The territory is vast, and Yangzhou, which will belong to the treasure land in the future, although it is now captured and occupied by the Chu State, but the Chu State has no intention of ruling this place for a long time, which is already very greedy for Dai Yan, who rules the villain of the Song State!

How long did he endure it, and then he waited for the opportunity to expand his territory and get rid of the control of the Qi State, so he naturally didn't want to miss this opportunity. Under his orders, the power that Song Guo had accumulated for many years finally began to break out!

During these years, a total of more than 250,000 standing troops were trained in the Song Kingdom, of which Dai Yan kept about 100,000 of them in the country and let Xiao Xiang lead them to defend against the Qi State in the north. And the remaining 150,000 soldiers, he appointed Tang Ying as the commander, and Le Yi assisted from the side, and all of them formed a southern expeditionary army to crusade against Chu State, and pointed at Yangzhou!

The southern expeditionary army set out from Pengcheng, the capital of the Song Dynasty, and under the cover of a merchant fleet composed of powerful sailors and Song merchants, they first began to move south along Surabaya.

The first Chu city that the Song army faced was Duliang.

Duliang is an important town located on the south bank of Fuling Lake. In the Spring and Autumn Period, this place was ruled by the state of Wu and was named Shandao; After the state of Chu and the state of Yue destroyed the state of Wu together, this place was owned by the state of Chu. This place has a more resounding name in later generations - Xuyi.

When Dai Yan sent the children of the Nong and Mo families to various places to inspect in the early years, the peasant disciples who had personally passed through this place thought that this place would inevitably be a place for soldiers to fight!

In fact, because the Song State now has the land of the East China Sea, ships need to go south from Surabaya and then enter Huaishui, which has long been regarded as a thorn in the side of Song merchants! In the eyes of the merchants of the Song Kingdom, if the Chu State had a heart, it could completely control the Huaisi through this place and cut off the most important trade routes of the merchants in the East China Sea!

In fact, in the previous Song Civil War, although Xuyi's reputation was not obvious, it did play an extremely crucial role in the operation of the Chu army's naval division. In the water battle of Fuling Lake, although the Chu army defeated the Taoqiu water division, there was a reason why the Chu army went down the river from the upper reaches of the Huai River, but Duliang, as an important logistics base, played a great role!

When the Song State was ruled by Dai Yan, the Chu State also began to strengthen its vigilance against the Song State, and for such an important place as Duliang, the Chu State naturally would not let it go.

The Song army sailors went south and entered Fuling Lake, and before they reached the south bank, they could see the tall and sturdy city wall erected by the Huai River!

In fact, if the Song army went around from Fuling Lake and down the Huai River in order to take Jiangdong, it could completely avoid this place. However, what Dai Yan wants is to take Yangzhou and occupy it permanently, as a key city to control Huaisi, it is natural that he can't let it go!

As soon as the Chu army in Duliang saw the swarming ships from the north, they immediately began to guard the whole city.

Now in control of the Song State Sailor is the former minister of the Yue State, Wu Yi, a descendant of the nobles of the Wu State. As a veritable boss in the water division, coupled with the stimulation of the domestic military merit system of the Song Kingdom, Wu Yifang launched a tentative attack on him as soon as he arrived near Duliang City!

Dozens of ships lined up in a line, docked near the river bank, and launched a tentative attack on the northern city of Duliang with bed crossbows and ballistas!

I have to say that after the Song Civil War, the Chu army and the Song army already knew the weapons that the Song army has now. As soon as the Chu army at the head of Duliang City saw that the Song army had used bed crossbows, they immediately took out wooden shields one by one and erected them on the city wall for defense!

Even if it was the Song army's bed crossbow, its power and accuracy had been slightly improved, but it did not cause much damage to the Chu army. And the ballista still does not pose much threat to the prepared Chu army.

Seeing the defense of the Chu army at the head of the city, Wu Yi knew that it was impossible to capture this city with the sailors alone. However, in the previous advance plan, the commander Le Yi had already assigned the task of the water division - to ensure that the grain route of the Song army was not threatened by the water division of the Chu army!

Therefore, Wu Yi saw that he could not achieve good results, so he immediately threw this city to the follow-up land army, and the sailor immediately led a large army and began to occupy the islands of Fuling Lake and block the passage between Huaishui and Surabaya!

