Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 223: Tang Dynasty

The Vizir of Granada and the deposed Prince of Francia weren’t about to sit by the fire and drink wine while the Iron Father’s empire was potentially besieged.

The circular chamber was dominated by a massive table bearing a relief map of Northern Europe and the British Isles.

Four wind-chapped scouts were already huddled around it, pointing frantically at the eastern coast of England.

"Talk," Ragnar barked, striding to the head of the table. "You said banners we haven’t seen. Give it to me straight, before I throw someone off this fucking balcony."

The lead scout, a grizzled veteran named Torstein, swallowed hard. "They didn’t hit our shores, they hit the English coast. East Anglia and Northumbria. We had forward cutters out in the fog, and we saw them make landfall."

Ragnar leaned over the map. "Frankish galleys?"

"No," Torstein shook his head, "Not galleys. Not longships... Towering wooden hulls, flat-bottomed, Red and gold banners with black characters painted on them. Words we can’t read."

Al-Hakam frowned, moving closer to the map. "Catching the wind on bamboo battens..." The Vizir looked at Ragnar, utter disbelief washing over his face.

"Ragnar... that’s eastern design. Far east. What the hell are ships from the Jade Coast doing in the frigid waters of the North Sea?"

"It gets worse," Torstein interrupted, pointing a shaking finger at the marker for the English stronghold of Eoforwic.

"They brought... tubes. Massive brass and iron tubes mounted on wheels. They pointed them at the stone walls, and..." The scout paused, struggling to find the vocabulary.

"The tubes spat fire, and the stone walls just exploded. The air filled with a gray steam and the Saxon defenders were ripped apart by invisible shrapnel."

Louis the Stammerer sank into a nearby wooden chair, his face pale. "Tubes? Walls exploding?"

"It’s smoke. Saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal." Ragnar whispered.

Leofric looked at him, brow furrowed. "What is saltpeter?"

"Gunpowder," Ragnar murmured, running a hand through his hair.

His mind was spinning at lightspeed. For a split second, a chilling thought gripped him:

Another reincarnator. There’s someone else out there with a modern brain, fast-tracking the tech tree just like me. But as his encyclopedic knowledge of history clicked into place, he realized the truth was far more terrifying.

"No," Ragnar muttered to himself, a dark smile tugging at his lips. "No modern engineers. Just pure, unadulterated human genius."

"Care to share with the class, Iron Father?" Al-Hakam asked, his voice tight.

The Granadan Vizir was sweating despite the freezing draft in the room. He had just bought the rights to printing presses and galleons, thinking he was about to own the world. Now, someone was blowing up castles with thunder tubes.

Ragnar looked up, meeting the eyes of the men in the room. "The banners. The junk ships. The gunpowder. It’s the Tang Dynasty."

Louis blinked. "The who?"

"The Great Tang," Al-Hakam breathed out, his eyes widening in horror. "We trade with them through the Silk Road intermediaries, but they are a myth half the time. A unified empire of fifty million souls."

"Not so unified right now," Ragnar corrected, tapping the map. "The Tang Dynasty is a superpower, but right now, in this century, they are rotting from the inside out. They’ve got eunuchs manipulating the emperor, corrupt military governors hoarding power, and massive peasant uprisings tearing their provinces apart. The whole empire is a powder keg."

Ragnar paused, "But despite all that political shitshow, their scholars and alchemists are the brightest minds on the planet. We think we’re clever because we figured out the printing press and the galleon? The Tang invented woodblock printing a century ago. And that ’thunder’ weapon? They’ve been playing with fire lances and early black powder for decades. I just didn’t expect them to scale it up to artillery this early."

Leofric gripped his sword hilt, his knuckles turning white. "So if their empire is falling apart, what are they doing thousands of miles away on a muddy rock in England?"

"They’re running," Al-Hakam guessed, "Or expanding. If a rogue Jiedushi realized the Tang Emperor was too weak to stop him, he might have taken his private fleet, packed it with his best engineers and soldiers, and sailed west. Looking for a new kingdom where the Emperor’s assassins can’t reach him."

"And they found England," Louis said.

Ragnar turned to the window, staring out at the blizzard raging over City Titan.

"How many ships, Torstein?" Ragnar asked without turning around.

"Three hundred, maybe more, Iron Father. Tens of thousands of men in scale armor. They are establishing a beachhead. Eoforwic is already gone. They slaughtered the Saxons and are currently building a fortress out of the rubble."

"Fuck me," Louis buried his head in his hands. "I came here to ask for an army to fight my uncle, and now the sky is falling."

Ragnar slowly turned around, "Stand up, Louis, Your uncle is a localized problem. If this Tang Warlord establishes a permanent foothold in England, he won’t stop there. He’ll look at the Frankish Empire, he’ll look at Granada, and he’ll look at City Titan, and he will try to burn it all down to build a New Chang’an on our ashes."

Ragnar slammed his fist onto the map, directly onto the British Isles. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

"Leofric!" Ragnar barked.

"Sir!"

"Cancel all agricultural iron production. Every ounce of steel goes into plate armor and heavy crossbows. Wake up the chief engineers. I told them we wouldn’t need the rifling prototypes for another year. Tell them they have three weeks."

Al-Hakam stepped forward, "Ragnar... you’re going to war with the Tang Dynasty? They have gunpowder!"

"So do I," Ragnar growled, "I just haven’t needed to use it yet. Torstein, get your fastest cutters back in the water. I want eyes on that beachhead. I want to know their patrol routes, their command structure, and where they keep their powder reserves."

"What about the Frankish civil war?" Louis asked, desperation clinging to every word. "Our deal—"

"Our deal stands," Ragnar cut him off. "Al-Hakam will build the galleons. We will choke your uncle’s ports. But right now, I am not about to let a rogue Chinese governor set up a tributary state in my ocean."

Ragnar walked over to an iron chest in the corner of the room. He unlocked it with a key from his neck and threw open the lid. He reached inside and pulled out a beautifully machined steel tube with a wooden stock and a flintlock mechanism.

He tossed it onto the table.

Al-Hakam, Louis, and Leofric stared at the musket in silence.

"Let’s introduce them to industrialized, mass-produced ballistics." Ragnar said softly,