While the fierce battle outside the castle was fierce, the Japanese troops ambushed in the castle town were gradually defeated and cleared, and the Xia army slowly advanced under the city walls.

Immediately, they were attacked by the defenders of the city wall from a long distance, and the continuous sound of iron cannons accompanied by a dense rain of arrows fell into the Xia army formation close to the city wall, killing and wounding nearly 100 people.

"Shoot! Fire suppression!"

After being attacked, the Xia soldiers hurriedly dragged the robes that had been shot and wounded to retreat, and the first-class officer of the company shouted loudly and ordered the rest of the soldiers to raise their guns and shoot at the city wall.

The projectiles they shot hit the battlements of the city wall, making a crackling sound, and the gunpowder smoke from the burning of gunpowder became the best cover, so that the Japanese troops on the city wall could not find the target for a while, and could only shoot indiscriminately in the direction of the gunsmoke.

At this time, the Xia army had successfully routed Kuroda Mitsuyuki's army, and the line infantry also launched a pursuit of the Japanese rout, so Madu ordered the artillery to be loaded and advanced under the city wall to bombard the city gate.

It turned out that the gates of the Japanese mountain castle could not withstand the shelling of the 12-pounder infantry guns, and after a few cannon shots, the solid shells easily pierced and shattered the red wooden gates.

Immediately, at the sound of the fierce attack horn, the line infantry roared and attacked the mountain city, and they rushed onto the gravel road in the face of the rain of arrows and iron cannon projectiles thrown by the defenders on the city walls.

"Kill! Fight inside the city!"

The commander of the line infantry company shouted loudly with his command knife, and the soldiers rushed past him towards the city gate, and the arrows rained down, and the soldiers could only charge with the rain of arrows.

"Uhh

As soon as a soldier rushed past the company commander, he was shot in the eye socket by a cluster of oncoming arrows, and he let out a scream, but instead of falling, he gritted his teeth and broke the arrow, threw it on the ground, and continued to charge with his rifle despite the blood streaming from his face.

"Ke Zhiwen, you're injured!"

When his fellow villagers saw his miserable condition, they hurriedly stretched out their hands to stop him, and cried out, "Stand down and go to the wounded barracks for treatment, or you will die!"

"Your Majesty is as kind to me as a mountain, and I fight for Your Majesty, even if I die in battle?"

Ke Zhiwen shook off his fellow villager's hand suddenly, gritted his teeth and said, it could be seen from the green tendons that burst out of his head that he was suffering a great pain.

Then, Ke Zhiwen roared angrily to keep up with the attacking team, and he stepped on the city gate that was scattered to pieces, but as soon as he entered the city, he saw dozens of iron cannons not far away to form a three-stage strike formation.

And the iron cannon rope held in the hands of the iron cannon ashigaru kneeling in the first row was slowly burning!

"Enemy Iron Cannon!"

Bang bang bang –

I saw a row of dazzling fires in front of the iron artillery team, and the charging Xia soldiers were immediately shot head-on, and before they could take precautions, the second round of platoon fire followed.

Three rounds of continuous volleys, shooting nearly a hundred Xia soldiers at such a close distance, perhaps because there must be a blessing after not dying in the catastrophe, Ke Zhiwen did not fall under these three rounds of volleys, he continued to rush towards the Japanese army together with other robes who were lucky not to be shot.

The Iron Cannon Ashigaru needed to reload for a long time after the three shots, so they hurriedly wanted to evacuate, but the Xia army was faster, rushed directly in front of them, and stabbed the bayonet directly into the back of the Iron Gun Ashigaru who turned around and wanted to retreat.

"Ahh

Like a hungry wolf rushing into a flock of sheep, the Xia army, who believed in revenge for the robe, fought with the iron cannon Ashigaru and killed the latter without any defense.

Ke Zhiwen kicked Ashigaru, whose body was penetrated by his own bayonet, to the ground, pulled out his bayonet, and then pounced on the next enemy.

Ke Zhiwen took a step back, stabbed out the bayonet to block the short knife swinged, and picked it hard, and then retracted the rifle and stabbed forward, the door was wide open, and he couldn't defend himself, so he could only watch the bayonet stab into his body.

Poof-

With the sound of sharp weapons entering the flesh, the ashigaru was pushed by Ke Zhiwen to fall on his back, and Ke Zhiwen then stepped on Ashigaru's body and will

The bayonet was pulled out with great force, and then several more strokes were made at the vital parts of the ashigaru, killing him completely.

When Ke Zhiwen raised his head again and looked around, Fukuoka Castle was already in the midst of war, and the soldiers of the Xia Army with uniform equipment were fighting with the Japanese army, and although the Japanese army resisted hard, they were still losing and retreating.

The castle-defending general Kuroda Kazuni, who was dressed in strange armor, led the samurai retainers with their backs to the castle tower and commanded the defeated Japanese army to resist stubbornly, but the Xia army did not have the idea of winning hand-to-hand combat with it, and saw the Japanese retreat, they stopped attacking one after another, formed a line, and launched an attack with Xu Jin shooting tactics.

Xu Jin shot, as the name suggests, is to advance and shoot at the same time, the Xia army shot a large number of trapped Japanese troops with continuous firepower, which was also mixed with the explosion of grenades used by grenadiers to open the way.

