Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 230: Mathematical Impossibility

With the arrival of the morning sun, the dense, oppressive fog that had blanketed the Scottish highlands finally began to burn away.

The eastern soldiers could now see everything for miles in every direction. Yet, there was absolutely no one there. There were no barbarian hordes charging down the mountainsides. There were no massive siege towers lumbering toward their walls. There were no enemy fleets exchanging broadsides with their deep-water junks.

From Shen’s perspective, the situation was a mathematical impossibility. The Tang military doctrine relied exclusively on direct-fire brass cannons and fire lances. To strike a target, their artillery required a clear line of sight. Therefore, in Shen’s mind, if his camp had been subjected to a massive gunpowder bombardment, the enemy artillery must be sitting in plain view on the surrounding ridges.

But the ridges were empty...

The warlord was currently grappling with the terrifying realization that an unseen ghost had just rained explosive hell upon his forces. He was undoubtedly asking himself who could possibly possess Heavenly Fire on this primitive, rain-swept island, and more importantly, how they were firing it over mountains without exposing themselves. The cognitive dissonance was driving the eastern commander entirely insane.

Vanguard Commander Bjorn, having secured the naval perimeter, marched up the mountain path. Beside him walked Gyda. She carried a ledger of fresh intelligence reports gathered from their forward scouts.

"Have our forward observers concluded their tallies of the enemy encampment?" Ragnar inquired.

Gyda stepped forward,

"They have, The chaos in their command structure allowed our scouts to slip close enough to hear their supreme general delivering the casualty counts directly to Shen... The bombardment was vastly more effective than our initial projections.

Nine thousand men were killed in the dawn strike. Furthermore, their general has counted the surviving personnel. They are left with exactly forty-one thousand soldiers."

Bjorn let out a whistle, crossing his massive arms over his chest plate. "Nine thousand warriors eradicated in a single morning, without a single Viking casualty! We should order the ironclads to reposition and finish the remaining forty-one thousand before nightfall!"

Upon hearing his brother’s aggressive proposal, Ragnar chuckled softly.

He then looked at Bjorn, "I look at forty-one thousand enemies and see a logistical plague that will destroy Jiedushi Shen far more effectively than our mortars ever could."

Bjorn frowned, attempting to follow his brother’s logical progression. "How does leaving them alive serve our interests?!"

"Consider the economic foundation of their occupation," Ragnar explained,

"Shen brought fifty thousand men across the ocean. To feed an army of that size, he required the extensive grain reserves of these three Highland fortresses. However, our bombardment did not merely kill nine thousand men. It ignited their central storehouses. It destroyed their medical supplies. It contaminated their fresh water wells with ash and rotting corpses.

If we had killed all fifty thousand, the threat would be neutralized, yes. But by leaving exactly forty-one thousand men alive, we have cursed Shen with an insurmountable burden. He now commands forty-one thousand terrified, starving soldiers who just watched their comrades burn to ash by an invisible god of war. Furthermore, he has thousands of critically wounded men who will require constant care, draining his remaining resources and slowing any attempt at a retreat.

By tomorrow morning, hunger will set in. By the second day, the stench of nine thousand rotting corpses will breed disease within their crowded walls... Forty-one thousand starving men will not march against us; they will march against their own commander who led them into this slaughterhouse!"

With the internal deduction fully detailed and executed, Ragnar finalized the next stage of the operation.

"Bjorn, sink any Tang vessel that attempts to break for the open sea. I want their fleet entirely trapped within the harbor. Gyda, have your scouts encircle the valley ridges. Execute any messenger or foraging party that attempts to leave the fortresses. We will seal them inside this valley and let them starve!"

Bjorn offered a respectful salute, "It will be done."

...

Two days passed. The news of Vanguard Commander Bjorn’s victory over the eastern conquerors had rapidly filtered down from the northern front, sweeping through the crowded streets of City Titan.

The rapid territorial expansion and the sheer influx of capital had transformed City Titan into an economic juggernaut. It had become incredibly wealthy in a matter of months. The population had swelled to an unprecedented figure of over ten thousand permanent citizens.

However, Ragnar recognized that unchecked population growth was a fatal vulnerability.

Without a rigorous administrative infrastructure, a city of ten thousand souls would inevitably collapse under the weight of its own food consumption and internal ethnic friction.

To solve this impending crisis, Ragnar had previously deduced that he needed to strip the administrative power away from the traditional, illiterate Viking chieftains and the old Saxon nobility.

While the northern campaign had been underway, Ragnar’s most trusted enforcer, Commander Leofric, had been tasked with executing this administrative solution.

Leofric had proven surprisingly adaptable to the Iron Father’s new world order.

"Detail the progress of the Diplomacy and Census Center, Leofric," Ragnar commanded, "Have you secured the necessary intellectual capital?"

"I have, my King," Leofric nodded, stepping closer to the desk. "I scoured the monasteries, the merchant guilds, and the conquered Saxon estates. I hired more than twenty highly educated scholars, scribes, and mathematicians. They have spent the last two days executing your exact methodology. We are counting everything."

Leofric pointed a finger at the second column of the open ledger. "The census confirms a total permanent residency of ten thousand citizens within the walls of City Titan. However, the demographic split is heavily skewed. We currently have exactly two thousand Viking settlers and eight thousand native Englishmen."

Gyda frowned slightly, "An eight-to-two ratio. If a charismatic English noble manages to incite a racial uprising within the lower industrial districts, they could attempt to seize the foundries..."

Upon hearing this highly logical concern, Ragnar chuckled softly.

"These eight thousand Englishmen are working in my blast furnaces. If they rebel, they risk their unprecedented standard of living..."

Leofric nodded slowly, "You are paying them just enough to make them terrified of losing their jobs, and keeping the Vikings in the primary military and overseer positions to ensure compliance."

Ragnar reached across the desk and unrolled a massive, highly detailed map of the British Isles.

The political borders of the island had been entirely redrawn by his military campaigns and his subsequent industrial expansion.

"Let us review our external assets, the Kingdom of Mercia is dead. It is entirely absorbed. Its lands, its rivers, and its resources now officially constitute the sovereign territory of City Titan."

"Wessex and East Anglia retain their puppet kings and their hollow crowns, but they are entirely subservient to my command. They pay a crippling monthly tribute in raw iron ore, lumber, and agricultural surplus. In exchange, I allow them the illusion of independence and guarantee that my ironclads will not level their coastal cities."

Mercia was fully industrialized and absorbed. Wessex and East Anglia were vassalized and economically chained to the capital.

"We can nearly say that we hold half of England," Gyda observed.

"We have secured the food, the steel, and the land," Ragnar said, "Now, we simply wait for Bjorn to finalize the starvation of the Tang warlord in Scotland. When those forty-one thousand eastern soldiers finally break and surrender, we will march them south, directly into the heart of City Titan."

"With half of England under our absolute control, we have the raw materials to trigger a full-scale industrial revolution. The Chinese will provide the necessary, highly disciplined manual labor to expand our railways and our deep-shaft coal mines. The integration of foreign intellectual property will accelerate our technological timeline by a century!"