Chapter 174: The Chief of Metallurgy
The negotiation with Marquis de Lafayette concluded shortly before midnight, with the French ambassador practically trembling with relief as he signed away a staggering fraction of King Francis’s treasury.
Konrad had successfully seeded an arms race that would tear the old feudal order of Western Europe to shreds, and Alemannia would hold the monopoly on the ammunition.
Leaving the dining hall to the whispers of the diplomatic corps, Konrad retreated to the heavily guarded sanctuary of the royal apartments.
Despite the soot that blanketed Augsburg, the royal chambers were warmed by a labyrinth of copper steam pipes running beneath the floors.
Queen Katarina was sitting by the grand hearth.
Konrad unclasped the stiff collar of his uniform, letting out a genuine sigh of exhaustion.
"You sold the French gunpowder," Katarina remarked. She did not ask; she already knew.
"I sold them the Pattern-1," Konrad corrected, taking a slow sip of his wine.
Katarina smirked. "What happens when the French run out of Habsburgs to shoot? They will look east. They will look at our borders."
"By the time King Francis marches his new muskets to the Rhine, our heavy artillery will be fully mobile, and my Jaegers will be armed with breech-loading cartridge rifles," Konrad stated, staring into the flickering flames of the hearth. "They will need our high-yield powder. They will need our replacement springs and our cast-iron barrels. The moment they threaten Swabia, I cut the supply lines, and their new army becomes a mob of peasants holding very heavy metal sticks."
Katarina let out a soft laugh, shaking her head.
The next morning, the sky over Augsburg was a bruised, overcast grey, choked by the black smog of the foundries.
Konrad bypassed his usual administrative briefings, opting instead for a brisk walk down to the central engineering sector.
Flanked by a squad of heavily armed Jaegers, he navigated the chaotic, deafening streets of the capital.
He needed to personally oversee the tooling process for the massive French order.
Ten thousand Pattern-1 muskets required new casting molds, and he needed them operational by the end of the week.
Konrad arrived at the red-brick warehouse belonging to Master Klaus, the Chief of Metallurgy.
Stepping inside, Konrad signaled for his guards to remain at the entrance.
The interior of the workshop was a chaotic labyrinth of scattered blueprints, half-finished brass valves, and towering stacks of iron ingots.
In the center of the madness stood Klaus...
The aging engineer looked utterly deranged. His leather apron was scorched, his face was smeared with black grease, and his wild hair looked as though it had caught fire at least twice in the past forty-eight hours.
When Klaus spotted the Swabian King stepping around a pile of discarded gears, the engineer nearly dropped the wrench he was holding.
"Your Majesty!" Klaus gasped, wiping his grease-stained hands on his ruined apron.
He offered a bow. "I... I did not expect an inspection today! We are behind on the brass casings, I know, but the copper shipment from Tyrol was delayed by the mud—"
"Breathe, Klaus," Konrad interrupted, waving a hand. "I am not here to audit your casing production. But considering you look as though you haven’t slept since I marched on Vienna, I assume you have been distracted by something else."
Klaus froze. A manic gleam suddenly overtook the exhaustion in the engineer’s eyes.
He looked around the workshop nervously before stepping closer to the King, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
"I took a liberty, Sire," Klaus admitted, his hands trembling slightly. "While you were out conquering the east, I was reviewing the blueprints you drafted for the heated rail-carriages. The high-pressure steam boilers."
Konrad raised an eyebrow. "Yes. The thermodynamic principles are sound, but the metallurgy required to prevent the boiler from exploding under pressure is still months away from mass production."
"That is what I thought, Sire," Klaus said, a wide grin splitting his face. "But then I realized... what if we didn’t use it for comfort? Follow me. Please."
Intrigued, Konrad followed the manic engineer to the rear of the massive warehouse.
Klaus threw open a set of double doors, leading out into an enclosed, muddy testing yard hidden from the main street.
Sitting in the center of the mud was a monstrosity of iron and steel.
It looked like a horizontal iron barrel mounted on four incredibly thick, iron-spoked wheels.
A squat smokestack protruded from the front, and a chaotic tangle of brass pipes, pressure gauges, and heavy iron pistons ran along its flanks.
"What in God’s name is that?" Konrad murmured, genuinely taken aback.
"I call it a traction engine, Your Majesty," Klaus breathed, stepping up to the iron beast and patting its riveted flank with profound affection. "I took your concept of steam expansion and routed it through a heavy iron cylinder to drive a reciprocal piston. The piston turns a crankshaft, which is geared directly to the rear wheels."
"...."
Klaus turned to look at the King. "It is loud, Sire. It consumes coal at a frankly disgusting rate. And it tops out at perhaps four miles an hour."
"And the torque?" Konrad asked.
"Unbelievable," Klaus laughed, a slightly hysterical edge to his voice. "We chained it to three loaded ammunition wagons yesterday. It dragged them through a foot of wet mud without stalling. No draft horses. No oxen. Just coal and water."
