In the early spring of February 1043, the Duke of Anjou, Joaffroy, led an attack on the southern Norman town of Saulayburg, which was fortunately garrisoned by William's veteran general, Count Richard, who led his knights and militia troops to defeat the Anjou army that appeared in Saulayburg. Immediately, the Count of Richard informed William of the incident.

After learning of the unilateral action of the French Kingdom, William ordered all the assembled forces of the Norman Kingdom to go to the front, of which the main force was the Guards Regiment led by William and Count Hubert, Viscount Jeanne, the First Legion, the Norman Knights and some militia units, totaling more than 33,000 people.

The other was led by the Count of Richard, with various knightly orders and local militia units, which were responsible for guarding the county of Anjou and counterattacking if they could.

William did not expect too much from this army, without the addition of the regular army, the number of this army was too small, and after all, he still had to rely on the middle route army to make a central breakthrough.

William had to attack Paris as fast as he could, without giving the other side a chance to react, as long as he captured Paris and captured the initiator, Henry I, the war would be won.

News of the Norman armies gathering and marching to the front quickly spread throughout the Kingdom of France, with Henry I being the first to react.

Although he was angry at the Duke of Anjou's unauthorized actions, Henry I could not punish him with a small warning when the Norman army was overwhelmed, so he sent an envoy to the princes for help.

In Paris, Henry I had 12,000 soldiers under his command and 6,000 troops of his direct vassals, and it was wishful thinking to fight against the menacing Normans, but it was still somewhat certain to use the tall walls and castles of Paris to hold on to help.

Rouen was only a little more than 100 kilometers away from Paris, less than 200 kilometers away, and the Normans, who had the advantage of naval forces, used transport ships to carry the Guards and the First Legion to reach the outside of Paris first, trying to seize the city.

The city of Paris had been shattered by William's counterweight trebuchet during the war two years earlier, and countless walls had collapsed, leaving gaps more than ten meters long everywhere.

Even Henry I's best efforts to repair the walls of Paris were unable to restore the city's defenses to their original state.

Sure enough, Henry I was already ready to abandon the city of Paris, and his forces were completely reduced to the castles of Mellenburg, Moe Castle and Montfort Lamori, especially Mellenburg, as the capital elected by Henry I, had a taller and deeper city wall, and the defensive facilities such as towers, walls and battlements were made of huge stones, and the defensive power was not comparable to the low walls of ordinary castles.

As for the Palace of the Cité in Paris, the Kingdom of France, which had long been deprived of the position of the capital by Henry I, the Palace of the Détyre near the Seine River was as weak as a child in the face of the powerful Norman navy, but Mellenburg, which was built on the top of a hill and mountain, had a unique advantage in terms of defensive power, so Henry I moved the capital from the Détige Palace to Melun after the defeat two years ago.

The city of Paris, the parish of Saint-Tenny, Compiègne, the cities and abbey parishes of Paris have fallen, and only a few baronies and a few castles are left to be difficult to gnaw on, but there is no need to worry, the counterweight slings will teach them how to behave properly.

The war went so smoothly that it was only a week from the Duke of Anjou's attack on Chaulett to William's capture of Paris, and according to the information in his hands, except for the Duke of Champagne and the Duke of Anjou, the Duke of Flanders and the Duke of Burgundy were not moving, which seemed to be a surprise.

However, William always had a seemingly inexplicable worry in his heart, weighing down on his heart like a boulder, and this feeling became more and more evident as the war progressed.

Mo Castle, William personally commanded the troops with the cooperation of more than 20 counterweight trebuchets to successfully storm the castle, eliminate more than 5,000 garrisons in the castle, and capture a baron nobleman who was responsible for commanding the stronghold here.

There are more than three castles like this in the Paris area, and each castle has four or five thousand people stationed in it, including the king's direct troops, local levies, mercenaries and aristocratic vassals, among which the garrison of the Château de Melon as the capital has the most resistance and the most tenacious, William wisely chose to besiege but not attack, and sent troops to capture the other castles in the Paris area to weaken the strength in the hands of Henry I.

William's move also had another advantage, that is, to despair the other side with the news of the fall of castles, weakening the enemy's morale and combat effectiveness, as long as he can defeat the army of the Duchy of Champagne that comes to the rescue, Mellenburg, whose morale has dropped to the freezing point, may be defeated.

......

While William's war was going on exceptionally well, he received extremely bad news that the Black Death had broken out in the county of Bruges in the Duchy of Flanders, and was spreading at great speed to Normandy and the wider French region in the south.

It is said that these cases of the Black Death first appeared in the Earldom of Zeeland, to which the Duke of Flanders belonged, and it was not surprising that the Black Death would break out in swampy swamps and breeding for germs.

In addition to the Duke of Burgundy, who had a bad heart, the Duke of Flanders did not send troops to rescue Henry I, and I am afraid that it was also affected by the Black Death.

Over the past 2,000 years, three large-scale plagues have brought unprecedented social and economic upheaval to the world that no single war or infectious disease can match.

William remembers that the first plague (between 542 and 543) occurred in Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which shattered Justinian I's dream of restoring the unity of the empire.

The second plague began in 1346. By 1352, when the plague subsided, it reduced the population of medieval Europe and the Middle East from 100 million to 80 million in a very short period of time. The catastrophe, known later as the Black Death, the Great Dying, or the Great Pestilence, cut a blow to the long-term growth of the Earth's population that began in 5000 B.C., and it took 150 years to recover from the human losses.

It turned out that this second great plague was caused by microbial sources left over from the first plague (the plague of Justinian). These microbial sources spread from west to east and are preserved locally, parasitic on rodents such as wild mice, marmots and black rats that live on the vast plateaus of Central Asia. Infected with the plague, the rats were carried from Central Asia to the Crimean Peninsula along the Silk Road that ran through Asia and the Mediterranean, along the desert traveling caravanserais. In Crimea, they boarded cargo ships and went from port to port, country to country, spreading the plague to filthy, squalid and populated cities.

It is now the spring of 1043, and this outbreak of the Black Death has not been recorded in history, perhaps it was a local outbreak of the Black Death, or perhaps it was the butterfly effect brought about by William's arrival in the Middle Ages that caused the Black Death to break out early.