Vikings: Lords of the Seas

"Ivar is too reckless. How can he say such things carelessly?" 

Vig sighed for a long time, led the envoy to the warehouse, pointed to a pile of recently made feather arrows, round shields and purple bows: "Everything is here." 

"Thank you for your generosity. Wait a minute, why are these feather arrows without tips?" 

Vig spread his hands and made a helpless face: "The iron production capacity is not enough. Only five blacksmiths, and with the apprentices - more than ten people. This is the only way. Take them back to Dufilin, and let your master process them himself." 

Three hundred purple bows, a thousand round shields, a thousand sets of light gray military uniforms and fifteen thousand feather arrows, a third of which are without tips.

That was all of the inventory of Tyneburg that was originally planned to be sold to Lord Bergen. Considering that the guy had not yet made the final payment last time, Vig decided to leave him alone for now, pay the remaining amount, and then continue the cooperation. 

After examining the goods, the envoy left satisfied, saying that he would return in the second half of the year, and asked Vig if he needed slaves as payment. 

"Slaves? There is a flood of refugees in Northern Europe right now. I don't need these guys whose loyalty is questionable. If Ivar cannot pay in gold and silver, let him pay in books. Apart from theological books, everything else is welcome. However,"

Vig changed the subject, "Bjorn is colonizing an uninhabited island and might agree to buy slaves. This legendary sailor has a lot of money."

The messenger nodded with satisfaction at the news of Bjorn. The man had a fortune worth hundreds of pounds of silver, enough to buy nearly three hundred slaves. "Thank you for your support, sir, and I'll see you soon." 

...

In July, Bjorn, his face disheveled, was transporting a shipload of volcanic ash to the docks of Tyne Town. Judging by his appearance, he must have suffered a lot recently. 

"Here is the volcanic ash you need." 

According to the agreed price, Vig paid a shipment of grain and six sheep, and sold the longship to the other party for ten pounds of silver. 

Holding the volcanic ash in his hands, Vig made concrete according to a recipe he had memorized. Just in case, he decided not to use it for the main castle, but for a small section of the inner wall, so that mistakes could be easily corrected. 

Björn crossed his arms and watched from the sidelines in amazement: "You spent a lot of money to imitate a Roman hydraulic workshop, bought Latin books, and now you're using their concrete

. If you keep this up, sooner or later you'll become a real Roman." "That's not bad." After the modulation, Vig stretched: "Times are changing, we must learn from other civilizations and discard some of the old traditions, otherwise they will gradually decline and die." 

"But how do we know which traditions should be kept? Which traditions should be discarded?" Björn asked a question worth pondering, and for a while the stage was empty.

…

Having bought a hundred slaves in Derwent, Bjorn led two longships back to Iceland. Vig looked at the sails on the river, turned around and left the dock, and suddenly remembered that he had not paid attention to education for a long time, so he decided to visit the school. 

Two years ago, the Ravenspeaker came to Tyneburg from Northern Europe. Vig worked with him to put together a new set of runes suitable for writing. 

After that, Vig financed the construction of a temple to the Ravenspeaker and gave him three sets of simple textbooks: "Rune Basics", "Elementary Mathematics" and "Elementary Natural Sciences", so that the Ravenspeaker could spend time teaching a group of orphans. 

Due to the reputation of Vig and the Ravenspeaker, shamans came to him from time to time. Vig would interview the person as soon as possible to ensure that he was worthy of training, and would accept him into the temple for a short period of training. After a brief introduction, he would be sent to a school where he would become a teacher.

The number of adopted orphans has now reached 150, divided into three classes and six groups, and the number of teachers is 16, which is barely enough to cope. 

According to the plan, the primary school is only designed for five years, by which time only a quarter or less will move on to secondary school, with the rest earning their own living. Of course, if he takes over the north, those removed can take up positions as low-level officials, such as tax collectors, clerks, and craftsmen. 

"Schools began in 844, and it is now the summer of 846. The first group of students will graduate in three years. Wait until I conquer the Pictish region and create a viable civil service to manage state affairs, instead of idling like Ivar." 

Now Vig considers Ivar a completely negative example. This guy was deep in the Irish quagmire. He had finally defeated the noble family, and a new wave of resistance arose, exhausting him and leaving him with little time to breathe. 

As for the original territory of Derwent, Ivar's only demand was the full payment of taxes, and the rest was left to the nobles and village chiefs, who found themselves in a state of complete "desolation." The number of farmers farming for themselves continued to decline, while the estates owned by the nobles grew rapidly. Over time, Ivar's power was undermined and divided by the nobles, and he eventually became a ruler who did not live up to his name. 

"Seizing land is only the beginning. Without effective governance, it will ultimately be a waste of time." 

When Vig arrived at school, he watched the children learning through the window. Due to the low level of the teacher himself, he did not understand what the "three laws of mechanics" (inertia, acceleration, action and reaction) were. He could only mechanically recite textbooks from the podium, as if reciting some mysterious scriptures. 

Listening to the children's absentminded recitation, Vig instinctively doubted the effectiveness of this teaching method. He was eager to send away the middle-aged shaman standing at the podium and personally explain this physics knowledge to her, but he restrained himself. 

As a master, Vig could not control every issue, so he could only delegate authority to his subordinates and focus his main energy on decision-making and macro-planning. Even if he taught this lesson personally, what about the subsequent courses? 

He sighed all the way to the Raven Speaker's office, asked for the latest training plan and read it carefully.

"Let everyone come here," Vig called all the shamans together and announced that an exam would be held soon. After that, the students would have a two-month vacation, and he would use this time to organize intensive training for the shamans. 

"As a teacher, you should at least have mastered the material from level one to level three. With an annual expenditure of fifteen pounds of silver, you should be able to achieve decent results. Don't make my life difficult!" 

Vig spent the entire day preparing a set of tests for each of the three classes, and the results were disastrous. Only five students passed all three subjects. 

"Hmm, this guy named Sebert Stormrage is not bad. Although he is a little biased, he can get an 85 in mathematics, which is quite rare."

Since the students and teachers had similar names, Vig asked them to choose their own last names to differentiate them, and ended up choosing a few common words like Stormrage, Ice Rain, Wildfire, and Fjord. Of the entire list, Stormrage accounts for over 50%.