Chapter 1308 Tyrant Rurik at the Great Altar of Gniezdovo

The endless hilly areas are covered with dense pine forests. Now the forests are covered with a thick blanket of ice and snow, and the people living in the forests have already led a peaceful winter life.

This is Smolensk. Villages of all sizes rise along the main channel of the Dnieper River, and there are also a large number of villages near many tributaries.

Hundreds of thousands of people settled in a huge area centered on the main city of Smolensk. They were a powerful force on this side, and their large population was enough to supply the rulers with some innovative achievements.

Just like Novgorod in the north, not to mention major settlements, there are still a large number of people hiding in dense forests.

The same is true for the Smolensk region.

A group of small villages are hidden in the dense forests. They are often settlements of only a hundred people, living a quiet and poor life in the form of collective farms.

This kind of farm has not yet been brought under the rule of the Smolensk forces, and the latter has no intention of going to the forest to dig it out.

A feudal kingdom named Rus rose in the north. The kingdom had an urgent need for population growth. Those who were hiding must be uncovered and reorganized to settle down and pay taxes to the kingdom.

Smolensk is still in the state of the great tribal alliance. Even if they are in the position of chief leader given to Vadim for various reasons and allowed him to raise troops for expeditions, Vadim is still not the real king of the alliance.

The various forces were forced to obey a series of orders from the thousands of elites Vadim had trained. Now that Vadim and his army have left, the huge Smolensk community has fallen into a temporary leaderlessness.

Will Vadim win?

Maybe.

But if his expedition failed and his men froze to death or were killed, would that be a terrible loss to Smolensk?

The local nobles, especially those with some Roman or Greek ancestry, settled a score for themselves.

Among the troops that went on the expedition, the so-called elites were all bitter and resentful people. These people's villages were destroyed by the Ross forces and their relatives were killed. They had motives and reasons for revenge.

"But what does all this have to do with me? Why don't I, the noble one, still live comfortably? Those who gave Vadim money were a group of debt slaves. They owed me money, so they went to help Vadim fight. This way I finished I didn’t suffer much from the mission that guy assigned me. If I win, I can still get some war dividends from it..."

The nobles in Smolensk City all have this attitude. They have controlled the eastern front of the Amber Road since ancient times. However, in recent years, trade has become increasingly difficult. Varangians used to visit Smolensk every year, bringing goods from the north, especially amber. However, in recent years, these trades have basically been interrupted.

This is how it goes. When the Rus' forces frequently moved south, their final influence directly encompassed the Gulf of Riga and the Courland region, which is the source of the Amber Road. Varyag merchants, mainly of Danish origin, have long been considering their own countermeasures. They first became conservative, causing the entire Amber Road trade line to become depressed for a time. Smolensk has received almost no new amber and amber in recent years. beeswax.

Now these Varangians have become part of the Rus' Kingdom. The Amber Road still exists, but it has been controlled by Rus, and it is even less likely that gems will be imported before Smolensk surrenders.

[In view of the general environment,

The residents of Smolensk do not need those gems to live. The stones are indeed beautiful but cannot be eaten.

When the Varangians transport gems, they will also transport some leather, large sea salt blocks and dried salted fish. After all, the residents of Smolensk were in the inland area, and they were too far from the sea. In this era before the discovery of the Pripyat Salt Mine, the salt needed by the inland residents almost depended on these merchants.

The imported salt has become scarce, and the people can still get the minimum amount of sodium from food. The lack of salt is weakening the people's ability. Of course, they can continue to live their lives, but it is easy to faint when swinging an ax to cut trees. Because of the lack of salt, The main labor force in the family found that their health was suddenly worse than before.

But life can still be maintained. They are still cultivating wasteland and domesticating cattle in large numbers in the wasteland.

Even after the deal with the Varyags was cut off, Smolensk was still developing.

The local nobles don't like Vadim's domineering attitude, but they hope that this person can help them open up new situations.

The nobles were afraid of the Ross in the north, but they despised those people in their hearts. The nobles have basically figured out the situation. Who is attacking us? Not only the Rus, but also the Kiev community, a related tribe in the south.

In the eyes of the Smolensk people, the Kiev community has become a servant of the Rus. The trade between the two parties in the past was interrupted, and now they are at war.

