Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 37: Tradition Death

The dust from the demolition of the main gate had barely settled, yet Ragnar, the Director of Industry, was already bored with conquest.

Taking the city had been easy. The "God Hammer" had opened the door, and the Industrial Corps, protected by their reluctant Huscarl bodyguards, had walked in. There was looting, yes, but under the new "York Industrial Act," it was organized looting. The "Weasel" was currently cataloging stolen chalices in the market square.

Ragnar sat in the ruins of a Saxon church, which had been repurposed as the "Department of Education." The stained glass was broken, but the roof was solid, which made it the most valuable building in the city.

Across from him sat two men who looked like they had been hit by a truck.

One was Brother Osric, the Head of the Paper Mill, whose robes were permanently stained with ink and wood pulp. The other was Bjorn, the Headmaster of the Academy, who was currently nursing a black eye he got from "educating" a Huscarl about the new rules.

"We have a bottleneck," Ragnar announced, pacing in front of the altar. "We have the machines. We have the paper. We have the weapons. But we don’t have enough brains."

Bjorn grunted. "The Huscarls have brains, Brother. They just use them to headbutt things."

"That is exactly the problem," Ragnar stopped pacing. "Our army is illiterate. They can’t read the signal flags properly. They can’t calculate the Torsion Spike trajectories without Gyda doing the math for them. We are an army of muscle led by a handful of engineers. If I die tomorrow, the Industrial Revolution dies with me."

Brother Osric raised a trembling hand. "Lord Director... you speak of teaching heathens to read? The Church considers literacy a divine gift."

"The Church also considers bathing optional," Ragnar countered. "We are going to change that. I want to build a school."

Bjorn and Osric exchanged a look of pure horror.

"A school?" Bjorn whispered. "For Vikings? They will eat the books."

"Not if we feed them first," Ragnar said, channeling his inner Prussian reformer. "We are going to implement the Jernheim Educational Decree."

He slapped a piece of his new paper onto the altar.

The Decree:

Mandatory Literacy: Every Squad Leader must learn to read the "Field Manual" within three months. Failure to do so results in demotion to the "Latrine Digging Corps."

The Apprentice System: Every Master Smith or Engineer must take on two apprentices. One must be a child of a warrior, the other a child of a thrall or a "Broken Man."

The Curriculum:

Mathematics: How to count without using fingers. Geometry for siege engines.

Logistics: Why eating all the food on day one is bad.

Reading: The Ragnar Alphabet (a simplified phonetic system because Old Norse runes were too artsy).

Physics: Why heavy things fall down and sharp things hurt.

"We can’t force them," Bjorn argued. "A Viking boy wants to hold an axe, not a charcoal stick."

"Then we make the charcoal stick the path to the axe," Ragnar said, eyes gleaming. "No diploma, no sword. No reading, no raiding."

He looked at Osric. "Brother, you are now the Dean of the University of York. Convert this church. Rip out the pews. Put in desks. And get me slate boards. Thousands of them."

Osric looked at the crucifix hanging crookedly on the wall. "Lord... the Bishop will excommunicate me."

"The Bishop fled to Wessex," Ragnar reminded him. "I am your Bishop now. And my bible is the ledger."

If the school idea was unpopular, Ragnar’s next move was suicidal.

The Viking society was stratified. At the top were the Jarls. Then the Karls (freemen). Then the Thralls (slaves). It was a rigid pyramid that had stood for centuries.

But Ragnar looked at the pyramid and saw inefficiency.

"Thralls are wasted capital," Ragnar told Gyda later that evening in the Governor’s Palace. "We treat them like cattle. But some of them are smarter than Jarl Sigurd."

Gyda was sharpening the Valkyrie’s Sting. "Most sheep are smarter than Jarl Sigurd," she noted. "But if you free the thralls, the Karls will riot. They fought to own those people."

"I don’t want to free them all at once," Ragnar said, rubbing his temples. "I want to create a... path to citizenship. A meritocracy."

He pulled out another scroll. This one was titled The Merit Act.

1. The Tech-Thrall Designation:

Any thrall who works in the Industrial Zone (Foundry, Paper Mill, Chemistry Lab) and passes the "Hole of Truth" test is granted the status of "Tech-Thrall."

They cannot be sold.

They earn a salary (10% of a freeman’s wage).

They can buy their freedom after 5 years of service.

2. The Quota System:

The Industrial Corps must be composed of at least 40% "Non-Traditional" recruits (cripples, thralls, and foreigners).

