Chapter 450: In Everyone’s Best Interest
Over the past four months, the skyline of Titan has transformed into an impregnable fortress, akin to an apocalyptic stronghold, constructed of steel, stone, and uniform red brick.
The influx of skilled workers has contributed to this transformation of the capital.
Through an organized network of criers and royal edicts, the Iron Kingdom had recruited tens of thousands of laborers, masons, and builders from every corner of England.
Feudal peasants, who had spent their entire lives breaking their backs in the mud for a fraction of a harvest, suddenly found themselves migrating to Titan in droves.
Here, they were offered something the world had never conceptualized: a fixed, competitive monetary wage, guaranteed by the state.
To manage this monumental workforce, Eadric, the High Minister of the Treasury, had personally sought out and hired a true Master Engineer.
The man’s name was Alden, an Anglo-Saxon prodigy whose natural intellect had been wasted on designing crude wooden water wheels for a local baron.
When Alden was brought before the Iron King, Ragnar did not offer him empty noble titles; instead, he handed the engineer a leather-bound folio of highly classified blueprints.
These schematics contained the mechanical secrets of continuous-fire brick kilns, pugmills, and mechanized clay extrusion...
If left to their own devices, the laborers would have spent years attempting to carve stone blocks to build a single castle wall.
Ragnar found such archaic methods to be dreadfully inefficient.
Within the first month, under Alden’s strict supervision and Ragnar’s flawless blueprints, the laborers constructed a sprawling network of massive brick factories on the outskirts of Titan.
Day and night, the towering smokestacks belched black soot into the sky as the coal-fired kilns churned out hundreds of thousands of standardized, high-density red bricks.
With the supply chain of building materials secured, Ragnar initiated the second phase of his defensive doctrine.
Using the endless supply of mass-produced bricks and reinforced concrete, the laborers erected a perimeter of seven colossal strongholds encircling the capital.
These were not the frail, square-towered castles of the 9th century, which could easily be breached by a determined siege or undermined by sappers.
These were perfect, star-shaped bastion forts.
Their low, thick, angled walls were specifically designed to completely deflect the energy of enemy artillery, while their interlocking fields of fire ensured that there were no blind spots.
To garrison this impregnable ring of fortifications, Ragnar had permanently stationed a specialized defensive militia of exactly 7,900 men.
They were drilled professional sentinels armed with smoothbore muskets, heavy iron cannons, and grapeshot.
They operated on a rotating shift, ensuring that the walls of Titan were heavily manned at every hour of the day...
Titan the trading hub where merchants from across the subjugated territories and allied states brought their raw materials to stockpile.
Mountains of imported grain, vast warehouses of raw iron ore, and vaults filled with foreign silver and gold were concentrated within these walls.
To leave such an astronomical concentration of wealth lightly defended would be a catastrophic logistical blunder.
Through Eadric’s treasury, Ragnar issued a general decree that applied only to the borders of Titan.
Any ambitious merchant, blacksmith, or artisan who desired to establish a forge or a factory within the industrial sectors of Titan could do so without spending a single coin of upfront capital.
If a man could prove his competence, the state would assign him a plot of land for free.
Furthermore, the state would assign a Master Builder to construct the facility and provide the entrepreneur with the specific blueprints necessary to operate the advanced machinery.
To the impoverished tradesmen and ambitious merchants of the era, this offer seemed like a divine miracle...
They flocked to Eadric’s administrative offices in the thousands, eager to claim their free land and build their industrial empires.
In exchange for the land, the blueprints, and the construction, the entrepreneur was legally bound to pay a flat thirty percent tax on all production, trade, and gross profits directly to the Iron Kingdom’s treasury.
Ragnar did not have to micromanage every single factory, nor did he have to pay the daily wages of the industrial workforce.
He had incentivized the population to industrialize the city out of their own self-interest, while he passively skimmed a 30% percent of the output.
...
Three days before setting sail, Ragnar stood atop the highest observation tower of the grand citadel.
Standing behind the Iron King were Gyda, the Listener, and Eadric, the High Minister.
Gyda stepped up beside the High Minister.
"I have calculated the military capabilities of every lord, earl, and baron in the Isles. It seems that even if every man in England were to rebel at once... even if they were to reject their allegiance entirely and unite their armies under one banner, they would not be able to breach this city."
Ragnar turned away from the window, crossing his arms.
Gyda gestured toward the industrial districts below. "We give the vassals just enough knowledge to maximize their agricultural output and produce basic armaments, ensuring they remain useful as our meat shields. But the true secrets — the high-pressure steam engines, the continuous kilns, the rifling techniques — those remain strictly confined within these walls."
Eadric closed his ledger with a decisive snap. "As long as they obey our orders, they will grow wealthy. But as long as we spread knowledge as guarded secrets, doling out only what serves our bottom line, they will never possess the means to challenge us. Their greed keeps them loyal, but it is the mystery of our monopoly that keeps them compliant."
It was never about the mere vanity of power. While the lords and vassals assumed that their illicit iron-smuggling schemes and underhanded plays would line their pockets and erode Ragnar’s authority, the Iron King simply allowed it...
In truth, it was a maneuver to disseminate advanced knowledge to the other dynasties without sparking suspicion; had he ordered them to spread these innovations directly, they would have questioned his motives, asking, "Are we aiding the enemy?"
So, Ragnar granted them the illusion of free trade, surrendered the tedium of day-to-day economic management into their hands, and left them to wallow in their newfound riches... knowing that, ultimately, this was in everyone’s best interest!
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A/N:
Rule #5: When the King lets you "secretly" smuggle iron and build your own forge for free, you haven’t outsmarted him. You just took a job in his franchise.