship intertwined because of marriage, it would be beneficial to his rule after all.

Rurik sent Carlota and Kagan's waterway to the south to join the team, and also organized people in the city to complete all the editing and proofreading of the current content of "Rossaga".

In principle, it can be printed for mass production and then bound into books for sale.

A small trouble is that although Novgorod can be printed, there are too few wooden movable type in reserve. This is not the capital, only New Roseburg has enough equipment for mass printing. Besides, wooden movable type is only an expedient measure. The most cost-effective option that can be completed under the existing conditions is to use lead movable type. Where is the lead in the most? Naturally, it is the home of New Roseburg and North Roseburg.

You can test-print some chapters of "Rossaga" in Novgorod to see the effect, and it will be implemented in Novgorod when it comes to mass production.

Rurik thought that he had an important agreement with High Priest Rumia. Looking at the current time, he probably would not be able to return before the summer solstice sacrifice, and at least he had to arrive at the capital with all the manuscripts and a large amount of paper in July. . Because the capital of New Roseburg is stuck in a unique geographical location, the east is the continent and the west is the ocean, especially the Baltic Sea in the west. People who believe in Odin are everywhere along the coast. They can understand it when they get "Rossaga". The books are the only "literary works" they can get, and the stories of various gods and demons enrich ordinary life and greatly strengthen their belief in Odin. Rurik naturally also mixed with private goods, always emphasizing that the Ross royal family did indeed receive the gift of Odin.

Other Vikings, such as the inhabitants of Sweden and Denmark, must not understand Latinized Norse, so Rurik thought of this and gave Ella the task of compiling a second edition written in traditional Rune. books.

Her cheeks were puffed out like a frog, but so what? I can only translate honestly. Another embarrassing problem is that since Novgorod did not prepare the wood movable type of rune script, it immediately began to engrave the mirrored embossed letters of the letters. Since the rune script is essentially a knife carved on a wooden board, all the letters are only various A combination of straight lines, which is much easier to handle than written Latin letters.

The reason for this makes Rurik have to postpone the time to return to the capital, which does not mean that he will have nothing to do in the next time.

Because of the promise of the fighting hero Brody, now is the chance to implement it.

The captain of the First Cavalry, "Bald" Fisk, led some of the cavalry south to assist Carlota in the construction of Lukiholm, and there are still a group of them resting in the rear.

All standing cavalry have experienced brutal war, they all have sufficient combat experience, in principle, each of them can be a junior officer.

The selection for the 2nd Cavalry Division was then conducted outside Novgorod, and all boys who had completed two years of schooling and reached the age of twelve were eligible to apply.

This time Rurik intended to recruit another 300 men, who would join the 2nd Cavalry, and the captain appointed Brody, who had meritorious service.

Originally, adding fresh blood to the standing army was in Rurik's plan. The standing army will no longer set up new infantry units. The current infantry unit is called bear-headed berserkers. After the number of personnel is down, it will not be expanded for the time being. There are also new recruits who will take over the places of the dead.

The second cavalry is the only army to expand, and joining means that you can eat a lot of money. Of course, you will face tough battles in the future. As the saying goes, those who are afraid of death are cowards, and the brave descendants of the old Ross are fearless. It sounds good to hear that "a real warrior can charge with an iron horse", but in fact, joining the cavalry will have the opportunity to grab the most trophies, and the elder brother will be replaced by the younger brother, and the father will be replaced by the son. Get benefits.

Of course the king did not feed on Kong Xiang's waste. Now that the young cubs have received cultural knowledge, they also learned basic fighting skills during their school days.

Selecting outstanding people through "competition" used to be Old Ross's method of selecting chiefs. It is the kind of competition where warriors compete with each other, and it is not surprising that people are killed in competition. The "competitive" written test is a general test, which determines which children can learn deeper cultural knowledge, and then determines which children can be employed as clerks and continue to receive salaried salary.

Martial arts competition is the easiest "competition" for the old Rus people to understand. Naturally, children will not fight with wooden swords and shields, and their competitions are very harmonious.

The first priority of a cavalryman is not to be afraid of horses, and the second priority is understanding.

They had not been trained to ride, but Rurik had found "coach horses" who, in his opinion, were extremely docile. Such a horse can understand the slogan, and it will perform sports such as sprinting, emergency stop, and sharp turning under the command of the real army. As long as the child holds the reins and rides firmly in the saddle, it is qualified.

On the day of the "competition", thousands of people came to watch the big play outside the city. In addition to Novgorod and Mstisk, Boyar from several farms heard the news and brought his other cubs to try their luck. It is well known that the king has a contemptuous attitude towards ordinary farms, but the king will not publicly display contempt or discrimination. In this way, the king actually tacitly agreed that all brave people can participate in the "competition", so the second son, third son and even fourth son in the family have the opportunity to find a good job in the second cavalry team.

