The rulers of Kiev had contact with the Eastern Romans, but only culturally and religiously, and economically they were closer to the Muslims of the southeast, with whom they had close contacts. The expansion of the Vikings in northern Europe was partly due to a sudden increase in the need for goods that could only be obtained from the north, and partly because of population growth due to increased agricultural production due to a warming climate.

What goods can only be obtained from Northern Europe? One special commodity that many people don't think of is walrus teeth and fur from the Arctic. The main source of ivory in Europe is walrus from northern Europe rather than land ivory from southern Africa. Everyone wants to get that the number of land elephants is too scarce, it is not easy to obtain, and the price is high, while these inconvenient Roshan-like walruses on the seashore are numerous, easy to obtain, moderately priced, and the cost of shipping is low and fast, of course, it can be scaled. What can walrus ivory be used for? It is a versatile material that can be used to carve all kinds of knick-knacks, artworks, seals, processed into jewelry, jewelry boxes, relics, walking sticks, sword handles, candlesticks, chess pieces, and more. It can also be exported to Buddhist areas that love ivory, and pass it off as the tusks of land elephants.

Fur is a lucrative trade in the Arctic region, which has high quality subcutaneous fat and insulated fur due to its polar day and night, large temperature differences, and winter food shortages. The furs of these animals, harvested in the late autumn before the onset of winter, are of extremely high quality, smooth and fluffy, and are absolutely a god of protection from the cold, and all areas with snow in winter have a strong desire to buy them.

The profits provided for these two items would be enough to buy the food and necessities needed to feed hundreds of thousands of people. The Vikings of Northern Europe were not as cruel and stupid as most people think, and they were able to sail to various high latitudes as early as the eighth century, using excellent shipbuilding techniques and violite to calculate latitude. Even the loot of robbery can be fairly distributed and sold in the communes and organizations of the homeland, and the stolen goods can be exchanged for salt and metal by traders in various countries. An efficient commercial network provided the Vikings with the necessities of life and cultural consumer goods from the South. Otherwise, it would be impossible to feed a large population with the barren land of Northern Europe alone.

The fighting nation was able to do business, and this excellent quality was greatly appreciated by the vanguard of the empire, and then large-scale exchanges followed. The prototypes of the five Nordic countries were then finalized. Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland began to evolve into centralized absolute monarchies. With the various platforms provided by the Empire, the agents of these five vast and sparsely populated countries quickly achieved their goal of centralization. Although it took nearly 3 or 4 hundred years for the Nordic countries to go from the collapse of the commune to the military feudal society, it only took one generation to evolve from a feudal society to an absolute monarchy with the wind going smoothly and with people pushing along the way.

Norway and Sweden divided the territory of the Sámi people, the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, the Finns became independent, and Iceland became an 'independent country' with a population of more than 100,000. The five Christian Nordic kingdoms are almost identical to those of the old time. As for the Swedish colonies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, they were ruled by local Lithuanians, Livonians, Estonians, and Prussians.

At this time, Prussia and other regions were just small countries on the Baltic Sea. Just entered the feudal society, the land belonged to a small number of manor owners, the military aristocracy of the slavery system, like the era of subordinate agricultural transformation. In its original history, the Teutonic Order grew up after the Crusades. It would rule over the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, but at the instigation of the butterfly wings of the Chinese people, it was instigated that the region soon became part of the Polish-Lithuanian United Kingdom. The new king of this emerging dualist monarchy was a minor nobleman from Prussia appointed by the empire. He was promoted to the throne by the many minor nobles who had the empire as their backstage and benefited from trade with the empire. These aristocrats, who relied on the export trade of furs, honey, wax, amber, wheat, timber, copper ore, medicinal herbs, etc., developed the leather, confectionery, grain and timber industries in their territories. It soon became a typical example of poverty alleviation and prosperity. Some of the low-ranking knights and viscounts received an income comparable to that of a marquis and duke and armed forces (exporting for foreign exchange to import arms).

