Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 169: I wish I had bought stock in your company!

While Ragnar and his forces were bogged down auditing the scorched assets of Nottingham, General Bjorn had a much easier time restructuring the competition in Leicester.

The West Saxons here had not resorted to liquidating their own inventory to defeat him.

Thus, at the moment, Bjorn was currently engaged in a field merger with the enemy.

Bjorn had deployed Thane Leofric’s militia to protect the flanks of his heavy infantry while they marched in their lines into negotiation distance.

As for his cavalry, they were waiting on standby for their orders to execute a hostile takeover of the rear.

At the moment, Bjorn’s Steam-Assisted Field Guns were in position and had just begun their bombardment upon the enemy army, which was between 5,000 - 6,000 men strong.

As the cannons hissed and popped, sending high-explosive shells pounding into the enemy lines, the West Saxons did not panic.

Instead, they formed a shield wall and marched faithfully into the fire, believing their courage would yield high returns.

As for Bjorn, he was at the front lines, with his Pneumatic Hammer in hand... a weapon designed by Elfwynn that utilized compressed air to deliver bone-shattering strikes. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

The weapon hummed with potential energy as he continued to march orderly by his troops.

Arrows and javelins fell upon the marching contractors in volleys, but the Directorate forces did not fear their sting, for their blackened plate armor was standardized to resist such outdated projectiles.

Because of how resilient their benefits package was, they were undeterred by the minor scratches which accumulated on their gear as they continued to march at an efficient pace.

Only when the enemy was at a distance of roughly three hundred yards did Bjorn give his command to his line of Crossbowmen with the authoritative voice of a Regional Manager.

Bjorn raised his hammer and pointed it at the enemy as he bellowed for all his men to hear.

"Prepare to Audit!"

The moment he did so, the soldiers who held their loaded Mark II Repeating Crossbows raised the weapons into a position where Bjorn once more gave a command.

The front rank instantly knelt while the rear column leveled their weapons over their shoulders.

"Acquire Targets!"

After doing so, his words were relayed to the thousands of contractors among his ranks by the various Supervisors and Shift Leads within earshot.

When he finally felt that the enemy was within an optimal range for a high-yield return, he gave the final command.

"Liquidation!"

In doing so, thousands of crossbows clicked in unison.

The air was filled with the thwack-thwack-thwack! of steel bolts flying downrange.

The moment the triggers were pulled, thousands of armor-piercing bolts went downrange.

They crashed into their targets, punching through the wooden shields and mail armor in which many of the enemy troops were equipped as if it were nothing more than a bad investment.

Wood splintered, and iron rings burst as the steel projectiles made their way past the enemy’s defenses and into their flesh.

Instantly thousands of men collapsed to the ground, their contracts terminated upon impact.

The West Saxon vanguard was shattered in a moment, and the surviving huscarls among their ranks began to panic.

Yet this was not the end, as another artillery barrage began to pound the West Saxon ranks while the Directorate forces pulled the levers on their crossbows to reload.

As for the troops from Leofric’s militia, they were stunned by the sight of such efficiency.

The might which the Directorate possessed was unfathomable, and it was at this moment they remembered that this was merely a third of the assets that Ragnar had under his management.

Such an army was more than capable of sweeping across the Midlands and monopolizing the land themselves; they felt as if they were merely present to witness the restructuring.

Blood-curdling screams filled the air alongside the hiss of steam as the Directorate forces finished reloading before the same series of commands were ordered.

However, at this point, the West Saxon Ealdorman could no longer withstand the sight of his troops routing and thus ordered his cavalry to charge.

The mounted Thanes of Mercia, alongside heavy cavalry, rushed towards the Directorate infantry with anticipation; thus far, none of the Viking armies they faced had stood against a heavy charge. They truly believed they could disrupt the market.

Bjorn immediately noticed the cavalry beginning their attack and gave another order to his soldiers, which was quickly relayed by the numerous Supervisors.

"Pike Square! Defensive Posture!"

