Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 173: Campaign

During Ragnar and Bjorn’s dual restructuring of the West Saxon assets in the Midlands, Gyda had set Ragnar’s Department of Human Resources to task with aggressive negotiation tactics once more.

At the moment, the same young female "HR Specialist" who had facilitated the defection of Thane Leofric was currently operating within the City of Tamworth, the capital of Mercia; she was just one of Gyda’s many auditors stationed within the enemy’s headquarters.

She had recently received a coded telegraph that claimed Ragnar had been successful in his acquisition of Nottingham and would soon be marching his massive security force into the heart of Mercia and, by extension, the City of Tamworth.

As such, she had been tasked by Gyda to prepare the "severance packages" for the current management.

At the moment, the young and efficient specialist was clutching onto the concealed device in her pocket, which was a Pocket Ballista.

The device could fire five bolts in a short period and would be instrumental to her performance review.

The woman was currently dressed as a scullery maid, with her corporate insignia hidden beneath a rough woolen shawl.

She wore a hood over her head and had rubbed soot on her face to blend in with the castle staff.

Her task was a simple liquidation; since the successful defense of Tamworth’s outer walls, King Aethelwulf had returned to Wessex to secure more loans from the Franks.

In doing so, he had left a promising Ealdorman in his stead; she was targeting his lead administrator, who at the moment was taking a walk through the market square.

As she approached the man from afar, she began to overhear the Ealdorman conversing with a Swiss mercenary captain.

"Thane Leofric has been cleared of all suspicion? Impossible! It has been revealed that Director Ragnar of the Iron Empire had smuggled the coal heir into his territory.

The foolish child has declared himself the rightful Guildmaster of Nottingham and has placed Ragnar as his Sole Trustee."

The Ealdorman talked to the mercenary, who immediately scoffed as he heard such news and proudly declared his opinion.

"Director Ragnar? Ragnar the Ruthless, as the peasants call him. The merchants refer to him as the Iron Father or the Great Auditor; he has many brands. One thing is sure: he remains undefeated in the market and has a large payroll at his back.

Out of all the men sent to Nottingham, only a handful of huscarls returned from the region employed. They say he alone has a workforce of 30,000 contractors at his back; you are renowned for being an able administrator. Tell me how this is fiscally possible?"

The Ealdorman sighed heavily before revealing his thoughts on the matter; it was something that he had calculated a great deal as the merger continued to wage.

"Ragnar had roughly 15,000 contractors in his security force when we first defaulted on the coal shipments; this is not including the garrisons that he has fortified with hundreds of men each. In a few months, he has recruited an extra 15,000, doubling his payroll. He has a significant amount of capital and market-defying industrial capabilities. As such, he can outfit every one of those men with standardized benefits.

On top of this, his forces utilize some revolutionary form of steam cannon, of which no surviving blueprints have been recovered; as such, we don’t know how they function or how cost-effective they are. By equipping his soldiers entirely with these machines, he must have created a revolutionary set of bylaws for them to work correctly.

Thus there is no natural way of knowing how to litigate against them without trial and error. It is no wonder he continues to thwart our best efforts to stop his acquisition.

If the rumors are true about the assets his company possesses, then breaching the contract was a mistake; in my humble opinion, we should retreat to Wessex until we can learn how to counter the advanced technology and corporate strategy he uses in his army.

Yet, His Majesty King Aethelwulf is determined to hold onto this toxic asset. Thus we have no choice but to defend it with our lives."

The Ealdorman was greatly troubled by Ragnar’s rapid consolidation of the Midlands; he had acquired critical areas and was now marching on the capital.

As for the most southern shires of Mercia, the West Saxons had yet to make much progress in their defense and had forced their troops to withdraw towards Tamworth to face off against Ragnar’s hostile bid with their full liquidity.

The female specialist pretended like she was inspecting a barrel of apples and listened intently to the conversation; if she could terminate this Ealdorman, the West Saxon administration in Tamworth would greatly suffer, and the restructuring of the region would be significantly expedited.

