In March 1036, after three months of intense construction, the pontoon bridge built in the town of Bonierre, Barony de Vernon, was finally completed.

This pontoon bridge is in the form of a combination of boat beams, and the boat body is closely arranged into a belt type. At the beginning of the design, in order to keep the position of the pontoon axis from offset, cable anchors were set up in the upstream and downstream; In order to connect with the two banks, a transition beam or springboard is set up on both sides; In order to adapt to the rise and fall of the water level, lifting piers or lifting trestles are also set up on both banks.

The huge pontoon bridge with a length of more than 140 meters and a width of 8 meters can not only be used for the transportation of people and goods on both sides of the river, but also blocks the golden waterway of the Seine, so that ships have to pay the navigation tax and pass through the narrow 30-meter waterway on the other side of Swallowtail Island.

The garrison and tax collectors sent by William collected navigation taxes from the ships on the Seine, and collected bridge tolls from pedestrians and vehicles on both sides of the river, and in just half a month, William obtained more than 9,000 pounds of silver in taxes and fees from this pontoon bridge, and roughly estimated that the taxes and fees for a year were at least more than 200,000 pounds of silver.

However, William's interception of the Seine waterway and the imposition of a navigation tax immediately aroused the public anger of the major merchants and noble contractors, and for more than ten days, merchants gathered their fleets to try to break in.

Unfortunately, all this was in vain, and these ships were intercepted by sixteen dragon-headed ships stationed on both sides of the pontoon bridge, and not only confiscated the goods they carried, but also detained the ships and personnel, and these merchants suffered heavy losses.

Three days earlier, they had hired a viking army of more than twenty dragon-headed ships in an attempt to wipe out the fleet stationed here.

William, who controlled the Seine waterways, discovered the pirates as early as they entered the mouth of the Seine, and forty dragon-headed ships equipped with bed crossbows stood guard on the wide river, using bed crossbow rockets to beat the Vikings to the north, and more than twenty dragon-headed warships were destroyed and eight relatively intact ships were captured.

At this point, these great merchants and noble contractors did not dare to make a second attempt, and for several days William did not see any ships attempting to break in, nor did any enemy attempt to offend the place.

To be cautious, in order to be prepared for another surprise attack by the enemy, William sent fourteen dragon-headed ships and five hundred infantry to garrison here, bringing the garrison here to thirty warships and eight hundred regular infantry.

Along the way, William and Osborne's stewards inspected the pontoon bridge and Swallowtail Island in Bonier with their guards.

At this moment an official ran up to Osborne's butler and handed him the letter, and Osborne's butler opened the envelope and read it.

"Steward Osborne, what happened to the launch?"

"Young Master William, Claude has sent a messenger saying that the plate armor you requested is ready for mass production, please return to the arsenal in Fort Vernon and have a look." Steward Osborne respectfully presented the letter and said happily.

"Let's go! Return to Fort Vernon. ”

Excited, William couldn't wait to return to Fort Vernon with Steward Osborne.

Claude, whom Osborne's butler mentions, was the master craftsman and master craftsman loyal to the House of Normandy, and the cavalry equipment of William's companions a few years earlier was built by the craftsmen.

When William evacuated Rouen last year, he brought hundreds of Normandy artisans with him to Fort Vernon, and it was with their help that William was able to build a huge steel mill and arsenal in Fort Vernon while retaining the Alençon ironworks.

Before receiving the help of Claude and others, Alençon's arsenal could only produce primary armor such as chain mail, leather armor, and scale armor, and in terms of weapons, it could make Norman swords, spears, longbows, crossbows, and bed crossbows, but it could not mass-produce plate armor, which William had developed three years earlier.

Perhaps because of the lack of skill of these craftsmen, the arsenal with hundreds of blacksmiths was unable to manufacture plate armor in batches.

"Claude, don't let me down!" With this in mind, William went to the newly built arsenal on the banks of the Seine.

This arsenal was built together with the steel mill, and more precisely, the arsenal is an independent workshop and factory to which this huge steel mill belongs.

This steel mill uses the design of the earthen blast furnace commonly used in China in the 60s of the 20th century, using refractory bricks to build a huge blast furnace with a height of six meters and a diameter of three meters, the coke burned under the blast furnace after coking with high-quality coal, and a huge pulley truck on the top of the furnace transported iron ore into the blast furnace mouth, and the hot black smoke came out from the mouth of the furnace from time to time, and the hot molten iron flowed out from under the blast furnace and was cast into pig iron blocks.

Although this method of making iron in the earth blast furnace was neither environmentally friendly nor energy-saving in later generations, it was indeed extremely advanced in the Middle Ages.

Using high-quality coal with low phosphorus and sulfur content, and high-quality iron ore, the quality of pig iron smelted in this way completely surpassed that of hand-smelted steel at that time.

Before William could enter the arsenal, Claude came out with more than a dozen craftsmen to greet William.

"His Royal Highness William, please come with me." Claude said with a respectful expression.

"Claude, thank you for your hard work!" William looked at Claude, who was getting older than he had been years ago, patted him on the shoulder, nodded, and walked into the arsenal.

Along the way through the many factories, William followed Claude to the large forge, where more than sixty blacksmiths were striking on the felt with iron plates and hammers of various specifications, and the outlines of cuirasses, iron helmets, and limb armor were gradually taking shape.

"What is this?" William pointed to the busy craftsmen with his right hand and couldn't help but ask.

"His Royal Highness William, this is our workshop for mass production of plate armor, and there are finished products that have been made here. Please come with me, Your Highness. ”

"Hmm!"

William followed Claude's guidance to the warehouse behind the workshop, and saw that the dove breastplates, helmets, and limb accessories that had been made from nowhere were placed in different categories, and there were at least three hundred sets of them.

"Well done, Claude!" William tapped his shiny dove breastplate with his right hand, praised Claude in a loud voice, and said, "How did you do that?" ”

"Back to His Royal Highness William, thanks to your inspiration, we have developed a large hydraulic hammer using the structure of gears and cranks, and have erected several sets of waterwheels and hydraulic hammers along the Seine.

Thanks to these large hydraulic hammers, we were able to hammer the ingots into flat sheets of iron, which greatly saved the labor time of the craftsmen.

Next, we only need to beat the beaten iron sheet and rely on the mold to beat the shape and arc we need in the city, so that we can easily manufacture the various parts of the plate armor, and finally assemble it into a set of finished plate armor! Claude said confidently.