Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 168: West Saxon

The Directorate army was on the march. Ragnar, leading his two divisions through the soot-stained fields of Nottinghamshire, was currently at the head of his industrial juggernaut.

Every contractor who served alongside him was clad in standard-issue grey tunics and blackened breastplates, with the Iron Gear logo stamped proudly on their shoulders.

Some wore the new Mark III helmets, while others were equipped with the heavier, rivet-reinforced engineer armor.

The Middle Managers and Shift Supervisors stood out from the regular contractors.

Their armor was trimmed with brass to show off their stock options and to indicate to the individual teams who were directing the workflow.

Though they might become high-value targets for the enemy, with the protection their benefits package provided them, they seldom had to fear a hostile takeover at range.

At the moment, Ragnar and his forces had set up a Mobile Command Center in the field... a series of interconnected tents with telegraph lines running back to the railhead.

Ragnar spoke to General Bjorn and several of his high-ranking executives about the current situation in the County of Nottingham.

Bjorn was the first to bring new market data to light.

"Director, our scouts report that the West Saxons have begun to liquidate their assets. We are not exactly sure of the reasoning, but they may have realized our monopoly is inevitable and are attempting to minimize our ROI. In their hasty retreat, they have begun to sabotage every mine they come across.

They flood the shafts, burn the timber, and slaughter the pit ponies. King Aethelwulf is determined to halt our acquisition by any means necessary!"

Ragnar immediately adjusted his monocle when he heard this report; this was Scorched Earth tactics.. a strategy which Ragnar personally despised as it was inherently inefficient.

The principle was simple: as the West Saxons withdrew, they would destroy any possible resource that Ragnar and his forces could leverage, forcing the Directorate army to slow down their advance.

An army that could not fuel its engines could not function.

Luckily Ragnar had anticipated this market volatility and had long-established Logistics Trains to follow his army on the newly laid tracks.

His security forces protected these trains and would continuously bring much-needed resources such as coal, water, and ammunition from City Titan to the front lines. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Logistics are the key to market dominance, and Ragnar had no plans of expanding beyond his supply chain.

After hearing this report, he gave a command to his executives.

"Make sure inventory is being properly audited; I don’t want to see any shrinkage of the products that the men consume. As for our expansion into Nottingham, we can only slow down and wait for the logistics trains to catch up.

The Scout Snipers are skilled in risk assessment; set them to the task of surveying and securing any assets that can still be salvaged!"

Hearing the Director’s orders, the executives quickly pounded their breastplates in salute before responding.

"Efficiency is Victory!"

After saying that, they were set to the task, and the army began to fulfill his orders.

As for Ragnar, he stayed at his desk with Bjorn by his side; the man had been a valuable partner and formidable General during the past fiscal year and was once more alongside him.

Ragnar valued his consultancy and quickly began to ask the man his opinions on what the West Saxons were planning.

"Tell me, General, do you think Aethelwulf is plotting a hostile counter-bid?"

Bjorn nodded his head before expressing his opinion.

"It is what I would do. By now, the West Saxons should realize that they are facing overwhelming market pressure. Thus they don’t stand a chance competing against us in an open market or within a siege.

The best they can do is engage in guerrilla marketing to try to prevent our advance long enough for them to secure more funding from the Franks."

Ragnar’s face contorted into a worried expression as he began to anticipate the King’s next move.

"Halt our expansion, and make sure our supply chain is properly insured. I fear they will try to cut us off from our capital reserves; in doing so, they will attempt to bankrupt us with attrition. I will not have my men defaulting in the field while cut off from payroll. It is better to invest with caution than to walk into a Ponzi scheme."

Bjorn nodded in approval with this line of thinking and began to make his suggestions.

"We should split off some Grenadier Units and set them to the task of auditing the enemy saboteurs and their base of operations. I find it hard to believe the West Saxons are fleeing from the region entirely; they are probably waiting in ambush to disrupt our workflow."

Ragnar nodded in agreement before adding to the suggestion.

"I want the Dragoons and Mounted Negotiators tasked with protecting the logistics trains; they should have more than enough firepower to deter any potential litigation while still maintaining the mobility necessary to keep up with the trains."

Bjorn quickly made a mental note of the memos he had received; he would soon relay these tasks to the necessary departments.

The Directorate army was powerful primarily because of its standardized training and equipment but also the diversification of the troops they employed.

