More than 1,000 people of the HRE cavalry were defeated, and the cavalry that retained intact combat power under them was still as high as seven or eight thousand.

However, perhaps frightened by the bravery of the Normans, the Shinra knights did not dare to touch the edge of the Norman knights, and wherever the Normans passed, the Shinra knights retreated.

Just as the Norman knights were rushing to kill, the HRE Emperor Henry III sent his thousands of knights of the guard to help.

Fortunately, the Shinra knights are not soft, but they were temporarily panicked by the momentum of the Normans, and with the encouragement of thousands of guard knights, the Shinra knights regained their morale, and they can also fight with the Norman knights for the time being.

The battle was stalemate, and neither the Norman knights nor the Shinra knights could bargain for the time being, and the casualties on both sides gradually expanded.

William and Emperor Henry III of the HRE Dynasty each ordered their cavalry to abandon their opponents and return to their camps.

In this battle, the Norman knights under William's command defeated more than 1,600 Shinra knights, killing and wounding nearly 1,000 people, which can be described as a brilliant result.

Of course, they also paid the price of more than 130 casualties of Norman knights, most of these casualties still appeared in the stalemate stage, and at the beginning of the hedge, because of the close cavalry battle array protection, there were not many Norman knights who suffered casualties.

Fortunately, most of the wounded soldiers were able to heal quickly under the careful treatment of the Norman doctors, but the HRE knights were not so lucky, and most of the wounded lives were probably taken by the wounded soldiers in pain.

The disparity between the Norman knights and the Shinra knights was brilliant enough, but even so, William felt heartache, such a big loss, except for the first few years, he had not suffered in all these years.

For this reason, he had to sigh with emotion, worthy of being a powerful Knight of the HRE Empire.

The HRE knights who suffered heavy casualties returned defeated, and William did not know what the HRE Emperor Henry III was feeling, but the other party sent a large group of infantry to press the whole army, and Henry III must have been annoyed and angry.

The Norman knights were famous, and the HRE knights did not dare to take their edge lightly, but the Norman infantry did not have a good reputation, and their achievements in all major wars were mostly overshadowed by Norman knights and longbowmen.

Come to think of it, the other party sent most of the infantry, and it must have not taken the infantry under William's command into account.

Of course, in order to prevent the attacks of the Norman knights and longbowmen, Henry III not only sent most of the HRE knights to cover the flanks of the infantry at all times, but also ordered the infantry under his command to prepare more wooden shields to protect themselves from the damage of longbows and arrows.

In this regard, William just smiled contemptuously, Henry III thought it was too simple, he thought that if the infantry held the shield, the Norman longbowmen would have no way to deal with them?

"Tell the Norman longbowmen, replace the heavy arrows, and prepare to shoot." William ordered with a wave of his hand.

There are three types of arrows commonly used by Norman longbowmen, light arrows of 40 to 50 grams, medium arrows of 70 to 90 grams, and heavy arrows of 120 to 150 grams.

Among them, light arrows, of course, are not light in the current arrows, mainly used to increase the range and threaten the scale armor chain mail with buffers, etc., medium arrows and light arrows have similar effects, throwing targets with little general defense.

The main function of heavy arrows is anti-plate armor and anti-shield, its range is not as good as light arrows, and the speed of arrow flight is also slower, but its armor-piercing ability is indeed far beyond that of light arrows.

With heavy arrows, the energy conversion efficiency of the bow is higher, and a Norman longbow with a light arrow of 40 to 50 grams may only have an energy conversion efficiency of 80%. If 120 to 150 grams of heavy arrows are used, the energy conversion efficiency may exceed 85%.

At the same time, the faster the speed of the arrow, the greater the energy loss caused by wind resistance, and the slower speed of the heavy arrow becomes its advantage here, and the slower speed of the heavy arrow loses much less energy than the light arrow.

Heavy arrows initially carry a large amount of kinetic energy, and the ability to lose during flight is small, so naturally its armor-piercing ability is much higher than that of light arrows.

However, the Norman longbow is not the best bow with heavy arrows, and the best choice is to use a high-speed bow with heavy arrows, which can give heavy arrows a higher speed.

Just as the Mongol cavalry used the compound recurve bow in history to fire heavy arrows that could kill Western European knights, the compound recurve bow combined with heavy arrows can bring out the best effect of heavy arrows.

Riding Eastern European horses, wearing leather armor and armed with recurved compound bows, William had already begun to train in the layout.

However, it seems that the Normans had the same heavy cavalry complex as the French, and were not interested in the seemingly obscene bow and arrow light cavalry, so so far only two or three hundred bow and arrow light cavalry have been formed, and they cannot form a scale at all.

Fortunately, the Norman longbow with heavy arrows was enough to deal with these Shinra infantry with wooden light shields.

When the HRE infantry came within two hundred yards of the Norman longbowmen, the longbowmen picked up their heavy arrows, stretched out their bows and arrows, and shot them with their hands.

With a sharp whistling sound, the black and oppressive arrow rain fell one after another, and suddenly bright red blood flowers unfolded in the dense crowd, and the screams came and went.

The originally dense array of the Shinra Empire's infantry seemed to have been eaten by the ancient beasts, revealing a large number of gaps in the middle, and the corpses of countless soldiers fell to the ground.

Heavy arrows falling from the sky could easily break through the defenses of shields and chain mail, and even the imported full-body plate armor worn by the officers could not defend against the heavy arrows.

When Henry III saw that his infantry had not been entangled with the Normans, he was afraid that he would be routed alive by the arrows of the Norman longbowmen.

So he decisively ordered the infantry of the whole army to spread out their formation, remove their shields, and try to counteract the threat posed by the Norman longbowmen with an accelerated charge.

On William's side, the Norman longbowmen were very busy, and the Norman knights under his command were not idle, and they attacked from both sides to threaten the flanks and flanks of the Shinra infantry, and at the same time intercept the Shinra knights who tried to attack.

The enemy was within fifty yards of the Normans' forward position, and after the Norman longbowmen fired a final round of arrows, they turned and retreated, hiding behind the Norman infantry, ready to shoot arrows at the rear flank of the Shinra army.

They were replaced by an infantry phalanx of Norman hoplites, pikes, sword and shield light infantry, and crossbowmen.

The Norman infantry phalanx was like a castle full of soldiers, and the long spear arrays were the castles, and the Norman light and heavy infantry and crossbowmen relied on the protection of the pikes to kill and wound their opponents with crossbows and swords in the gaps between the arrays.

For this kind of infantry warfare taken from the Spanish phalanx and tested by the fire of war, William was very confident in this, confident that he could completely defeat the opponent with one enemy and ten.