After inspecting the location of the fortress and conceiving the construction drawings of the fortress, the protagonist quickly returned to "Dongyang City" on Xiaoqing.
After returning, the protagonist immediately began to conduct experiments to see if big-headed ants could use "concrete" to build ant mounds like soil-dwelling ants or termites in Africa.
He summoned ten worker ants and ten soldier ants and asked them to each carry some clay particles to the ground.
Then, the protagonist uses the information package to order them to smear saliva on the clay and then lay the clay on the ground.
After waiting patiently for half an hour, after seeing that the clay was almost dry, the protagonist tried to touch these piles of clay.
The experimental results make the protagonist very excited. These clay piles are so strong that even the protagonist's brute force can hardly destroy them. And the saliva of both worker ants and soldier ants is very effective.
Later, the protagonist conducted experiments with ant feces, and the results were similar. The clay treated with saliva and feces had almost the same strength after drying.
The protagonist also got some inspiration from these strong clay mixed with saliva and feces - the pottery fired in the combustion chamber before was shaped with pure clay, dried in the shade and then fired. Because the pottery body was too thin, the yield of the finished product was low. It is relatively low, and it is not yet possible to produce it on a large scale. We can only supply some bowls and basins to the male ants on a small scale.
Now that it is discovered that clay is so strong after being treated with saliva and feces, the protagonist wants to make pottery from these treated clays, which should greatly increase the yield of finished products. Of course, these pottery vessels contain things that are meant to be eaten, so it’s better not to deal with ant feces.
Ants are full of treasures.
Take ant saliva as an example. It can not only be used to process clay and turn it into "concrete". The protagonist has also seen ants use their saliva to disinfect their injured companions.
Many animals lick their wounds to disinfect them, and ants are no exception. In the real world, researchers first discovered this behavior in Matabele ants (Megaponera analis) living in the Sahara Desert of Africa. They can heal the wounds of their companions by licking them. Their saliva can indeed save lives.
They will rescue the injured companion back to the nest, and then within an hour, the healthy ants will take turns licking the injured companion's wound, which can reduce the mortality rate by 70%.
Not only that, in order to maximize the therapeutic effect of the entire ant colony, these ants have also developed a complex set of altruistic medical rules.
Healthy ants will treat injured ants, leaving severely injured and dead ants alone.
This is because injured ants can judge the severity of their injuries on their own, and if they think they are worthy of treatment, they will release a pheromone to alert their healthy ants that they need help. As for those who are seriously injured and unable to do anything, no signal will be released.
In addition, a seriously injured ant will actively prevent rescue efforts for itself. Even if his body is coated with help pheromones, when an ant comes to help him, he will refuse to cooperate with the rescue operation until the rescuer gives up.
Ant excrement is also a good thing. The protagonist has previously discovered that the fluorescent bacteria that the entire ant nest relies on for lighting are cultivated using ant excrement. This can be regarded as a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship.
The reason why ant feces can cultivate fluorescent bacteria is because it is rich in nutrients needed by plants. Some ants will also use their own feces to cultivate edible fungi. In addition, the leaves of some plants (such as coffee trees) can even directly absorb the feces of certain ants to obtain nutrients such as nitrogen.
After confirming that this unique "ant concrete" was effective, the protagonist immediately summoned a large number of worker ants to prepare to build a similar fortress at the entrance and exit of "Dongyang City".
This can train the construction team and provide additional defense for "Dongyang City". Even if an enemy raids near the entrance of the lair, it will not lose its ability to resist.
Since the construction site is not large, the protagonist only summoned Rambotu and a hundred worker ants. It is no longer necessary to summon more worker ants, and the construction site cannot accommodate any more workers.
The protagonist sent the conceived construction information package to Rambotu and all the worker ants, with Rambotu responsible for supervising the work. The protagonist left to do his own thing.
About evening, Rambotu sent a messenger to report that the fortress was completed.
The protagonist immediately ran to the ground excitedly to inspect the completed fortress.
The appearance of the fortress completely conforms to the protagonist's design, with a trench that is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, one decimeter deep, and a trapezoidal earth embankment one decimeter high. It seems that the engineering talents of the ants are all perfect, as long as they have drawings.
Since it is the acceptance party and it is a key project for military purposes, the protagonist must of course be stricter. He randomly found an earth embankment and hit it with all his strength to test the solidity of the earth embankment.
Before the impact, based on the strength of "Ant Concrete" learned from the earliest experiments, the protagonist thought that even if he had supernatural power, he would not be able to shake it at all.
But the result was unexpected. Under the full impact of the protagonist, the top of this earth embankment actually collapsed, and many large and small concrete blocks rolled down...
"Damn, ants can also cut corners and create shoddy projects?" This is the protagonist's thought.
He was about to call Lambert and the construction worker ants over and scold them, but he thought wrong. The ants should not be such thieves.
He carefully studied the collapsed concrete blocks and found that these small blocks were indeed strong, but the larger blocks were hard and brittle.
The protagonist suddenly realized that it was not that the ants cut corners during construction, but that the concrete itself was too brittle.
When humans use concrete to build buildings, they have to add steel bars to make up for the lack of tensile strength of the concrete. When African ants build ant mounds, they also need to find a plant to act as a skeleton.
The protagonist forgot this when conceiving the design of the fortress, so that there was no "skeleton" in the repaired earth embankment. The entire building had no hardness but was not impact-resistant.
The protagonist knew the crux of the problem, but it was getting late today. If he wanted to tear down the repaired earth embankment and start over, he could only wait until tomorrow, so the protagonist asked everyone to call it a day and go back to the nest.
Maybe God wanted to make the protagonist realize that he is a complete second-hand in engineering design, so there was a heavy rain that night.
The ants felt the changes in air pressure in advance and prepared their usual responses.
But not long after the heavy rain started, the raging rain still poured into the nest, and soon exceeded the nest's ability to cope. Starting from the upper part of the nest, water began to enter the nest chambers one after another.
The protagonist felt that the flood was particularly fierce, so he braved the flowing flood while arranging flood control, and climbed to the entrance of the lair, trying to understand the reason for the extremely strong flood.
Once on the ground, the protagonist finally understands.