With the specialized training that specific units underwent, they could perform these deeds that they would soon be commanded to fulfill with excellent efficiency.

Thus Ragnar indeed did not have to be too worried about what liabilities might approach them in this ongoing conflict with the West Saxons.

After giving Bjorn his orders, Ragnar parted ways with the General for the night and immediately proceeded to his private carriage, where he slept efficiently.

As for the units and their new orders, they quickly began to deploy to fulfill them.

During the middle of the night, the Grenadiers tasked with "Aggressive Auditing" advanced beyond the primary host, determined to find any West Saxon forces waiting for them.

In doing so, a battalion was sent out in total and split into six individual Audit Teams where they canvassed the territory ahead of them.

If one of the teams were to make contact with the enemy saboteurs, the other teams would be alerted by the sound of Signal Whistles and advance upon the position, encircling the enemy and terminating their employment.

At the moment, one Audit Team of grenadiers had made the first contact with the enemy; as such, they quietly hid in the slag heaps as they primed their grenades.

The West Saxons had not yet noticed that the Grenadiers were in range, and they were sitting by a fire enjoying stolen rations.

They had seen that the Directorate army had halted their advance, and so they were waiting patiently in the perfect position for an ambush.

After the grenades were primed and the fuses cut, the Supervisor in charge of the team gave his order loud enough for the men nearby to hear.

"Liquidation!"

Immediately the hissing of twenty fuses went off, echoing in the distance.

The moment they did so, the iron spheres thrown from their hands found their way into the enemy ranks.

BOOM!

The flash of the explosions instantly lit up the area, and the surviving members of the ambushing troop realized they were surrounded.

Several dozen West Saxon huscarls were terminated on the spot, and even more were downsized.

Yet when compared to the size of the ambushing troop, this was not much.

However, what followed instantly sent fear down the spines of the West Saxon saboteurs as they heard a corporate motto fill the air around them as if over a hundred voices screamed the powerful words in unison.

"Efficiency is Victory!"

Shortly afterward, the Directorate grenadiers converged on the enemy position.

They were alerted by the sounds of explosions and the sight of the flashes.

Where they quickly formed ranks and fired off their repeating crossbows at the West Saxon ambushers.

The thwack-thwack-thwack of bolts echoed in the air, and the advancing West Saxon skirmishers were rapidly cut down as they attempted to approach the lines of grenadiers.

The scene quickly turned chaotic as more men had their contracts terminated by a single steel bolt piercing through their mail.

Others gurgled on their own blood for a period of time before finally retiring from this world.

Before the West Saxons even got a chance to unleash their axes upon the Directorate forces, more grenades were thrown into the ranks of the enemy, where they quickly exploded, sending shrapnel and dirt flying through the air.

Though the Grenadiers were outnumbered, the West Saxons began to panic, trying to find a way to break out of the encirclement.

However, all they managed to do was run into a wall of Boarding Pikes that were ready to engage in close-quarters negotiation.

The long steel pikes were thrust into the gaps of the huscarls’ armor, creating devastating wounds which would be very difficult to patch up assuming they were able to survive the onslaught.

Eventually, the West Saxons finally managed to muster a resistance and clashed headfirst with the grenadiers who had encircled them.

Despite this courageous last stand, the damage had already been dealt to the West Saxon saboteur’s ranks, and they found themselves quickly being pushed back.

By now, a sea of corpses and ruined equipment had filled the floor, and the Directorate Grenadiers were advancing over the bodies and into the fray.

With each thrust of the pike, a West Saxon was either wounded or killed.

Slowly but surely, the West Saxon Ambushers had dwindled to a few hundred men whose backs were pressed against each other as over a thousand pikes pierced at them from all sides.

Before long, the surviving West Saxons cast their weapons aside and shouted at the top of their lungs.

"We surrender! We accept the terms!"

With a declaration of surrender, the Directorate grenadiers ceased their violence and quickly rounded up the survivors for debriefing.

With a little over a hundred captives, they could easily find out the whereabouts of the remaining ambushes and potentially the plans that King Aethelwulf was resorting to.

Thus the Directorate forces marched their prisoners back to the mobile command center, where they would be interrogated for every piece of intellectual property that they harbored in their minds.

While Ragnar slept, his grenadiers had efficiently hunted down the first of the West Saxon Ambushes set in place and captured a few hundred prisoners whose intelligence would be critical in the merger ahead.