Reforming the military politics of the Duchy of Wessex and other counties was a familiar thing for William, as was his policy in the Duchy of Brittany, Anjou, Amiens Wissant, and Flanders.

Broadly speaking, it can be divided into three main points, one of which is to recover the territories of the local nobles and canonize these estates to the Normans under his command. Specifically, in William's Wessex domain, it was to recover the estates of the nobleman Sein, who did not want him to be loyal, and canonize these estates to the Norman knights, who would be the cornerstone of his rule over the Duchy of Wessex.

Of course, unlike the Normans, who conquered the region by force, in the Duchy of Wessex, William was more good-looking, and he only took back the titles and domains of the nobles who did not want him to be allegiance, and those who were loyal to him, William let them go for the time being. After all, this is England, and William still needs to take into account the opinions of the vast number of Anglo-Saxon nobles, and he can't take back the vassal territory for no reason, he doesn't want to make himself an enemy of the world.

The second is the establishment of militia and knights, with the canonized Norman knights and nobles in the territory as the core, the establishment of knights and militia regiments, these armed forces are led by William's cronies and nobles, stationed at various key nodes of the territory, responsible for guarding the territory and putting out rebellions in time.

The third is to build fortress castles, build castles in the transportation arteries and dangerous terrain of the Duchy of Wessex, rely on the castles all over the territory, and station knights and militia regiments to subdue the locality.

After all, William was a lord of another country, and the way he ruled the Duchy of Wessex was to rule the majority of the Anglo-Saxons with a small number of Norman noble knights, which was a model of outnumbered rule.

In the Battle of Hastings a few weeks ago, tens of thousands of people had been killed or captured by the Normans in the war, and behind the tens of thousands of people were tens of thousands of families, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Anglo-Saxons.

No, just as William took over the vast territory of the Godwin family in the south of England, several conflicts broke out, the largest of which occurred in Southampton, Wessex, the Godwin family's old nest.

The rulers of the city, vassals of the Godwins, perhaps out of loyalty to the Godwins or fear of the Normans, kept their doors behind closed doors, refusing to hand over the keys to the gates and swearing allegiance to William, instead acting heavily guarded.

William has seen a lot of this picture of Southampton City, because in the vast number of England, the Normans are not very good, they are rumored to be the embodiment of the devil, the son of the devil, in England the Normans and Norwegians, Danes are almost the same, so William's army passed through many cities, castles and corners of the stubborn resistance, unwilling to be loyal to William.

To deal with these stubborn people, William's only means were iron and fire, leading the army to break these castles and cities, and then as the price of resisting William and the Normans, William arrested the rebellious nobles and officials and executed them in public, and burned the castles of the breached cities to the ground, in order to warn everyone of the cost of rebelling against the Normans.

Naturally, the city of Southampton could not escape its destruction, with the rebellious nobles executed, the citizens relocated and resettled, and the city burned to the ground.

In the vast Duchy of Wessex, this Southampton city is already the last large-scale city, and Southampton City has suffered the same fate as more than a dozen cities and baronies of different sizes, which shows that the Godwin family has deep roots, even if the Godwin family's territory and title were taken away by William, there are still so many nobles Sain who are willing to be loyal to Earl. Godwin.

The revolt in the major cities and castles had been quelled, but the next battle had turned to the vast countryside of the Duchy of Wessex, which was hostile to the Normans and the nobles loyal to the Godwins, and it would take more time to purge these hostile ones, and only the large-scale canonization of Norman noble knights could completely settle the territory.

After the Duchy of Wessex was accepted by William and generally settled, he began to carry out political reforms within the Duchy, largely copying the political measures of the Duchy of Normandy, recovering the rights of the nobility to rule, taxation and justice, and sending aristocratic officials to establish effective government institutions in each county to represent William's ruling territory.

It was not difficult to unite the Duchy of Wessex and rule it strongly, and with the strength of the Norman Kingdom, William could easily do so.

But it will not be easy to rely on his position as regent to expand his influence in the vast kingdom of England, especially in the realms of the northern princes.

The strategy he could adopt had to be supported by the general public, not to give the English nobility an excuse to oppose it, and it had to be subtle enough not to arouse their vigilance in order to unwittingly root William's influence in the domain of the nobles.

It seems that the only measure that can meet the above conditions is to rebuild the civilian army, and the reason is that it is to resist the Vikings who may invade at any time, and I think those nobles will not refuse.

The county magistrate was the representative of the local royal power and had great power, and William deprived the county magistrate of his military power by rebuilding the civil army in each county and appointing a special county lieutenant commander.

In the traditional feudal system, theoretically the earl was the military commander of a county, and the war required the soldiers of the county to fight, but in England, there were at least two military systems in practice: the aristocratic military system of knightly service (the county knights and mercenaries under the command of the earl), and the civil military system of the kingdom.

The former was based on feudal land tenure, i.e., knightly servitude, and the lord was obliged to the king, while the latter was based on the laws of the kingdom, and all freemen (including some wealthy Verans and serfs) were required to bring their own weapons to participate in the war to defend the country. Thus, the troops assembled in the counties under the Law of the Armed Forces belonged to the civilian army, and in principle were owned by the king and not provided by the nobles, and the county lieutenant was the commander of the army called up under the Law of the Arms.

County lieutenants were generally held by earls, but in fact the earls of England seemed to disdain to hold this "humble position". The officers and soldiers of the militia were of low status, not knights, and in fact the lieutenant also supervised the "constable" and the patrols of the estates, and the strong men who were responsible for patrolling the estates were serfs, and they avoided being in the company of serfs.

While the nobles evaded the position of county lieutenant, William tried to use the civilian army controlled by the county lieutenant to divide the power of the nobles' military power in the local area.