William captured a large number of French prisoners by the river, including high-ranking nobles such as the Duke of Champagne, as well as middle- and low-ranking nobles such as barons and knights, and the policy of dealing with these high-ranking captives was always to demand a large ransom and then let it go, and as for the low-status ordinary soldiers, no one paid the ransom for them.

William also needs to think carefully about what to do to get the most benefit from those high-ranking captives, not just for a little ransom.

As for what to do with these ordinary French prisoners, William thought of a funny solution, he ordered the prisoners to build a bridge over the River Ype, and when the bridge was repaired, William would give them freedom.

Not to mention, William's move was enthusiastically embraced by all the captives.

However, William never intended to release these tens of thousands of captives, he intended to leave everyone in Normandy.

More than 10,000 French soldiers are more than 10,000 young and strong male laborers, whether it is to use them to build territories, reclaim farmlands and estates, or recruit some captives as soldiers, the only thing that is not available is to put them back.

When these people returned, who knew if they would be re-drafted into the army by Henry I and oppose William again? He's not that stupid, he won't do anything that harms himself and others.

On the other hand, Henry I, who had lost more than 37,000 young and strong men, did not have the strength to challenge William again until a new generation of teenagers grew up again.

William could have won peace for at least five or six years.

However, there was another huge problem before William, and it was very difficult to fully absorb these more than 10,000 people and fully integrate them into the system of Don Normandy.

One way to do this was to recruit them into the army and assimilate them with the iron and blood crucible of the army, but after the war, William didn't need as many troops at all, and both the Knights and the Praetorian Guard would be eliminated.

In the specific operation, the Knights will only retain officers and rotating knights, which is equivalent to the current shelf division; The Second and Third Corps will retain only cavalry, some elite longbowmen, and elite infantry, and their size will be reduced by half, equivalent to the current half-formation division; Only the most powerful First Army Corps and the Guards Brigade directly under William will not be dismantled, which is equivalent to the main force of the current full-strength division of the Central Army.

When the disarmament was over, William's army would be at about twenty-five thousand, and those that had been dismantled would exist as militia units, busy with farming and training at leisure, and when war broke out, they could quickly be called upon to fill up the half-formed Second and Third Legions and the Knights of the Rack Division.

Since it was not feasible to recruit from among the captives, the only way to do this was to use the military cantonment, which was the only way William could think of to digest these captives without side effects.

The French prisoners were to be organized into a village with 100 men, a town with 500 men, a county with 2,000 men, and a large district with 10,000 men, and for the first few years they were to cultivate the land, and when they had reclaimed large tracts of farmland, they could sign leases with William, and each of them would be entitled to ten acres of land and twenty acres of land.

If they rented the farm tools in William's hands, they had to pay six layers of grain as rent each year, and those who did not rent farm tools only had to pay five layers of grain.

Organizing the captives to reclaim the wasteland is beneficial and harmless to William, anyway, there is a lot of wasteland in his hands, and all the public land and wasteland in the entire principality belong to William, and he only needs to put in some food and tools to continuously harvest food.

The most important thing is that when William encounters war, he can easily recruit the Tuntian army to fight, and these Tuntian troops, who live in a collective life all year round and participate in military training, have much higher combat effectiveness than ordinary militia.

Of course, these cantonment troops were different from serfs, although they had to hand over the grain harvest the same, but the cantonment army was free, without personal restraints, and there was no manor owner who forced them to do labor, and they were not sold as goods.

At the same time, when they had a certain amount of savings, the tuntins could redeem the ownership of their cultivated land from William at the market price, so that the tuntins became landed yeoman farmers and the middle class of the Duchy of Normandy.

Reducing the proportion of serfs and increasing the number of middle class and free peasants will be the goals that William will implement in the future, and organizing serfs to settle land and contract land is a good choice.

......

"Faller, come on, you're in charge of taking your Third Legion to guard the prisoners." William looked at Faller who came to him and spoke.

"Yes, Master William." Faller nodded yes, meticulously carrying out William's order.

Then William came to Count Hubert's side and asked, "Count Hubert, we have captured many nobles in this battle, and they all tell me which ones?" ”

"Back to His Royal Highness William, the nobleman with the highest title we captured is the Duke of Champagne, Etienne, under whom his Chandrer Mayor Henri and Baron Gotter of Brennes, in addition to Henry I's cousin Ondu and others, there are a total of one duke, three barons, two mayors, and more than 3,000 knights." Count Hubert knew all about this, and enumerated them to William.

"Oh? Why aren't there any captives of the Count nobles? William asked, a little curious.

"In this French army, Henry I brought his own elite and the baronial vassals of Paris and Orleans to the war, and his counts were sent to the eastern front of Normandy to support the rebellion of the Count of Eburg.

However, this Duke of Champagne has no count-level vassals under his command at all, and the three countdoms contained in the Duchy of Champagne are all under his direct jurisdiction, so there are only baron-level nobles in his army. Count Hubert was so confused about the situation of the French army that he did not pause, as William replied.

"Very well, let's take a look at our Lord Etienne, Duke of Champagne." William looked at Count Hubert and said.

......

The two entered a spacious tent, where Etienne, the Duke of Champagne, sat in his chair and waited patiently, without the slightest impatience, as if he had expected William to come.

When he first saw Étienne, Duke of Champagne, William only thought that he was so young, but at the age of thirty-six or seventeen, he was already the oldest and most prestigious duke in France, which made him feel very incredible.

But William thinks about it, the dukes and princes who have taken over in the past few years are all of the younger generation, such as Baldwin, Duke of Flanders, Joufrrois, Duke of Anjou, Gichom VII, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke Ode, and Duke Robert of Burgundy, these dukes and princes are all young people in their twenties, and they have just taken over the duke title and territory in the hands of their fathers for a few years, and they all look ambitious and want to make a big move. Therefore, Henry I used his interests to launch a war aimed at carving up Normandy.

Of course, Pons, Duke of Toulouse, who did not participate in the war, was a few years older than the Duke of Champagne, but he was located in the southernmost part of France, did not participate in the war, and had little influence, so everyone ignored this duke.

William and the Duke of Champagne did not speak, the old and the young looked at each other, and neither of them spoke first.