In the palace of Rouen, on William's table, there is a small number of cases made by Phalle. The covenant and information that Osborne had just presented were the fruits of William's succession these days.

Among these covenants, William's first thing to open and look at was naturally the covenant with his most important allies, the Castiles.

Compared to several other covenants, this covenant with the Casties was the first to be concluded.

Originally because of William and Uraka. The marriage between the Normans and the Castile had a marriage covenant between the Normans and the Castiers, but this covenant was not safe in William's view, and there was no specific obligation to send troops, and he did not dare to guarantee whether his father-in-law, Ferdinand I, would send troops to help him in the face of the two powerful enemies of Pope Leo IX and the HRE Empire.

Therefore, when William sent an envoy to the queen to return to his family, he sent an envoy to re-establish a stronger alliance with Ferdinand I, specifying the obligations of both sides to send troops.

With Urakar bridging the central front, William soon forged a new alliance with Ferdinand I, forging a stronger alliance.

The covenant stipulated that if either of the two parties to the covenant was attacked, the other side was required to declare war on the enemy and send 20,000 troops, specifically in the war with the Pope and the HRE Emperor, and the Castilian were obliged to send 20,000 troops.

This covenant was much harsher than the previous loose and unregulated marriage alliance, but William was not worried that Ferdinand I would not agree.

In fact, the relationship between Ferdinand I and Pope Leo IX and Emperor Henry III of the HRE was not very good, and there was even some hostility between the two sides.

After unifying the three kingdoms of Castile, León and Galicia, Ferdinand I seized large swaths of Navarre and brought them into subjugation.

He then waged a holy war against the surrounding emirs, seizing Salamanca, Vaildolid, and other surrounding territories, and subjugating the emirs, including Zaragoza and Cuenca.

It can be said that under the rule of Ferdinand I, the Castilians achieved the most brilliant achievements, becoming the overlord of the Iberian Peninsula, ruling the Christian states of the entire peninsula and intimidating the emirs in the south.

Finally, Ferdinand I crowned himself Emperor of Spain.

At first, he used the title of emperor in domestic documents and did not crown himself with great fanfare, but later, after achieving such great things, he crowned himself emperor of Spain.

Ferdinand I was crowned Emperor of Spain, with the intention of ruling over the many Christian kingdoms of Iberia against the Moorish emirs in the south, and not against the HRE Empire and the Pope.

However, his coronation as emperor still offended the pope and the HRE Emperor Henry III, who, however Ferdinand I argued, saw that there was only one title of emperor in Europe, and that was Holy Roman Emperor, and Ferdinand I was crowned emperor to be a departure from them, and the ambitious one wanted to replace him.

Ferdinand I sent several times to the Holy See and the Nassau court to plead his case, but to no avail, and after several times, he also rested on reconciliation.

It was for this reason, and that William was his son-in-law, that Ferdinand I did not hesitate to be excommunicated by the Pope and re-enter into a closer and stronger covenant with him.

It can be said that this alliance between the Normans and the Castiers did not mean to warm each other, William needed the help of the Castils, and Ferdinand I also needed the financial and military support of the Normans against the Moors in the south.

Putting down this covenant, William picked up the remaining covenants and looked through them.

In his hand was a three-point covenant from Count Russell, with the Kingdom of Sweden, the Mecklenburg Tribal Emirate, and the Kingdom of Poland.

These covenants pale in comparison to the covenants with the Castilles.

The Swedes, considering that there was a huge gap in strength with the Danes and Norwegians, did not dare to stand up and declare war on them at this time, so they made this secret pact with the Earl of Russell, which could only be made public in the right reality.

The remaining kingdoms of Poland and the Mecklenburg tribal emirate were not as secretive as the Swedes, but they were able to send a few thousand troops at most.

At most, this amount of troops can only contain part of the forces of the Duchy of Brandenburg and the Kingdom of Bohemia of the HRE Empire, and the effect is not very large.

Obviously, they were thinking of waiting and seeing, wanting to wait until William and Emperor Henry III of the HRE Dynasty decided the victory, and then they would reap the fruits of victory.

However, they still thought too simply, as long as these three countries were involved in the battlefield war, William was sure that under his operation, they would do their best to participate in the war.

"Faller, this is Walter. Look at the information sent by Sir Giffard. William flipped the letter in his hand and looked at Faller, who was standing quietly beside him. Osborne said.

"Your Majesty, Caesar's request is too much, and you must not agree to him." Faller took the information handed by William, read it carefully, and waved his arms excitedly.

"Paller, calm down, talk to me what you think, I want to hear your opinion." William shook his head and spoke up.

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty, I lost my temper." Faller lowered his head and apologized: "Your Majesty, Caesar's request to lift the ban on Normans going to Italy to venture out is to lie on us Normans and suck blood.

We Normans had only 800,000 men, and in order to support the rule of England, Normans and France, and to recruit up to 60,000 soldiers, we Normans were no longer able to recruit more soldiers.

If Caesar's request is granted and the ban is lifted, I am afraid that all of our Norman warriors will be dragged to Sicily by Caesar, so that in the end we will not have enough troops to support their English and French rule. ”

Hearing Faller's words, William nodded slightly in agreement, indeed, as he said, the number of Normans was still too scarce.

During the decade, there were only about 500,000 Normans, and at that time William had already understood that the shortcomings of the Normans were scarce, so he issued a decree to encourage childbearing, and gave subsidies and tax incentives to families with multiple children.

In the past ten years, despite the ravages of the Black Death and the invasion of various diseases, under the policy of encouraging fertility promulgated by William, the population of the Normans has still experienced a wave of high growth, reaching more than 800,000.

However, this mere population of more than 800,000 is still a pitiful compared to the two million people of the Kingdom of England and the more than 5 million people of the Kingdom of France.

In this respect, William's situation was the same as that of Caesar, and they were both faced with the embarrassing situation of being outnumbered.

Fortunately, in the Middle Ages, there was no strong sense of nationality, there was no tendency towards national independence, and the Normans still had the opportunity to integrate and assimilate with the English and French.