The world of ants always encounters various disasters.
From a human perspective, a slightly larger rainfall is a rain disaster, a nest of wasps can disturb the peace of the whole place, and a wildfire is comparable to the end of the world for those who are there.
Therefore, at least the Big-headed Ant Kingdom has some experience in how to deal with various difficulties after disasters.
At the suggestion of some highly respected kings, the main nest decided to allocate newly harvested grain from the unaffected sub-nests to the main nest and the disaster area, and everyone tightened their belts to tide over the difficulties together.
Fortunately, it is summer now, everything is green, there are no disaster areas, and the ants can get a lot of food.
Only places like the main nest, where the density of ant colonies is too high, cannot be self-sufficient when the weather is bad.
Because of this, no nest ant colony in a country can expand without limit.
When discussing the allocation quota, the protagonist will naturally not jump out and say that his family has abundant food reserves. Even the disaster-stricken "Linshui City" is not short of food currently, and there is also a batch of military rations seized from the first counter-encirclement and suppression campaign.
However, "Dongyang City" is an area that was not affected by the disaster and is also a famously wealthy area. The protagonist can only cut the meat and provide a large amount of mealworm dried meat to the neighbors in accordance with the requirements of the king's meeting.
The protagonist thought that after returning, he must ask Rambo Fei to hand over the dried meat that has been in stock for the longest time. He looks like a profiteer.
In this way, even if the post-disaster material allocation work is arranged, the disaster-stricken areas will have to find ways to rebuild on their own.
In fact, there is no reconstruction work to be done. The natural environment can only wait for its own slow recovery, and the underground ant nests were not damaged in the wildfires.
The topic of the king's meeting jumps to the second item, which is about the next military action.
Originally, after the expeditionary force successfully concluded the Reconquest War, after a short rest and replenishing a batch of supplies, they should have gone north, crossed the river with the help of the protagonist, and invaded the homeland of their old enemy, the Pavement Ants.
But after the wildfire, due to the shortage of supplies and the need to convene a meeting of all kings, the expeditionary force returned to the main nest under the leadership of the commanders.
Now, many kings questioned the need to continue the next step of military action at the meeting.
Their reason was simple. The soldiers and horses had to go ahead with food and grass. Now that the entire kingdom had to live a tight life due to the disaster, it was really difficult to allocate enough supplies.
However, there are also many kings who insist on continuing to go on expeditions. The temptation of setting foot on the territory of their old enemy for the first time, and possibly even destroying their old enemy, is extremely huge.
The protagonist watched with cold eyes, and he could naturally tell that in the information conveyed on the white cobblestone floor of the conference room, those who opposed the continuation of the expedition were basically the kings who did not get the chance to go out in this military operation. The king who participated in it continued with the original plan regardless of the request.
This still involves interests. The opposing faction cannot get honors from participating in this expedition with a limited number of kings, while the supporting faction can't wait to get this honor.
Honor, for kings with equal status in theory, means prestige, and it also means stronger oppression for other kings. The five hundred kings who are equal in theory are actually divided into three, six or nine ranks due to their seniority, prestige and other factors.
For example, the oldest king who can communicate with the gods and the public security king with outstanding military exploits have much more say than some new kings who have just been promoted.
Now, the arguments between supporters and opponents are fierce. As a product of the ant's traditional theory of equality of the same class, the King's Meeting is very similar to the early clan commune meeting of mankind. A unanimous decision must be reached at the meeting to take effect.
And in the current situation, where there is almost half support and opposition, the issue can easily be shelved. The shelving of the issue means the de facto cessation of military operations.
The protagonist can't bear it anymore.
When the military action was initially formulated, the protagonist was one of the leaders. It was the protagonist's basic "national policy" to let the Big-headed Ant Kingdom and the Pavement Ant Kingdom consume each other.
Only by forming a situation where the two powers restrain each other, and the protagonist is now facing the military threat of Pavement Ants externally and the constraints of the Main Nest King Conference internally, can the situation be changed and his own power be developed.
Moreover, the protagonist has made a lot of preparations for this, and has even fought against the Pavement Ant Army at the "Bridgehead".
Now, the originally promised reinforcements are not coming, isn't that a trap for yourself? He will be the first line facing the army of paving ants, and the elite troops, which are originally limited in number, will be blocked in the front line and continue to be consumed. This is not a situation that the protagonist wants to see.
So, the protagonist had to speak out...
——I am the dividing line——
In the end, the Council of Kings reluctantly decided to continue the military operation.
Because the protagonist's speech at the meeting was supported by the faction that supported sending troops, impressed the neutral faction, and solved the doubts of the opposition faction, leaving the opposition with no other reasons to raise for a while.
Since the consciousness-based communication of ants is very different from the voice-based communication of humans, in order to respect the original intention of these ant communicators and avoid too many errors when converting them into words with human language habits, here is a brief summary of the protagonist's speech:
First, he pointed out the need to continue military operations.
Every winter, the pavement ant barbarians invade the territory of the great Big-headed Ant Kingdom. However, although the invincible Big-headed Ant Kingdom army can always defeat the opponent, it has never invaded the opponent's territory once. As a brave warrior, can this situation be tolerated?
These words successfully inspired the aggressive and fanatical attributes inherent in the genes of the already aggressive ants.
Second, the protagonist is willing to provide additional food that is enough for 40,000 troops to last for a week as military rations for the expeditionary force to set off.
This batch of food happened to be the amount seized during the first counter-encirclement and suppression campaign, and the protagonist "gave" this batch of food with blood in his heart.
After all, I can't bear to let my children trap the wolf. Instead of letting my own elite guard the endless rations and fight fiercely with the enemy, it is better to give them to the Big-headed Ant Kingdom's army and let them bear the burden. Just treat it like spending money to hire a group of mercenaries.
Of course, the protagonist said that these military rations were saved by the God's Envoy King's army through frugality.
Now that the management of foreign ants has been stepped up in the protagonist's territory, the protagonist is not worried that spies sent by other kings can find out his actual material inventory.
Finally, the protagonist's opinion is very tempting - we are short of food, but the pavement ant barbarians are not short of food.
This time, the territory of the Pavement Ant barbarians was basically unaffected by the sky fire. We can rob their food, occupy their nests, and defeat the enemy because of the food!