As for the Novgorod and Rus' princes further east, they were in a state of separation, and it was not until the Mongol Golden Horde ruled Eastern Europe that the Grand Duchy of Moscow had the strength and ambition to unify the Rus' states, and now, this wild region is full of slave tribal alliances that have just emerged from the clan communes, and there are few advanced civilizations like the Greek slave city-states. The Slavs were still just a bunch of barbarians, without the invasion of the Vikings, they remained in a primitive society and there was no difference between the tribes of the Siberian region. Even the winds of Christian civilization in the southwest that blew into this wilderness did not change much of the social fabric here. Seljuk traders from Central Asia and caravans from the Cuman Khanate in the south came here with cold weapons and armor, steel products (all-steel felling axes and ploughs), high-level liquor, and high-grade printed textiles from more distant empires to exchange bearskins, tiger skins, fox skins, antlers, antler velvets, polar bear skins, and seal skins. The whole kingdom of Rus' was shaken.

Because of the backwardness of civilization, this seemingly vast area may not be self-sufficient in food in any region with only the level of fishing and hunting civilization. So what surplus products are exchanged for these coveted good goods? These reckless men, who have nothing but fur, can't rob these powerful armed caravans even if they want to. The many southern caravans who came and returned from the bustle were actually the pioneers of the public arrangement. It's not that they don't want to engage in market development, but this ostentatious business operation is to find a tall one from among these dwarfs, and find a group of agents to come out and act as puppets like Muscovy.

After changing a bunch of old furs, I still found a few tribal leaders who could barely get by as agents. If it weren't for the fact that these places were so backward and hard, and the lives of young people in the country were valuable, they would have sent their own people to act as middlemen instead of hiring Muslims. In the old time and space of the Qing Dynasty, those Shanxi merchants were at least foreign merchants living in the city, and now these wildernesses where birds don't don't even have a good airtight house, and what is the attraction of each wooden walled city that is like a bandit cottage? Only when these wild lands enter the agricultural society, with the minimum conditions of clothing, food, housing and transportation, can they bear the baptism of imperial capital on a large scale.

The situation in which the European states were multiplied turned into an efficient war of great unification and a war of nations almost within a few years after the empire entered. The war between England and France also ended with the mediation of the Empire. The King of England was granted jurisdiction and taxation over the entire British Isles, including Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and was also the lord of France, Brittany, Normandy, Anjou, Poitou, Toulouse, Mann, Aquitaine, Gascony, and other large territories, at least half the size of France. Mutual recognition was naturally impossible, and the British king's attempt to separate his possessions in France and incorporate them into British territory was naturally impossible, and France wanted to rely on feudal rights over the many territories of the British territory in France to merge these territories into direct territories, and naturally England could not give up such a huge territory. In the end, Li Chenji, who still counted, straightened out the dual identity of the British king and signed a peace treaty in Paris. The content was that Britain's territorial sovereignty in France was exchanged for a large number of arms, loans, technology, and diplomatic status from the Empire. The empire threw all the lands and the feudal rights and obligations attached to them to the king of France in a loan of 2 billion dragon dollars. As long as the King of France is able to repay the money and its interest in the next 50 years, and give the money to settle the British Imperial Bank and government, then the unification of France will naturally be bloodless.

Britain did not actually lose much of its size, and the reason for receiving Ireland, Scotland, and Wales was also inseparable from the military support of the Empire. Although the population of these newly incorporated territories was only half that of the French territories, they were more conducive to the centralization and rule of the British crown. France had no choice but to swallow this usury contract and honestly work for nothing. In fact, France did not suffer a loss, and although the money was far more than the empire had given to Britain, it was less than the cost of French unification by force. In fact, it is very clear in the Empire's memorandum that if it were not for Li Chenji's change of attitude, Britain and France would not have become more and more bitter in the balancing tactics of the arms groups of the Chinese Empire, the blood of the nobles and the people would have to be drained, all wealth and real estate would have to be changed to Hua, and a debt would have to be signed that could not be paid off forever. (To be continued......)