Judging by the general level of armament of the countries of the Far East at this time, the number of fortified artillery in the city of El Salvador was definitely the standard of a fortified city, and it was more than enough to deal with ordinary warfare. If an enemy of the level of the Ming army comes to attack, even if the city of El Salvador is at a disadvantage in strength, it will not worry that the other party will be able to break through the city defense, after all, there is an insurmountable gap between the two sides in terms of weapons and equipment. But with Haihan, the opponent, the balance of strength between the two sides was adjusted all of a sudden, and Spain, which was originally superior, immediately became the weaker side, and such a psychological gap is really unacceptable.

Although Alcaraso also knew that Rose was telling the truth, if he was to fall like this, he really couldn't explain it to the above when he returned to Manila. He hesitated for so long last night, but he had already figured it out, no matter what, he had to fight at least one time. To put it mildly, if you go back after losing the battle, you will definitely sell bitterness, but if you don't kill some people, then how can you sell bitterness with the big shots in Manila?

"Captain Ross!" After returning to the city walls, Alcarazor gave Ross an order to fight: "I order you to command the city defense troops and return fire during the enemy's siege. Although our ammunition reserves are already very limited, we must not lose the glory of the Kingdom of Spain because of this!"

"What do you mean, my lord...... Do you want to fight to the death?" Rose asked cautiously, after all, it was very likely that the lives of the people in the city were at stake.

Alcaraso coughed dryly, lowered his voice and said, "Even if we can't beat the Haihan people, we have to lose decently." ”

Now Rose understood, nodded and replied, "My lord, I understand what you mean." ”

At 10 o'clock in the morning, the Haihan artillery led by four siege guns launched an attack without warning, accompanied by a huge roar, shells flew from the artillery positions outside the city to the city. Takahashi Minami didn't try to persuade him to surrender before that, and deep down he didn't want the enemy to surrender, at least not before the battle, because then the special operations battalion would not be able to use actual combat to practice siege warfare tactics. At the same time, he also selfishly wanted to see how powerful this large siege cannon made by the military industry was, after all, it took a lot of trouble to transport this thing around, and if he didn't use it on the battlefield, Takahashi Minami always felt a little pity.

The heavy cannonballs slammed into the city wall with tremendous kinetic energy, sending fragments of the outer layer of wall tiles flying. Although the city of Salvador had such an extra layer of protection than the walls of Santo Domingo, it was only a significant defense against shells under 12 pounds. As for the 48-pounder guns that Haihan threw into the siege, almost every shell that hit the city wall smashed a large area of wall tiles, leaving deep dents in the wall.

The defenders on the walls felt this even more sympatheticly, and every time a siege cannon shell hit the wall beneath their feet, the vibrations were like an earthquake. Although the gunners were still trembling and persisting in counterattacking, they may have focused more on how to save their lives in the artillery battle than on hitting targets outside the city as quickly as possible. Although the artillery on the top of the city was constantly firing shells, the landing points were almost far from the target, and they were not enough to pose a threat to the enemy forces outside the city.

Takahashi's mood had basically relaxed at this time, and he could naturally see that the Spaniards' counterattack was not strong, and it was even difficult to interfere with his own artillery operations. The effect of their siege guns seemed to be better than expected, and after a few rounds of shelling, the walls in front of the city of Salvador were already visibly damaged, and the wooden gates had been smashed to pieces, revealing the stones used to block the passage.

Takahashi Minami doesn't have to worry about running out of ammunition, these four large-caliber siege guns, equipped with a total of 400 ammunition, are enough to collapse the front city wall. This does not include artillery of other calibers, and if the Spaniards in the city plan to resist to the end, Takahashi Minami will not hesitate to teach them the principles of human life with cannonballs.

On this island surrounded by water, the Spaniards did not even have a way out, although they still had three boats roaming back and forth on the nearby sea, but under the close supervision of the Haihan fleet, these three armed sailing ships did not dare to approach Sheliao Island at all, let alone receive the evacuation of the islanders. If they are not careful, they are likely to be outflanked by the Haihan fleet at sea, and they will completely lose the opportunity to leave the battlefield.

