These insects active in the swamp are very different from the plain areas where the Angel King's army originally lived, but they have no impact on the ants for the time being, but maybe only temporarily.
After expanding the [Swamp City] in the tree stump to the point where it could not be expanded, the protagonist began to organize the ants to expand the nest through other methods, and at the same time organized food production activities.
After all, the food brought by the walnut ship fleet is only enough to last for half a month, and the next time the fleet delivers supplies will arrive, if everything goes well, it will be half a month later. If not, then we don't know what year or month it will be.
Moreover, as more and more troops are transported by the walnut ship fleet, the maintenance period of the food reserves will become shorter and shorter. [Swamp City] cannot rely on external supplies forever. Self-reliance is the fine tradition of the territory of the God's Envoy King's Legion.
The protagonist is based here because of this consideration - to make [Swamp City] a frontline base that is basically self-sufficient in food as soon as possible to reduce the logistical burden.
Among the first supplies brought by the fleet were some crop seeds and eggs of mealworms and flies.
But looking at it now, [Swamp City] is just a tree stump and a small amount of fixed soil. The entire island is too small, and the soil moisture is too high. It is basically impossible to plant setaria, tigertail, bluegrass, etc. brought by the ants. Crops, perhaps only the native calamus reed, thrive.
The interior of [Swamp City] is also extremely humid, and water often seeps into the lower part of the nest. The ants have to use the relatively dry upper part of the nest as a granary and dormitory, temporarily abandoning the lower part, making the already small nest even more crowded.
The feeding conditions for mealworm larvae and fly maggots cannot be too high, and the current [Swamp City] lacks suitable feeding conditions. Breeding, a common method of obtaining food for the Divine Envoy King's Legion, is temporarily unavailable.
Therefore, the protagonist intentionally expands [Swamp City] to the upper part to avoid the humid environment at the bottom, provide more space before the next wave of troops arrives, and can also accommodate breeding farms.
But currently [Swamp City] relies on natural tree stumps, and the use of internal space has reached its end. If it wants to expand, it cannot use the traditional underground nest or tree nest of the big-headed ants.
What the protagonist intended was an above-ground nest similar to the anthills built by African ants or termites.
These African ant mounds are huge and spectacular, and are vividly called "ant hills". They are built by tiny ants or termites using saliva, secretions, and excrement mixed with soil, sawdust, grass, etc. This mixed material It is very similar to the "ant concrete" currently used by big-headed ants.
The protagonist has used ant concrete to build fortresses in many places before. This material will quickly become very strong and solid under sun moxibustion, proving its excellent performance. However, this kind of ant concrete also has shortcomings, that is, like cement, its finished product has poor tensile and lateral stress resistance, which limits its use as a material for large buildings.
But this is not an insurmountable defect. Humans have successfully overcome the defects of cement by using a combination of reinforced concrete. African ants and termites will also intentionally mix plant fibers into the ant mound to enhance the strength. The protagonist has already thought of this method. .
It's just that building such an ant mound will consume a lot of labor. When the underground nest can meet the demand, the protagonist is too lazy to carry out large-scale construction.
But in an environment like a swamp, the advantages of nests on the ground are revealed. At present, [Swamp City] is relatively safe due to its distance from other lands. The garrison has nothing to do for the time being and can completely devote itself to the work of building ant mounds on the ground.
The next day, the protagonist mobilized all the ants to start expanding the nest upwards. The ants first harvested some weeds and vines growing around the tree stump, and then waited for them to dry. Due to the heavy fog in the swamp area, sunlight is very affected, and it will take a full week for these plant stems to be ready for use.
During this week's waiting period, the Divine Envoy King's Legion did nothing. They collected other supplies including feces and hunted to supplement their food as much as possible.
This island is too small, and its prey is very limited. When the Angel King's army first landed, they had already conducted a sweep and captured a small amount of prey.
After hunting all the local prey, the ants can only watch the weather for food. Only occasionally some flying or jumping insects will occasionally come to this small island and become food.
The ants are now focusing on hunting in the water. The swamp waters are actually full of life, and all kinds of aquatic insects are very active. Some of them will come to the shore from time to time to rest or avoid enemies.
In addition, the protagonist accidentally discovered fish, shrimp and other creatures in the water.
After confirming that there are no mammals, birds and reptiles in this world, most of the time the protagonist can only see insects and arthropods, which are new species discovered by the protagonist.
In the human world, these fish and shrimps are small fish and shrimps that disdain to be eaten, but compared to ants, these fish and shrimps are already giant beasts in the water that are comparable in size to great white sharks.
Since there are so many creatures in the water, ants can naturally "drain from the water". In addition to some prey that accidentally came to the shore and was caught, the protagonist also led the ants to weave fish cages using the strong hemp fibers they brought. This uncomplicated weaving work is no longer difficult for the ants.
These fish cages use a small number of strong plant stems as frames and hemp fibers as nets. They have a trap structure that fish, shrimp and aquatic insects can only enter but not exit. They are placed on the deep water side of the tree stump of the island. After catching prey, Finally, hundreds of ants pull it ashore together, wait for the prey to leave the water and suffocate to death or simply kill it before dividing its meat.
Relying on this method, the Fourth Legion has been able to harvest enough food to be self-sufficient in [Swamp City], with a slight surplus. There is currently insufficient material, just enough to make this one fish cage. If you want to expand production, you have to wait for the next batch of the fleet to bring hemp fiber and other necessary materials.
After the collected plants were almost dried, the ants, with the help of the powerful protagonist, weaved the plant stems into a hemispherical frame, and then used finer plant fibers to weave the frame into a spider web shape. The structure is finally covered with ant concrete, and the appearance of an ant mound is formed, which is as big as half a basketball.
After the sun and summer heat dry the ant concrete, the ants can divide and decorate the space inside the new ant mound.