Upon ordering this command, the soldiers in Bjorn’s army quickly began to form ranks in the form of a hollow square.

They did so in rapid speed, proving that they had drilled this formation time and again throughout the months of their orientation.

After forming into squares, with their Boarding Pikes braced against the ground, the Directorate infantry waited for the cavalry approach until they were within 30 yards; only then would the inner ranks fire for maximum damage.

Despite the superior rate of fire of their crossbows, they still would be the most effective while firing by rank against the approaching cavalry at close distance.

While the Directorate formed such ranks, the relatively undisciplined militia quickly fled the oncoming cavalry and ran behind the massive squares that had appeared on the battlefield.

Confused by the strange formation, the West Saxons charged straight into the zone of control, where after reaching the thirty-yard range, the individual Supervisors in charge of each formation began to give orders to fire based upon the nearest rank.

The moment they did so, the destructive power of the steel bolts shredded through the mail armor and padding of the Thanes and their horses, instantly dropping the cavalry bold enough to attack.

Some riders survived as their horses fell before them, yet the Directorate’s disciplined ranks were unphased, never once breaking the terms of their contract.

To break ranks was to face immediate termination; these were the words their HR representatives had beaten into their heads throughout the many months of training.

As such, the Directorate stood in their ranks, reloading before firing on the next cavalry charge, which was met with equally disastrous results.

All the while, Bjorn was within the hollow area of the formation alongside several executives; as a man with a pneumatic hammer, his usefulness in this formation was nothing more than being a commanding voice.

Thus he spat out commands as the cavalry continued to charge at the formation, hoping to break through with superior numbers.

"Sector A, fire!"

"Sector B, fire!"

"Center mass, fire!"

The veteran General continued to declare his orders. While the men beneath his command followed them to the letter, before long, the cavalry was eliminated, with those few surviving members having fled the scene during the second attack.

They could not believe that their elite Thanes were useless in the face of the absurd Directorate technology.

Seeing their elite units being broken, the West Saxon forces were filled with market uncertainty.

Yet, their worries were far from resolved, as the artillery brigade continued to batter their ranks, no matter how far they fled.

However, suddenly the artillery battery stopped, and for a brief moment, they felt reprieve.

That is before they noticed the Directorate Dragoons dashing down the hillside and towards their broken ranks!

Ragnar’s rules were simple: so long as an enemy did not sign the surrender forms, they were fair game and were to be given no severance package.

Thus, the Directorate Dragoons, armed with hand cannons and sabers, rushed down the mountainside and into the routing enemies, showing no mercy to the fleeing West Saxons.

The West Saxon Ealdorman, who had taken part in the initial cavalry charge, lay on the ground, with his dead horse lying on top of him, slowly crushing his internal organs.

He bled from the mouth, yet this was not visible due to the mud obscuring such a scene.

The merger was over, and though Bjorn ordered his troops to conduct a post-mortem analysis, he and members of his heavy infantry approached the body trapped beneath the horse and lifted the helm from his head, revealing a horrifically bruised appearance of a man who had seen many feasts.

Bjorn gazed at the man with professional courtesy before asking him a question.

"Are you the Acting CEO?"

Struggling to breathe, the Ealdorman coughed up blood before answering Bjorn.

"I am the Ealdorman of Leicester..."

Bjorn felt pity for the man and the bad investments he had made and, as such, decided to expedite the process; thus, he asked the man the final question on his mind.

"Do you wish to file for bankruptcy?"

The Ealdorman chuckled as he gurgled on his blood before spitting it out of his mouth and onto the ground.

"I wish I had bought stock in your company!"

With that said, Bjorn raised his pneumatic hammer, primed the pressure valve, and brought it down, delivering a swift and efficient end to the man’s tenure.

Afterward, he spoke the words on his mind aloud for all of his men to hear.

"His contract is expired."

The first hostile takeover in Leicester was an overwhelming victory for the Directorate, and they had drastically cut down the numbers of the West Saxon forces within the region.

It would appear that the acquisition of Leicester would be much smoother than the audit in Nottingham...