The area of Tsushima Island and Iki Island is really not small, especially Tsushima Island, which is more than 100 miles long and more than 30 miles wide.

So, why did Yang Cong give up such a large island to the subject country of North Korea?

The reason for this is actually very simple, because the main purpose of his attack on the Hirado Domain this time was to "grab" the silver, not to expand the territory.

If it was to expand the territory, he would naturally not let go of such a large island, but this time was not the best time for the Ming Dynasty to expand its territory.

The Ming Dynasty is now in ruins, many places need money, and the expansion of territory also needs money, a lot of money.

If nothing else, let's just say that the defense of Falklands and Iki Island, if the Ming Dynasty itself sends troops to garrison it after it is taken, the food and salary of the soldiers guarding the island alone is a lot of expenses, and more importantly, there are no cities, no fortresses, and even no military ports on these two islands.

If the Ming army wants to garrison here, it is necessary to build cities and fortresses, and the port must also be expanded, and these two islands are more than a thousand miles away from the Ming Dynasty, and it is not known how much time it will take to build cities and fortresses.

In short, in a word, at this time, it is time-consuming, laborious, and more expensive to divide troops to garrison remote islands like Tsushima Island and Iki Island, which are far away from Daming, and the gains outweigh the losses.

It is precisely because there are neither cities nor fortresses on these two islands that the Ming army's attack was unusually smooth, Yu Dayou and Qi Jingtong took Tsushima Island in less than a day, and then transferred a day's grain, grass, baggage and soldiers, and then, they took Iki Island in less than half a day, and then transferred grain, grass and soldiers, in less than four days, these two islands fell into the hands of Yang Cong.

The next step was to attack Hirado Castle, the old nest of the Matsuura clan, although the battle ahead was as simple as chopping melons and vegetables, Yang Cong did not take it lightly, he deliberately formulated a detailed attack plan, and decided to personally go to the front line to supervise.

Early in the morning of the fifth day, hundreds of naval warships set off with tens of thousands of foot soldiers, and in less than an hour, Hirado Castle was already in sight.

On the flagship, Yang Cong held a telescope and stared closely at the outline of the city in front of him, never relaxing for a moment, as the sailor's fleet approached, the image of Hirado Castle finally became clear.

The scale of this Hirado Castle is not large, looking at its approximate area is not even as big as the small county town of the Ming Dynasty, and its city walls do not seem to be very high, with the height of the guards on it as a reference, Yang Cong judged that the height of the walls of this Hirado Castle will definitely not exceed one zhang.

Such a city is not worth it at all for the elite of the Southeast Army, and even, they don't need to build siege equipment, they can just use chariots.

The foot soldiers stood directly on the roof of the car, raised iron shields to prevent arrow attacks, and with muskets and artillery cover, as long as the chariot was pushed to the city wall, all the foot soldiers jumped up with a "whoosh", and even the time to climb the ladder was saved.

Isn't it easy to attack such a city?

Yang Cong was thinking about the siege in his mind, when suddenly, something he didn't want to see appeared in the telescope, and his brows couldn't help frowning.

What did he see?

What appears in the telescope is the muzzle of the artillery!

On the city wall, behind some of the arrow stacks there are clearly black cannon muzzles!

This Matsuura clan actually has artillery!

Where did it come from?

An ominous premonition appeared in Yang Cong's heart, these cannons could not have been given to others by Yan Song and Zhao Wenhua when they were in power, right?

Looking at the size of the cannon, it seems to be similar to the tiger squat cannon, and it is very likely that the tiger squat cannon of the Ming army is placed on the city wall.

This is a problem, because Hirado Castle is not far from the port, and the vicinity of the port pier is within the range of artillery attacks, and the port here is obviously the kind of small port where fishing boats are docked.

The thickness of the deck of the Cangshan ship cannot be compared with that of the Daifuku ship, and even if it is a tiger squat gun, if the shells are too dense, it may sink it.

He counted carefully, the number of artillery in Hirado Castle was really a lot, and there were at least dozens of them on this side near the port!

This is really troublesome, you must know that the port dock of the Hirado Domain can also dock a few Cangshan ships, and each Cangshan ship also carries twenty foot soldiers, that is, only a few dozen foot soldiers in each batch have landed.

Dozens of foot soldiers against dozens of artillery pieces, what is the result?

There is no need to think about this at all, as long as the enemy's artillery is not outrageously accurate, it is basically difficult for anyone to survive these dozens of foot soldiers.

What to do?

Yang Cong frowned and pondered for a while, then turned his head to Yu Dayou and said, "Zhifu, have you seen the artillery on the city wall?" ”

Yu Dayou put down the binoculars and nodded solemnly: "The last general has seen it." ”

Yang Cong then proposed: "Why don't we use the main guns of the Fu ship to cover a few Cangshan ships and try to come up?" If the enemy's fire is too strong, let's think of another way. ”

Yu Dayou nodded helplessly and said, "That's all." ”

Soon, under the command of Qi Jingtong, the fifty Fufune battleships lined up in a neat queue and approached the sea area in front of Hirado Castle, and after a period of tense adjustment, the bow of the fifty Fufune warships "boomed" and a huge cannon roar came out almost simultaneously.

The main guns of the Fukufune warships were all huge cannons of more than 1,000 catties, and the firing range was more than two miles, so they could attack the defenders on the city walls without entering the artillery range of Hirado Castle.

This first round of artillery was just a tuning to shoot Zhu Yuan, so the accuracy of the shells was not very good, only a small half of the fifty shells fell on the city wall, and the rest were either close or far away.

The defenders on the city wall probably didn't expect that there would be artillery with such a long range, so this round of bombardment still caused a lot of casualties, at least dozens of people were smashed by huge cannonballs and flew upside down, and they didn't even have time to scream.

It didn't take long for a huge cannon roar to be heard from the bow of the fifty ships in front of them, and this time, the quasi-head was significantly stronger than the last time, and the fifty shells almost all hit the city wall.

However, the defenders on the city walls were not fools, and everyone quickly hid behind the arrow stacks as early as the roar of the artillery, so although the hit rate of this round was high, the casualties caused were not as high as in the previous round.

Yang Cong saw this situation, and waved his hand decisively: "It's now, send someone up to try." ”

Yu Dayou nodded solemnly, and then waved his hand, causing the standard-bearer to play the banner of attack.

Soon, the four Cangshan boats quickly approached the port wharf, and the twenty foot soldiers did not hesitate to leap down from the side of the ship and jump onto the planks of the wharf, but they did not line up and did not stand next to the boat and wait for the follow-up foot soldiers to come down.

These people are scurrying around the docks as if they had taken the wrong medicine!

At this time, fifty Fufune warships on the sea opened fire again, and another fifty huge cannonballs flew towards the city wall, and the roar of artillery was also heard on the city wall, and dozens of cannons roared one after another, and the cannonballs smashed straight to the pier.

However, that accurate head is really flattering, dozens of shells are like scattered flowers of the goddess, flying everywhere, there are not a few shots that hit the dock at all, and none of the twenty foot soldiers on the pier were shot!

What's going on here?

Seeing this, Yang Cong couldn't help but be dumbfounded, this is too, right?

Even if you don't aim, just firing the platoon cannon won't be the result!

Yu Dayou suddenly realized: "It turned out to be an iron cannon!" ”

Iron cannon?

What's that?