Iron Powder and Spellcaster

Fifty years ago, at a wedding in the Piedmont [county of Mennai], several serfs from the Green Heart Abbey went crazy with alcohol and hung a "peasant shoe" on the top of a long pole in front of the abbey. .

Peasant shoes, as the name suggests, are shoes worn by farmers.

Unlike the boots that represented knights and lords, peasant shoes did not have a boot shaft and were tied to the calf with a belt.

Hanging up shoes was originally just a vulgar joke, but the abbot, old Count Mennai and the nearby mayor took it very seriously.

They came with soldiers, called the serfs together, and threatened that hanging peasant shoes was a serious offense.

After the gentlemen's warning, the serfs took off their shoes from the long pole.

My dear abbot and lord, why are you afraid of a pair of shoes?

Because they knew very well that these serfs were not serfs, they were yeoman farmers and free tenants who had lived on this land since ancient times.

Several generations of abbots of the Green Heart Monastery used despicable means such as forging documents and swearing false oaths to turn these free people into monastery serfs by force and coercion.

The peasants never stopped resisting. Lawsuits, petitions, and force... were all suppressed by Count Mennai, who was in cahoots with the Green Heart Abbey.

The farmers are living a hard life and they are angry. The gentlemen know this, so they are afraid of a shoe.

The shoes have been removed from the monastery door, but the shoes from the heart cannot be removed.

The flag with a peasant shoe has since become a symbol of peasant secret associations and resistance to tyranny, and these secret societies have therefore called themselves "shoe societies."

As the burden from the nobility and the church became heavier and heavier, not only farmers but also citizens began to actively participate in shoe fairs.

Shoe associations in various places tried to organize uprisings several times, but failed because of leaks.

Ten years later - that is, forty years ago, still in the Earl of Mennai, another shoemaker was born in the farmhouse.

This time, the leaders of the shoe association learned their lesson and took unprecedented confidentiality measures.

Codes, incisions, oaths...and ruthless and swift executions for betrayers.

With strict means and the slogan of "overthrowing all church aristocrats and secular aristocrats, and eradicating serfdom", Mennai's Shoe Club rapidly developed and expanded.

During this period, the piedmont was completely a powder keg. The farmers were full of anger and only lacked a leader.

In the Earl of Menai alone, more than 7,000 farmers have sworn in, and the contact network even extends to every area in the Piedmont.

The leaders of Mennai's Shoe Society formulated a complete plan for the uprising:

First occupy the nearby city [Bruza], because more than half of the citizens of Bruza have either sworn membership or are sympathetic to the Shoe Society.

After seizing Bruza's church treasury, city treasury and weapons depot, and arming themselves, the large army will march towards the Marquis of Demba without hesitation.

There should then be a continual advance, not stopping at any place for more than twenty-four hours.

Continuous attacks, continuous expansion of scale, until the entire Piedmont area is included in the Shoe Society's alliance, "so that the Lord's justice can be realized in the world."

…

At this point in the story, Bud sighed and asked Winters: "Do you understand what I mean?"

Winters and Andre looked at each other.

"We finally reunited, why are we so serious?" Andre laughed and took out something and showed it to Winters: "Let me show you something!"

Andre was very happy. He had never been so happy since he came back from the wasteland.

Winters could see clearly that on Andre's palm was a Grand Cross of Swords, exactly the same as the one he received.

"I gave one to each of us." Andre sneered, and felt a little proud: "I want to use this thing to win people's hearts."

"What I want to say is very important." Bud interrupted Andre stubbornly.

Senior Mason sitting next to him interjected: "What Bud means is that what you are doing now is not at all a sign of rebellion."

"Yes, even the farmer's club knows that rebellion is a momentum." Bud's eyes became cold: "You must push the wave forward, or you will be smashed to pieces by the huge wave, or set off a tsunami to destroy the world. But you What are you doing? What do you want?"

Mason scratched his hair in distress and sighed: "Bud and I discussed that if you want to rebel, you shouldn't put out the flames. Gevaudan is collecting food? Not only can you not stop it, but you also want to help Gevaudan." Dan.

When the peasants are truly forced to survive, they will be your capital for rebellion. The stronger and stronger the fire, the better. But when you suppress bandits, seize land, reclaim wasteland, and rob grain teams, this is not adding fuel to the fire at all, but pouring water on the fire. do you understand? "

Winters didn't answer. He wanted to continue listening to Bud and Senior Mason.

The four of them sat by the river and fell into silence for a while.

Bud, who used to be taciturn, had countless things to say today.

"To the farmers who are newly cultivating the land, you are not a [shoe club], you are not a huge wave that changes the world. Instead, what you do is tinkering with the old power system."

