Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 237: Industrial Workforce

City Titan, The Western Quarantine Camp

With those tasks handled in the frozen lochs of Scotland, Ragnar stood upon the elevated command platform overlooking the vast quarantine perimeter that now housed forty-one thousand defeated Tang soldiers. Thousands of exhausted prisoners shuffled in disorganized clusters, their once-proud lamellar armor hanging in filthy tatters, while Viking overseers shouted orders in Norse that fell upon ears that could not comprehend a single syllable.

Ragnar’s fingers tightened around the iron railing until the metal creaked beneath his grip. He watched a group of eastern officers attempting to form a line for rations, only for the entire formation to collapse into shouting and shoving the moment a guard barked a command they could not understand. Bread and gruel spilled across the frozen mud. A young Tang soldier dropped to his knees, frantically scooping the scattered food with trembling hands, while his comrades cursed in a language that sounded like distant thunder to Viking ears.

"If we cannot speak their tongue," Ragnar declared, "our new industrial workforce is nothing but a useless mob!"

Gyda stood at his side, ledger open, her quill hovering above the page as she recorded every delay with clinical precision. Even she, who had orchestrated the empire’s most complex supply chains, allowed a rare flicker of frustration to cross her features, her free hand clenching into a fist at her side before she forced it open again.

"Thus the communication barrier must be dismantled immediately," she said. "Forty-one thousand disciplined soldiers and scholars are useless if we cannot direct them. We lose days, perhaps weeks, simply trying to make them understand ’dig here’ or ’carry that.’"

Ragnar’s mind raced through cold, methodical calculations. He had already invested enormous resources in the quarantine camp, steam-jacketed kettles, deep-trench latrines lined with clay, layers of slaked lime to prevent disease.

Every hour these men remained idle represented lost productivity in the coal mines, the railways, and the new foundries he planned to expand.

Yet forcing them to work through gestures and whips would only breed resentment and inefficiency. A broken workforce was a temporary tool; a workforce that understood commands could become the backbone of an empire.

"Summon every Silk Road merchant currently residing in City Titan," he ordered, turning to Leofric who waited at the base of the platform.

"All of them. Merchants, caravan masters, interpreters, anyone who has traded with the East. Bring them here under guard if necessary. They will serve as mandatory translators until the prisoners learn our tongue."

Leofric’s heavy brows rose, but he slammed a fist against his breastplate in salute. "It shall be done, my King. Though I suspect some of those fat merchants will squeal like pigs when they realize they are being pressed into service."

While Leofric departed to carry out the command, Ragnar’s gaze returned to the camp below. He watched a cluster of eastern scholars huddle together in desperate conversation. Their eyes kept darting toward the Viking guards, filled with a mixture of hatred and helpless fear.

These were the true prizes: the alchemists and engineers who understood Heavenly Fire. If he could bend their minds as he had bent their bodies, the empire would leap forward decades in a single year.

Thus the solution crystallized in his thoughts with ruthless clarity. Food would be the lever.

When the first group of Silk Road merchants was dragged before him an hour later Ragnar addressed them directly from the platform, his voice carrying across the frozen ground like a decree from the gods.

"You have grown rich trading with the Tang for years," he said,

"Now you will repay that wealth by teaching their language to my new subjects. Every scholar and officer among the prisoners will learn the runic alphabet. For every ten characters they master, they receive double rations. For every failure, their daily portion is halved. Those who refuse entirely will watch their comrades eat while they starve."

One of the older merchants, a portly Arab named Yusuf, dropped to his knees, wringing his hands. "Great Iron Father, I beg you... my caravan leaves for Baghdad in three days! I cannot stay—"

"You can, and you will," Ragnar cut in sharply. "Or you will watch your entire caravan seized and your family’s trading rights revoked within this empire. Choose."

Yusuf’s face crumpled in despair, yet he bowed until his forehead touched the frozen earth, the contradiction of greed and terror twisting his features.

With the translators pressed into service and the new language policy enforced, the massive communication barrier began to crumble, slowly but inexorably.

Ragnar observed the change from the platform as the days unfolded.

Eastern scholars, driven by hunger, hunched over crude runic tablets scratched into the dirt, repeating Norse words under the watchful eyes of merchants who feared losing their own rations even more than the prisoners feared starvation.

Gyda remained at his side through it all, her ledger filling with meticulous notes. "The first group of alchemists has already mastered basic commands," she reported one evening, voice steady despite the biting wind.