Why? Because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. A Huscarl fights for glory. A cripple fights for a meal ticket.

3. The Pension Plan:

Any man freeman or thrall who is injured in the line of duty gets a lifetime supply of grain and a job in the Administration Department.

"You are poking the bear," Gyda warned, reading the document. "Jarl Einar already hates you for the ’No Looting’ rule. If you tell him his favorite blacksmith slave is now a ’salaried employee,’ he will try to kill you."

"Let him try," Ragnar said, touching the steel ring on his finger. "Einar thinks power comes from blood. I know power comes from leverage. And right now, I hold the lever."

The confrontation happened the next day in the Great Hall.

Jarl Einar, Jarl Sigurd, and a dozen other angry traditionalists stomped in. They were red-faced and smelled of ale and indignation.

"Builder!" Einar roared, throwing a piece of paper on the floor. "What is this? My steward tells me I cannot beat my own thrall because he is a ’Level 2 Chemist’? What in Hel’s name is a Level 2 Chemist?"

Ragnar sat on the throne (King Horik was conveniently "inspecting the walls," i.e., hiding). He looked calm. Behind him stood Bjorn and Erik the Lame, both armed with Torsion Spikes.

"It means," Ragnar said slowly, "that if you break his hands, you delay the production of gunpowder by three days. And if you delay the gunpowder, Ivar gets angry. Do you want to explain to Ivar why his bombs are late?"

Einar sputtered. The name of the Boneless was a powerful silencer.

"But it is tradition!" Sigurd argued. "The thralls serve us! If we give them silver, they will think they are people!"

"They are people, Sigurd," Ragnar said, standing up. "But more importantly, they are the engine. You Jarls... you are the paint on the ship. Pretty to look at, but you don’t make it move. The thralls are the oars."

He walked down the steps, looking Einar in the eye.

"I am not taking your slaves away. I am upgrading them. A happy thrall works harder. An educated thrall invents things. Do you want to be the master of a mud hut, or a shareholder in an Empire of Iron?"

Einar blinked. "Shareholder?"

"Gyda," Ragnar called out.

Gyda stepped forward with her ledger.

"Under the new Act," she explained coolly, "every Jarl who ’donates’ a skilled thrall to the Industrial Corps receives a 5% stake in the output of the factory. That means for every sword we make, you get silver without lifting a finger."

The room went silent. The anger drained away, replaced by the greedy calculation of Viking warlords. "So..." Sigurd scratched his beard. "I give you my smith... and I get paid forever?"

"Passive income," Ragnar grinned. "It’s the future."

Einar grumbled, kicking the rush matting. "It feels wrong. A thrall with money... it’s unnatural."

"So is a rock that explodes," Ragnar countered. "But it won us the city."

Einar sighed. He looked at the Torsion Spikes. He looked at Gyda’s ledger. He realized he was outmatched, not by strength, but by a system he didn’t understand.

"Fine," Einar spat. "Take the smith. But if the silver stops coming, I take his head."

"Agreed," Ragnar nodded.

....

Two weeks later, the University of York opened its doors.

It was a strange sight. Burly Vikings with scarred faces sat on small wooden benches next to scrawny thrall children. They held slate boards with clumsy, ink-stained fingers.

Brother Osric stood at the front, holding a pointer.

"Today," Osric announced, his voice trembling slightly, "we learn the letter ’A’. ’A’ is for ’Angle’. ’A’ is for ’Audit’."

"A is for Axe!" a young Huscarl shouted from the back.

"No," Bjorn’s voice boomed from the doorway. "Axe is spelled with a combined rune. ’A’ is for ’Ammo’. Now sit down and write it fifty times, or you dig the latrines!"

The Huscarl sat down.

Ragnar watched from the back of the room. He saw a young thrall girl helping an old warrior hold his charcoal stick. He saw the barrier of caste dissolving, not through kindness, but through the shared struggle of literacy.

"It’s working," Gyda whispered, standing beside him. "They hate it, but they are doing it."

"They realize that knowledge is the new weapon," Ragnar said. "An axe can break a shield. But math? Math can break a kingdom."

He looked at the chalkboard where Osric was drawing a triangle.

"We are building a monster, Gyda," Ragnar said softly. "An army that thinks. God help the world when they graduate."

Gyda smiled, touching the steel ring on her finger.

"The world had its chance to be smart," she said. "Now it’s our turn."

Ragnar turned to leave. He had a meeting with the Weasel about a shipment of saltpeter.