After their lives were ruined by war and famine, most of the poor and hungry smallfolk in King's Landing and even beyond had been enticed by the reformation of the old religious order, and they numbered in the tens of thousands. Once they were attacked by the City Guard and Randyll Tarly's retinue, they retaliated in turn. Seeing that the Faith Militant was attacking their commander, the nearby Tyrell soldiers joined in the fighting. Soon, complete chaos and fighting enveloped the streets of King's Landing. Aside from Randyll Tarly and his fifty men, most people did not even know what the fighting was about but joined the fray at the sight of their comrades fighting. Some hedge knights, sellswords and local crooks simply took advantage of the chaos and started looting corpses or attacking inns and wealthy shops. The streets ran red with blood. At some point, someone had set a shack on fire in Flea Bottom, which quickly spread to the nearby buildings. Due to the strong winds, the fire spread to the nearby neighbourhoods, eventually nearing one of Aerys Targaryen's buried caches of wildfire.