Chapter 293: Blueprints (1)
Ragnar spent his morning drafting new mechanical designs on pieces of animal parchment using small pieces of black charcoal.
The surface of the table was covered with hundreds of papers, and many of these papers were burned at the edges or torn into small pieces.
He had spent the previous night testing small amounts of black powder inside thin iron tubes, resulting in several minor explosions that frustrated his mind.
If Ragnar wanted to ensure the total defeat of the French cavalry, he needed an iron tube that was much thinner and much longer.
The door of the room opened. Louis the Stammerer walked into the room and sat down on a bench located near the stone wall.
Louis did not speak. Ragnar hadn’t even opened a reference book yet to check the weight of the iron, but Louis was already bothering him with his presence.
"Hello? I’m sitting here. Aren’t you going to greet me properly?" Louis asked loudly, resting his hands on his knees and looking directly at the Ragnar.
Ragnar did not look up from the animal parchment. He drew a long, straight line with the charcoal to represent the new barrel design.
He focused entirely on the angle of the iron and the placement of the small ignition hole near the back of the tube.
"I’m very busy. We can exchange greetings later..." Ragnar replied, keeping his focus entirely on the drawing resting on the table.
Louis leaned forward on the bench. He noticed that the corners of Ragnar’s mouth were turned upward in a slight smile, despite the obvious chaos of the burned and torn papers scattered across the table.
"Why are you smiling?" Louis said, standing up and walking toward the wide table.
"Are you a masochist? That says a lot... Please, whatever fantasies you have about me, keep them to yourself..." Louis added.
Louis glanced around the room to find hundreds of papers scattered about, some burned, some torn.
Louis realized that Ragnar really did seem very upset by the engineering failures.
While Louis was examining the burned papers, the door of the room opened for a second time.
"Ragnar, you wanted to speak to us?" Bjorn asked, stepping forward and crossing his arms over his chest.
Bjorn had spent his morning instructing three thousand new recruits on how to march in unison.
Leofric stood quietly beside him, holding his own ledger filled with numbers.
"There is something we need to talk about." Ragnar stated, finally lifting his head from the animal parchment and placing the black charcoal down on the table.
And so, with all these commanders gathered in his private room, Ragnar intended to explain the logistics of deploying the second wave of their military forces to the French coast.
He knew that Erik of Norway was currently holding Calais, but Erik’s four thousand men were entirely surrounded by hostile territory.
Ragnar needed Bjorn to lead the three thousand disciplined spearmen onto the transport ships prepared by Leofric.
Ragnar intended to equip these three thousand men with the new weapons he was currently designing, ensuring their superiority over the armored cavalry they would soon face on the plains of France.
When Louis looked at one of the drawings on the paper, he was very surprised. He reached out his hand and picked up the newest piece of animal parchment from the table.
The drawing depicted an iron barrel that was over three feet long, attached to a straight piece of carved wood designed to be held firmly against the shoulder rather than tucked under the arm.
Furthermore, the drawing included a small mechanical lever near the back of the iron tube, which connected to a small piece of flint stone. L
ouis realized that this lever was designed to strike a piece of steel and create a spark directly above the black powder, completely eliminating the need for a soldier to carry a burning cloth wick in his hand during a battle.
"What the hell is this?" Louis asked loudly, holding the parchment up so Leofric and Bjorn could see.
Ragnar looked at Louis, and then he looked at the open space on his table.
"Hmmm? Louis, please be quiet..." Ragnar said.
"Everyone be quiet and wait a few minutes." Ragnar added, picking up the piece of black charcoal and pulling a blank piece of parchment toward him.
...
And so, Ragnar took a few minutes to complete the final lines of his drawing on the animal parchment. He used a small piece of black charcoal to trace the exact measurements of the new weapon.
He then drew a solid piece of carved wood designed to hold the iron tube securely. He added a small mechanical lever near the back of the wood, which he connected to a tiny piece of steel and a sharp stone.