Manor Boyar all sent their children to school, first of all to show their loyalty to the king, and secondly to serve the interests of the family. It was no luck that they became Boyars, their family had long been powerful on the farm, largely because the family was more intelligent than others. Even if it is a robbery or speculation, the more property they have in the farm, the more power they have to speak, and now they have to defect to Ross to find this giant backer.

The Boyars brought their sons to "competition", which of course made Rurik who was watching gratified.

For example, the loyal calf manor and fisherman manor, they are actually due to the particularity of their geographical location (very close to Novgorod) completely lined up with the Rus-White Tree coalition and formed a larger coalition, which is already ten past years. Or because of the geographical proximity, the two farms are close to providing agricultural products to Novgorod, and they are completely economically bound, and their life is getting better and better.

Ten years later, the youngest son in the Boyar family has grown up, and Boyar has multiple daughters and sons in the two estates. The two manors originally had a small population. After the good times came, every family was desperately trying to give birth. It was not surprising that a family had five or six children, and the probability of living to twelve years old was much higher.

Boyartori and Uski are also getting old, and they have started to have large areas of gray hair and the wrinkles on their faces are not noticeable.

The two wearing beautiful hats and their youngest son bowed deeply to Rurik, who was supervising the competition.

"Your Majesty, this is my little son," said Tori.

"These are my third and fourth sons. They are old enough to serve the king," Uski said quickly.

Rurik glanced at the corner of his mouth: "Needless to say, I understand what you are here for. You are a loyal minister, and your youngest son can become a cavalry soldier. However, they have to go through the same trials as everyone else. After all On the battlefield, the enemy doesn't care whether you are noble or not."

The two Boyars looked at each other and hurriedly recommended their sons, claiming that the boys were brave enough.

"Brave? Maybe. Pass the riding test first. Watch out, you might die if you fall off your horse."

Rurik wasn't joking, even though the test site he chose had soft grass and had been trampled by horses. In this way, the rotten ground has a natural buffer, but if the impact is too strong, it will break the leg, and if it falls to the head, it may suddenly die.

Such "competitions" may kill people, so any child participating in it must swear to accept all unknown fates, which is equivalent to signing a life and death certificate.

The parents of the child try to wrap it as tightly as possible, and it is obviously the warmest period that every child puts on winter clothes.

This is a sensible move, since even a docile horse can easily knock its rider off when switching between acceleration and slamming. At first, some riders fell off their horses, rolled on the mud, struggled to get up, cried in pain, and some stood up stubbornly. No one died, but he fell from the horse and suffered internal injuries, and the thick clothes that wrapped his body were also full of mud. They are all losers, and those who reach the finish on horseback will move on to the next stage.

It's a pity that Usky and Tori's youngest sons all fell to the ground.

"This is fate. They are born with a lack of understanding of horseback riding. Many people will know how to ride horses after training, but I need elites now, and I want to ensure that the most elite warriors will fight brutal battles."

Rurik's words were very euphemistic, and the two had no reason to complain, so they had to pay tribute to the king with their dirty little son.

More than 400 people passed the selection on horseback, and such a unique "competition" suddenly became the talk of the whole city in Novgorod.

Children who passed the competition were given a big meal, and they went on to compete in archery and logging the following day.

Archery, select the best archery, four hundred and fifty into three hundred and fifty.

For logging, select those with the greatest strength and are good at chopping, 350 to 300.

After some competition, no one can say it is unfair. It is precisely the king who gave the participants the greatest fairness. Even if the parents of the participants are blond boys from the old Ross tribe, they must compete with other children and stand out by their excellent strength.

In this way, 300 good seedlings worthy of training were selected. UU Kanshu They are very young and only twelve years old. They were quickly assigned their own mounts, and they were also young horses only two to three years old. . Both the rider and the mount are very young and have enough time to develop a bond with each other.

In the end, Rurik, wearing a golden crown and riding a war horse, gave a solemn lecture to these new cavalrymen.

He wants to do a show, that is, holding a flagpole in his hand, and the Ross flag fluttering in the wind.

Brody rode to the side with a solemn expression on his side, constantly paying attention to the children in front of him from the corner of his eyes. For the time being, they are simply arranged in a matrix and have not yet rode a horse. Everyone is dressed in uniform, and their tender cheeks are green and fierce.

After some remarks from Kang's speech, Rurik raised the flag in his right hand and turned his horse's head to face Brody.

"This flag is handed to you! The Second Cavalry is now established, and you are the captain of the cavalry! Brody, I don't have much time for you. You must train these children in the shortest time, at least make sure that they can Horse riding, followed by training horse archery and thrusting and slashing.”

"Yes!" Brody took the flag, so that the king had completely fulfilled his promise. The moment he took the flag, he was so excited that he almost cried.