@ikra1sort, Ludmilla hunts for soft gold

July 1588 - Novgorod, Tsardom of Russia 3 days ago, Ludmilla had accepted an assignment, they didn't ask too much about her background nor morals…. this was in fact preferable. Somewhere upstream of the Upper Volga river to the Kama river she had to go. The great expanses of Siberia beyond the Ural mountains were considered to be useless empty lands by most Westerners, indeed most presumed that Ivan, called 'grozny', wanted strategic depth against whatever monstrosity emerge from the East. The Mongolian conquest to be sure left a lasting impression onto the Russians, fixating onto the 'Tatar Yoke' for times to come. But these assumptions fail to answer why other nomadic powers including the Mongolians never bothered to go further in the wilderness up north. There was a surprisingly simple answer to this: boats. Shipbuilding is a settled civilization matter that requires technical skills that can only be acquired with patience and enduring relations with waters both sea and river. What's better than horses? Boats being carried by river streams, more grain, men and weapons than horses ever could. A faste form of communication. Russian flowed through Siberia. 2 days ago, Ludmilla disembarked from the so called 'belyana', a form of disposable ship build by one the cities along the Volga river, and then disassembled at Kazan so that the timber it was made off could be sold. As such the incentive to scale was obvious and belyana ships were among the largest wooden ships on earth. From Kazan she continued on horseback towards her final destination. But why does Russia send precious manpower to the endless horizons in Siberia? Maintain forts along rivers? Settle perhaps some of the most hardiest lands that cannot self-sustain a population agriculturally? An import motivation, the 'soft gold': Fur. This simple amenity is invaluable for a society permanently in battle against freezing temperature that killed more people than war, let alone the potential to turn it into luxury clothing. It was close to actual gold in value by weight. There is very much money to be followed here, the trapped often more valuable than the trappers. 1 day ago, Ludmilla had arrived at one of the tribes, there are numerous smaller tribes, none organized as the khanates, some only have 20 or so people. Ludmilla would arrive and come with a simple demand: "Recognize the Tsar as your leader and protector, pay your tributes in fur". They refused… Ludmilla shot the tribal peoples, burned their tents, poisoned their water source and executed many in cold blood. The price of defiance. They had numbers perhaps but she had guns, the results were on-sided despite Ludmilla being alone. With a raging inferno behind them, one of the surviving tribe people asked: "You have destroyed us just because we refused to sell animal hide to you?! Why are you like this? Who is this 'Tsar' of yours?!". Ludmilla shrugged and in a continued cold tone said: "Listen up. I don't know who my Tsar is. I don't even know why I am here, I only know that I could get paid to by killing people without the officials asking too much questions.". And just like that an another shot was fired. (This story features @Ikra1sort's OC Ludmilla Kovaleva, story is loosely based on Russian expansion in Siberia in the 16th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_fur_trade)