At the moment when the nobles gathered, the rebels everywhere were not idle. Among them, it was different from several peasant armies such as the "poor Conrad" and the "Chinese American Army", which had already launched an uprising. The cautious tactics of the "Shoe Society" army, supported by Sebastian, are only now beginning to gather in the Bryce Valley area next to the upper tributaries of the Lim. It was only when their number gradually increased to three thousand that Jos, the Piper, the Grand Leader of the Shoe Society, decided that the centaurs were enough to move.

These days coincide with the annual market festival of Chapol City, the earldom of Arras in the south-central region of the empire, and the people of the surrounding villages and towns will go to the city to catch a market or play. Joss disguises himself as a coachman and hides in a small inn in the city, where the owner is also a member of the shoe club.

Jos bribes the beggars in the Arras region with the money Sebastian gave him, asking them to spy on the news and set fires everywhere during the festival to cause chaos. Two thousand men led by the other leaders of the Shoe Society, Zom the luth, Anthog the drummer, Aletna the bard, and Adler the tailor, lay in ambush outside the city, and when Jos gave the signal, they would storm the gates. The goal is to capture Count Arras and the parish priest in the city.

And the so-called token of the shoe club is actually a huge flag. For the leaders of the shoe club thought that as soon as this inspiring banner appeared, all the poor would naturally gather around it.

It would have been impossible for an unliterate shoe club member to scrape together enough money for a banner before meeting the financier, but luckily they met Sebastian and got the necessary funds. But even if enough money was raised, it would be difficult to make a banner representing the spirit of rebellion on the territory of the nobility.

For the first time, Jos sent a peasant from the Mars Mountains to Sindelbron, the capital of Duke Ulrich of Vürloburg, to find a well-known painter there and ask him to help paint a banner with a peasant's shoe. The painter turned around and reported the incident to Ulrich. The Duke is a fool, but at least he knows how to protect his own glory and wealth. So a search was carried out immediately.

Fortunately, the brave peasant had fled, and no one knew him, nor did he know his name, nor where he came from, so the Duke found nothing, and in the end he had to give up, but the whole Duchy was more guarded, and the Shoe Society had to find another way.

The second plan is that Joss will not dare to take a dummy hand again, he will have to try it himself. Another artist lives in the jurisdiction of the Four Sisters of the Forest in the South Central District. Late one night, Joss visited the painter with a few members of the local shoe club. It was the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, and after a few rounds of cheerful toasting with Joss about the request of a friend from a stranger who wanted to paint a flag as a shop sign, he asked him if he would like to do it. The painter agreed, but asked Joss to explain the contents. The great chief then asked for a peasant's shoe to him, a terrible magic word that shocked the painter, and he replied that it was impossible to paint such a banner. As a last resort, in order to avoid a leak, Joss strangled the painter and set the house on fire, disguising it as a fire and fleeing.

After leaving the jurisdiction of the Four Sisters, Joss realized that it would be too dangerous to make a third attempt in the south of the empire, and he immediately went to the Central Forest with a blue flag hand-sewn by Adler, the other leader of the Shoe Society, a piece of silk with a blue background, and the top half of which had been embroidered with a white cross representing the Virgin of the Peasant Guardian. But the leaders of the shoe club thought that this was not enough, and they needed another symbol of the power of the peasants themselves, just as the soldiers would worship the flag with devotion and blindness.

Through underground informants, Joss finally found a retired painter in a small village near Erfurt, an imperial free city in the forest area, who sympathized with the plight of the peasants, and painted a flag for Jos for free, and in addition to the peasant shoes, he also drew the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Paul beside the cross, and around the top of the banner was written in high map Donia script: "Holy Lord bless the holy and righteous cause of the people!" All the peasants must have burst into tears and increased their courage when they saw this flag.

On the 9th day of the fifth month of the year 2496 A.D., the annual festival of Chapol City was flooded with new faces, especially in front of the town hall and the church, where the cheerful peasants were gathered, and the miners' guild in the city also gathered with them. The Earl of Arras had actually strengthened the towers and sentry posts, as there were already signs of unrest in the surrounding area. He was also a lord known for his harsh exploitation of the people, and had a bad reputation in the South-Central District, but the Count himself was of noble birth, a side of the current royal family Rokenhausen, and had close ties with the obnoxious courtiers, namely Count von Plantenberg, the Imperial Advisor, and Count von Reedhof, the commander of the Praetorian Guard, so the people hated him to the core.

When the church bell struck eleven times, the guards on the watchtower of the city gate noticed that several villages in the distance suddenly rose with thick smoke, and at the same time someone in the city shouted: "The village is on fire, let us go back!", which immediately caused panic among the people, and some people rushed to the city gate under the guidance of certain people, trying to seize control of it, and the guards stood in front of the gate to block the surging crowd. During this time, there was a fight, and some civilians were injured and fell to the ground bleeding.