"They now understand ’dig,’ ’carry,’ and ’load.’ The contradiction is almost poetic, they despise us for forcing them to learn ’barbarian runes,’ yet they devour every lesson because it means more food for their brothers."

Ragnar allowed himself a rare, quiet laugh. "Thus we turn their pride into chains. They will teach the rest. In one month, those forty-one thousand men will march out of this camp speaking our language and carrying our tools. The Tang brought us soldiers. We will return them as the most disciplined industrial workforce the world has ever seen."

As the sun dipped below the black-iron spires of City Titan, casting long shadows across the quarantine camp, Ragnar stood motionless, watching the flickering lanterns of the translators moving among the prisoners.

He had summoned the most skilled among the captives, the alchemists and gunpowder engineers who had once served Jiedushi Shen. They now knelt in a long, trembling line before the largest furnace, their once-proud silk robes reduced to rags, their faces gaunt from weeks of calculated starvation.

Ragnar’s gaze swept over them, noting every twitch of fear, every clenched fist, every bead of sweat that traced a path down dust-covered cheeks.

"Listen well," he began, "A single millimeter of error in the casting means a cannon will explode in our own faces. I will not permit primitive eastern rulers and guesswork to endanger my empire. Your old ways end today."

With those words, he reached into a heavy iron chest and withdrew a set of gleaming steel calipers, their jaws etched with markings so fine they seemed to defy mortal craftsmanship. He held them high for all to see, the metal catching the furnace light like a sacred relic.

The captive engineers stared, their eyes widening in a mixture of disbelief and dawning horror.

One of them, an elderly scholar named Master Wei, bit down on his lower lip until blood welled, his hands shaking so violently that the chains at his wrists rattled.

Ragnar stepped forward, placing the calipers directly into Master Wei’s trembling palms. "Measure the thickness of this test plate," he ordered, pointing to a perfectly flat sheet of cast iron resting on a nearby anvil. "Do it now. Show me the precision your so-called Heavenly Fire once relied upon."

Master Wei’s fingers closed around the tool as though it might burn him. He knelt lower, pressing the calipers to the plate with the reverence of a man handling a holy relic. The other engineers leaned forward, their breaths held, their eyes fixed on the tiny markings.

When Master Wei read the measurement aloud in broken Norse, his voice cracked with disbelief.

"Two... point three millimeters," he whispered, then repeated it in his own tongue for the others.

A ripple of stunned murmurs swept through the line. Several men ground their teeth, fists clenching until knuckles turned white, as the realization crashed over them like a tidal wave.

Ragnar’s smile was small but razor-sharp. "Your rulers were carved by hand. Your measurements were guesses dressed as wisdom. This tool does not guess. It does not approximate. It measures to the width of a human hair...

Thus every cannon we cast from this day forward will be identical. Every barrel will withstand the same pressure. Every shell will fly the same path. Your previous craftsmanship, gentlemen, was little more than child’s play."

Master Wei’s shoulders slumped. He stared at the calipers as though they had personally betrayed him, his lips moving silently in what might have been a prayer or a curse.

The contradiction tore at him visibly: part of him hated the barbarian king who had stolen his empire’s secrets, while another part... the scholar who had dedicated his life to precision, burned with unwilling admiration. He finally lifted his head, voice hoarse with shame and awe.

"Great Iron Father... we have spent lifetimes perfecting our fire lances and thunder tubes. Yet in one glance you show us that our finest work was crude. I... I beg you to teach us. Let us serve. Let us learn this new way."

Ragnar studied the man for a long moment, noting the way Master Wei’s hands still trembled even as his eyes shone with desperate hunger for knowledge.

"You will learn," Ragnar said, "Every engineer among you will be taught the new system of measurement. You will mark every mold, every barrel, every gear to the exact standard I set. Fail once, and you lose a day’s rations. Fail twice, and you lose a week. Fail three times... and the furnace will claim you as fuel. Do you understand?"

A chorus of broken voices answered at once, some in halting Norse, others in their native tongue, all carrying the same desperate plea.

"We understand, Great Iron Father. We will learn."

While the engineers were led away to begin their first lesson under the watchful eyes of Ragnar’s most trusted Saxon scribes, Gyda stepped closer to his side, ledger in hand.

Her fingers brushed his arm, a small gesture of shared understanding.

"They are broken..." she murmured, "Yet in their eyes I see the same hunger you once kindled in our own people."