Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 119: Market Entry

An armada bearing the crimson sails of the Order of the Sacred Flame anchored off the coast of Kent; the Frankish "Holy League" had finally arrived in England.

After making their landing at the port town of Sandwich, and seizing the docks, the army prepared to advance inland towards Canterbury, where they intended to purge Ragnar’s "Iron Demon" from the face of the earth.

Or at least, that was the mission statement.

Currently, the Holy League was engaging in a vigorous campaign of "Asset Seizure." Grandmaster Roland rode through the muddy streets on a white charger draped in velvet.

The Teutonic efficiency of the Reference was replaced here by Frankish arrogance. They were conscripting men, yes, but they were far more interested in confiscating "Heretical Contraband."

In the middle of the market square, a scene displayed itself as a teenage apprentice was dragged away from his master’s smithy. The boy wasn’t being drafted; he was being accused of possessing "Devil’s Metal."

The blacksmith begged with tears in his eyes to the knights who were ransacking his shop.

"Please, my Lords! That is not sorcery! It is just a high-carbon steel plowshare! It cuts the earth better!"

For all his effort, the blacksmith was only rewarded with a gauntleted backhand to the face, dropping him to his knees as he spat blood into the mud.

Across this town and every coastal village, the Holy League had come across similar scenes.

The ruthlessness of Grandmaster Roland knew no bounds, and they were willing to burn the livelihood of anyone who had purchased goods from the Directorate.

Though this village was different than the ones in France. As the cruelty of the Crusaders was displayed for the villagers to see, some of them began to gather. The townsfolk of Sandwich had spent the last two months enjoying the benefits of Ragnar’s trade network.

They had cheap wool, sturdy tools, and salt that didn’t taste like rocks.

The townsfolk quickly formed a mob that began to berate the Frankish soldiers who were smashing their new, efficient tools.

What started as a fearful observation quickly resulted in a full-scale consumer complaint.

The townsfolk began to push and shove the soldiers, throwing rotten fish and mud in their direction.

Things were beginning to spiral out of control when Grandmaster Roland arrived. Seeing the lowly English peasants dare to defy the flower of Frankish chivalry, Roland signaled his bodyguards to halt.

He removed his helmet, revealing a handsome, albeit sneering, face framed by golden curls.

The solution to this problem was simple; he would preach how it was the will of Heaven for the men of this village to reject the soulless efficiency of the Northmen.

Ragnar’s "Industrial Revolution" had already begun to spread rapidly; words of the steam engine had reached the continent and had been taken as a sign of the End Times.

However, Roland was more concerned with securing glory for his House than he was with the theological implications of steam pressure.

As such, he took a diplomatic approach and steered his horse toward the angry mob, attempting to placate them with a sermon on tradition.

"Citizens of Sandwich! I understand your confusion, but our Order is on a mission from the Church itself! We require you to purge these... unnatural objects. This ’Stamped Steel.’ These ’Tinned Meats.’ They are the bait of the Devil, designed to make you slothful! Only by returning to the honest toil of the past can your souls be saved from the Iron Demon!"

Roland did not know that many of the townsfolk were what would later be called "Satisfied Customers." They held Ragnar’s products in high regard. As such, a courageous young man stood before the crowd and began to defend the Directorate in front of the Holy League.

"Who are you to call the Director a demon?" the young man shouted, holding up a grey wool tunic. "Look at this weave! It is tighter than anything your looms produce, and it costs half the price! Before the Northmen came, we froze in winter. Now, we have ’Standardized Thermal Wear’!"

As the man spoke, the entirety of the mob began to agree with him.

They murmured and nodded, chastising the Franks for their economic ignorance. If anything, they were even more outraged now that they knew the intentions of this army were to drag them back to the expensive, inefficient past.

"He speaks the truth!" a woman cried out. "My husband works on the railway! He gets dental benefits! What does your King give us? Pox and taxes!"

