Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 234 Hammer

Fifty years ago, at a wedding in the piedmont [Country of Mennay], a few serfs from the Greenheart Abbey went crazy with wine and hung a "peasant shoe" on the top of a long pole in front of the abbey's door. .

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

   Unlike the long boots that represent knights and lords, peasant shoes have no boots, but are tied around the calf with a belt.

   Hanging shoes was originally a vulgar joke, but the abbot, the old Earl of Mennay, and the nearby municipal magistrates took it very seriously.

   They came with soldiers, called the serfs together, and threatened to hang up the peasants' shoes as a very serious offense.

  After being warned by the gentlemen, the serfs took off their shoes from the long poles.

  Dignified Abbot and Count, why are you afraid of a pair of shoes?

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

   Several generations of the abbots of the Green Heart Abbey have robbed, coerced and lured, and even used despicable means such as forged documents and false oaths to forcibly turn these free people into monastic serfs.

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

  The peasants live very hard, the peasants are angry, the gentlemen know this, so the gentlemen are afraid of a shoe.

  The shoes in front of the monastery were taken off, but the shoes in people's hearts cannot be taken off.

  The flag with a peasant shoe painted on it has since become a symbol of the peasant secret associations and resistance to tyranny, and these secret associations have also called themselves "shoe clubs".

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

   Local shoe clubs tried several times to organize uprisings, but all failed due to leaks.

   Ten years later—that is, forty years ago, still in the Earl of Mennay, another shoe would be born in the farmhouse.

  This time, the leader of the shoe club learned a lesson and adopted unprecedented confidentiality measures.

  Codes, cuts, oaths...and the merciless and swift execution of the betrayer.

  With the slogan of "overthrowing all church aristocrats and secular aristocrats, and abolishing serfdom", Mennai's shoes will grow rapidly.

  The piedmont land during this period was completely filled with powder kegs, the farmers were full of anger, and only one leader was missing.

   Just one county of Mennai, more than 7,000 farmers have sworn in, and the network even extends to every area of ​​​​the piedmont.

   The leader of Menna's shoe club formulated a whole plan of uprising:

  Occupy the nearby city [Bruza] first, because more than half of the citizens of Bruza are either sworn in or sympathetic to the shoe club.

   After capturing Bruza's church treasury, city treasury and weapon depot, and arming themselves, the group will march on the Marquis of Demba without hesitation.

The    should then proceed continuously and not stay anywhere for more than twenty-four hours.

  Continuously attacked and expanded the scale, until the entire mountain front land was included in the alliance of the shoe club, "to make the Lord's justice 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.

   "It's so hard to reunite, why are you so serious?" Andre laughed and took out something and showed it to Winters: "Show you something!"

  Andrei was very happy, and he has never been so happy since he came back from the wasteland.

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

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

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

  Senior Mason, who was sitting next to him, interjected: "Budd means that what you are doing now is not a posture of rebellion at all."

"Yes, even the farmer's shoe club knows that rebellion is a momentum." Bud's eyes became cold: "You must push the tide forward, or you will be smashed to pieces by the huge waves, or you will 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. Gervoudan asks for food? Not only can you not stop it, but you have to help Gervot. Dan.

  When the peasants are really forced to live, they are the capital of your rebellion. The stronger the fire, the better. But when you suppress bandits, develop land, reclaim land, and rob food teams, this is not adding firewood at all, but throwing 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 silent for a while.

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

   "For the new farmer, you are not a [shoe club], you are not a giant wave that changes the world. What you are doing is tinkering with the old system of power."

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

  Andre and Mason also noticed Bud's mood changes.

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

  Bud shook off Andre, stared at Winters, and asked word by word, "So I want to know, what do you want to do when you stay here?"

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

"No." Bud replied with a blank face: "One member went to the priest to repent and leaked the secret of the shoe club. The scale of the Mennai shoe club frightened the big and small nobles in the mountains. , Killing again. A few shoe club leaders 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 is still flowing quietly.

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

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

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

   "Yes! Sovereign War! After the Mennai Shoe Society bloodshed, it is Sovereign War! Peasants also shed blood in the Sovereign War, and they shed a lot. But the fruits of the war, they were not able to taste."

  Andre asked: "Have you been successful before the Sovereign War?"

   This time it was Bard's turn to be silent.

   Winters picked up a pebble and threw it to the surface.

The    stones made a series of splashes, then sank, and the river returned to calm.

   After a long silence, Winters finally said: "The Platoons are sorry for me."

   "It's not nonsense." Andre got angry when he mentioned old things: "Who are we worthy of the Japanese sheep?"

   "So when I first came back to Prato, I didn't think it was too complicated." Winters changed to a more comfortable sitting position.

He looked at the river: "I just want to take revenge. Those who left me and my people on the west bank of the Styx, I will not let any of them go. I want them to die very painfully, and let them die. Good people, I also want to repay them."

   Winters sighed: "That's what I think."

   "That's all?" Bud didn't seem surprised, his eyes were calm, just a little... regretful and disappointed.

"In the beginning, I wanted to go home and dreamed about it. But when my brain got hot, I stayed. Don't laugh, it's just hot-headed and impulsive. I feel like I can do something, and I can't just leave." Wen Tes's voice was very soft, but several others could hear it clearly: "In addition to revenge and gratitude, I have other ideas."

