As Warwick got closer, William and the generals became more and more nervous, although William and the Norman nobles were confident enough to defeat their opponents, but there were always many unexpected things happening in the war, and these uncertainties could change the course of the war, so William could not be careless in any case.

In order to further investigate the enemy's situation, William not only sent Faller out, but also the cavalry unit belonging to the Praetorian Guard under his command to investigate.

After a while, the former Fahler hurried back, rode to William's side, and then turned over and dismounted to report to William:

"Your Majesty, the main forces of the enemy have been found ahead."

"Faller, tell me the details, you can tell me quickly." William urged.

"Yes, Your Majesty. Ahead, 20,000 troops were gathered in Coventry, a town centred on a monastery where enemy troops were building fortifications. Faller immediately reported what he had found to William.

Coventry is a thousand-year-old city with records dating back to 1016.

In 1043, Duke of Mercia, Leofric. The Hewess founded a monastery on this site, and a city gradually sprang up around the monastery: Coventry.

Coventry's most famous resident is the legendary Lady Godeva who rode naked on horseback in protest of the high taxes imposed on the citizens by her husband, Leo Frick, Duke of Mercia. According to legend, citizens were forced to turn their faces away from viewing wherever she went, but one person was blinded for failing to do so, and he became the origin of the English phrase "Peeping Tom".

The city has only been in existence for two years, but it is already far more prosperous than any other town in Warwickshire, because it is not only the Duke of Mercia, Leofrick. The personal fiefdom of Lady Godeva, the wife of Hewes, and the Duke of Mercia's other permanent residence besides Fort Warwick.

The monastery in the city, built with huge stones without any work, is known for its defense in Mercia, and it is not so much a monastery as a military fortress with extremely strong defensive capabilities.

William had also heard about the situation in Coventry City, and when he thought of the abbey castle in Coventry City, William felt a little pain in his brain.

"I see, go down, Fall." William waved his hand to Faller. Osborne retreated, and then brought in Master Claude, the commander of the siege equipment unit.

"Claude, your equipment battalion must be ready, the siege equipment must be quickly prepared for me, and our army must prepare to storm Coventry." William looked at Admiral Claude and instructed.

"Back to Your Majesty, the thirty-eight counterweight trebuchets carried by our army, as well as hundreds of siege weapons, have been prepared, and they only need to be deployed in the open field to start bombarding Coventry." Admiral Claude said confidently.

"Thank you, Claude, after this war is over, I will canonize you as a viscount in reward for your merits." William was relieved and promised Claude.

"Thank you, Your Majesty!" Claude pouted and kowtowed in thanks.

Claude because of his low background, even if he was reused by William, he was still only a low-level knight, and now William wanted to canonize him as a viscount, which is more than a baron, second only to the earl's middle and high-ranking nobles, which means that his virtue. The Lambards will join Norman high society.

"Claude, your son Lanurf is also thirteen years old, I can let him join my Junior Guard." William saw Claude's hard work and wanted to reward him enough.

"Your Majesty......" Claude. Morality. Lambard was already speechless with excitement, it was the Young Guards directly under William, and the teenagers in this team were all seeds of future senior officers, as long as they were willing to work hard, they would be at least one regiment commander in the future.

"Alright, Claude, you go down and get ready." William smiled and waved him down.

"Order the whole army to hasten its advance, and be sure to reach Coventry by three o'clock in the afternoon." William raised his right hand and commanded.

"Yes!" William's side echoed a chorus, and dozens of heralds dispersed to convey William's order to the troops, and the trumpeters and drummers in the army also used drums and brass trumpets to spread the order to speed up the march in all directions.

William and his party hurried and finally arrived outside Coventry just before 3 p.m.

"Your Majesty, you see that this Coventry city is well-defended, and there are strong stone monastic castles in the city, and it is not easy to capture it in a short time." The Earl of Richard raised his horsewhip and pointed at Coventry City.

"Yes, what we lack most is time, we must destroy the main forces of the northern princes before the Vikings from Norway and Denmark land in England, otherwise the war is likely to enter a stalemate, which is extremely unfavorable to us." William nodded in response.

"How's that to be? Without uprooting the city of Coventry and destroying the Mercian people in it, we could not continue our march north into Yorkshire. Count Richard was full of questions, and looked at William and asked.

"It's okay, I've been prepared for this, and I'm confident that I can break through Coventry today, you just have to wait patiently for my carefully prepared secret weapon." A smile tugged at the corner of William's mouth, and he said confidently: "What's more, Duke Leofrick and the Mercians have concentrated the main cavalry in the city of Coventry, and there are only more than a thousand light cavalry outside the city to be afraid, how unwise it is."

All we need to do is break through Coventry to wipe out the main cavalry force of the Mercians and cut off the northern cavalry, which is the most threatening to our army. ”

"Yes, Your Majesty, I'll go down and prepare." Although the Duke of Richard was still full of doubts in his heart, he did not know what secret weapon William had in his hand to break through the fortified city of Coventry and the abbey in one day, but as a nobleman trusted by William, he would not hesitate to carry out William's orders.

The secret weapon that William spoke of was, of course, the gunpowder weapon he had hidden for several years - the dynamite barrel.

Gunpowder was invented by William's craftsmen and alchemists long before William unified Normandy, but for reasons of secrecy, the gunpowder weapon was never seen except for one secret attack on the Vatican's Castel Sant'Angelo.

After several years of research, new breakthroughs have been made in gunpowder weapons, William's secret gunpowder factory has been able to produce granular gunpowder in large quantities, and the military factory in the county of Evreux can also cast the most rudimentary artillery.

However, the firing range of this kind of artillery is really worrying, in William's opinion, this kind of six-pounder cannon with a range of only 200 meters and a weight of one ton has no practical value at all, at least the weight must be reduced to less than 500kg, and the effective range can only be meaningful when it reaches 500 meters.

Another factor limiting William's large-scale development of gunpowder weapons was the scarcity of saltpeter on the European continent, and I had no other way to obtain saltpeter than the slow method of making nitrate from the latrines, and perhaps only after he explored a route to India.