Bud gradually became excited and spoke faster and faster: "The peasants used to pay taxes to the army and the council, but now they pay taxes to you, Mr. Montagne. What's the difference? You are not a peasant rebellion! You are an aristocratic rebellion. ! You are [the lord of Wolf Town rebelling against his lord]!"

Andre and Mason also noticed Bud's mood changes.

"Don't be so excited." Andre tried to put his arm around Bud's shoulders.

But Bud threw Andre away, stared at Winters, and asked word by word: "So I want to know, what do you want to do if you stay here?"

Winters looked at the quietly flowing river and asked, "Bud, what happened to the Mennai Shoe Society in the story you just told? Did the uprising succeed?"

"No." Bard replied expressionlessly: "One member went to the priest to confess and leaked the secret of the Shoe Society. The size of the Mennai Shoe Society frightened the nobles and nobles in the Piedmont area. They sent out troops together and arrested , and killing again. Several leaders of the Shoe Society escaped, and those who did not escape were publicly executed, and their bodies were hung on the castle for all the peasants to see."

The river still flows quietly.

"How do you know what happened thirty or forty years ago?" Andre was a little unconvinced.

"Every one of these things is recorded in the files of Green Heart Monastery." Bud glared at Andre, his eyes red: "Every one of these things was passed down orally by the poor farmers."

Andre laughed dumbly: "Has the peasant rebellion... ever been successful?"

"Yes! Sovereignty war! After the Mennai Shoe Massacre, there was a sovereignty war! Peasants also shed blood in the sovereignty war, and they shed a lot of blood. But they failed to taste the fruits of the war."

Andre asked: "Has the sovereignty war been successful before?"

This time it was Bud's turn to fall silent.

Winters picked up a pebble and threw it toward the water.

The pebbles made a series of splashes, then sank, and the river became calm again.

After a long silence, Winters finally spoke: "The Platoans are sorry for me."

"This is not nonsense." Andre became angry when he mentioned old things: "Which of us is worthy of the Japanese guy?"

"So when I first returned to Plato, I actually didn't think it was too complicated." Winters changed to a more comfortable sitting position.

He looked at the river: "I just want revenge. Those enemies who abandoned me and my people on the west bank of the Styx will not spare any of them. I will make their death painful and make their lives worse than death. Those who have done nothing to me Good people, I want to repay them."

Winters sighed, "That's what I thought."

"That's all?" Bud didn't seem surprised. His eyes were calm, but there was just a little... regret and disappointment.

"At the beginning, I wanted to go home and even dreamed about it. But then I got hot-headed and stayed here. Don't laugh, it was just hot-headed and impulsive. I thought I could do something, so I couldn't just leave." Wen Tes's voice was very soft, but the others could hear it clearly: "In addition to revenge and repayment of gratitude, I have other ideas."

Bud, Andre and Mason were waiting for Winters to say what he wanted to say.

But Winters changed the subject and suddenly asked his friends with a smile: "What do you think of Wolf Town? Is it good?"

"What's good?" Andre frowned.

"Good or not?"

Andre said loudly: "Okay! Don't you manage it well?"

"What the fuck!" Winters punched the ground hard: "The newly cultivated land in Langtun Town has a total of 1,266 households. Sixty-five percent of the cultivated land belongs to 16 manors. Most of the households They are landless tenant farmers and hired laborers. The rich have vast stretches of land, while the poor have no land to stand on. Farmers’ taxes are so high that farmers cannot save enough money to buy new land in their lifetimes, and they have to work as hired laborers even after they have a son.”

His expression became ferocious, and he asked aggressively: "Okay? Tell me what's good? What's good about it? Tell me!"

Andre was silenced and even Mason swallowed subconsciously, but Bud remained calm.

"She is not good, she is very bad, but at least she is full of life!" The tip of Winters' nose was a little sore: "At least everyone has something to eat, a place to live, and at least they can survive. People here respect me , Count on me. I like here, I like the wilderness, I like the farmland, and I like the sweat of labor. I am willing to retire here, build a small house, and live my whole life."

A flock of crows circled in the middle of the river.

"But what now? She's dead!" Winters exploded: "Thirty years! It took thirty years for her to turn from the wilderness into a vibrant town. Three months! The big shots only needed three Months have made her look like this. The people nailed the doors and windows and fled with their families. The farmers who are still here will have their harvest taken away by the grain requisition team again.

The big shot crushed Wolf Town with just a single crush of his fingertips. And they don't care at all! Not at all! one! Man! point! also! No! If they cared about, understood, and felt the pain of the people in Wolf Town, they would never do this! "

Andre and Mason's expressions became serious, and Bud pursed his lips tightly.

