Just after New Year's Day in 1052, the people ushered in the new year, but whether it was Christmas or New Year's Day, the people of the Norman kingdom did not celebrate the holiday atmosphere at all, and the whole kingdom was immersed in the frenzy of war.

The Normans, the French, and the English, eager for adventure and conquest, gathered under William's red and gold double lions, and tens of thousands of people supported William's command to join the Normans.

Now that the army has been gathered, the equipment is complete, the food and grass are complete, and it is only necessary to wait for William's order to give it, and the whole army can go to the battlefield and drink the Rhine River.

Judging from the information sent back by the spies planted in the HRE Empire, Emperor Henry III and his vassals finally gathered 80,000 troops in Nassau after nearly half a year of preparation.

This was the first time that an army of 80,000 troops of the Holy Roman Empire had gathered under the command of an emperor, which was unprecedented.

Joining the Emperor's command was not only Duke Freillo of the Netherlands, who had previously opposed William. Hrufein, Duke of Lower Lorraine, Friedrich. Feng. Luxembourg and Duke Gisbert of Luxembourg. Feng. Luxembourg of these three parties, the largest prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Duke Bernhardt of Saxony. Bilonger will also take part in the war.

Among the candidates who participated in the war were the Duke of Meissen, the Duke of Brandenburg, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Swabia, the Duke of Haute-Lorraine, the Duke of Carinthia, the Duke of Verona, the Duke of Savoy, the Duke of Lombardy, and the Duke of Provence.

Among them, the most important of them was Duke Kuno. Ezzon was absent from the war because his dukedom and domain had been recovered by Emperor Henry III in the name of colluding with Bavaria and betraying the Empire.

Thus, the vast Duke of Bavaria at this time was already the personal domain of Emperor Henry III, through which he was able to raise such a large army. Otherwise, with his original two territories of the Duchy of Franconia and the Duke of Dauffin, as well as the limited forces provided by the princes of the HRE Empire, where would he have been able to gather a huge army of 80,000.

It is important to know that each prince's obligations to the emperor are limited, and each prince will only provide only about one-third of the troops at most, and forty days of service, unless it is a prince like the Duke of Lower Lorraine and the Duke of Holland who is facing the Norman threat, they cannot bring all their forces to help Emperor Henry III fight against the Normans.

Of course, it is not impossible to get more military support from the HRE princes, but this requires Emperor Henry III to give them more power and territory.

As a last resort, where would Henry III be willing to confer his precious territory on these greedy princes?

Therefore, in this war, although the HRE Empire was strong, it was unable to exert its due strength due to the weak royal power and the large number of princes.

Compared with the HRE Empire, although the Normans were relatively weak, they could recruit more soldiers because of the strong royal power within the kingdom and the fact that William owned more than half of the direct territories and the nobility was not strong.

This is the reason why the relatively weak Normans were able to compare with the HRE Empire in terms of military power.

Of course, the army of the HRE Empire was not limited to the 80,000-strong army in Nassau, and in Italy and Rome, the Lombards, Italians, and Germans were converging under the Pope's banner of St. Peter, ready to threaten William from the flank.

Among these papal supporters, Duke Ezzo II of Lombardy and the Republics of Pisa and Venice were the most devastating.

Ezzo II, Duke of Lombardy, was a supporter of Pope Leo IX, and he used the rest of the Lombard Duchy's army to support Pope Leo IX's war against the Normans, except for sending part of his troops to Nassau as a vassal obligation to Emperor Henry III.

As for William's in-laws, Bofacioni, Duke of Tuscany and Spoleto, seemed to be a little lacking in interest, on the one hand, he was concerned with the marriage of his eldest daughter Matilda and William's eldest son Richard, and on the other hand, his aging health no longer allowed him to lead troops again.

But his wife, Beatrix, daughter of the former Duke of Lorraine. Vigerish was in high spirits, and she tried to use the war to revive the Vigerish family, intending to reclaim the Duchy of Lorraine, the family domain with the help of the Pope.

Now because of the serious illness of the Duke of Bofacioni, the whole of Tuscany and the Duchy of Spoleto has been replaced by Beatrix. Under the control of the Duchess of Virjerich, Tuscany also provided the Pope with thousands of troops.

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In the early spring of 1052, the first line of an army of 80,000 men, led by 15,000 men led by the Duke of Upper Lorraine, joined the thousands of troops ordered by the Duke of Lorraine and the Duke of Luxembourg to sail down the Rhine to the Norman-occupied city of Antejep.

The second route army led by the Duke of Saxony and the last Emperor Henry III was also on the way.

At this time, the only Normans left on the left bank of the Rhine were the Third Army of Duke Andrew of Belgium and Roger. Morality. Mammoth's Fifth Legion, as well as a number of levies and mercenaries.

The army of 23,000 men of the Duke of Upper Lorraine will be in the Duchess of the Netherlands. With the support of Hrufein's flanks, the Normans who remained here were annihilated in one fell swoop, and the territory on the left bank of the Rhine occupied by the Normans was completely recovered.

This time, with the help of the Archbishop of Cologne, the Archbishop of Mainz, the Bishop of Liege, the Bishop of Trier and other religious princes, the Duke of Upper Lorraine. Shawarman had the confidence to annihilate the Norman detachment.

At the request of Pope Leo IX, the religious princes of Germany not only provided more than 20,000 troops, but also provided Emperor Henry with a huge amount of money of no less than 100,000 pounds of silver for military expenses.

On the first road alone, the Duke of Lorraine's army had more than 5,000 men provided by the bishops, and in addition to this huge military expenditure, the Duke of Upper Lorraine also received more than 20,000 pounds of silver.

The reason why the Archbishop of Cologne and the Archbishop of Mainz worked so hard was on the one hand because of the call of the Pope, and the German-born Pope Leo IX had great influence among the major bishops, bishops and noble princes of the HRE Empire.

What's more, the future and fate of the Archbishop of Cologne and the Archbishop of Mainz and others are directly controlled by the Pope, and the Pope has orders, and they have to obey them.

On the other hand, William's previous frequent attacks on the church made them even more annoying, whether it was confiscating church assets or meddling in the appointment of church clergy.

Eventually, William declared that the Church in the Kingdom honored himself, a move that was considered heretical by the Archbishop of Cologne and others.

In their eyes, heretics are more hateful than heretics, and they have no reason not to do anything in order to produce heresy.