Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 94: Nottingham Market Correction

With Nottingham Castle fully under the jurisdiction of the Directorate and the "Hostile Takeover" papers signed, Ragnar rapidly mounted his "Range Department" assets on the prime real estate of the curtain walls.

Unlike the star-shaped fortress of City Titan, which was expertly designed by Ragnar to maximize fields of fire, the medieval walls of Nottingham were inefficient.

They had blind spots, poor drainage, and a severe lack of safety railings.

However, Ragnar was an engineer. He improvised.

Since he had left the heavy chemical manufacturing equipment back at Titan, he was limited in his use of the "Spicy Mix." But that did not matter.

He had five heavy Torsion Spikes.. massive, ballista-like machines utilizing high-tension spring-steel bundles instead of rope.. and hundreds of the new "Type-2" repeating crossbows.

Ragnar currently stood atop the gatehouse of Nottingham, gazing off into the misty Midlands with his brass telescope.

It had been over a week since he had liquidated King Burgred, and finally, the "Competition" had arrived.

The rumors of the "Industrial Viking" and his "Magic Fire" had spread throughout the independent Earldoms of Mercia, infuriating the traditionalist Thanes who viewed Ragnar’s standardized weights and measures as an affront to God.

Due to the panic caused by Ragnar’s "Shadow Auditors" destabilizing the local markets, the remaining Thanes had formed a coalition—a "Union of the Unwilling."

They had dispatched whatever armed forces they could muster to evict the Director; after all, they did not believe a Viking army could hold a castle against a proper siege.

They were completely unaware that Ragnar had already renovated the defenses and pre-calculated the firing arcs.

General Bjorn approached Ragnar, wiping grease from his gauntlets. He noticed the Director was analyzing the horizon.

"Director," Bjorn grunted. "The shareholders have arrived."

Ragnar smirked before handing the telescope to Bjorn. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

"See for yourself, General. It seems we have a surplus of applicants."

Bjorn took a look through the lenses.

What he saw was over twelve thousand men. Mostly peasant levies armed with farm tools and spears, supported by perhaps two thousand professional housecarls clad in mail.

They were a disorganized mob, flying a dozen different banners.

After collapsing the telescope, Bjorn voiced his operational assessment.

"They have drafted the workforce, Director. If we liquidate them all, who is going to harvest the grain for next quarter’s profit?"

Ragnar sighed and nodded at Bjorn’s fiscal responsibility. It would undoubtedly be a one-sided massacre that would affect the GDP of Mercia for years to come.

Yet, to Ragnar, it was a necessary market correction.

"It will ruin the harvest, Bjorn," Ragnar admitted, adjusting his grey sash.

"However, it is a sunk cost. Without demonstrating our overwhelming ’barrier to entry’ here, we would be forced to audit every village in the Midlands. The legal fees alone would bankrupt us."

Ragnar turned to the signalman standing by the steam boiler.

"Signal the Torsion Teams. Code Red. Prepare for the ’Grand Opening’."

The signalman pulled a lever. A sharp, piercing blast from a steam whistle cut through the air. Within seconds, the crews manning the Torsion Spikes began to crank the heavy winches.

The tension in the steel springs groaned.

The defending employees waited for a little over an hour. The Mercian Coalition army slowly trundled into what they thought was a safe distance.

Standard Saxon siege doctrine stated that a longbow could reach 250 yards.

A mangonel, perhaps 300. So, the Mercian commanders, feeling very clever, ordered their camp to be set up at 600 yards.

They believed they were safe to dig their latrines and roast their pigs without harassment.

They were wrong.

Ragnar’s Torsion Spikes, utilizing the superior elasticity of the new crucible steel alloys, had an effective range of 900 yards.

Ragnar himself picked up a "Typewriter" crossbow and leaned against the crenellations.

He watched as the enemy grew complacent. They dropped their shields. They took off their helmets. They began to pitch tents.