As for the reinforcements of the Spaniards, there is no need to worry, their nearest bases are thousands of miles away, even if they report to the south now, by the time the reinforcements arrive, the war here will already be over, and maybe the nearby mining areas have already begun to be excavated. At that time, Haihan will be the defender, and it will not be as embarrassed as the Spaniards are now, and they can be taught what the real shore defense artillery is.

The artillery battle continued until the afternoon, and two-thirds of the battlements on the front wall of the city of El Salvador had been destroyed by shells, which exposed several gun emplacements that had relied on the battlements as shelters, making it difficult to effectively avoid artillery fire from outside the city. In the artillery battle, which lasted nearly three hours, the defenders had lost twelve guns and more than thirty gunners on the city. And their record was only to destroy one of the attacking artillery, and the casualties caused were also ten times different. If it weren't for the Haihan Army's initiative to cease fighting, the losses of the defenders might have increased further.

"Captain Rose, how long can we survive where we are now, and will we be able to survive tomorrow?" said Alcalázo, who looked tired in the city, asked Rose for advice again. Although he did not go directly to the city head to supervise the battle today, he has always stayed under the city wall and has never left, and he also has a relatively intuitive understanding of the offensive of the Haihan people and the losses of his own side, but he still needs to ask for the opinions of professionals again to avoid his possible misjudgment of the current situation.

"My lord, we still have seven guns left to continue fighting, but the problem is that we really don't have enough ammunition stock. If we were to maintain the frequency of today's shooting, then we would have exhausted all our ammunition before the sun went down tomorrow. Rose explained the current situation to Alcarazo very directly, and if it could be summed up in one word, it would be "miserable".

"It's okay to last another day, at least there's an explanation...... Alcarazo breathed a sigh of relief. If you lose the city too quickly, it will inevitably appear that the defenders are too incompetent, as long as you hold on for a day or two, you can at least make up a little bit of "the defenders fought bloodily, and in the end they chose to preserve their strength because they couldn't defeat the enemy".

"My lord, this is just considering our own situation, if the enemy continues to concentrate fire on the city walls and the passage of the city gates, we may not survive tomorrow noon. Rose didn't give Alcarazo a chance to relax, and the information he added made the governor of the city of Salvador frown again.

There is no doubt that after these two days of fighting, everyone has seen the difference in strength between the two sides, and it is only a matter of time before the city defense is breached by the Haihan army, and if you want to save your life and leave here with dignity, it is very important to choose a suitable time to surrender.

At the same time, in the Haihan camp, Takahashi Minami and his officers judged the battle situation in a surprising agreement with Ross. The commander of the artillery unit believed that in half a day at most, he would be able to destroy the already badly damaged frontal walls. As soon as the walls fall, the defenders will immediately be in a situation where there is no danger to defend. In other words, by sunset tomorrow, perhaps the Han army will be able to capture the last of the Spaniards' fortress in Taiwan, even faster than the attack on the city of Santo Domingo.

Of course, during the siege of Santo Domingo, the siege artillery did not really come in handy, and the Haihan army used a strategy of outwitting to force the defenders of the city to surrender, but it also took more time to fight. The attack on El Salvador used artillery superiority to suppress the opponent before the landing, and immediately after the landing, siege artillery was put into the battlefield, which further increased Haihan's advantage in long-range strike firepower. In just two days, the absolute superiority of the Haihan army in this engagement had been basically established.

"Do you think the Spaniards will surrender?" asked Takahashi Minami in the final stages of the discussion.

The vast majority of the officers believed that the Spaniards would choose to surrender after confirming that they could not win, and that they could at least negotiate the conditions for surrendering, such as asking the Haihan army to guarantee their safety, etc., and if they surrendered after the city was broken, they would only be treated as prisoners of war. The defenders of Santo Domingo chose to surrender the city with a good sense of the times, and the Spaniards in El Salvador were probably no better off - the blacksmith José once mentioned in his confession that the Spanish governor of El Salvador, Alcarazo, was a greedy guy, and such people would often be greedy for life and death at critical moments, and prioritize the preservation of their own interests.

