The male ants were very satisfied with the New Year's banquet. When the protagonist announced that there would also be a banquet during the Spring Festival next year, the male ants immediately expressed their silent cheers by shaking their heads.
Ants have no vocal organs, which means they can only express their emotions through movements rather than sounds. After coming to this ant world for many years, the protagonist has become accustomed to this way.
In this way, the concepts of New Year and Spring Festival entered the minds of the male ants, and were firmly remembered along with the delicious food.
The Spring Festival has passed, but there is still a long way to go before the real meteorological spring, and there are still one or two months of winter to survive.
Fortunately, there is plenty of food in the nest and it is very warm. This year is a peaceful winter like last year, and there are no external threats.
In the winter of the year before last, the protagonist led his troops to fight to the death against the invading Pavement Ant barbarian army in Linshui City. Every day was stressful. Last year, the barbarian army of paving ants did not come, and this year, the mysterious ants did not invade either.
Now that I think about it, maybe the reason why the Pavement Ant Barbarian Army gave up its southern invasion in winter last year was because they were attacked by the mysterious ants.
The mysterious ants also have small ants that can be active during the daytime in winter when there is sunshine. Although their combat power is much different than that of their larger brethren, they are still enough to contain the barbarian army of pavement ants.
After all, in the past, winter was the home ground of the Barbarian Kingdom of Pavement Ants. They were the ones who launched the offensive, and they did not encounter challenges from other ants in winter.
In fact, it goes back to a long time ago, when there was more than one country established by the Pavement Ant Tribe on the north bank of the river. The winter war at that time was still very tragic. But the Pavilion Ant Barbarian Nation had already unified its tribe hundreds of years ago and established its current territory in a short period of time.
In the past hundreds of years, the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom has not encountered challenges in winter. Even in other seasons, the only ones that can cause trouble to the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom are the Japanese Campoback Ant tribe in the north.
Other opponents, including the Big-headed Ant Kingdom on the other side of the river, were not taken seriously by the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom.
If the pavement ants didn't like the environment of mountains and dense forests, and couldn't cross the unfrozen river, they would have continued to expand.
But the arrival of the mysterious ants changed everything. In just two years, the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom had lost a large area of territory, and even the main nest was attacked. The pavement ants, who are accustomed to attacking their enemies in winter, finally experienced the situation of being trapped in their secondary nest and under siege this time.
In the eyes of pavement ants, these mysterious ants are more cold-resistant than themselves. In some extreme weather conditions, when pavement ants are forced to hide underground, these terrifying enemies do not slow down their invasion...
——I am the dividing line——
Winter leaves little by little, reluctantly, but not quietly. Whenever the temperature rises to a certain level, there will always be cold air from the north coming again to assert the sovereignty of winter.
It's just that these cold air are getting weaker and weaker, and the frequency is getting lower and lower.
As the wintersweet flowers bloom and spread their fragrance for thousands of miles, injecting life into the frozen land, spring begins to visit this once dead land with its power that can be postponed but cannot be stopped.
After wintersweet, plum blossoms also bloom. It is precisely because plum blossoms bloom in late winter and early spring that literati just classify this beautiful white or red flower as a representative of winter. But in fact, plum blossoms still like spring, otherwise why don’t they bloom in late autumn or late winter?
The easily confused winter jasmine and forsythia also bloomed together, bringing a golden beauty to the earth.
With the blooming of winter jasmine, as its name suggests, spring is truly "ushered in." Even if there is still a late spring cold, the plants are no longer afraid. White magnolias, peach blossoms, pear blossoms, crabapples, purple-leaf plums, and paulownia flowers are all competing to bloom, showing their beauty on the stage of spring. posture.
Compared to the rush of flowers, insects are much slower. It is not until the spring thunder sounds and the arrival of the Jingzhe solar term that all kinds of insects begin to become active.
The calendar that the protagonist currently uses is the solar calendar, which cannot reflect the date of the Waking of Insects fixedly, but it is only in March, and this time has arrived.
The frozen river has begun to freeze, and it has once again become a natural barrier blocking the north bank of the river. The mysterious ants still haven't come to the river, and the first group of flying knights are already ready to investigate.
The army stationed in [Linshui City] for the whole winter began to pack their bags and prepare to return to the main nest [Qingqiu City] - after the beginning of spring, there is no military threat here.
The protagonist did not return with the large army. He was waiting for the flying knights to bring back the first important military intelligence of the new year. The protagonist is still very concerned about the situation on the north bank of the river.
Anyway, it is very convenient for the protagonist to return to the main nest [Qingqiu City] by riding Xiaoqing II, which is much faster than the legion of the God Envoy King advancing on foot.
With the arrival of spring, [Linshui City] has also begun busy spring production.
There was a bumper grain harvest last year, and now there are still a lot of dried meat, grass seeds and dried banyan tree fruits, a local specialty, in the [Linshui City] warehouse that have not been eaten. But the hard-working ants still devote themselves to the production activities in the new year with full enthusiasm.
The breeding farm that was closed in winter was reopened. After simple cleaning, a large number of mealworm eggs that had been left for a winter were sent to an incubation room with proper temperature and humidity control for hatching.
These mealworm eggs are very precious. In winter, even if the protagonist likes the dish of boiled mealworm eggs that tastes like boiled eggs, he is not willing to eat more. You know, one egg can produce hundreds of offspring in just three months, bringing a lot of meat.
Since mealworms eat less and grow slowly starting in autumn, the eggs collected at this time must be properly stored in order to quickly restore the scale of the breeding farm after spring.
Farmland has also begun to be reclaimed, and a large number of weeds have taken over the farmland after harvesting in the first year. After all, this farmland contains a large amount of feces and kitchen waste deliberately discarded by ants as fertilizer, and there are also many earthworms, which are very suitable for the growth of various plants.
Ants are merciless to invading weeds. Many ants in the agricultural group are equipped with copper jaw knives, which can quickly cut off the tender roots of weeds that have just grown.
Although cutting grass requires removing the roots, ants lack the ability to clean the underground root system and can only keep cutting off the growing grass stems.
When the various plants sown have grown into forests, it will be difficult for these other weeds to survive.
After all, many of the ants' crops are originally tenacious weeds, such as bluegrass, chickweed, barnyard grass, goosegrass, crabgrass, and setaria.
