Chapter 161 4.21 Feast of Killing

After Oleg led 100 warriors out of the cave, the first stop they attacked was the "Knut Military Horse Ranch".

There are almost no trees in the Dragon Breath Plateau Province, which is composed of vast pastures. Backed by the towering Tianduan Mountains, the melted snow water will flow into the grassland at the foot of the mountain every spring. After absorbing sufficient water, the land of the plateau will breed extremely strong and high-quality forage.

Looking at the entire Western Continent, this is a grassland second only to the "Yinyuyuan". Grazing is the main means of livelihood for the Viking residents living here. Among these large and small ranches, the largest one belongs to the "Knut Military Horse Ranch" of the Knut family.

The owner of the ranch, Depe Knut, is the childhood playmate of Angus Moklash, the lord of the Dragon Breath Plateau. After the Moklash family seized power and took a high position, Depe's status naturally rose.

He not only owns the most fertile pasture, but also the scarcest stallions. He also has the highest quality slaves in the entire province.

After all, herders are not like unskilled miners. Especially herding military horses, this is an absolutely technical job. Every autumn, when the Viking pirates who plundered across the sea return, Depay will personally select the most skilled herders to buy them back to the farm and personally brand them as slaves.

The defense facilities of Knut Military Horse Ranch are even simpler than Hanshui Village. The entire village is just a simple low wall surrounded by wooden boards. Its purpose is not to defend against foreign enemies, but to prevent horses from running away after being frightened.

This is why Oleg intends to make this place the first target.

The night is as cold as water, and there is only one soldier on duty on the lookout tower. This unlucky guy drew the worst lot to stay in the village in the lottery activity of the autumn plunder. At this time, seeing that the moon is about to rise above his head, he took out the wine pot with a curse and just wanted to take a sip, but suddenly heard a horse neighing.

This cry came from outside the fortress.

"Damn it! Could it be that some careless bastard forgot his horse on the pasture again!" The guard muttered as he stretched his head out of the wooden building to watch. But as soon as he stretched his neck, he was greeted by a short axe flying from the front!

The short axe chopped deeply into his head, almost splitting his entire head in half. In silence, the guard died. His body fell headfirst from the wooden tower, and a tall figure beside Oleg held him up, and then gently placed him in the shadow corner at the bottom of the tower.

This man's name is Montuo, one of Bakambusi's personal guards. There was another slender thin man beside him, and the neighing of the warhorse just now was made by this man with ventriloquism. With the cooperation of these two people, the Slavs cleared the guards on the entire military horse farm in just half an hour.

Oleg had grazed horses in this pasture for two whole years. He was very familiar with the habits of the Viking slave owners in the pasture. After clearing the guards on the outer sentry post, Bakambusi summoned his black bear, and with a loud roar, the charging giant bear smashed the door of the house with a bang.

The originally loud sound was not too noticeable once it was magnified to the scale of the vast grassland. Most of the Viking herdsmen had followed Duke Moklash to the land of the Slavs to rob, and the remaining people in the village were only a few women and children left behind

and a large number of Slavic slaves.

"Don't make any noise after entering the door, everyone follow my footsteps, and don't alarm them for the time being."

The 100 personal soldiers that Bakambusi brought with him were the most elite troops in Murmansk. The lurkers faithfully carried out Oleg's orders. They walked lightly through the ranch and headed straight for the slave shed at the rear of the ranch.

Here, nearly 1,500 Slavic slaves were imprisoned.

Although these people were considered "skilled workers", the Viking slave owners in Knut's military horse ranch did not treat them friendly. During the day, these slaves not only need to herd horses, cut grass, wash clothes for their masters, cook and clean the rooms; at night, they also need to clean the barn, and they have to work until late at night before they can fall asleep.

However, even with this kind of life, the Viking slave owners will not let anyone feel comfortable. Before falling asleep, their necks and feet will all be shackled to the hard wooden bed. Sleeping in this position, they cannot turn over, cannot get up at night, and even turn their necks slightly.

Once it is past noon, the slaves dare not even drink water. Because if they have to urinate at night, they can only urinate on themselves like livestock.

After two years of this kind of life, Oleg did not want his compatriots to endure even a second! Rushing into the slave barracks, he found the key and immediately let everyone out.

When the Slavs saw their king and the familiar black bear, the desire to fight burned in everyone's dull eyes at the same time.

What happened next can be called a brutal massacre.