When it comes to José, we have to admit that his confession did provide a very useful reference for the preparation of the Haihan army, and José provided detailed information on the weak section of the wall in front of the city of El Salvador, the gun emplacements on the city wall, the number of artillery deployed, their performance, and even the approximate life of the artillery. In this way, when the Haihan army launched an artillery offensive, the targets and means used were more targeted, and it was no wonder that the defenders' city defenses seemed to be vulnerable.

Of course, Alcarazo never dreamed that the most important military secret of the city of Salvador was betrayed by José, a blacksmith who had been missing for many days. And this information also greatly accelerated the time for the Haihan army to capture here, otherwise even if the Haihan army had a clear advantage in strength, it would not be possible to achieve the current effect in only two days.

On the morning of the third day of the battle, the defenders were desperate to find that the three armed sailing ships that had been visible on the sea had disappeared, and it seemed that they had slipped away in the night. Although he knew that even if these three ships stayed here, it would be useless to change the situation of the war, and it was very likely that they would be attacked by the Haihan army, but the departure of these three ships was undoubtedly the last straw that sucked away the defenders, making their psychology gradually slide to the brink of collapse.

Minami Takahashi continues yesterday's tactics, using artillery for long-range strikes. He was not in a hurry to throw in the infantry, intending to blast the walls open before letting the infantry enter the city to fight.

However, this plan was not successfully implemented, and after only an hour of artillery fighting, a white flag was raised over the city to announce surrender. Although this is good news for Haihan, it is a bit of discouraging news for the soldiers of the special operations battalion who have been assembled on the shore and waited for two days. This means that the soldiers seem to have only made a soy sauce during the attack on the city of Salvador, and did not make any actual achievements. The veterans who had been through several battles were fine, but the recruits who entered the battlefield with passion were disappointed by the situation.

Soon the city sent an envoy to the Haihan camp for peace talks, and this envoy was not a strange face, it was Gusman, who had just escaped from the city of Santo Domingo at the mouth of the Tamsui River a few days ago. As one of the few managers in the city who had dealt directly with the Haihan and had sufficient decision-making authority, Gusman was entrusted with the important task of going out of the city to negotiate the terms of the armistice.

With the experience of the previous contact, Gusman also seemed to have become familiar with the road, and as soon as he came up, he went straight to the point, demanding that the Haihan army ensure the safety of the people in the city, and not detain anyone on the Spanish side on the grounds of prisoners of war or the like.

But this time the Haihan people were not as good as the previous time, Takahashi Nan smiled and rejected Gusman's proposal: "Several of your big ships have already run away, even if they are all released, where can you go?"

Gusman pretended to be calm and said, "There are some fishing boats on the nearby coast, we can requisition. ”

Gao Qiao Nandao: "It's better to do this, I'll arrange a boat for you, you send someone south to report the news first, and let Manila send a boat to pick up people here." What do you think of the prisoners who remain here in our custody during this time?"

Gusman is not a simple-minded guy, and after listening to it, he naturally thought that Takahashi Minami took the initiative to estimate that there was something else to do. But he couldn't figure out what Takahashi's starting point was for a while, so he nodded in agreement with Takahashi's idea. After all, the reality is that the defenders can no longer evacuate here at one time, so they can only send people to the south on fishing boats to report the news, and then Manila will send boats north to pick up people. This process will take some time, but it is indeed the only way to do it at the moment. However, what Takahashi Minami said next made Gusman almost spurt out a mouthful of old blood.

"Considering the high cost of holding prisoners, we charge a nominal fee for the management of prisoners of war. The standard is not high, just three thousand taels of silver a day!" Takahashi Minami said very easily, as if three thousand taels of silver was just an inconspicuous small amount.