Winters stood up suddenly and faced the water, desperately venting the anger and unwillingness in his chest: "Fuck you! Fuck your mother! Fuck you bastards!!!"

He entered the spellcasting state unconsciously, and his roar was like thunder. The wild beasts in the forest scattered in all directions, and the crows fled into the distance in panic.

"It's not Plato who is sorry for me, it's the big guys who are sorry for me! They are not only sorry for me! They are also sorry for many, many people! The people who decide Plato's fate and the direction of the river are not worthy of sitting in that position!"

Winters gasped violently, but his eyes were shining. He looked at his partner: "Now, I can only curse at the river like a waste. But sooner or later, sooner or later, I will pull those people down. !Smash! Stomp into the mud!"

"This is what I think! This is what I want!" Winters never mentioned these words to anyone, because it was tantamount to one person declaring war on a country.

But at this moment, Winters Montagne tore open his chest and showed it to others without reservation: "I stay here just to do this! Fuck the Republic of Plato! I'm going to do it Smash it and make a new one!”

"Do it! Fucking Plato!" Andre yelled and jumped up.

He grabbed Winters' shoulders with red eyes: "Do you still remember on the boat back to Hailan from the United Provinces? Let me tell you, if the sky falls, there will be people with shoulder height to hold it up?"

His fingers dug deeply into Winters' skin: "I was wrong! I was so wrong! It's not the people with high shoulders who push us, but the people with high shoulders who push us! We don't want to be tool men anymore. If you want to be a person, you should be someone who takes others for granted!

The bastard Japanese guy won't let us go home! OK! He begged us to leave, but we didn’t leave either! Just go smash it! Even if he is shattered to pieces, he will be shaken to the ground! Smash him to pieces! "

Andre took out the Grand Cross of Swords and threw it into the river with a laugh.

The medal he once dreamed of drew an arc in the air, fell into the water with a splash, and disappeared in an instant.

Bud stared at Winters closely and asked word by word: "Have you ever thought that if you sit in that position one day, will you become the person you hate, hate, and desperately want to smash? people?"

"I don't know." Winters laughed heartily: "Who knows?"

"Don't worry, it's okay." Bud grabbed Winters and Andre's shoulders: "I'd rather it was you sitting there."

The river is still flowing quietly.

The three of them held each other's arms tightly. From this moment on, they were not only classmates, friends, and brothers, they began to share the same ideal.

"We need Gévaudin," Winters said softly.

"Okay." Andre laughed wildly: "Just go and get it."

"No." Bud shook his head: "What we need is the entire Tiefeng County."

"No, what you said is wrong." Richard Mason was the last one to take his hand, with a tremor in his voice:

"If you don't control Blackwater Town and Five Mastiff Town, it won't be enough to cover Wolf Town; if you don't control Gervaudan, you won't be able to control the three towns; if you don't capture Maplestone City, it won't be enough to control Gervaudan."

Winters, Bud, and Andre all looked at their senior.

Mason's voice became firm: "What we need is the entire new land."

…

The crow told me,

Two young Venetians and two young Confederates,

On the frontier of Plato's frontier,

He vowed to overturn this country completely.

This is what happened that day;

The elk told me,

They don't know what method to use,

They didn't know how many difficulties they would encounter.

But they vowed to do it,

This is what happened that day.

[The content of this chapter is not only outside the main line, but also the main line of the main line]

[So it is added]

[About the Shoe Club, it’s really just called the Shoe Club. The word even has a Baidu entry. There are many explanations for why farmers’ shoes are used as a symbol. This story uses a more credible and interesting explanation]

[Are taxes high for farmers on newly cultivated land? Of course it's high.

But in fact, compared with the experience of farmers in the feudal era, it was still better. This is also where the progress of the Republic lies.

This is why large-scale peasant uprisings have not yet broken out.

The book "The Great German Peasants' War" vividly records such a story: "How the free peasants of Kempten lost their freedom"

In the early fifteenth century, the abbot of Kempten Abbey used forged documents, false oaths, lies, and bribes to turn the free tenants around the monastery into church serfs little by little. Serfs not only had to bear extremely heavy military service, tribute, interest, tithe, etc., they did not even have the right to marry freely.

The abbot allowed male serfs to marry female serfs like cattle, because children born to free women were also free persons according to customary law.

Finally, the abbot, frightened by the many despicable methods he had used, confessed to the Pope [probably Martin V]. After hearing two confessions, the pope forgave the abbot's sins, but did not correct the abbot's sins against the peasants.

What happened next was the rise of "shoe fairs" in various places.

The vigorous German Peasants' War broke out and ended in tragedy and failure. ]