"Director," Bjorn asked, watching the enemy cooks light fires. "They are grilling sausages. Is it not unsportsmanlike to interrupt their lunch break?"

"Inefficiency is the enemy, Bjorn," Ragnar replied cold. "And they are parked in a ’No Parking’ zone."

Unaware of the Industrial Corps’ engineering capabilities, the Mercian Coalition clustered together.

It was only after they had fully crowded the field—creating a target-rich environment—that Ragnar snapped his visor shut.

"INITIATE AUDIT!"

With those words, five Torsion Spikes released their tension simultaneously.

The sound was mechanical and terrifying. Five heavy steel bolts, each the size of a spear, screamed through the air. They covered the 600-yard gap in seconds.

Down in the Mercian camp, a Thane was laughing at a joke about Vikings eating rocks.

Suddenly, a steel bolt impacted his chest.

It didn’t just stop; it punched through his mail, through his chest, through the man standing behind him, and pinned a third man to a supply wagon.

Panic erupted. But before they could figure out what had happened, the "Chemical Lobbers" fired.

Ragnar didn’t have many, but he had enough. Ceramic pots filled with the "Spicy Mix" arced high into the air.

They smashed into the center of the dense levy formations.

Sticky, yellow chemical fire blossomed. It wasn’t a campfire; it was an industrial accident. The fire clung to wool tunics and wooden shields. Water from the canteens only spread it.

"Sorcery!" screamed a Saxon captain as his tent disintegrated in violet flames.

"The Vikings are throwing the sun at us!"

The Mercian commanders were quick to act or rather, panic.

Realizing they couldn’t stay in the camp, and believing the fire was limited, they made the fatal mistake of ordering a charge.

"Rush the walls!" the Earl of Derby shouted, drawing his sword. "They cannot reload those devil-machines quickly! Get under their range!"

It was a brave thought.

They mustered their courage and the peasant levies surged forward, a wave of humanity trying to escape the fire by running toward the steel.

They grabbed crude ladders and rushed the 600 yards toward Nottingham’s walls.

What resulted next would be a product demonstration that filled the enemy with utter despair.

As the horde crossed the 300-yard mark, Ragnar raised his hand.

"Range Department... clock in!"

Five hundred employees on the walls leveled their repeating crossbows. They were gravity-fed, lever-action mechanisms.

The air was filled with the buzzing of bolts. The first wave of levies simply evaporated. The bolts punched through boiled leather and wicker shields with kinetic indifference.

The Mercians faltered. They were used to a volley, then a long pause for reloading.

"Why do they not stop?!" a housecarl screamed, shielding his face as the man next to him collapsed. "Do they not need to pull the string?"

"Leverage!" Ragnar shouted from the gatehouse, reloading his own magazine in three seconds. "It is called mechanical advantage, you Luddites!"

The Torsion Spikes fired again. This time, they loaded canisters of grapeshot.. bags of jagged scrap metal.

The canisters burst over the charging mob, turning the air into a shredder.

The charge broke. It didn’t just fail; it shattered. The peasant levies, realizing that courage was no match for manufacturing, threw down their spears and ran. The Thanes tried to beat them back into line, but they too were cut down by the relentless "Typewriters."

Ragnar watched the rout through his visor. The field was littered with "liquidated assets."

"Director," Bjorn said, looking at the fleeing mob. "The market has crashed."

"Indeed," Ragnar nodded, popping the empty magazine from his crossbow. "Send out the cavalry. But... Bjorn?"

"Yes, Director?"

"Do not kill the peasants," Ragnar ordered. "Round them up. We have a lot of debris to clean up, and I need a construction crew for the new railway project."

"And the Thanes?"

Ragnar looked at the expensive, gilded armor on the fallen nobles.

"Scrap metal," Ragnar said. "Melt them down. We need more rails."

The Battle of Nottingham was over in less than an hour. The Mercian Coalition had been dissolved.