The short barrels caused the burning powder to push the lead balls in unpredictable directions, making it difficult to hit enemy soldiers at a long distance. He needed a weapon that would force the lead ball to travel in a perfectly straight line across the fields.
However, a lead ball fired from a long iron barrel would easily break through the iron rings and kill the man riding the horse. He designed the small lever to hold a piece of flint.
When the soldier pulled the lever, the flint would strike the steel, creating a spark that would fall directly into a small pan of black powder.
Ragnar placed the black charcoal down on the surface. He picked up the piece of animal parchment and turned it around so the men standing in the room.
"I call it the musket," he said. "It is the end of their cavalry, and the beginning of a new era of war."
"Are you kidding me?" Louis asked loudly, his voice filling the room.
Louis waved his hand in the air." "Your hand cannon design kept me up for days. To make something like this, we’d need the best blacksmith in history, or even better!" Louis declared, looking directly at the long iron barrel depicted on the parchment.
Forging a thin, long cylinder that could withstand explosive internal pressure was a completely different process. The blacksmiths would have to take a flat piece of hot iron and wrap it around a solid iron rod, hammering the edges together until they sealed completely.
If the seal was imperfect, the weapon would explode and kill the soldier holding it.
"This invention is truly amazing, but don’t forget it’s incredibly difficult to manufacture, and we’d need a huge army of them." Louis stated, pointing his finger at the table.
To defeat the armored knights of his uncle, Louis the Germanic, they needed to equip thousands of foot soldiers with these muskets. Raising a huge army required massive amounts of silver coins. The king had to collect heavy taxes from the farmers to pay for the leather shoes, the woolen clothing, and the daily rations of the soldiers.
Furthermore, the kingdom had to import large quantities of sulfur and saltpeter from distant merchants to mix the black powder required to fire the weapons.
Equipping a huge army with these complex iron tubes would completely drain the kingdom’s treasury if the manufacturing process was not highly efficient.
"What do you mean?" Ragnar asked. "...You can’t make it? I can—"
"I didn’t say that." Louis replied, lowering his hand and taking a deep breath.
Louis looked closely at the small iron lever, the specified angle of the flint, and the exact placement of the powder pan.
"I just... I don’t understand where you get these ideas, where on earth do you get them?" Louis said.
"Shhh!" Ragnar waved his hand. "You can do it. It’s not that difficult. You will take that parchment to the stone workshop. You will show it to Rorik and Egbert, and you will ensure they follow the exact mathematical measurements I have written."
"The design makes sense," Louis muttered,"But by God, Ragnar... forging one tube without a flaw is a master’s work. To arm thousands of men? It will bleed us dry."
He stared at the intricate lines for another long moment. Then, he carefully rolled up the parchment.
"I will need authority over every forge in the city," Louis finally said, "And more coal than we’ve burned in a year. I’ll start the first prototypes tomorrow..."
Ragnar nodded once,"You have it all. Empty the stores if you must. Just don’t come back to this room until you have a weapon that fires."
Ragnar shifted his attention to the two commanders remaining in the room.
"The three thousand men in the training fields are fully prepared, Ragnar." Bjorn reported. "They have memorized the tactical movements from your small book. They know how to march in a solid block, and they know how to lower the fifteen-foot steel pikes to stop the charge of heavy horses. We are waiting for your order to board the transport ships and sail to Calais."
Ragnar rested his hands on the table. "You will not board the wooden ships today, wait until Louis finishes the production of the new iron tubes"
Leofric opened his wooden ledger. "The delay will require adjustments to our food storage..." Leofric said.
"I have already loaded fifty wooden transport ships with enough dried fish, salted pork, and hard bread to feed the three thousand men during the ocean crossing. If the men remain in City Titan to wait for the new weapons, they will consume the food stored in our local warehouses. We must send riders to the surrounding farms to collect more wheat before the end of the month."
Ragnar nodded his head. "Take the necessary silver coins from the treasury to pay the farmers for the extra food."