Ma Du was the commander of the Second Brigade of the Fourth Town, and as the first general of the Xia Army to set foot on Japanese soil, it was impossible for him not to say that he was excited.

His mission was to land in Nanotsu and then take the distant Fukuoka mountain castle to create a front-line stronghold for the Xia army in Chikuzen Province in order to defend against a Japanese counterattack.

Looking at Fukuoka Mountain Castle in the distance, Mado didn't think there was anything difficult about this task, he looked at the sky again, and decided to take the initiative and take Fukuoka Castle before it got dark.

As a result, Mado ordered to leave Ichibu to continue building the Nabutsu stronghold, and the main force followed him towards Fukuoka Mountain Castle.

As the Xia army began to dispatch, the Japanese general Kuroda Kazutoshi who was ambushed in the city immediately sent cavalry to report to the main general outside the city, Heitian Mitsuyuki, and sent all the soldiers to the city wall, intending to rely on the city wall to block the Xia army.

Outside the castle, the Japanese army deployed hundreds of ashigaru scattered and lurked in the castle town under the leadership of several samurai, preparing to use the castle town's buildings to deal with the Xia army when the summer army entered the castle town and prepared to attack the city.

The plan of the Japanese army was to lure the Xia army to attack the castle with Fukuoka Castle, and the ambush troops in the castle town would consume it, and after the Xia army was all engaged in the siege, the main force of the Fukuoka Domain, led by Mitsuyuki Kuroda, and the reinforcements provided by the Akitsuki Domain, a member of the Kuroda family, would come out from the rear together, not to annihilate the Xia army, but to be able to inflict heavy damage on it and win the first success.

However, the number of Xia troops dispatched was a bit excessive, and there were more than 7,000 soldiers in the three infantry targets dispatched, and the total number of Japanese troops in the Fukuoka Domain was only more than 5,000, and it was impossible to confront the Xia army head-on.

The Xia army did not realize the intentions of the Japanese army, and after marching for half an hour, the Xia army arrived outside Fukuoka Castle, and Mado immediately ordered the siege of Fukuoka Mountain Castle, and the three targets attacked Fukuoka from three directions at the same time.

The Xia army began its first battle on the Japanese mainland with infantry artillery, and the 32 infantry guns of the artillery company that landed with the 2nd Brigade were thrown into battle, firing solid shells at the walls of the mountain castle.

The cannonballs smashed into the castle wall amid the sound of cannonballs, leaving several circular craters around the perimeter of the castle wall, causing the walls to tremble, and some of the shells flew over the castle walls and fell into the castle tower, the tallest building in the castle tower, and the shells pierced through the building and penetrated deep into the castle tower, causing the servants and soldiers hiding in the castle tower to flee in a hurry.

After a few rounds of artillery bombardment on the city wall, Xia Jun suddenly realized that such shelling was meaningless, the Japanese-style castle was a layer of stone walls on the periphery of the hillside, and even if they forcibly knocked on this layer of stone walls, they could not directly attack the city.

Madu therefore had no choice but to change his tactics and decided to take the risk of pushing his artillery forward and firing at close range outside the city gates to open a way for the infantry to enter the city.

Although he changed his tactics, he did not immediately move the artillery forward, but used infantry to explore the way to clear the castle town of possible enemies, and then transport the artillery to the castle.

As it turned out, he made the right decision.

After the Xia army broke through the wall of the castle town and entered it, they were soon attacked by the Japanese army who were ambushed.

The Japanese troops were scattered and ambushed on the roofs of various buildings, condescendingly shooting at the Xia troops on the streets, and the sound of bows and arrows breaking through the air and the sound of iron artillery bombardment was heard in the castle town for a while.

"Enemy attack—"

Although the Xia army had been vigilant, there were casualties after the sudden attack, and the attacking team shouted while hurriedly raising their rifles to return fire.

Instead of scattering in search of cover, they stood directly in the street and lined up and fired a volley at rooftops where there were enemies.

"Shoot!"

Bang bang bang –

The projectiles shot from the bottom up sent debris flying from the roof, and as several screams rang out from the roof, some of the slow Ashigaru were shot directly on the spot, and their bodies fell to the ground with a dull sound after rolling a few times after their bodies fell.

Seeing this, the rest of the ashigaru were so frightened that they hurriedly stopped shooting, shrunk their heads so that they were not exposed to the range of the Xia army, and the samurai immediately shouted loudly when they saw this, ordering them to continue shooting, although Ashigaru was afraid of the Xia army's shooting, but he was even more afraid of the majesty of the samurai, so he could only lean out and continue to shoot at the Xia army below.

In the distance, seeing a fierce battle breaking out in the castle town, Hei Tianguangzhi immediately made a decision and ordered the Japanese army in ambush to attack the Xia army

Attack.

With the hoarse shouts of "attack", the Kuroda clan's army, holding high the Kuroda Fujiba pattern battle flag, launched an attack on the Xia army left behind outside the castle town, and the appearance of the Japanese army caught Madu off guard, but he quickly reacted and ordered the remaining infantry and artillery to line up in front of the incoming Japanese defense line and prepare for battle.

As the soldiers ran to change the battle line, Madu frowned at the Japanese army that was pouring towards this side like a black torrent, this Japanese army only had a few hundred cavalry, most of them were ashigaru wearing hats and holding four-meter-long bamboo spears, and behind ashigaru were also mixed with archers armed with iron cannons and Japanese longbows.