Konrad stared at the machine.
He had expected to spoon-feed the revolution to this era one blueprint at a time.
He had assumed he would have to micromanage every single technological leap.
But Klaus had taken a theoretical concept for a heating boiler and independently deduced the mechanics of a steam-powered locomotive!
Konrad turned slowly to look at the grease-covered engineer. He didn’t smile, but the intensity in his eyes made Klaus stand incredibly straight.
"Klaus," Konrad said.
"Yes, Your Majesty?" Klaus squeaked.
"You are no longer a Guild Master," Konrad declared. "you are elevated to the rank of Baron. You will be given an estate outside the city, a personal guard, and an annual stipend of fifty thousand silver thalers. You will report directly to me, and you will have unlimited access to the Royal Treasury for your research and development."
Klaus’s jaw went completely slack.
"Your... Your Majesty, I... I don’t..." Klaus stammered, his eyes welling with unshed tears. "Thank you. I swear by my life, I will not fail you."
"I know you won’t, Baron Klaus," Konrad replied. "Which brings me to the actual reason for my visit today. I need you to set up a new assembly line. Immediately."
Klaus snapped out of his shock. "A new line? What are we fabricating, Sire?"
Konrad withdrew a folded piece of vellum from his coat and handed it to the engineer.
Klaus unrolled it, his eyes scanning the schematic of the Pattern-1 smoothbore musket.
"It is a primitive design," Klaus noted, frowning slightly. "Smoothbore? Spheroid ammunition? The firing mechanism is decent, but the accuracy will be dreadful past a hundred yards."
"It is an export model," Konrad clarified. "We are selling them to the French. I need ten thousand units cast, assembled, and packed in grease within three weeks. Can your foundries handle the sudden shift in tooling?"
Klaus scoffed. "This is basic iron casting and simple spring-steel, Your Majesty. I can have the molds poured by tonight and the first hundred units rolling off the line by Wednesday morning. The French won’t know what hit them."
"Excellent," Konrad nodded, adjusting his sash. "Put your apprentices in charge of the musket line, Klaus. I want you focused entirely on refining that traction engine."
"It shall be done, Sire!" Klaus offered a salute that was far sharper than his earlier bow.
As Konrad walked out of the sweltering foundry and back into the Swabian air, he looked up at the smoke-belching chimneys of his capital.
Klaus was a genius, but one genius was not enough to sustain an empire...
***
Two weeks had passed since his negotiation with the French Ambassador, and the assembly lines of Augsburg had successfully retooled.
Industrial Baron Klaus had made good on his promise; the foundries were currently churning out a terrifying number of smoothbore muskets per day.
However, before Konrad authorized the first shipment of ten thousand units to cross the Rhine, he needed to ensure the product functioned exactly to his specifications — and not an inch better.
On a muddy, rain-soaked testing field just outside the city walls, Konrad stood under a waxed-canvas pavilion.
Next to him stood Marquis de Lafayette, the French Ambassador, looking deeply uncomfortable in his damp, powdered wig and sodden velvet coat.
A hundred yards away, thirty Swabian conscripts — dressed in basic linen uniforms rather than the elite dark-grey of the Jaegers — were lined up in the mud.
They held the first production run of the Pattern-1 muskets. Downrange, twenty wooden mannequins were fitted with hammered-steel breastplates, representative of the finest armor currently worn by the Spanish tercios and the Habsburg Imperial Knights.
Lafayette rubbed his hands together, his eyes fixed on the muddy conscripts. "Your Majesty, I must admit, I am accustomed to seeing your... specialized troops operate. These men seem quite... green."
"They are illiterate farmers I pulled from a turnip field yesterday morning," Konrad replied casually, taking a sip of hot spiced wine from a goblet. "I wanted to demonstrate the primary selling point of the Pattern-1."
Konrad turned to a nearby field officer and nodded.
The officer stepped forward, raising his voice over the drumming rain. "Load!"
The conscripts bit the ends off pre-measured paper cartridges, poured the powder down the smoothbore barrels, and quickly rammed the spherical lead balls home.
The flintlock mechanisms clicked into place with a satisfying snap.
The entire process took just under thirty seconds.
Lafayette’s eyes widened. "Mon Dieu," he whispered. "In this weather, a matchlock company would still be struggling to light their fuses. They would be slaughtered by charging cavalry before they fired a single shot."
"Indeed," Konrad murmured, his eyes fixed on the targets.
"Make ready!" the officer bellowed. "Present!"
The thirty conscripts raised the muskets, resting the butts against their shoulders.
"Fire!"
A jagged line of orange flame erupted in the rain-slicked afternoon. The thunderous crack of thirty muskets firing echoed across the muddy field.
A dense cloud of white smoke briefly obscured the conscripts before the wind tore it away.
Konrad and Lafayette immediately stepped out from under the pavilion, walking downrange to inspect the results.