Ch 58: Military Supplies

“Ivar was too reckless; how could he say such things casually?”

Vig sighed for a long time, led the envoy to the storehouse, and pointed to the pile of newly completed arrows, round shields, and purple-clothed bows, “They’re all here.”

“Thank you for your generosity. Wait a moment, why don’t these arrows have arrowheads?”

Vig shrugged, making a helpless expression. “Ironware production capacity is insufficient. There are only five blacksmiths in total, and even including their apprentices, there are only over a dozen. This is all we have. Take them back to Dyfflin and let your Master carve them himself.”

Three hundred purple-clothed bows, one thousand round shields, one thousand light gray clothes, and fifteen thousand arrows, one-third of which lacked arrowheads.

This was Tyne’s entire inventory, originally planned to be sold to the Lord of Bergen. Considering that this fellow hadn’t settled his last payment, Vig decided to leave him alone for a while, making up for the arrears before continuing the cooperation.

After inspecting the goods, the envoy left satisfied, claiming that he would come again in the second half of the year and asked Vig if he needed slaves as payment.

“Slaves? With a constant influx of refugees from Northern Europe, I don’t need these unreliable fellows. If Ivar can’t pay with gold and silver, let him pay with scrolls. Except for theological books, the rest are acceptable. However,”

Vig changed his tone, “Bjorn is colonizing a desolate island, and he might be willing to purchase slaves. This legendary navigator has plenty of money.”

Hearing the news about Bjorn, the envoy nodded in satisfaction. This man possessed wealth of over a hundred pounds of silver, enough to buy nearly three hundred male and female slaves. “Thank you for your support, Sir. See you later.”

In July, a disheveled Bjorn transported a shipload of volcanic ash to Tyne Town Dock. Judging by his appearance, he must have suffered a lot recently.

“Here, the volcanic ash you wanted.”

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

With the volcanic ash in hand, Vig mixed concrete according to the recipe he remembered. To be safe, he didn’t plan to use it to build the main keep, but to build a short section of the inner wall, so it would be easier to make amends if something went wrong.

Bjorn stood beside observing with his arms crossed, clicking his tongue in wonder. “You spend a large sum of money imitating the Romans’ water-powered workshops, purchasing Latin books, and now using their concrete. At this rate, you will eventually become a true Roman.”

“That’s not a bad thing.” After mixing, Vig stretched. “Times change. We must absorb the strengths of other civilizations and abandon certain outdated traditions, otherwise we will only gradually decay and perish.”

“But how do we determine which traditions should be preserved and which should be abandoned?” Bjorn raised a thought-provoking question, and the scene suddenly became quiet.

After purchasing one hundred slaves from Derwent territory, Bjorn returned to Iceland with two longships. Vig watched the sails disappearing on the river surface, turned to leave the dock, and suddenly remembered that he hadn’t paid attention to educational matters for a long time. He suddenly felt like inspecting the school.

Two years ago, the Raven Speaker came from Northern Europe to seek refuge in Tyne. Vig cooperated with them, and together they pieced together a new type of Runic script suitable for writing.

Afterward, Vig funded the Raven Speaker to build a temple and also gave three sets of simple textbooks: 《Basic Runic Script》, 《Elementary Mathematics》, and 《Elementary Natural Science》, allowing the Raven Speaker to teach a group of orphans.

Thanks to the reputation of Vig and the Raven Speaker, Shamans came to seek refuge every now and then. Vig would conduct interviews immediately, confirming that their character was suitable for training and then letting them join the temple for short-term training. After a little introduction, they were sent to the school to be teachers.

Currently, there are one hundred and fifty orphans, divided into three grades and six classes, with sixteen teachers. It’s barely functioning.

According to the plan, elementary school is only five years long. At that time, only a quarter or even fewer will go to middle school, and the rest will fend for themselves. Of course, if I take over the North, those who are eliminated can serve as tax collectors, clerks, workshop superintendents, and other grassroots officials.

“The school year started in 844, and now it is the summer of 846. The first batch of students will graduate in three years. After I capture the Pict region, I will establish a feasible civil servant system to handle government affairs, instead of messing things up like Ivar.”

Now, Vig considers Ivar a perfect negative example. This guy is stuck in the Irish quagmire. He has barely subdued one noble family when another resistance force rises again, leaving him running around with little time to breathe.

As for the original Derwent territory, Ivar’s only requirement is to pay taxes, leaving everything else to the gentlemen and village heads, completely abandoning the place. The peasant farmer population is constantly shrinking, while the manor size owned by the gentry class is expanding rapidly. In the long run, Ivar’s authority is eroded and divided by the gentry class, eventually becoming a ruler in name only.

“Occupying an area is just the beginning. Without effective governance, it’s all in vain.”

Arriving at the school, Vig observed the children’s learning situation through the window. Due to the low level of the teachers, they could only mechanically recite the textbook content on the podium, as if chanting some mysterious scripture.

Listening to the children’s inattentive recitation, Vig instinctively doubted the effectiveness of this teaching method. He desperately wanted to dismiss the middle-aged female shaman on the podium and explain this part of the knowledge himself, but he finally held back.

As a lord, Vig cannot micromanage every task, so he can only delegate power to his subordinates and focus his energy on decision-making and macro-planning. Even if he personally teaches this lesson, what about the following lessons?

He sighed all the way to the Raven Speaker’s office, demanding the recent teaching syllabus and carefully reviewing it.

“Let them all come,” Vig summoned all the Shamans, announcing that an exam would be held soon, after which the students would have a two-month holiday, and he would use this time to organize centralized training for the Shamans.

“As a teacher, you should at least master the content of grades one to three. With an annual expenditure of fifteen pounds of silver, you must show some decent results, don’t make things difficult for me!”

Vig spent a whole day creating a set of examination papers for each of the three grades, and the results were appalling. Only five students passed all three subjects.

“Whew, this guy named Seibert Nufeng is not bad. Although he is somewhat biased in his studies, he managed to achieve 85 points in mathematics, which is quite rare.”

Due to the similarity of students’ and teachers’ names, to distinguish them, Vig asked them to each choose a surname, finally selecting some common words such as Nufeng, Bingyu, Yehuo, and Fjord. Throughout the entire roster, the proportion of the Nufeng surname exceeded 50%.