Ashigaru's equipment has evolved from the Warring States period to a uniform one, mainly equipped with a simple helmet called a jinkasa, armor is a carcass and a straw fold, and the Kuroda family's coat of arms is printed on the front of the carcass, in addition to the flags that are also printed on the back, these two symbols are used to identify the enemy soldiers.

However, this method of identifying friend and foe is completely inapplicable here, the equipment of the Xia army is completely different from that of the Japanese army, and their height is also completely different, the Xia army is equipped with armor full of Chinese style, and their average height is also a head taller than that of the Japanese soldiers, which can be distinguished at a glance.

In any case, after the Xia army found that the Japanese army appeared from the rear, they immediately responded, forming a weak front facing the Japanese army, and after the soldiers lined up the line, they hurriedly stood their rifles in front of them, with the muzzle facing up, and took out a paper bullet from the ammunition pack on their waists, bit one end through, poured a little gunpowder into the medicine pool as ignition, and then stuffed the remaining paper bullets into the muzzle of the gun and compacted it throughout.

This series of experienced veterans only took a dozen seconds, and the slowest was only twenty seconds to complete the loading, and after everyone finished loading, the soldiers in the front row put their rifles on their shoulders, and their eyes moved with the Japanese soldiers who were killing in the distance.

During this period, the artillery that was forced to be deployed in front of their line because of the low terrain began to exert its might, emitting bursts of deafening roars, and the shells fired flew towards the Japanese army formation with a roar, smashing into the crowd head-on, and immediately smashed many Japanese soldiers into pulp, and continued to fly forward for a distance with inertia, killing and wounding dozens of people one after another before finally stopping.

This was the first time that the Japanese army had been subjected to such heavy artillery bombardment on land, which made Mitsuyuki Kuroda, who was supervising the battle in the rear, pale with shock, and even in the Battle of Sekigahara, which decided the fate of Japan, no daimyo had such fierce firepower.

"Xia Jun, it's terrifying!"

He muttered under his breath.

Soon, Mitsuyuki Kuroda reacted and ordered the ashigaru team to disperse and reduce the area under shelling, and the ashigaru team dispersed to reduce the number of people killed by the shelling, and they finally rushed into the range of the Type 2 rifle after several rounds of shelling.

The ashigaru men armed with bamboo spears bravely advanced forward until the Xia army on the opposite side raised their rifles to the roar of the officers of each company and fired the first volley at them, and after the dense gunfire, the charging ashigaru team immediately fell one after another hundreds of people.

The range of the Xia army's firearms shocked the Japanese army, but the ashigaru people at the bottom did not have the heart to think about this, they watched the people in front of them be shot and fell, some of them did not even die on the spot, they were still lying on the ground covering the wounds on their bodies and moaning in pain, and their wails made many people feel fear.

Seeing this, the samurai in the Ashigaru team did not hesitate to swing their swords to kill the moaning and wailing Ashigaru on the ground, holding their blood-stained katana in the direction of the Xia army, and ordered the surrounding Ashigaru, "Keep moving forward and drive the Xia army back to the sea, and you will all be rewarded!"

The bloody katana shocked the wavering Ashigaru in his heart, and the reward in their mouths also boosted Ashigaru's morale, and the ashigaru continued to carry the bamboo spear forward, but after the opposite Xia Jun fired a volley, the front row quickly knelt on one knee, revealing the robe behind them with their guns raised, and a few seconds later, the second volley came as scheduled.

Bang bang bang –

In the continuous sound of gunfire, the casualties of the Japanese army increased sharply, and the iron artillery team deployed on the flank finally engaged the Xia army, and the iron artillery team fired a dense salvo on the flank of the Xia army with the famous three-stage attack, and there were many casualties on the flank of the Xia army, but this did not affect the output of the Xia army.

The soldiers quickly reinforced

For a time, the flanks of the two armies were filled with gunsmoke, and the sound of guns was endless, and from time to time someone burst into a bloody mist in the smoke and fell to the ground in pain.

After decades of peace, they could no longer withstand such a high-intensity battle, and after several rounds of exchange of fire with the Xia army, the iron artillery team could not bear the casualties and could only retreat.

The same was true of the Ashigaru team on the other side, but their situation was a little more tragic - the Xia artillery deployed in front of the line resolutely replaced the solid bullets with shotguns after the ashigaru entered the firing range, turning the artillery into a large shotgun, and then fired at the oncoming Japanese troops.

After the sound of the cannon, the dense iron beads immediately swept forward in a fan shape, and the Japanese troops in the fan shape were bombed into a non-human sieve one after another, directly clearing a small area of no man's land.

Seeing the rout of the Japanese army, Ma Du promptly ordered someone to blow the horn of pursuit, and the soldiers of the Xia army on the line immediately raised their rifles equipped with bayonets and roared to charge the Japanese army that had lost control.

In the wave of defeat, although there were still some samurai who insisted on not wanting to escape, they were alone, how could they resist the organized pursuit of the Xia army, they brandished katana and wanted to duel with the Xia army, but they were directly stabbed by the other party with bayonets from multiple directions, stabbing multiple blood holes in the samurai's body, and died on the spot.