Although they are all members of Krivich's tribe, the Kiev people have their own Great Altar of Kiev, and Smolensk has their own Great Altar of Gniezdovo. Sacrificial activities unite the hearts of residents near the altar. When they no longer share the same sacrificial center, division becomes inevitable.

These Smolensk nobles can deeply feel their isolated situation. It would be great if there are strong men who can lead the army to fight out.

They are not grateful to Vadim, they are more willing to sit back and enjoy the benefits.

They were waiting for the good news of Vadim's victory. Until they got the good news, the local nobles naturally stayed at home and continued to drink and eat meat. The majority of civilians also stayed in their simple houses, guarding the food brought in in the autumn, and did not go out unless necessary.

Regardless of whether they were nobles or commoners, they would only do some winter work within the confines of the settlement. Since trade has been cut off, each household does not have much valuable handicraft industry. Without external demand, women will not use their passive leisure in winter to do handiwork.

The greatest entertainment that the people can do is probably to give birth to more labor force while moaning in joy.

There are more and more children being born, and the mortality rate remains high. Every farm is doing hedging for fertility. Even so, a large number of residents die every winter.

Young children may not survive the cold winter, especially since babies born in winter rarely survive until spring. The elderly are most likely to die suddenly from illness, and young adults may also die from freezing.

After all, the houses of ordinary villagers are leaking everywhere, and the house-building skills of ordinary people in Smolensk are far inferior to those of the Derevlians in the west. The latter are very good at building wooden houses, which makes this force better able to withstand the cold.

The Derevlians drew several nearby tribes to establish the Doleb Alliance. They were not residents of the Krivix lineage. Although they were both Slavs, their language was indeed similar to that of Smolensk and Kiev. the difference.

The residents of each farm helped each other. When someone died in a family, everyone would regularly collect the frozen bodies and transport them to the public cemetery for burial.

Death is not terrible. Every winter is a trial for ordinary people. If you don't survive the harsh winter, it will definitely be your fate.

People can only light bonfires indoors to keep warm. When the prepared firewood is exhausted, they can only send people to the nearby forest to cut trees to replenish it. If it is not replenished in time, their families are at risk of freezing to death. It all comes from the poor quality of ordinary houses and the serious air leakage. The only good thing is that they have never had the concept of carbon monoxide poisoning. Houses with air leakage everywhere are indeed unlikely to encounter this danger.

Even for local nobles, their mansions are just higher than those of ordinary people.

They claim to be noble Greek and Roman descendants, even if they really have some blood, they obviously have not inherited the superb construction skills of those strong men.

The nobles lived in large longhouses that resembled those of the Varangians. Due to the absolute scarcity of stone and the inability to bake bricks, they built their houses entirely on pine trees. No matter how magnificent it is, in the final analysis it is just a long herringbone house with a rough floor.

The entire Smolensk settlement is relatively densely populated, with multiple villages gradually expanding like a single entity due to natural development.

Such settlements have no wooden walls for defense, and the Allied settlements near the main city of Smolensk also do not have any city defenses.

In other words, the act of consciously building a city wall is too novel for the Smolensk people. Those wealthy local nobles could at most build low walls on their own residences, and it was simply unbelievable to ask them to fund the construction of large walls for the entire settlement.

Even the most important and sacred Gniezdovo

altar.

There are a large number of small villages surrounding the altar. They indeed belong to Smolensk, and the villagers are more willing to listen to the priestly group than to the nobles in the large settlement not far away.

The priests also did not build walls for the large altar. They accepted offerings from the people and used all their wealth in their own lives to build the rammed earth altar larger and more magnificent.

Compared to Northern Rus, whose strength has rapidly expanded, Smolensk has been defeated in regional competition over the years. However, the local nobles lack clear awareness of their rapid relative decline.

"Vadim has organized an army of four thousand, so the Russians will definitely suffer heavy losses."

Some people care, some don't care.

As Vadim's army disappeared into the snow, those who cared about the war gradually devoted their energy to winter life.

Because a large number of corpses were transported away from each village.

At the Great Altar of Gniezdovo, the priests received the food given by the family of the deceased as a reward, and they conducted the funeral for the deceased.

Black grave! It was an area near the high altar.

Forests were cleared and low-lying areas in the hills were converted into mass cemeteries.

The sleds transported the dead of different ages. The bodies were covered with a piece of coarse cloth or nothing, and then they were manually pulled by family members to the altar.

