Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 689: The Ross villagers who don't want to fight are not good fighters
After the beginning of spring, the villagers of Xiongtou Village were gathered together to work at the river mouth.

The village is located on the east bank of the lower reaches of the Dnieper River, beside a tributary. Several small rivers converge here, causing the water volume of this tributary to swell.

These rivers did not have fixed names before, because there were no permanent settlements here. After the rivers converged, they flowed all over the low-lying land, forming huge shallows and swamps, which were actually not suitable for living. The locals had no ability to transform them, so they were left there.

At the confluence of the largest tributary and one of the small rivers, there is a slightly higher hill. The soil on the hill is also very fertile and much drier. In theory, it can be settled. But this place is too desolate, so few people come here.

This place is hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest town, Poltava, in the northeast. As for the surrounding areas, other cities that are somewhat famous in history are far from being established. Kharkov in the northeast is already a historic city, but it did not appear until the mid-to-late 17th century, more than 19 years later. In the southeast, a series of cities in the Donbass mining area did not take shape until the late th century.

Today, this land is really just a vast, sparsely populated uninhabited land. You have to go north to Kursk to find the nearest organized Russian state, but the boyars there are too lazy to come here to collect food. And since the Kursk Principality was destroyed by the Mongolian army, this damn place has been completely unattended even in name.

Of course, this unowned land is not completely blank, there are various ownerless people scattered on it.

Following the river southwest from the entrance of the village, it takes more than half a day to reach the Dnieper River. Sailing northward for three days, the west bank of the river is Cherkasy; sailing southward for more than a day, the east bank of the river is Zaporizhia. These places used to be famous bandit dens. Whether it was the King of Poland, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, or the Khan of the Golden Horde, they could not control these people at all.

Several decades ago, the Poltava monastery sent people to survey this place. A monk named Nikolov led several followers and found this small hill. They thought it was a good place, so they reported it to the monastery and thought that they could send some monastery people to work here during the next crop rotation.

However, after the letter was sent, they lost contact with the monastery. But in those days, this kind of thing was actually very common - going out to explore was almost like adventure. Many pioneers ended up dead or missing, so the monastery was used to it and didn't take it too seriously.

The following year, a bandit leader who was friendly with the monastery found Nikolov's assistant in the slave market in Cherkasy and redeemed him. Everyone knew that their team had been attacked by bandits, Nikolov himself was martyred on the spot, and several of his followers were abducted and sold to unknown places. It was only because of this person's good luck that he found out the truth of the matter, unlike many other exploration teams, which did not even have an ending.

Moreover, this place, at least, has an archive.

After the Romans came, the monasteries were also incorporated into the church. Their various archival records allowed the Roman authorities to obtain some local information, including this highland that appeared once in the pile of old papers and seemed to be in good condition.

After rediscovering this place according to the records, the government believed that the location of this place was relatively important and could be used as a foothold for further operations in the future. Therefore, they began to take action here in a big way.

Two camps and more than 20 Roman soldiers came here. Their centurion, David Yang, was in charge of the camp. As for the villagers here, they were all recruited temporarily.

The winter in Russia was very hard to endure. Every year, some settlements would disappear due to severe cold, hunger, or even attacks by wild beasts and bandits. Over the years, the Romans cultivated land along the Dnieper River and recruited vagrants. Many people who could not make ends meet went to them.

This year, Rome also adjusted its policy, transporting a large amount of food and equipment from the south, and increasing the efforts to recruit refugees. Many people who might have starved to death survived and were assigned by the government to various settlements. Most of the people in the village moved here in this way.

Many villagers have various personality problems. For example, some are not very good at socializing with others, while others are too good at socializing with others, so conflicts arise from time to time - and everyone is lazy.

But despite this, these people are also the most loyal group of locals to Rome, and when something happens, everyone will really come forward.

The place they migrated to this time was one of the most remote and dangerous areas among this group of immigrants. However, the geographical location here was indeed important. For this reason, the government even specifically stated that they wanted to recruit people to join the legion and participate in military missions here, rather than simply settling here. Once here, they must obey discipline, follow unified command, and not retreat in the face of danger. However, many people still rushed to sign up, and finally only these two hundred people were selected.

Considering the general size of Russian villages, their villages could be called towns in this land. However, the Romans were still used to their division method, so they still called settlements villages.

As for the name Xiongtou, it was given by the villagers themselves.

