Soon William's construction corps, numbering more than 8,000 people, was called up, and under the organization of the stewards at all levels, they began to cut down trees and build bridges.

This large production and construction corps is made up of soldiers and prisoners of war captured during the war, rebel knights and members of merchant families, and comes from the baronies of Alençon, Vernon, Wexon, and Lisée.

Except for a few technical and literate prisoners, the rest of the prisoners of war and slaves were concentrated in the production and construction corps, and they were usually scattered in William's domain, responsible for clearing land, building new estates, building roads, etc., and when there was a major project, they were gathered together and agreed to use.

One might wonder why the serfs from William's estate were not requisitioned to take charge of the project, after all, William had the right to require them to do his labor three days a week.

The problem is that you don't want to ask these conscripted serfs to have any organization.

In ancient times, the relationship between people was not as beautiful as depicted in books, Tao Yuanming's description of the strange traffic in the Peach Blossom Spring, the smell of chickens and dogs, is more similar to a beautiful dream. In fact, there have been large-scale fights between neighboring villages for water and land.

This is not uncommon, and until now, some traditional villages in the Huaxia region still maintain this state of feud.

The mere fact that these hateful peasants did not fight was already exhausting William's mind, let alone having them work on time.

Especially working on time, that's the most important thing.

It was not difficult to gather serfs from manor villages, and it was enough to send soldiers from manor village to hunt down peasants who had escaped servitude.

However, since the serfs were made to serve William by coercion, they would certainly not be as attentive as the family worked for themselves, so the peasants began to call after working for a short time, clamoring for food and water, etc., just to delay this and refuse to work.

Just as the peasants who worked for the public in the early days of New China often grinded foreign labor, these serfs were even worse, had no sense of time, and it was common for them to arrive late and leave early.

Even William, in order to urge the serfs to work on time, specially instructed the stonemasons to make a simple timekeeping tool, the sundial, but this was of no avail.

Looking at the thin bodies of these serfs, William was worried that if he pressed hard, they would not fall directly.

After William had encountered this a year and a half before when he was rebuilding the castle of Vernon, he sent back the serfs he had gathered, and William never requisitioned the serfs to take charge of the construction of major projects.

So, William remembered the slave prisoners of war in his hands. After the prisoners of war were transferred to form the production and construction corps, the construction of Fort Vernon was greatly accelerated, and this is what it is today.

Not only did it not take care to use slaves carefully, but even some difficult and dangerous and labor-intensive work could be entrusted to them, and as for the exhaustion of some slaves because of this, William was not distressed at all.

The northern part of the Barony of Wexon is densely forested with many huge trees, and most of the masts and keels used by William to build ships come from here.

Today, the forest is bustling with activity, with more than 3,000 production and construction corps organized by Triss Steward to cut down trees with rudimentary tools, while 300 soldiers under the command of Ferdinand are responsible for supervising their work and keeping them safe.

Although the largest tribes in the forest had been bought off by William, they were not to be taken lightly, and no one knew that the blinding tribe would come out to attack the slaves of the Construction Corps.

The felled timber was tethered by horses to a nearby port, where more than a dozen ships were docked to haul the bundles down the Seine to the shipyard of Fort Vernonon on the west bank.

The timber was hauled ashore with the help of the slaves of the Construction Corps, sawed into planks and sent to the nearby shipyard.

Hundreds of craftsmen used the planks to build huge pontoons that would form the solid piers of the pontoon bridge.

William and Osborne's stewards rode their horses on the huge island in the middle of the river in Bonival, and as far as the eye could see, there was a busy scene, and countless slaves of the construction corps used rudimentary metal tools to build huge and wide pontoon bridges.

William pointed to a narrow stretch of river in front of him, which was only twenty-eight meters wide, and said, "Steward Osborne, you see that a huge toll booth will be built here, and not only will there be two stone piers, but a huge drawbridge will be built in the middle of the piers, and all ships will pass under the raised drawbridge."

On the other side, the more than 100-meter-long pontoon bridge will completely block the wide river channel on the other side of the island, so that all boats will have to pass under the suspension bridge.

The sprawling island in the middle of the river will be home to 200 soldiers, and a port will be built to allow ships responsible for collecting smuggling taxes to dock and replenish. ”

"Your plan is too grand, Your Highness William, for I have never heard in a hundred years of anyone to build a bridge over the wide Seine.

It is a very wise decision to station soldiers on Hexinzhou, as long as Hexinzhou does not fall, I think no one can destroy this pontoon bridge. Steward Osborne sighed with some exaggeration.

"Alright, Steward Osborne." William organized the Osborne steward to pat himself endlessly, and solemnly ordered: "This is up to you, I hope you can make this pontoon bridge completed early." ”

"Yes, His Highness William, I, Osborne, will live up to your expectations!" Steward Osborne nodded solemnly in response.

"It's the winter season in early December, so we must pay attention to the cold and keep warm, and we must not let anyone freeze to death and frostbite."

William gave Osborne's steward some attention, and then returned to Fort Vernon with his personal cavalry.

Returning to Fort Vernon, William began to deal with government affairs hard, and without Osborne's butler in charge of handling government affairs, William felt the dilemma of being overstretched.

This situation not only happened in the government system, but the shortage of military generals was even more fatal, especially when William needed to expand the second regiment, the third regiment and the cavalry regiment to full strength.

In just two or three months, William's territory has directly tripled, adding the Barony of Wexon and the parish of Lisce, especially William's way of governing the territory is not a method of large-scale feudal autonomy, which requires a large number of civil officials.

Needless to say, there is a shortage of officers, and officers at the squad (squad) and squadron (platoon) levels can still be served by veterans, and ordinary company commanders can barely cope with it, but there is a real shortage of middle and senior officers at the battalion and regiment levels, and at least one-third of the officers are short.