Find an open area near the cemetery, cut down some pine trees, place the body on it, and burn the body into black bones with strong fire. If you are more patient, wait until the bones are burned to pieces.

All this requires the full participation and supervision of the priest, so that the soul of the deceased can fly to the sky.

They worship the god of fire and believe that only after being burned by fire can the souls of the dead find peace.

The black bones left behind along with the charcoal ashes were dug and buried, and piled with soil to form tombs.

This is the origin of the Black Tomb of Smolensk.

Even if they were local nobles, most of the deceased nobles would not be burned to ashes by their families, and their noble bodies would be buried in the cemetery with a large number of funerary objects.

However, even nobles rarely have noble burial objects. The most noble thing is human sacrifice, and such extreme burial objects are rare.

No one dared to destroy the tomb, and the priests always guarded the sacred altar and the sacred black tomb.

They are a group of clergy who have long been accustomed to life and death. This year, like previous years, the harsher the winter, the more funerals they have to host.

Compared to the quiet dormancy in Smolensk, the Gniezdovo Altar in the Katyn Forest has reached a lively period again.

Putting aside large-scale funerals, priests must also start preparing for this year's winter solstice sacrifices.

At this juncture, the Ross Expeditionary Force was already approaching the city.

kindness?

No!

When Ross's army arrives, what they want is ferocity. The Russian army just wants to open up the situation with a heavy punch. It is best to stun the opponent with the first punch, so as to take the strategic initiative.

This first right hook has been fired, and the target is Gniezdovo in the forest. Because the Great Altar is actually not far from the Dnieper River, and its location is on the right bank of the river (the current north bank), Ross's attack was indeed a "right hook".

Finding Gniezdovo is easy! Not even the Pecheneg allies, who had raided many times, had ever penetrated this far.

However, there are old Danish guys from the Gulf of Riga in the army. They once went to Smolensk as Varyag merchants to sell goods, and thus bought good-looking boys and girls from the locals and sent them to the Roman Empire in the south. Transported from the city of Kherson (now Sevastopol).

Beautiful girls would be raised and later turned into showgirls and concubines, and then sent to Constantinople by Roman merchants to be sold at a better price.

The beautiful boys were either servants or castrated to become special attendants.

Visitors from the Gulf of Riga don't care about the final outcome of those children. They bought them easily from their parents anyway. For those guys, salt is obviously more important than the future of the children. In other words, when the children in a family weigh a lot, and the young children face any

In winter, they may not be able to bear it anymore and die, and their parents won’t cherish them very much.

Although there were no prisoners of war as guides, the "Old Paoer" in the Gulf of Riga could clearly use his memory to help the Ross army find the correct location of the high altar.

"They may not be very rich, but the priest's residence does have some gold and silver. There is a large population in the area. If the king kills the brothers, he really dares to do it. If the king wants to capture them, you will also get a lot of slaves." Tekande reported this to Rurik.

Rurik had to think about whether he should rush away with thunderous means, or whether he should try to surrender with gentle means.

"Bah! Dare to organize an army to fight me, which will basically lead to the destruction of the Polotsk people who surrendered to our country. Smolensk must pay the same price. Fight! They are unkind and I am unjust. Anyway, many people have said that I am a murderer. A tyrant who attacks without restraint, this is already the case, why should I care anymore?" Rurik thought about it for a moment, without getting too entangled, and decided to become a tyrant again.

For Gniezdovo, disaster struck without warning.

Rurik spread the order throughout the army, all banners, all alliance troops, all commanders and all soldiers. Everyone received the exact same order - to destroy the Gniezdovo altar of the Smolensk people. You may plunder as you wish, take prisoners as you wish, set fire to them as you wish, and destroy as you wish.

He endorsed the legality of the war destruction of the 6,000-strong army, and the soldiers of the Russian coalition who were eager for war were all delighted.

It doesn't matter if they are poorer, it's also a good thing if they can capture a lot of prisoners of war.

The Russians, the Ermen Slavs, the Danes from the Gulf of Riga, the Latvians, the Finns, the Pechenegs, the Kievs, all kinds of people who made up the Russian coalition participated in this grand event. Everyone has equal opportunities. King Rus allows everyone to loot freely and prohibits competition between friendly forces.

