After nearly a year of campaigning, William finally returned to Rouen with his army at the end of March 1051.

In that year's campaign, he defeated King Henry I of France, Thibaud, Duke of Champagne, Gervais, Archbishop of Reims, Robert, Duke of Burgundy, King Harald IV of Norway, and three dukes of Lower Lorraine, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

By this time he had occupied the northern part of France, including the northern part of the Duchy of Burgundy, and most of France was under his rule, and the Left Bank of the Rhine was also within his range of attack, and could be occupied at any time.

At this time, William's most important thing was not to lead his army south to the Duchy of Burgundy and join Duke Rodrigo, but to reach a peace agreement with the kingdoms of Norway and Denmark as soon as possible to force the two countries to withdraw from the war.

As long as the Kingdom of Denmark and the Kingdom of Norway were forced to put an end to this real situation, William would face only two enemies, one was the half-crippled Kingdom of France, and the other was the HRE Empire, which was at war with the Kingdom of Hungary.

As long as he avoided the harassment of the Vikings, William still had enough confidence to win in the face of only these two enemies.

Now he has King Harald IV of Norway in his hands, and he is not afraid that the other party will not be convinced.

As for the Danes, although they retained most of their strength in this battle, compared to the war that brought them a lot of losses, they must not be willing to fight to the death for others and the Normans.

The task of negotiating with the two countries, William handed it over to Prime Minister Ladolph, who was good at foreign affairs, and believed that Prime Minister Ladolph would bring William the results he wanted.

After writing to Prime Minister Rudolph of England, William once again focused his attention on the situation in the Kingdom of France.

At present, on the battlefield of the Duchy of Burgundy, Duke Rodrigo has made rapid progress, he has occupied the three counties of Auxerre, Nevers and Dijon in the north of the Duchy of Burgundy, and has also divided his forces to attack and occupy the county of Bourges that the other side has abandoned.

Now the Duchy of Burgundy can only retreat with his vassals in Charolais, Mâcon and Daron, if it were not for Charolais and Hugo, Count of Daron. Morality. If Samuel supported it, I am afraid that Robert the Duke of Burgundy would have been easily captured and killed by the Duke of Rodrigo.

This Hugo. Morality. The prestige of Count Samuel, William has been thunderous for a year, and his outstanding military talent and loyalty have been appreciated by William, who has recruited Count Hugo several times, but all of them have failed.

However, after this victory with the Vikings, William was confident that he would make Count Hugo loyal to him and completely pacify the Duchy of Burgundy.

Looking at the entire Kingdom of France, it seems that there is no single prince who could pose a sufficient threat to William.

In the Duchy of Aquitaine in south-west France, Marcand, Agen and Count of Dax, Bertna, of the Duchy of Gascony were seized. Morality. Gascony was fighting with the army of William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine.

In the Duchy of Gascony, the Count of Bethna was in the right place at the right time, and in the context of the Normans' march south, it was impossible for Duke William VIII to concentrate all his efforts on him.

At the same time, as the oldest family in the Duchy of Gascony and the former holder of the title of duke, Count Betna has the support of many noble families in the Duchy of Gascogne.

In this way, Count Betna and William VIII were able to draw a victory.

The troubles of the Duchy of Aquitaine did not end there, as the counts of Auvergne, Marche and Bourbon rebelled for independence.

Among them, Périgord and Ardabet, Count of Marsh, were the most ambitious, and he not only contacted his brother-in-law, Hugo, Count of Lucien, to join him, but also contacted his brother-in-law, Pons-Guillem, Duke of Toulouse, to invade Aquitaine.

It can be said that the southwest of France is already in chaos, and this is the best time for William to go south, and it should not be missed.

On this trip south, William set himself a small goal - to defeat William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine, and occupy the four richest coastal territories in southwestern France, Artois, Poitou, Saint-Gerdon and Podol.

On the way south, the counts who are secretly connected with William will welcome him very much, and the only one to worry about is the ambitious Duke of Toulouse, Pons-Gichome. Morality. Toulouse.

Although the other party attacked the Duchy of Aquitaine in the name of being invited to help his nephew, his ambitions for the Duchy of Aquitaine were indeed obvious, and anyone with a discerning eye could see it.

Therefore, William and the Duke of Toulouse were destined to be irresolvable enemies, unless the other gave up their ambitions for the Duchy of Aquitaine.

Albert, Duke of Gwyneth, Wales. Sauron, Duke of De Hebas, Morris. Welf and Mephistopheles, Duke of Leinster of Ireland. Sauron and Duke Odo of Connaught. Morality. Ponthieu, the four men led reinforcements to Rouen before William's departure, and joined William's southbound army in time.

William was very pleased with their timely feelings, originally he was ready to go south to Burgundy, but this family of more than 10,000 reinforcements led him to a little more grasp of this war.

The addition of these reinforcements was great news for William, but God couldn't keep him lucky.

When William arrived in Reims with his army, the Pope's envoys arrived in Reims and asked to meet William with the Pope's edict.

Pope Leo IX sent an envoy at this critical time, and nothing good would have happened.

Sure enough, Pope Leo IX demanded that William release Archbishop Gervais of Reims and a group of French clergymen, and that he return the ecclesiastical assets confiscated during the war and compensate for the damages.

William naturally refused the other party's request, and even if Leo IX was the pope, he could not agree to the other party's unreasonable demand.

What's more, in William's view, Pope Leo IX's request to William was a serious provocation to his majesty and interference in the internal affairs of the Norman kingdom, which he absolutely did not allow.

William ignored the other party's request and led his army south, even though the papal envoy's rhetoric became tougher and tougher, William did not let up.

In the end, the papal envoy threw down a cruel sentence such as "you will regret it" and left in embarrassment.

"Your Majesty, if you have gone too far with the papal envoys in this way, I am afraid that His Majesty the Pope will not give up, and more severe measures will follow." Faller. Osborne's face was full of worry as he reminded William.

"It doesn't matter, Leo IX was the German pope who was installed by Emperor Henry III of the HRE, and it makes sense that he would oppose us.

This time he sent an envoy to test us, and if I had any weakness or compromise with him, then Leo IX's methods would have been tried without hesitation.

Anyway, the left and right are just prescribing teachings, will you leave me because of this? William shook his head and explained.

"Of course not, Your Majesty, we will always end up with you, follow you, and never leave you." Faller. Osborne and the nobles swore an oath.