Under the fierce offensive of the Xia army, the Japanese army had to retreat into the castle tower, relying on the defense of the castle tower to condescendingly shoot at the Xia army below.

The Xia army was undaunted, and still used grenadiers as the vanguard, using grenades to clear the way, and broke into the castle tower to engage in some kind of street fighting with the Japanese army.

The internal terrain of the castle tower is complex, the corridors extend in all directions, and the Japanese army sniped layer by layer with the complex terrain, and the Xia army did not know the internal structure of the castle tower before, nor did they expect the danger they would encounter after attacking the castle tower.

As a result, the Xia army suffered a large number of casualties in the castle tower, and it was usually very likely that a group of soldiers would encounter hidden arrows flying from all directions while walking in the corridors.

A grenadier walked vigilantly down the hallway, and the shoji door behind him was suddenly pulled open, and the movement of the pull alerted the grenadier, but before he could react, a pair of hands reached out from behind him and forcibly grabbed him by the neck, dragging him into the room behind him.

Then, there were several muffled sounds of iron entering flesh and a faint grunt of pain that was covered.

The grenadiers' teammates heard the movement behind them, and they quickly turned to look at the room where the sound was made, and several people forcibly opened the shoji door and rushed into the room to fight the Japanese soldiers inside.

The battle continued until dark, when the Xia army finally cleared out the stubborn Japanese troops in the castle tower, and the tragic casualties surprised the commander of the second brigade, Ma Du.

He entered the chaotic castle tower under the escort of soldiers, and the corridors inside the castle guard could be seen everywhere with irregular splashes of coagulated blood, and corpses of different shapes could be seen in almost every room, and the combination of rifles + bayonets equipped by the Xia army had no advantage in this narrow space.

In contrast, the katana, which was commonly used in the Japanese army, was able to achieve good results.

After the battle, when several captured Japanese soldiers were interrogated, they disdainfully smiled at the Xia soldiers who interrogated him, spit out the bloody spit in their mouths, and said:

"The castle tower is the center of defense of my Yamato nation, even during the Warring States period, so many heroic daimyo did not dare to rashly order their subordinates to attack the castle tower, you Xia people, you are simply too arrogant."

After he finished speaking, he was punched and kicked by the angry Xia soldiers, but his words also attracted the attention of Ma Du, who stood inside the city, looked at the tall castle tower, and began to think about how to deal with the Japanese army entrenched in the city.

The Fukuoka castle tower was just one of hundreds of castle towers in Japan, and if the Japanese army in each city were to resist like this, the Xia army would have to pay huge casualties to completely conquer the whole of Japan.

After looking at the castle tower for a long time, Ma Du suddenly made a discovery, he realized that the castle towers are all wooden buildings, and wood is naturally flammable and easy to fall, if the Japanese army resists stubbornly, it is completely possible to concentrate the flammable materials under the castle tower, force the Japanese soldiers out with flames, or burn them alive.

However, if this method was used, the Xia army would inevitably carry a large amount of flammable materials in the army, such as liquids such as fire oil, so that the flames could spread rapidly in a short period of time.

After discovering this, Madu hurriedly returned to Nanotsu, wrote the incident into a battle report, and ordered someone to send it back to Korea to report to the Korean governor Su Fu.

……

After Fukuoka Mountain Castle was conquered by the Xia army, the townspeople who fled to the mountain castle for refuge also fell into the hands of the Xia army.

Then put the person back into their respective residences.

The news of the fall of Fukuoka Yamajo Castle quickly spread throughout Chikuzen Province, causing a panic, and Mitsuyuki Kuroda, the lord of the Fukuoka Domain, fled all the way to the territory of the Akizuki Domain with his defeated army, and was accepted by Kuroda Nagako, the lord of the Akitsuki Domain.

Kuroda Mitsuyuki is Kuroda Nagako's nephew, although the former is the head of the Kuroda family, but after the loss of Fukuoka Mountain Castle, the prestige of the Kuroda family's family plummeted, Kuroda Nagaxing did not resent the exclusion of Hikarita's father, he ordered a piece of land outside the city for the Fukuoka defeated army to station, and held a banquet in the city to entertain Mitsuyuki.

At the banquet, the two discussed together how to deal with the offensive of the Xia army, and when Mitsuyuki Kuroda recounted the battle outside Fukuoka Castle to Changxing, both of them were sad.

Nagasei said worriedly: "The shogunate has been trying to find an excuse to weaken the feudal lords in various places and recover the land of the feudal lords, and now that the Xia army has conquered Fukuoka Mountain Castle, if we can't recover Fukuoka as soon as possible, the shogunate will most likely order the abolition of the Fukuoka domain and punish you for failure."

"There's nothing you can do." Mitsuyuki kept sighing: "The Xia army is so powerful, even the shogunate's army is not an opponent, I can assert that the current Xia army is not comparable to the Mongols hundreds of years ago, if more Xia troops land, it is only a matter of time before Kyushu Island falls into the hands of the Xia army."

"In that case, we have no other way but to hold on to the Akizuki Domain, and I will ask the Shogunate for help and try to hold the Akizuki Domain before the arrival of the Shogunate army, otherwise the Xia army will be able to expand its gains in Chikuzen Province."

"That's all it can be." Hikaru Kuroda melancholy agreed.