After the Slavic slaves were liberated, Bakambusi's team increased from 100 to 1,600 people. Although the Knut Military Horse Ranch was not small in size, the Slavic women and children who stayed in the village and the few guards totaled less than 500.

Bakambusi ordered his men to surround the ranch. Then, he and the angry Slavic slaves drove all the sleeping women, children and the elderly into the slave barracks, threw dry straw for horse feeding through the doors and windows, poured fuel on it and set it on fire!

Before dawn, 1,600 cavalrymen marched away from the scorched earth. They headed straight for their next destination: the Mervus Mine.

**

Mervus Frey looked like a tall, fat Byzantine man with a kind face.

People who knew Mervus liked this humorous young man very much. Mervus's "Ferre Family" was also one of the most prestigious merchant families in Constantinople. Mervus was a classmate of Mehrantin O'Sullivan when she was studying in Constantinople.

After graduation, Mehrantin became a Byzantine citizen and an honorary citizen of Byzantium. The following year, she was promoted to a nobleman by Mikhail III as the Byzantine ambassador to Viking. Before returning to the Conqueror's Fortress, the Viking princess personally visited and asked Mervus to follow him to open a route to the Scandinavian Peninsula. After careful investigation, the scholars of the Frey family found a copper mine with rich production capacity in the cave of Dragon's Breath Plateau.

Merus was transformed into a foreign slave owner.

As a friend personally invited by Princess Mohrandin, Merus' business received considerable preferential treatment in all aspects. And he himself was not stingy. In the contract signed with the Duke of "Moklash" of Dragon's Breath Plateau, Merus promised to exchange 3,000 Slavic slaves from the Duke of Moklash for 1,000 dinars every year.

For the Viking lords, this was a very good business. After all, Slavic slaves were like wild beasts caught in the wild to them, and they did not cost anything.

Therefore, the Duke of Moklash and Mous Frey had a very good relationship.

Not only did Merus treat the lords, but he was also quite generous to the Viking herdsmen. He funded the construction of several post stations for horses and carriages to rest, and all herdsmen were charged very low fees for eating and living in the post stations. In just three years, the name of the "good man" Mervus spread to all corners of the Dragon's Breath Plateau.

But... Mervus's humor and kindness were only for the Vikings. If you ask any Slavic slave where life is the hardest, you will not hear any answer except "Mervus Mine".

There are nearly 10,000 Slavic slaves living in the Mervus Mine.

They live a life worse than death every day.

During the day, they need to enter the bottom of the mine to dig ore. The mine is hundreds of meters underground, and the tunnel is hot, humid, and poorly ventilated. Not only that, there are a lot of hot springs and combustible gas channels associated with the ore. If you accidentally hit a hot spring, it's okay, at most a few people will drown. Once the combustible gas is dug out... these gases encounter the open fire in the dark passage, which will cause a violent explosion.

The slave owners from Byzantium would not stop working because of the explosion. They would not even take the initiative to buy explosives from the Tang people to blast the tunnels. Every gas explosion was like a festival for them. They would cheer loudly and command the slaves to carry out the ore stained with the blood and flesh of their compatriots and carefully distinguish the composition of the ore.

If they dug up gold, silver, or even tin, they would raise their glasses to celebrate.

As for the slaves who died underground, haha, Slavic slaves have never been treated as living people in this province.

Going down the mine is just daytime work. At night, the slaves have to burn coke and smelt ore. This round of work is not easy either. The high temperature of hundreds of degrees in the steelmaking furnace is all done by Slavic slaves operating the blower. During the day, the slag on the body of the mine is not cleaned up in time, and at night, they have to endure the scorching heat of hundreds of degrees. The skin of many slaves is dark all year round due to the radiation of the fire. Even many people were directly roasted to death next to the blast furnace during labor.

When the mine was opened, Merus had 30,000 slaves from all over the country. However, after 5 years, only 10,000 of the 30,000 slaves died, even though Duke Moklash provided him with "fresh slaves" every year. Tens of thousands of lives were exchanged for nearly 100,000 tons of brass, pig iron, and various metals every year. These metals supported the construction and development of the Byzantine Empire, and Merus even had a surplus that could be exported to France, Visigothia and other countries in exchange for gold coins.

"Merus Ferre" was also established by the Byzantine king as a model of foreign merchants because of his outstanding personal ability, and was rewarded by the royal family every year.