At no other time have England attained such a reputation for craftsmanship, from forging metal to building towers, and the ships with splendid oars were as light as swans pulling them, and they were so forgetful that they were all watched. Today, all of this is on display, from the wilderness forests of Kent to the windy hills of Cornwall, thousands of English and Britons assemble in brisk rowing boats to the illuminated Harbour of Dover, where fishermen and merchants receive the King's silver coins after their armament has been inspected by naval ordnance officers.

The armoury stacked with great axes, arrows, and blades was refreshed and issued to the king's Sein and his guards, and in recent years, the warriors of England have become more and more similar to the Normans across the Channel, and have begun to acquire weapons from their own vassals. By the time the elite of the counties were mobilized to camp on the Isle of Wight, the Norman ships had already moved south through Elephant Trunk Arch to hide in the increasingly crowded Havle Harbor.

Edmund, Duke of Jeveser, saw for the first time so many horses and warships, and the ancient armies depicted on the tapestry by the women of the court were not as grand as the axes and axes outside Dover, and the black walls of the castle and palace carved with birds and beasts were overlooked, and the steel was like a forest of stars, and the oak covered the sky and the sea, and the fine horsemen galloping back and forth like a strong wind on the road every day kept sending news of the arrival of more troops, and the Earl of Lincoln alone had more soldiers and horses than the mosaic stones embedded in the Westminster floor.

The prince was accompanied only by his cousin Sigbert in full armament, Edmund knew what this cousin was capable of, and none of the "boys" below were his opponents, of course, if it weren't for Aunt Christina's visit to the Scottish court, the cousin would never have been able to come to Dover this time.

"How did Auntie leave this time?"

"From the sea, it was Her Majesty Queen Alba's 'Caledonia'." Sigbert was no more than a boy with curly hair, but he had inherited his father's burly build, and looked taller and stronger than an average adult.

"It's a beautiful little boat." Although the Scottish royal family's sailing ship is already a monster in the old north of the British Isles, it can indeed only be described as a 'small boat' on the white shore of Dover at the moment.

"At least it's faster than the Danish – her father told her to wait until it's safer at sea."

"Don't worry, when the fight here is over, I believe that not a single Danish ship in the whole north will dare to approach the coast casually." Since childhood, the prince has had a better relationship with his uncle, and his attitude towards his cousin is far closer than that of anyone else.

The two stood high on the edge of the rough stone tower of the Dover Fortress, with the vast blue sky and white clouds above their heads, and the white fjord bank under their feet that plunged vertically into the sea, and they felt the magical autumn wind lapping on their cheeks, bringing a burst of knife coolness, and they did not need to look up to see the low-flying Gyrfalcon, flying close along the spiral path, unhurried, unhostile, and sometimes even its gray eyes.

"God bless it." Edmund couldn't help but say.

"What a proud fellow." Sigbert also lamented that the lonely snow-white bird of prey was much more well-proportioned and sharper than the king's falcon, and that it might be a good sign to see the emperor here.

At this time, there was still a lot of noise in the armory room under the fortress tower.

"Give me a handful!" Enurf, son of Hughard Barn, shouted at Oswald of Mercia, his extremely fat body, holding the axe like a toy, the tip of the weapon was so unbalanced that it was filled with lead, and the sharp beak and petal-shaped war hammer were flanked and spat forward with a chilling spike.

"What are you going to do with it?" Uhtred scoffed, "Are you going to become an infantryman?" ”

"I don't care, you know I'm not fit for horseback, even that Flemish horse is panting with me, but with this guy I can split the Frankish plate like butter."

"Or knock them out?"

"That's right, what a beauty, isn't it?" "Fat" Enuerf lovingly stroked the metal handle under the blade of the axe as if it were a woman's thigh.

"Whatever you want, I'd rather go find a real Frankish beauty. Feed! Mercia Kid, do you want this iron guy or a real pair of Frankish legs? ”

"I ...... I can't go anywhere, I have to take His Highness's flag gun. Oswald stammered and replied that he had avoided going to the fleet these days, and that his bastard brother, Berenga, whom he had feared since childhood, was there, but even in this castle he seemed to be under the influence of Berenga, as if the other party would cut through the stone wall at any moment and carry him out.

"It's boring." Uhtred tossed the saucer-shaped iron gloves aside, "When the hell is there going to be a war?" ”

"I heard that Your Majesty has arrived on the Isle of Wight, and the army will take shape there, and we only have the army from the east here." Enuerf revealed what he had heard from Rodrigo's son, Sigbert, "I really want to go to the Isle of Wight." ”

The prince's bodyguards were not yet informed of the developments in the East, and Henry IV, having confirmed the intervention of the English in the Italian war, finally turned his sights to the north, and he personally went north to Saxony, where he sent an invitation to the new Danish king, reminding him of the past exploits of King Canute, and promising the support of 17,000 marks, to induce the Danish king, who was eager to establish his military exploits, to join the imperial alliance. This diplomatic victory came almost too easily, and the ambitious Henry IV sent an envoy to the Count of Flanders, who readily agreed to provide a new fleet for the coalition forces. After consolidating his allies in the North Sea, Henry IV finally rallied his main forces to the Harz region, starting a new round of the Saxon War.

Emperor Henry's determination was as strong as stone, he had endured enemies within the empire for too long and too long, and it all began with Saxony, and in any case, the royal family must seize this principality, and Bavaria, Thuringia, Saxony, and Lower Lorraine would all return to the Salian dynasty: these were his legitimate fiefdoms, and it was only because of his mother's short-sightedness that they fell into the hands of the enemies of the throne.

Three days after St. Bartholomew's Day, news reached the Imperial Palace of Goslar on the west side of the Rhine, where Henry IV had stationed a full army of 30,000 troops in the highland pastures, and the Slavic vassals who had arrived from the mountains of eastern Bohemia looked with envy at the main fortress north of the Harz Mountains, their cavalry galloping across the plains, reaching the great shadow of the fortress in the fluttering of flags.

Imperial knights armed with hoop chainmail roamed the northern foothills of the mountains, the shores of the great lakes in the highlands were full of large war horses and pack horses of different colors for drinking water, and some of the nearby silver mine pits were buried with ancient tunnels, blocked by those green and yellow grass sprouts.

Once again, the Salian crossed the northern barrier and kept a close eye on the Hildesheimer Lowlands in the northwest, where Saxony's richest fertile land was located, with twenty leagues of lowland fields, grassy pastures, and metal-buried mountains that had made this land the domain of the tyrant of ancient times. At the emperor's command, 30,000 troops would put on their armor and march on their horses, and their hearts were full of fanaticism, because the enemy's territory was all exposed, and countless women of property were so defenseless and allowed to be plundered.