When Gun led the army back to the main nest "Qingqiu City" from "Hunting Ground City", he followed the protagonist's order and left a flying knight force stationed in "Linshui City" to monitor the movements of the Northern Expedition Army on the north bank of the river.
In the past, "Linshui City" also had a flying knight team stationed there. But as the war intensified, they gathered together a large force and temporarily moved to "Hunting Ground City".
Due to the adjustment of the command system of the Flying Knight Legion after the disappearance of Flying Eagle, this flying knight force newly stationed in "Linshui City" was commanded by Locust Jackal, with only ten flying knights and their fly mounts.
Due to the fierce fighting in the Northeast battlefield, the flying knights focused on the Northeast battlefield and near the main nest. It has been a while since they flew across the river to scout the north bank.
But it doesn't matter, the Northern Expeditionary Army can't cross the river anyway.
Due to the changes on the south bank of the river, although "East Yang City" has already made a replacement rope bridge, the protagonist has no plans to repair the rope bridge for the time being. Now the river is his natural barrier, blocking the Northern Expeditionary Army who are at odds with him.
Due to Darong's rebellion, the protagonist's originally planned foothold on the north bank of the river, the "Bridgehead", has fallen into enemy hands. The original plan to cut off news from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and stabilize the Northern Expedition Army also came to nothing.
Before the war started in the Northeastern battlefield, the Flying Knights' reconnaissance had discovered that the Northern Expeditionary Army had mobilized its main force to the "bridgehead".
If the rope bridge hadn't broken and the river hadn't blocked it, "Linshui City" would have faced an attack from the north bank of the river.
Now, the protagonist needs to concentrate his efforts to bring all the old territories of the Big-headed Ant Kingdom on the south bank of the river under his control. After wiping out the old-fashioned king's forces and the Western Alliance, there are frequent conflicts between the Angel King's army and the ant queen's inheritance faction, and another war is imminent.
At this time, the protagonist naturally does not want any changes to occur.
However, after the flying knights of "Linshui City" resumed their routine reconnaissance of Hebei, they discovered that both the Northern Expeditionary Army and the Paving Ant Barbarians had made strange movements.
——I am the dividing line——
The locust jackal led a team to fly across the river for the first time and when it was hovering at low altitude, it discovered an abnormality - too few ants were active outside the "Bridgehead" nest.
The size of a nest's colony can be estimated by the number of ants active outside. Generally speaking, the number of ants active outside accounts for about one-tenth of the nest's colony.
If it is lower than this ratio, then the food in this nest will be unable to make ends meet, which is not a long-term solution.
Higher than this ratio will affect the construction and repair of the inner part of the nest, the care of larvae, pupae and eggs, and the daily rest of ants.
When the main force of the Northern Expeditionary Army gathered at the "Bridgehead", this military base was greatly expanded and built into one of the largest cities on the north bank of the river for the Northern Expeditionary Army. At most, the Northern Expeditionary Army stationed tens of thousands of soldiers here.
In order to maintain food consumption, large numbers of ants go out hunting and gathering every day. Fortunately, the land along the river is fertile, with lush vegetation and numerous insects. The Northern Expeditionary Army can not only provide food for the garrison through foraging, but can also feed back to other sub-nests.
But now, the density of ants seen by the locust jackals is not even one-tenth of the original density.
There is only one explanation, and that is that the Northern Expeditionary Army transferred its main force away.
Although the Northern Expeditionary Army was previously stationed at the "Bridgehead" and could not threaten the protagonist, this is the place closest to the evil Angel King after all.
After learning from Darong about the protagonist's sinister intentions for the King's Conference and the main nest, the Northern Expeditionary Army completely stood on the opposite side of the Divine Envoy King's Legion. Even the King of Public Security and the Senior Brother, who were close to the protagonist, also opposed him. A clear line was drawn.
For this reason, the Northern Expeditionary Army no longer even attacked the Barbarian Kingdom, but stationed its main force at the "bridgehead", waiting for an opportunity to cross the river.
Bizarrely, the Pavement Ant Barbarians seemed to be very cooperative with the Northern Expeditionary Army. Not only did they not launch a counterattack in the winter when it was most beneficial to them, they did not even mobilize their forces to attack the Northern Expeditionary Army territory after the beginning of spring. They seemed to have given up on several of the captured territories. At the nest.
Now, the Northern Expeditionary Army has actually left! Could it be that the Pavement Ant Barbarian Army came over?
——I am the dividing line——
The protagonist was also surprised when he received the information from the Locust Jackal, but without more information for analysis, he was confused and could only order the Flying Knight to expand the scope of investigation on the north bank of the river.
One day later, the latest information arrived. As expected, the main force of the Northern Expeditionary Army was fighting against the Pavement Ant Barbarian Army.
However, to the protagonist's surprise, the Northern Expeditionary Army was not struggling to withstand the onslaught of the Pavement Ant Barbarian Army, but was taking the initiative and had already occupied several new sub-nests of the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom.
Judging from the investigation situation, the Northern Expeditionary Army took the initiative and marched northwest into the hinterland of the Pavilion Ant Barbarian Kingdom, aiming directly at the branch nest of the Pavilion Ant Barbarian Kingdom in the south.
Different from the two-level governance system of the Big-headed Ant Kingdom's "main nest-sub-nest", the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom with a wider territory has a three-level governance system of "main nest-sub-nest-sub-nest".
The sub-nest is the largest nest in a large area of the kingdom. It has a large number of ant colonies and even a large-scale male ant meeting. It usually has the power to directly command the sub-nests in this area.
Each branch nest has an equal status with each other and has no right to interfere with the governance of other areas. It only obeys the instructions of the main nest.
The branch nest is the ruling core of this area and the backup of the main nest. If the protagonist is reincarnated in the Pavilion Ant Barbarian Kingdom, even if the main nest of the Pavilion Ant Barbarian Kingdom is raided and captured by the protagonist like "Qingqiu City", he will not be able to quickly control the entire north bank of the river, and each branch nest will take over in turn. As for the function of the main nest, the protagonist can only achieve the goal by removing all the branch nests bit by bit.
The branch nests of the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom usually have a large number of troops stationed in them to deal with regional wars. For example, the southern expedition every winter is carried out independently by the nests in the southern region.
Now, the Northern Expeditionary Army actually wants to attack a branch nest with only tens of thousands of soldiers, which is extremely unexpected by the protagonist. You know, the territory and ant colonies ruled by the southern branch of the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom are comparable to the entire Big-headed Ant Kingdom!
But what is even more surprising to the protagonist is that the Paving Ant Barbarian Army is almost undefended. According to the battle situation sent back by the Flying Knight, each sub-nest of the Paving Ant Barbarian Kingdom is fighting on its own, and the number of troops is too small to be able to fight in the field. They are all trapped underground.
Last autumn, the Pavement Ant Barbarian Army also gathered troops to launch a small-scale counterattack, and once tried to drive the Northern Expeditionary Army across the river.
Now, this army has disappeared. The Northern Expeditionary Army is only three sub-nests away from the southern branch of the pavement ant barbarian kingdom. It can be reached in two days by marching at full strength.
But until now, after the Flying Knights expanded their reconnaissance scope to nest in the south, they still found no signs of the Pavement Ant Barbarian Army gathering to block or counterattack.
The number of pavement ants on the nesting ground in the south is very small, and there is no sign of a large number of ant colonies...
In addition to the anomalies within the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom, the protagonist is also vigilant to see that the Northern Expedition Army has made great progress in tactics!
