The Duke of Leofrick led his troops out of Coventry Abbey in a hurry, and withdrew with more than 5,000 of his vassals, barons, Theon and elite troops to Fort Warwick, less than 20 kilometers away, under the cover of night.

Most of the more than 15,000 Mercian soldiers in Coventry were recruited from all over the country by Duke Leofric, and these militia troops were mainly composed of Veran, serfs and even slaves, and they were not elite, and could even be said to be cannon fodder.

Therefore, Duke Leofrick was not distressed to abandon them, and in the opinion of him and his vassals, as long as they were given enough time, they could pull out the same size of the civilian army as they had always been.

Of course, among these fifteen thousand people, there were also many Saine nobles and more than 1,000 elite soldiers on the front line, but at this time, the situation was urgent, and although it was very heartbroken, Duke Leofrick still endured the heartache and abandoned them.

It was this army, consisting of as many as fifteen thousand Mercians, that became a stumbling block to stop William from pursuing Duke Leofric.

As early as he entered the city of Coventry, William urged the soldiers in front to step up their attacks, trying to break through Coventry Abbey and capture Duke Leofrick alive.

But it backfired, and Duke Leofrick decisively evacuated the fortified monastery and fled to Fort Warwick.

William was very anxious about this, and he ordered the front army: "Order the Second Legion to pursue the forces of the Duke of Mercia, while our highest priority is the Third Legion and the rest of the army to continue to purge the remnants of the enemy in Coventry!" ”

William knew that it might be too late to order Duke Rodrigo's Second Legion to launch a pursuit, but with a glimmer of hope, he gave the order anyway.

"Lord Richard, you and I lead the cavalry in pursuit of Leofrick, Duke of Mercia, and his troops, and at least hold them back, and not let them escape."

Now William's army is only his own Guards Corps has not yet entered Coventry, and the only cavalry unit to which his Guards Corps belongs to wants to catch up with Duke Mercia and his army.

Soon, there was a chorus of cries for those who surrendered to death, and most of the Mercians were witty in surrendering to William's forgiveness, although there were also some outrageous bandits who tried to challenge William's authority, and they were soon killed by the Normans with knives and guns.

In Warwick Castle, there are still more than 2,800 elite and thousands of civilian troops stationed at this time, if you add that Duke Leofrick can take all his troops to transfer this fortified city, with the advance and retreat of 8,000 people and more than 5,000 urgently recruited civilian troops, it is not impossible to turn defeat into victory, but it will definitely pay a heavy price.

If you want to win, you will definitely need to keep moving.

Duke Leofrick's plan was to use a rational retreat, using time for space, to drag William's army down, which was a strategic strategy of exchanging time for space.

If this strategy had succeeded, and Duke Leofrick had waited for the Vikings from Norway and Denmark to come to their aid, perhaps the outcome of the war would have been reversed.

However, the reality was that Duke Leofric's army was overtaken by a cavalry force led by William and Richard.

The Norman cavalry, taking advantage of their mobility, discipline, and equipment, frequently formed small cavalry formations of various sizes to launch endless assaults on the marching Mercians.

They quietly surrounded the Mercians like a school of sharks smelling blood, biting each other to the death, occasionally nibbling down on the Mercian formation.

The Normans already had an absolute advantage in the night battle, and coupled with the pursuit of the newly defeated remnants of the Mercian army, the remnants of Duke Leofrick's elite began to be a little unable to support it, and if Fort Warwick was not close at hand, I am afraid that they would collapse immediately.

"Haven't you solved it yet?" William looked at the hedgehog-like Mercian man, his eyebrows furrowed slightly, and he whispered, "It seems that I have to give them some fierce material." ”

"Order the grenadiers to come forward and blow them to shreds!" William commanded in a loud voice.

As the name suggests, the grenadier cavalry is a grenade-throwing cavalry, which is William's combination of dragoons and grenadiers, and the cavalry that uses iron-shelled wooden handle grenades can act as cavalry or dismount like a grenadier to throw grenades.

Like the grenadiers of later generations, the Grenadier Cavalry had to select soldiers with superior arms from among the infantry, as the iron-clad wood-handled grenades they used, despite several improvements, were still very heavy and similar in size and weight to small artillery shells, which only those with superior arms could throw.

Fortunately, after William's guidance, a hollow wooden handle was added as a device to assist in throwing and protecting the lead, reducing the size and charge, so that the grenade that could be easily thrown by the grenadiers was made.

But even so, the grenadiers can't ride their horses handsomely like the heroes of the later anti-Japanese war dramas and throw grenades 100 meters away, they still need to throw grenades at the front of their own battle line in battle.

At this time, the medieval army was not strong in bow and arrow firepower, and they had little way to deal with the grenadiers wearing half-body plate armor, coupled with the mobility advantage of horseback, at least for the infantry array, these grenadiers could be called an insoluble cavalry, they could kill the opponent with powerful grenades and destroy the formation, while the infantry could not pursue these mounted grenadiers.

A hundred grenadiers in ornate uniforms, covered with cuirass, and helmets quickly marched out of William's array of guards cavalry, the first performance of the grenadiers, who had previously used the snow as a trump card to press the bottom of the box.

At this time, both sides on the battlefield were now looking at this grenadier cavalry dressed in ornate plate armor, and they may have wondered why William would take this small group of cavalry so seriously.

The grenadiers, holding torches in one hand and a source of fire in the other, rode their horses forward at a rapid pace until they were in front of the enemy line.

To the consternation of the crowd, the grenadiers turned over and dismounted, plucked a grenade from their waist and belt, and removed the cork from the lower end of the handle of the iron-clad wooden handle, revealing a lead in the hollow handle.

Igniting the fuse, the grenadiers rushed forward and flicked the grenades in their hands with great speed.

Boom boom... Boom boom...

In the dark night, there were continuous explosions and bright fires in the enemy line, because the formation was so dense that each explosion would take the lives of more than a dozen Mercian infantry or several elite Mercian cavalry.

Attacked by unknown weapons, the Mercians were quickly routed, and they rode north, either by the sword of the Norman knights or trampled to pulp by the hooves of countless horses.