"The Vikings brought us the Pump!" another shouted. "We have clean water! You bring us nothing but shiny horses!"

Quickly, things got out of hand, and Roland was not handling it well. Hearing the villagers take the side of a pagan industrialist enraged him to his very core. How could Ragnar’s influence reach so far that these filth-covered peasants were willing to defy the authority of a Grandmaster over the price of wool? This was outrageous!

As Roland was fuming with anger, the blacksmith’s apprentice—the boy who had been dragged out earlier—broke free from the guards. He wasn’t trying to escape. He ran back to the pile of confiscated goods and grabbed a small, shiny object.

It was a Wind-Up Toy Soldier. A simple clockwork mechanism Ragnar had mass-produced to win over the children of the South.

The boy wound the key and set it on the cobblestones. Click-whir-click. The little tin soldier marched forward, right toward Roland’s horse.

The horse, spooked by the mechanical noise, reared up. Roland nearly fell from his saddle, his dignity shattered.

"Get away, you Luddites!" the boy shouted. "Even a toy has more spirit than you!"

With this action, something snapped in Roland’s mind. The sight of the mechanical toy was the ultimate heresy. He instinctively gripped the hilt of his jeweled sword.

In a smooth, practiced motion, he leaned down and swung the blade.

He didn’t aim for the boy. He aimed for the toy.

The heavy steel blade smashed the tin soldier into scrap metal. But the follow-through of the swing caught the boy across the chest.

The boy gasped, collapsing into the mud, clutching a wound that bubbled with blood. The crowd fell into a horrified silence. The tick-tock of the broken toy sputtered and died.

A loud shriek filled the air, belonging to the blacksmith, who witnessed his apprentice cut down for a clockwork trinket.

Horrified and enraged by Roland’s actions, the mob quickly clashed with the soldiers of the Holy League. They were no longer thinking rationally about market values; they had decided in the heat of the moment to enact justice on these heavily armored tyrants.

"Murderer!"

"They kill children for toys!"

"Get the pitchforks! No, get the Ragnar-Pattern Heavy Wrenches!"

Seeing that the mob had taken up arms against him, Roland sneered in disdain. He wiped the blood from his blade on the white fur of his horse’s mane.

He raised his voice above the crowd’s shouts, giving the order to the men under his command.

"This village is corrupted by the Machine! They value gears over blood! Purge them all! Burn the warehouses! Melt it all down! God wills it!"

Despite witnessing their Grandmaster kill a child over a toy, not a single one of the fanatic soldiers of the Sacred Flame cared. For in their minds, the boy was infected by the mechanical plague and deserved his fate.

Instead, they all lowered their lances and drew their swords. They began to massacre the townsfolk.

"Purge the Iron!" the knights screamed.

The scene was brutal. The Franks didn’t just kill; they destroyed property with a religious fervor. They smashed the new water pumps. They burned the crates of standardized wool. They dragged the "Nutrient Bricks" into the street and stomped on them.

With that, the population of Sandwich was decimated, their town was burned to the ground, and the smoke rose high into the grey sky.. a black signal fire visible for miles.

By morning, there would not be a single soul left alive within the confines of the once-bustling port; only blood, ash, and the twisted remains of cheap, efficient steel would remain.

But Roland had made a mistake.

One survivor saw the smoke. He saw the banners. He didn’t run to the local lord. He didn’t run to the Church. He ran to the Telegraph Station Ragnar had secretly installed in the lighthouse.

It wasn’t an electric telegraph but an Optical Semaphore system. Mirrors and shutters.

The fisherman climbed the tower, trembling. He looked north, toward the relay station on the cliffs of Dover.

He began to flash the signal.

DOT. DOT. DASH.

ENEMY. LANDED.

MARKET. CRASH.

SEND. TRAIN.

The message flashed across the Channel waters, relaying from tower to tower, speeding toward Winchester, and from there, along the tracks to the North.