Although the protagonist had enough to eat and drink, he didn't enjoy it like a true conqueror.
After he found a newly tidied dormitory to rest, when he woke up, Rambo Fei sent a soldier ant to deliver the information he wanted, and then the protagonist went back to new work.
After entering the city, Rambo Fei was ordered by the protagonist to investigate the number of ant colonies and material stocks in the city. After working for a long time yesterday and all night last night, Lamborghini was able to report to the protagonist.
In terms of the number of ant colonies, "Qingqiu City" has its own set of statistical methods, which is to let the male ants recruit a group of ants each, and use military squads and legion organizations to count the number of ants under their command, and then calculate the total number. .
This kind of statistics is helpful for the King's Council to control the military resources of this nest, so it will be counted once every year after the beginning of spring, fully mobilizing all the male ants, and it can also be regarded as a kind of military organizational exercise.
The current statistical data in "Dongyang City" were compiled after the beginning of this spring, and the data is still very new. Lan Bofei directly found a detained king who was responsible for related aspects, and obtained all the data.
After the beginning of spring, after the queen ants gave birth, there were 120,000 adult ant colonies in "Dongyang City", of which only 10,000 soldier ants were left, which is a very low ratio. This is because a large number of elite soldier ants were transferred to the Northern Expeditionary Army. .
There are no statistics on young ants, ant eggs and ant pupae. It is estimated that the total number is ten to twenty thousand.
After the battle of "Sitong City" and yesterday's decisive battle in the wild, the number of soldier ants that were originally few was now only in the thousands, and most of them were old, weak, sick and disabled. Worker ants also suffered some damage.
In other words, there are currently only about 100,000 ant colonies in "Qingqiu City", which is nearly half the number compared to the nearly 200,000 ant colonies in its heyday. The stall that the protagonist took over was not very good, but because of this, he was able to take advantage of the loopholes.
The food stored in the nest is the most important material, and it is also closely related to the military. The main nest originally had a dedicated king responsible for managing the food reserves. According to the ant statistics, the current food reserves in "Qingqiu City" are enough to sustain the consumption of all residents for about a month.
As for the specific type, quantity, and storage conditions of the grain, there is no detailed information.
The protagonist sighed inwardly, such data was just better than nothing. Fortunately, through the confession of the king submitted by Rambo Fei and his previous understanding when living in the main nest, the protagonist still mastered some useful information.
Although there are many ant colonies in the main nest "Qingqiu City", limited by the movement speed of the ants, the land that can be directly controlled is a circle with the nest as the center and the radius of the distance that the ants crawl for half a day.
The resources in this circle can be directly utilized by the nest. The closer the area to the nest, the higher the utilization rate. In particularly distant places, the ants can only make one round trip, and neither hunting nor gathering can make it in time, so the utilization rate is naturally very low.
It is precisely because of this that the food supply capacity of any nest is limited. The number of ant colonies in most secondary nests of the Big-headed Ant Kingdom ranges from several thousand to 10,000. Only particularly fertile secondary nests can supply more than 10,000. of ants.
However, as the main nest, "Qingqiu City" has gathered the most elite military forces and the most concentrated male ant leaders. The ant colony exceeds 100,000 year-round. It is difficult to maintain the size of this colony for a long time just by relying on regular hunting and gathering.
If you look at ant colonies of similar size, such as army ants, they can only get enough food by constantly moving, and when they eat up one place, they move to another place.
Among the more numerous resident ants, there are "agricultural" ants like leafcutter ants. They only need to collect agricultural raw materials and convert them into food.
Naturally, "Qingqiu City" cannot move at will and does not know any agricultural technology. They completely rely on other methods to support consumption.
The first way is to transport food from each secondary nest to the main nest.
Most secondary nests will regularly provide food to the main nest depending on the distance. A nearby nest may have to send a transport team every three or four days, while a distant nest may only send a transport team once a month.
Only a few first-line fortresses like "Linshui City" that directly faced the invasion of the paving ant barbarians were able to retain more food, and even received additional food support from nearby nests.
But this is a very costly replenishment method. The ants do not have vehicles or livestock, so they can only rely on the ants' big jaws to carry smaller grains.
Moreover, the transport team itself also consumes money. A full ant can only last three days without eating, and the most remote secondary nest is three or four days away from the main nest. These transport teams have to eat again at the secondary nests along the way. Once or twice, some additional burdens were placed on the secondary nests.
In fact, this is equivalent to the main nest exploiting the various sub-nests. Some sub-nests can obviously support 20,000 ant colonies, but now they have to control the ant colonies to around 10,000, because the excess food is handed over to the main nest.
The second solution to the food dilemma in the main nest "Qingqiu City" is to graze aphids in large numbers.
As mentioned before, compared to hunting and gathering, where the output is fixed or even declines due to over-exploitation, grazing aphids is relatively stable. It only requires additional labor investment and can use the super reproductive ability of aphids to obtain more food.
Even if the endurance of the vegetation is taken into account, increasing the number of aphids will cause diminishing marginal effects, but this is already a relatively stable food source.
But there are natural shortcomings in this approach. First, aphid honeydew cannot be preserved in the previous main nest because the ants have no container. Therefore, the ants use the method of grazing aphids by drinking them at any time. All ants take turns to graze, which ensures that everyone can fill their stomachs.
But this is contrary to the clear division of labor system established by the protagonist in "Dongyang City".
Fortunately, the protagonist has solved this problem in "Dongyang City" and he can use the fire to make pottery. Honeydew has a high sugar content. After simple natural evaporation, you can get concentrated honeydew with a sugar content close to that of honey and a longer shelf life. You can just add water before eating.
Although more herds can be guarded by investing in labor, this is also limited by the ants' mobility.
Herds of aphids that are too far from their nests may suffer heavy losses when faced with a heavy rain because the ants have no time to move them underground to safety.
It is not a good thing that the diet of ants in the main nest contains too much sugar such as honeydew. Sugar is not healthy as a staple food.
This food shortage is the "big city disease" that the main nest "Qingqiu City" has been facing. After the protagonist conquers the main nest, he also faces the same problem and a more serious situation.