  Bud, Andre, and Mason waited for Winters to speak.

   But Winters changed the conversation and suddenly asked his friends with a smile: "What do you think about Wolf Town? Is it okay?"

   "What's good or not?" Andre frowned.

"Good or not?"

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

"Fuck it!" Winters slammed his fist on the ground: "The newly cultivated land in Langtun Town has a total of 1,266 households. Sixty-five percent of the cultivated land belongs to sixteen manors. They are landless tenant farmers and hired laborers. The rich have land in the fields, and the poor have nowhere to stand. The peasants’ taxes are so high that the self-cultivation farmers can’t save enough money to buy new land in their entire lives, and they have to work as hired laborers when they give birth to their sons.”

   His expression became hideous, and he pressed aggressively: "Okay? Where can you tell? Where is the good? You tell me!"

  Andre was so pressed that he could not speak, even Mason swallowed subconsciously, but Bud remained calm.

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

  The middle of the river swirled, and a flock of crows circled.

"But now? She's dead!" Winters burst out: "Thirty years! It took a full thirty years for her to go from a wilderness to a vibrant town. Three months! The big men only took three This month, let her become what she is now. The people nailed the doors and windows and dragged their families to escape. The farmers who remained here will be robbed of their harvest by the grain collection team.

  The big man just gently crushed it with the tip of his finger, and the town of Wolf was crushed. And they don't care at all! Not at all! one! Ding! point! also! Do not! If they care about, understand, and feel the pain of the people of Wolf Town, they will never do this! "

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

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

   He unconsciously entered the state of casting spells, the roar was like thunder, the wild beasts in the forest were running around, and the crows also fled into the distance in panic.

   "It's not that Plato is sorry for me, it's those big men who are sorry for me! They are not only sorry for me! They are also sorry for many, many people! The person who decides the fate of Plato, the person who decides the direction of the river, does not deserve to sit in that position!"

Winters gasped violently, but his eyes were shining, and 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 pit!"

   "This is what I think! This is what I want!" Winters never said this to anyone, because it was tantamount to a person's declaration of war on a country.

But at this moment, Winters Montagne ripped open his chest and showed it unreservedly: "I'm here to do this! Fuck the Republic of Palato! I'm going to take it. Smash it and make a new one!"

   "Fuck it! Fuck Plato!" Andrei yelled and jumped up too.

   He grabbed Winters' shoulders with red eyes: "Do you remember returning to the sea blue boat from Union Province, I tell you, the sky fell and the shoulders were high?"

His fingers sank deep into Winters' skin: "I was wrong! I was so wrong! It's not the shoulder-height guy, it's the shoulder-height guy who pushes us! We'll never be tool men again. If you want to be, be the person who takes others to the top!

   The donkey-fucked Japanese sheep won't let us go home! OK! He begged us to go, and we didn't go either! Just go smash it! Even if his body is shattered to pieces, he will be smashed and shaken! Smash him to pieces! "

  Andre took out the sword Grand Cross and threw it into the river with a big laugh.

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

Bud stared closely at Winters 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 at this moment? people?"

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

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

  The river is still flowing quietly.

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

   "We need Gervodin," Winters said softly.

   "Okay." Andrei laughed wildly: "Just go get it."

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

   "No, what you said is wrong." Richard Mason took the last hand, and there was a trembling in his voice:

   "If you don't control Heishui Town and Wuzhen Town, you won't be enough to cover Wolf Town; if you don't control Gervoudan, you won't be enough to control Three Towns; if you don't occupy Maplestone City, you won't be enough to control Gervoudan."

   Winters, Bud and Andre all looked at the senior.

   Mason's voice became firm: "What we need is a whole new field."

  …

   The crow told me,

   Two young Veneta and two young Unionists,

   on the frontiers of Plato's frontiers,

   vowed to completely overturn the country,

   This is what happened that day;

  The elk told me,

   They don't know what to do,

   They do not know how many difficulties they will encounter,

   But they swore to do it,

   That's all that 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 plus more]

   [About the shoe club, it's really called the shoe club. This term even has a Baidu entry. Why are farmers shoes as a symbol, there are many sayings, this story uses a more credible and interesting statement]

   [Is the peasant tax on the newly cultivated land high? Of course high.

   But in fact, it is better than what happened to the peasants in the feudal era. This is also the progressiveness of the republic.

   This is also why a large-scale peasant uprising has not yet erupted.

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

   In the early 15th century, the abbot of Kempten Abbey used forgery, false oaths, lies and bribes to turn the free tenants around the abbey into church serfs little by little. Serfs not only had to bear extremely serious military service, tribute, interest, 11 taxes, etc., but they did not even have the right to marry freely.

   The abbot married a male serf to a female serf like cattle, because the children born of a free woman were also free by customary law.

   In the end, the abbot was afraid because he had used too many despicable methods, so he confessed to the Pope [probably Martin V]. After hearing two confessions, the Pope pardoned the sins of the abbot, but did not correct the sins the abbot committed to the peasants.

   After that, the "shoes will" pop up everywhere.

   The violent German Peasant War broke out and ended in tragedy and failure. ]

   (end of this chapter)