King Rus is extremely fair and noble, and he actually announced that he would not participate in the robbery, which means that the tradition of "turning half of the spoils to the king" does not exist in the current operation.

King Rurik of Rus will also participate in the raids like ordinary warriors.

They've already started taking action.

As a result, the ground shook, and the first people to be attacked were the villagers trying to fish on the ice.

The fishermen only saw a large number of black shadows moving on the wide ice of the Dnieper River, and they did not know what happened until they were shot by sharp arrows.

The Ross army held its flag high, and the soldiers put blue-dyed feathers on their heads. They put on armor one after another. The standing army and citizen army of the Ross headquarters all put on Ross shirts sewn with blue cloth strips.

The clothes of the visitors from the Gulf of Riga and the people from the grasslands are also very distinctive.

Everyone has no worries about accidentally injuring each other during the operation, just because the clothes have excellent recognition ability.

As for the enemies, they are probably some villagers dressed in a mess.

Facts proved Rurik's judgment. When the army followed the wider forest road that had been developed by humans, it easily rushed to the big altar.

A large number of villages surrounded the altar. Six thousand of the Ross coalition troops, cavalry and sleds rushed into the huge open space of the altar at high speed.

No one could figure out what happened, after all, ordinary villagers had never seen a real Rus' army.

But they saw the armed men jumping down from the sled and launching fatal attacks on everyone.

Those cavalry aroused fear in the villagers, which then turned into the villagers running wildly in screams.

All funeral ceremonies were suspended, killings and looting were taking place everywhere.

The coalition soldiers killed all the men they saw, but systematically spared the lives of women as long as they did not resist.

Only one kind of person was spared first - young women.

Especially the four enlarged citizen flag corps, the young warriors were full of vigor. When they learned that they had been allowed by the king to personally capture a slave during the war, they started to act like hungry tigers pouncing on food.

The army is completely out of control!

Rurik did not participate in the looting, but rode his horse with a group of cronies on the chaotic battlefield to witness the increasingly fierce killings.

He doesn't care about these people

It doesn't matter whether they live or die, the military discipline of the coalition forces is corrupt.

He noticed a mound not far away that resembled a pyramid structure.

"There!" Rurik pointed with his big hand: "Brothers, this is the high altar. Let's go! Let us ride up our horses. I want to witness the blood sacrifice from a high place. Odin!"

He shouted with all his might and galloped over, followed immediately by the cavalry behind him.

And Vadim has been pulled out of the cage. The man was secured to the sled, and Vadim was able to see clearly the horrific scene taking place.

Vadim closed his eyes gently, and the shouts of killing continued in his ears. He could clearly see the killings everywhere. The good-looking big altar has become like this, and it has become a place where the Varyag people sacrificed their blood to Odin?

He suddenly saw Rurik, the king of Rus, rushing to the top of the high altar on horseback!

Isn't this... just another kind of shame and humiliation? !

Vadim almost gritted his teeth. A moment ago, he was here scolding Fang Qiu, gathering four thousand troops to perform a grand sacrifice, and even cut his left hand to complete the priesthood of the Fire God himself with blood. At that time, Vadim hoped that this method would lead to victory blessed by the Slavic gods, but...

"O God, your altar is being destroyed and overrun by the Varangians! O God, if you are truly worthy of worship, send down fire and burn them to death."

But God Peron did not respond to Vadim's prayers. The killings continued and his faith collapsed.

There was no organized resistance in the entire high altar and surrounding areas, and the residences of the priests were swept away by the coalition forces. They didn't care who was the high priest. The local priests would whiten their faces with chalk mud and draw patterns on them, so that everyone looked the same. So the coalition forces rashly killed these pagan priests.

The wrinkled high priest of Smolensk was stabbed to death with swords amidst screams. All the gold and silver ornaments on his body were looted, and even his teeth were broken. The soldiers took away the gold teeth from his mouth. Walk……

Rurik witnessed all this from the high altar.

There is no fear, no anger, no regret, and no pity.

Rurik was as silent as a spectator, everything was very real and yet very unreal. Indeed, the operation went so smoothly! It was almost ridiculously smooth. The imaginary "decisive battle under the city" with Smolensk may no longer happen, and they have become fat sheep with their bellies hanging out waiting to be slaughtered.

He stared at the chaos around him with a calm expression, quietly waiting for the natural end of the action.