According to the records in the documents, this hilltop should be called Niklov Hill, and the nearby area was also named after it. But this name is too long to be written in Chinese characters, and it is very troublesome to write official documents every time, so the Roman garrison does not like this name. And this is the confluence of two rivers, so everyone calls it "Jiaohe". But the villagers don't quite understand this Chinese word, and it feels weird to call it. Later, when they went to cut trees, someone found that the area surrounded by the two rivers looked like a wild boar's head when looking down from the mountain, so they thought it should be called "Pig Head Village". But most villagers thought this name was too ugly, so they changed it to "Bear Head Village". The big river below the village entrance is called "Big Bear River"; another smaller tributary is called "Little Bear River". After a few months, this common name has become a habit and has been used.

After the village was established, a corresponding parish was set up here and a small church was built. A priest named Alexander was appointed as the parish priest and was stationed here with several assistants.

Father Alexander came from the monastery that had been explored here before. Because of some connection, the government ordered their monastery to send representatives to perform their duties here.

However, according to the villagers who like to chat, Father Alexander has a very ordinary relationship with other people in the monastery. He came here because he was excluded. The things inside seem to be very complicated and no one can understand them.

Of course, this isn't really that strange.

In the land of Ross, the monastery is more like an armed colonial outpost. On the one hand, the priests organize themselves with the help of faith, and use their limited cultural knowledge to provide advice and help to the less educated local nobles and gang leaders - who are often the same people. On the other hand, in the face of chaotic situations, the monastery must have its own strength and must maneuver between various gangs in order to save itself.

Therefore, the various dioceses and monasteries under the Kiev Church were quite independent compared to their counterparts in other places: the church of the Purple Horde was a department of the government; and although the churches in various parts of Western Europe were also deeply involved in local interests and often quarreled with Rome over this, the entire system was still very complete, and they could still keep in step when faced with major events.

In the land of Russia, these monasteries and churches may only have nominal affiliations. They are either controlled by local princes and nobles, or simply do not listen to anyone and become independent forces.

This is true for the church itself, so naturally, monasteries are prone to divisions. In particular, the church has been very turbulent in recent years. Because of Rome's advance to the north and east, the original balance of power was quickly broken; the unique doctrines of the Taiping Religion also had a great impact on the local church.

Compared to other places, the churches in the Ross region are a bit "heretical". The church traditions retain a lot of primitive religious colors, and the differences between different places are quite large.

Over the past few decades, some people have accepted the Purple Horde in terms of organization, but have retained their own opinions in terms of doctrine; some people have only recognized the Kiev Church in terms of organization, but have recognized some of the Purple Horde’s statements in terms of doctrine; and some people do not even recognize Kiev, believing that they are an independent region, but in order to gain support, they recognize the Roman State Church...

This large number of options, combined with each other, produced a large number of branches. In addition, this land has always been vast and sparsely populated, and it is very difficult to communicate and conduct actual governance. As a result, the Ross Church has always had its own tradition of thinking, and various thoughts are bizarre. Therefore, no one can unify it. Even within the monastery, it is not surprising that Father Alexander and others disagree for various reasons.

Of course, this had nothing to do with the villagers. In fact, the villagers were very busy, being driven around by him to work every day, and they didn't even have much free time to think about these issues. At dawn, most people, including Sergeant Yang and Father Alexander, had to go to the riverside to receive the materials transported over, and then start construction on the spot.

Sergeant Yang and his team had been leading everyone to cut trees. Now that the weather has warmed up, they came to the river branch and carried out construction according to the drawings sent down from above. They drove the previously cut and processed wooden stakes into the mud by the river to build a dam. Then they used the machines sent to them to drain the swamp behind the dam. At present, a small area has been fenced off for training the new recruits. Everyone is quite satisfied with the test results, and they are expanding the scale and planning to completely transform this place.

Upstream from them, the Romans also opened several mining areas where they produced the material known as "cement" and then transported it along the river.

The Russians had never seen such a thing, but the Romans said that it had been used in construction for a long time, but recently artificial substitutes had been developed, making it more convenient. However, this material was still relatively precious and was only used in particularly critical locations. Apparently, this place at the entrance of their village was one of them. When needed, this cement was also used, mixed with sand and gravel, and bamboo poles transported from downstream to cast the required structure. This material was stronger than their earth piles and bamboo cages, so it was very useful.

However, these jobs are extremely tiring. At the beginning, everyone thought that twenty strong laborers would be enough for a village-level settlement; now, two hundred people are far from enough to handle the work.

Moreover, many villagers came here not only for the food and subsidies, but also for the chance to join the army, gain military merit and turn their lives around. However, it has been several months, and everyone is either cutting trees or digging soil and ash. Most people don't even have time to touch swords... Many people are confused, wondering if they have been fooled.

However, Sergeant Yang insisted that this was the way it was in the army. If you did a good job, you would be rewarded. Everyone didn't really believe him, but they couldn't find a better way, so they could only follow him and do the work...

(End of this chapter)