Thus she continued to act normal as the two men carried on their conversation, with the mercenary captain stating his opinions on the matter.

"We can’t withdraw, but we also do not have enough gold to pay the men to defend Derby; if I were you, I would liquidate the assets in the north and focus on defending Tamworth; hopefully, with these walls as our collateral, we can negotiate a better severance."

The Ealdorman, however, sighed and shook his head.

"The longer Ragnar’s subsidiaries are split, the better chance we have to defend our monopoly. If the other 25,000 contractors from his forces and that of his partners regroup with him, we will be facing a workforce of roughly 45,000 men; by then, we will have no chance to defend the city.

We will make our final stand here in Tamworth, and if we fail... well, then hopefully, Aethelwulf can learn from our bankruptcy and use the knowledge gained from this crash to further defend against Ragnar and his lawyers in the future."

The two men sighed in defeat, fully realizing that they were not able to fulfill the quotas they were given; if the opportunity presented itself, they would gladly sign a non-compete clause and be ransomed back to Wessex.

For now, all they could do was wait for Ragnar’s audit and prepare to the best of their ability.

Unfortunately for the two administrators, there was an auditor in the midst, and they had no idea that their conversation was being recorded for quality assurance purposes.

The female specialist no longer desired to hear the conversation as it began to shift to complaints about the pension plan; as such, she checked her Pocket Ballista to make sure the torsion springs were tensioned correctly and drew the safety back before approaching the two men.

Before they had time to react, the spy pulled the device out of her apron, pointed it square at the Ealdorman and the Captain’s chests, and triggered the release mechanism.

Two steel bolts flew silently into their doublets. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

They could not even withdraw their swords before their contracts had been terminated by the high-velocity projectiles.

Now that the thwack of the bolts was overheard by a passing merchant, the woman fled into the alleyway, leaving the two men to bleed out on the cobblestones with a look of shock in their eyes.

Until now, they had no idea that Ragnar still had HR reps in the city.

The last thoughts on the Ealdorman’s mind as his consciousness faded into the eternal void was one of deep regret; though it was brief, he had finally witnessed the efficiency of one of Ragnar’s prototypes.

Unfortunately, he would be dead before he could report the R&D data to King Aethelwulf, and as such, professional shame was the only thing he felt right before he retired permanently.

As for the Specialist, she swiftly left the scene, where she ditched the shawl and changed her attire into something more professional.

Not a single soul expected a scullery maid was the one who had liquidated the Ealdorman, and thus she was spared the pain of relocating once more.

Instead, she would continue in her efforts to disrupt the West Saxon supply chain in the coming days as Ragnar slowly approached the Capital of Mercia.

For now, she wrote a coded report and sent it off with a carrier pigeon, where it would travel to City Titan, and inform Gyda that the restructuring was a success: the Ealdorman and his security consultant were dead, leaving Tamworth in a management vacuum.

At the moment, the various West Saxon middle managers within the city would now be preoccupied with fighting among themselves for a position of control.

With this one action, this spy had brought down the stability of the West Saxon defense in Tamworth; whoever succeeded the Ealdorman in taking command would surely not be as promising a talent, and as such, would most likely ruin the quarterly defense strategy... allowing Ragnar an easier time in acquiring the capital.

As for the towns, mines, and railheads in southern Mercia, they too were undergoing events of sabotage which greatly infuriated the West Saxon soldiers occupying the regions and lowered their morale.

Ragnar had long used his HR department as both an offensive weapon and a defensive shield.

His ruthlessness in targeting key personnel for early retirement and the sabotage of critical infrastructure was one of his ways of claiming a market advantage over his competitors.

Unfortunately for them, Mercia had long since been trapped in his web of corporate intrigue.

Thus he was always in a position of majority shareholder during his campaign.

This massive advantage was all thanks to the efforts of Gyda, for if Ragnar had to micromanage his HR department himself, it would not nearly be this efficient.