At this time, the Count of Arras, who had received the news, also came from the palace with his own mercenaries and the parish priest, and the ruffians armed with halberds or two-handed swords slashed at the crowd. Things quickly slipped into an uncontrollable stage, and several civilians with martial arts immediately pounced on the soldiers and took away their weapons, one of them took out a blue flag from his body and hung it on his halberd, he waved the flag and shouted: "Let the old man listen to the shouts of our people!"

When Count Arras saw the peasant shoes on the banner, he knew that something was wrong, and he desperately urged his men to seize the banner, but the commoners also looked at the peasant shoes, and although they were illiterate and did not understand what was written on the banner, they knew the meaning of the peasant shoes. The poor men erupted in a frenzied cheer, holding back the Count's soldiers with their flesh and blood.

Many followed the banner-waving men to the city gates, and soon drove the unwanted guards back. The leaders quickly ascended to the city gate and planted the blue flag on the top of the tower, tearing down the original imperial flag. At the same time, a large number of armed peasants suddenly appeared outside the city, and they swarmed through the occupied gates. Seeing that the situation was not good, the earl immediately retreated to the fortified palace with his men.

Because the main force of the Imperial Army in the Central and Southern Region was being led by the Imperial Count Sebastian von Ridlingen to suppress the "poor Conrad" who was the first to revolt on the edge of the Black Forest, Count Arras had to hold on to the city and let his magicians quickly release the news that he was trapped.

The "shoe club" army, which had stormed the city of Chapol, set fire to the city council where the loan files were kept, and seized the church in the city, and they forced the clergy to take out the fine wine used as holy wine, and the church cellar had three thalers in stock, and these greedy clergy, who themselves secretly drank the wine from the tithes, but never gave it to the common people. They will even be sold in a few large Imperial Free Markets in exchange for Tome of Atonement. Now you can go to heaven for money, so these guys can do evil with peace of mind!

At the same time, in the Imperial army camp, about a hundred kilometers from the city of Chapol, Sebastian received an edict from Miss Emma.

"Oh, we're so busy! ”

Sebastian gave the edict to the other generals around him, such as Viscount Marco von Gertz, his wife Viscountess Ruth von Gertz, and Count Heinrich von Dauphenberg, who were also core members of the Blue Knights.

"Your Excellency, I just received an urgent magical call from Chapol City. Ranzakura, disguised as a soldier, walked in and handed Sebastian a distress letter from Count Arras.

Integrating the messy information, the inspector of the Central and Southern District pretended to think for a while, and then said to everyone.

"Now that the chaos is raging, so be it! Marco, you and Ruth lead a thousand men to stay here and continue to suppress the 'poor Conrad' army. Heinrich, you and I will go to Chapol to help Count Arras relieve the siege, and then we will join up with Count von Ryderhof and attack the Mars Confederation. ”

"Yes, Your Excellency!"

"Okay, no problem!"

Sebastian immediately drove directly under the city of Chapol with 3,000 imperial troops. The "Shoe Club" army was attacked from inside and outside, and their strength was small, and they were all a rabble with little training, so they naturally could not resist. However, the peasant army was lucky, found a gap on the west side of the encirclement, and quickly broke out of the encirclement under the leadership of the great leader Joss, and fled to the mountains and forests to the west.

Perhaps for fear of being ambushed, the superior Imperial Army did not pursue. Sebastian "The Soul Reager" is known for his caution in the South Central Side, so no one is confused.

Count Arras thanked the two Imperial Counts for their rescue and invited them to dine and rest for the night in his palace. Naturally, the people who had been tired from the journey were disrespectful.

That night, one of the "shoe clubs" who had fled to the Black Forest was found, a man who called himself Lord von Loclelin, a petty nobleman who sympathized with the peasant uprising, and whose shabby dress and kind tone immediately won the favor of the poor peasants.

"Comrades, the dispersion of forces is not conducive to the success of the uprising, now that the 'Chinese American Army' in Schwartenen is strong, and the rebellion of the Mars Confederation in the mountainous area of the Empire has greatly restrained the strength of the Southern Imperial Army, you should go to Schwartenen to join forces with the Chinese American Army and provide each other with Austrian assistance. ”

At the same time, the viscount also took out a map that he had obtained from nowhere and handed it to Joss, which detailed the geography of the mountains and rivers and the distribution of troops in the Duchy of Schwartenen-Würloburg, which the Duke of Ulrich himself probably did not know so well.

"Bring this map to the leaders of the American forces in China! They will be happy. ”