Only two days after the sailor arrived in Duliang, the main force of the Song army's land army began to arrive under Duliang City, and such a fast speed shocked the defenders of the city!

The main force of the Song army of more than 100,000 troops arrived at the city of Duliang, and first persuaded the defenders of the city to surrender, but after the Chu army refused, Tang Ying and Le Yi did not care, and immediately organized the army to attack!

After so many years of continuous training, the combat quality of all its soldiers has been greatly improved. Not to mention that everyone in the Song army can be as desperate as the disciples of the Mo family, at least their courage to fight and dare to kill is stronger than the ordinary armies of all countries in the world at this time!

The Chu army left behind in Duliang had less than 20,000 people in total. Among them, 2,000 people are elites like Chu Wushu, and the other 3,000 are the clan soldiers of the Zhao clan, the most powerful clan in the Huaishui Valley, while the rest of the army is mostly temporarily recruited from the local government!

Even if there is such a big difference in the number of soldiers and the strength of the army, Tang Ying, who is in charge of commanding the army, still does not dare to take it lightly, after all, this is the first siege battle of the Song army to crusade against other countries!

Thousands of bed crossbows and hundreds of ballistas were unloaded from the sailors' ships, and they lined up under Duliang City. Under the personal command of Le Yi, the first siege battle of the Song Kingdom began.

In this era, even if the Song State invented powerful siege weapons such as bed crossbows and ballistas, the way of siege has not changed much. They all first use powerful long-range weapons to inflict a devastating blow on the head of the city to weaken the defenders; Then he began to use the ladder and sent soldiers to attack the city wall in the form of ants attached to the siege!

In this regard, Song Jun also adopted such a modest approach. Because of its advanced equipment and high morale, the Song army's offensive against the city wall was much stronger than that of other armies in this era. However, the defense of the Duliang Chu army is not comparable to ordinary cities, and the city defense equipment they took out also frightened the Song army who was besieging the city!

Not to mention that the Chu army was in the city, and prepared sufficient wooden shields and baffles to defend against bed crossbows and ballistas. It was their means of defending against the ant-attached siege that also surprised the Song army!

They actually used whale oil and asphalt to defend at the same time!

Today, whale oil has become one of the most important commodities sold by Song merchants to the world, and it is not surprising that the Chu people hoarded whale oil as a defense in this important town of Huaisi. However, asphalt, as a by-product of the coal and iron industry and coking in the Song Kingdom, has never been easily passed on, and now the people of Chu can also have it, which shocked Le Yi and others!

He immediately remembered the previous Song Civil War, when the Chu army withdrew from the Taoqiu Industrial Zone, all the workers in the coal and iron mines were taken captive! Among the people who were captured by the Chu army, in fact, most of them were people related to the mining area, and the Song State was never worried that the Chu army would be able to create a coal and iron industry from those people!

However, the emergence of asphalt now means that things have changed, and the Chu army must have mastered some of the skills of the coal and iron industry. At least the technology of coking, Chu Jun must have mastered it!

This kind of information has not only been valued by the high-level of the Song army in the southern expedition today, but when this information reached the national capital Pengcheng, it was also immediately highly valued by Dai Yan!

In his opinion, now that the Chu army has such a powerful defensive weapon and may have some industrialization skills, the difficulties encountered in the next war will inevitably be greater than before, at least the equipment gap between the Song army and the Chu army will be sharply narrowed. Therefore, the Song Kingdom must be prepared to spend a greater price!

And this kind of information, as soon as Dai Yanfang reported it to the merchants of the Song Kingdom, they even paid more attention to it than Dai Yan! After all, the iron produced by Taoqiu before had a near-monopoly position, providing them with huge profits! And now that such a huge profit may be terminated by the people of Chu, how can this not worry them!

For the sake of interests, they immediately became more and more supportive of the war, began to actively contribute and donate, and even took the initiative to organize people to establish a war fund to support the Song army's offensive in the south!

Any city that is determined to break through and willing to pay a sufficient price will definitely be able to break it! Duliang, an important city that controlled Huaisi, initially caused problems for the Song army and hindered the Song army's continued advance. However, with the stimulation of a huge amount of funds, coupled with the superior strength of the Song army itself, the Song army finally took Duliang, a major Huaisi town, at the cost of 2,000 deaths!