"Linshui City", this sub-nest that the protagonist used to take advantage of the winter defensive battle and took several months to completely control, is an ideal sub-base.
According to the sub-base plan, this will serve as the forward base and logistics base for the Northern Expedition against the Pavement Ants.
Breeding farms and farmland are a crucial part of the planning. As for the location of the farm, the protagonist chose to place it under the roots of the big banyan tree.
The reason why it is not placed in "Linshui City" is because Linshui City is built inside a banyan tree. It is difficult to expand the nest space with the existing processing capabilities of the big-headed ants, and the original space is already overcrowded with ants.
Although most of the island at the base of the big banyan tree is made of rock, a lot of soil has accumulated near the roots of the banyan tree over time.
Before winter last year, in order to expand the nest, the protagonist organized manpower to excavate the ground of the island. Although it was finally determined that the island's underground was full of rock and it was impossible to build a new nest, there were still many empty caves or rock crevices that were not suitable for nests, but they were more than enough for breeding grounds.
Under the orders of the protagonist, the big-headed ants dug downward passages from the ground, hollowed out the soil in these caves and crevices, and then reinforced the four walls. In this way, the prototype of a breeding farm located underground to protect it from wind and rain was built.
Because the rock walls are rough, hard, and cold, the ants also collected wild grass, dried it, and spread it on the farm floor to use as bedding.
Because cave drainage is poor, waterproof facilities, including drainage ditches, flood walls, etc., have been built at the entrances of these farms.
The farmland was designated on a piece of fertile soil about three meters away from the river bank on the south bank of the river. The initially designated area for this farmland was twenty meters long and five meters wide, covering an area of nearly one hundred square meters.
The ants invested a lot of labor, cutting down all the plants on the land, pulling out the grass roots and discarding them on the ground. Among these plants, those that were edible or could be used as fiber were transported to the "Linshui City" warehouse, while the useless ones were left in place to dry, and finally burned to ashes and used as fertilizer before farming.
——I am the dividing line——
A few days later, the transportation team from "Dongyang City" arrived at "Linshui City" as scheduled.
The transport team brought two hundred unhatched mealworm eggs, one hundred unhatched fly eggs, and five hundred grass seeds. At the same time, there are a hundred experienced worker ants from the agricultural team.
When the protagonist was reforming "Dongyang City", he divided all the soldier ants and worker ants into five types of professional teams:
The first category is the standing army. There are currently four legions of the King of Gods and two garrison legions.
The second category is the construction team, with 30 teams composed entirely of worker ants, engaged in engineering construction work.
The third category is the food collection team, each team has two soldier ants and forty-eight worker ants, a total of 100 teams. The forage collection team was responsible for collecting food, herding aphids, and assisting the standing army squads in hunting. At the same time, it can be used as a reserve team to fight.
The fourth category is the breeding team, which has five teams. Four of the squadrons had fifty workers of Big-headed ants each, and the other squadron had forty-three Pavement ant workers and seven workers of Big-headed ants. Responsible for taking care of mealworms and fly maggots in the farm, planting fluorescent bacteria, etc.
The fifth category is the handyman team. Soldier ants and worker ants that are not included in the previous four categories are considered as handymen. They are responsible for taking care of the ant eggs, larvae and pupae, taking care of the daily life of the queen and male ants, cleaning up garbage and feces, etc. .
As the scale of farmland expanded, the breeding team was later reorganized into an agricultural team, increasing to ten teams and adding farmland farming responsibilities.
This group of worker ants from the agricultural team all had experience in raising insects or farming in "Dongyang City", and half of them were breeders and planters.
The protagonist immediately divided these worker ants into ten groups, five each for the breeding group and the farmland group. Subsequently, the protagonist transferred two hundred worker ants from the "Linshui City" garrison into these groups and put them to work in a way where the old lead the new.
Mealworm eggs and fly eggs are placed in a nest room with suitable temperature and humidity, and are carefully cared for by the big-headed ants.
The hatching of mealworm eggs and fly eggs requires an environment with moderate ventilation, temperature, and humidity. For example, the optimal incubation temperature is 21 to 27°C, and the optimal relative humidity is 65%. These fragile eggs are also afraid of predators and will hatch first. Larvae also eat unhatched eggs.
Although the conditions are quite demanding, the ants are capable enough to take care of these eggs.
In order to ensure the temperature and humidity, the big-headed ants will replenish water in time or introduce dry and warm air into the combustion chamber. With the protection of big-headed ants, no other insects dare to come here to look for food. The newly born larvae will be transported to the breeding farm as soon as possible to avoid cannibalism.
After a few days of incubation, the hatching rate of this batch of eggs reached 80%. This is a good result. It is not far behind the average level of 85% in "Dongyang City". This is still the third level of the "Linshui City" agricultural team. Two-thirds of the worker ants achieved this without experience.
In terms of farmland, the thousand seeds brought by the transport team are not enough to sow all the fields. The protagonist ordered to rummage through the stored grain and found more than 400 complete seeds that had not been eaten.
These seeds were planted on more than 70 square meters of farmland, and nearly 30 square meters of farmland could only be left idle temporarily.
These seeds are not all of the same variety, but come in various types of grasses and cereals, such as foxtail grass, barnyard grass, alfalfa, alfalfa, millet, wild sorghum, etc. The only thing they have in common is that the seeds are all edible.
Among them, the bast fibers of hemp such as amaranth can also be woven into hemp ropes, and the leaves of alfalfa and other hemp can also be eaten.
There are so many and complex types of plants with different needs for light, fertilizer and water. This will definitely cause competition for sunlight and water, and is also not conducive to field management, fertilization and drainage. However, the ants' current agricultural technology is very backward, and there is a shortage of seeds. Currently, they can only maintain this low-level agriculture similar to slash-and-burn farming.
As for the harvest, it all depends on the weather.
If all this 100 square meters of farmland is put into cultivation, based on the harvest volume of "Dongyang City", if the weather is good, it will be able to produce three seasons of grass seeds in one year, and each 100 square meters will produce six or seven kilograms of grass seeds per season. There are twenty kilograms of grass seeds in one year.
However, only more than 70 square meters have been sown so far. We can only hope that the next two crops will be fully planted. In this way, we can harvest 17 or 18 pounds of grass seeds in a year.
For humans, this yield is pitifully small, but for ants, it is already a large amount of food.
The protagonist is full of expectations for the breeding farms and farmland. If everything goes well, the Angel King's Legion will have two logistics bases, one in the north and one in the south, which will greatly alleviate the problem of food shortage. It will play a decisive supporting role in the war that is bound to break out this year.
