After the troops were ordered to leave, William led the men to the walls of Dongfu Dragon City, although the town was only a city walled by civil walls, but it was still a good logistics base for stockpiling supplies and treating the wounded.

At the same time, William was also prepared in case of defeat, once the battle situation was unfavorable, William's army could retreat into Dongvlong for repairs, although its defense was completely inferior to the castle, but it could be used as a temporary support for William to reorganize his army.

"Claude, how is my counterweight trebuchet ready?" William descended the city wall and found Claude, who was in the city preparing equipment, and asked.

"Your Highness William, all fifteen counterweight trebuchets have been assembled, and I have prepared five hundred stone projectiles weighing three hundred pounds, sixty fire bombs, and thirty explosive bombs." Claude is like a treasure.

"Very good, all the gunpowder of our army is at your disposal, I want you to make more explosive bombs, if you don't have enough iron sand and iron filings, use stones and sand, and if you don't have a cast iron shell, you can also use large wooden barrels to fill it, I want to give those Anjou soldiers a huge surprise." William complimented with a smile.

This time, William still regarded the gunpowder weapon as one of the hole cards, but since William broke through the Castel Sant'Angelo by blowing up the city with gunpowder, every time William wanted to use the gunpowder weapon to break the enemy, there seemed to be a force in the dark that allowed William to successfully solve his enemy, and finally William had to take back the gunpowder carefully prepared for them.

This time, William still didn't give up, and wanted to make a big news and blow them up with a bomb made of gunpowder.

"Your Highness William, there is no problem at all, and in two days I promise that all of these will be ready, whether it is a counterweight trebuchet, a torsion ballista, or a stone, fire, and explosive shell." Claude patted William's chest and reassured, "However, Your Highness William, it seems that these explosive bombs were only used in your battle to break through Castel Sant'Angelo, and it is unknown whether they can kill enemy soldiers, do we need to make so many explosive bombs?" ”

"Alright, Claude, just wait and see, I promise these explosives will inflict great damage on Anjou's army." William was not angry, because the gunpowder weapon did not prove its strength in front of everyone's eyes, and even the battle of Castel Sant'Angelo was told by William.

In fact, no one wants to believe that these black powders can have great power, which is why William prepared gunpowder weapons for every battle, and he wanted to prove that the expensive gunpowder was not his own toy, but a mass killing weapon.

......

Two days passed, and in addition to the elite knights, cavalry, heavy infantry, archers, and longbowmen of the Janissaries and various armies, almost all the light infantry, militia, and levies under William's command participated in the construction of the fortifications.

Now that the hard work has finally paid off richly, the forest trees on the west bank of the Varena have been cut down and burned by William, and when the army of Anjou arrives, they will be in a wild unsheltered wilderness, and the rain of longbows and arrows will blow them to pieces.

On the contrary, on William's side, relying on the forest, the city wall and the plain, William built a series of tortuous trenches, breastplates, horses and deer rocks, and under the cover of dense forests, the opponent's bow and arrow could be said to be no threat to William.

It was late April, and the light rain was not falling, although it made it difficult for William to preserve the gunpowder, but these light rains also made the originally dry Varenne River turbulent again, at least now the infantry could not wade across the river on foot, and the Anjou army had to brave the rain of longbows and arrows to lay pontoon bridges or use cavalry to attack our army.

On 25 April 1037, after two days of careful preparation by William, the Count of Joufryoy of Anjou finally arrived at the battlefield of the Varennes with his army.

William and Baron Hubert stood on a control tower converted from a siege tower in the Chinese army, observing the enemy with the only two single-way telescopes in William's hand.

Generally, when there are more than 10,000 troops, a person's naked eye cannot see it, and the dense crowd will cover up the enemy situation in front of them, so that the officers cannot know the situation on the battlefield in time, so most of the commanders in the war have to ride on tall horses in order to command the whole army, and if possible, they will stand on the hill or on the tall command tower.

"Hubert, it seems that the army led by the Count of Frooyes is more than 20,000, I'm afraid there are more than 25,000 men, is there any new reinforcement?" William asked, turning to Hubert.

"Look at the other side, it's the banner of Falk, Count of Vendée." Baron Hubert pointed to the lion flag on a white background opposite him with his right hand and said, "There are 5,000 reinforcements on the Anjou side of the Count of Vendée's noble army, and we are evenly matched in this battle. ”

"It doesn't matter, I have faith in you, and besides, don't we have two thousand eight hundred longbowmen? I think they're going to surprise me unimaginably great. William said confidently.

The longbows of these Norman longbowmen are no longer Norman longbows with bows with only one meter and a half, and William's 2,800 longbowmen have all been reequipped with English longbows made of high-quality yew wood imported from Italy and Spain, with an arm length of 2.13 meters, and the arrows used are up to 90cm.

At present, in William's central army, there were about two thousand Norman longbowmen from the Praetorian Guard, and on William's left flank, a part of the Praetorian Guard, led by Rodrigo, also deployed these eight hundred longbowmen.

Of course, it's not that William's right wing doesn't have Norman longbowmen, it's just that the archers to which these knights belong are just some Nordic archers, which are worse than ordinary archers, but the range is still only more than three hundred yards, and the lethality is stronger than that of ordinary archers, but it can't be compared with William's longbowmen at all.

"It's on.," William muttered.

Woo woo... Woo woo...

As the horns of both sides sounded, the military exploits of the Anjou side officially began, and William's army, which was holding its position, also held its weapons and waited for it.

In contrast to William's broad formation, Anjou's army was arranged in three tiers, the first of which consisted of four thousand French archers, dressed in leather armor or without armor, carrying a full pot of arrows on their backs, armed with a common bow and arrow, and marching slowly in a scattered formation.

Behind the more than 4,000 French archers were more than 15,000 large melee infantry, of which William roughly estimated that there were more than 3,000 heavy infantry alone, 4,000 fully equipped light infantry, and finally most of the remaining infantry were as many as 8,000 unarmored levies armed with guns and shields.

Behind the infantry, there were up to six thousand cavalry units, and according to the calculation of knights to squire cavalry, at least two thousand knights joined the battlefield.

This is 2,000 heavy cavalry, one heavy cavalry is equivalent to a galloping tank in the Middle Ages, 2,000 heavy cavalry can be regarded as a force that destroys the world, and even William does not have so many knights in his hands to call on.