The total food stock on the Walnut Fleet is only enough to feed all the passengers for a week, and it has already consumed a day's supply. Some liquid food such as honeydew was also lost in the storm last night, and there is only less than six days of food left. rationing.
So taking advantage of the opportunity to dock, the soldiers of the God's Envoy King stepped up their efforts to collect food and store it in the cabin.
About an hour later, the scouts sent to the bushes returned. Only one of the four scouts came back, still injured. He obviously encountered danger in the bushes.
The protagonist hurriedly read the information packet, wanting to know what danger the scouts encountered in the bush.
The bush was too close to the fleet's anchorage, less than a quarter of an hour's walk away. The fleet's plan was to anchor here for a long time until they contacted the flying knight or had a new return plan. If there are huge safety hazards nearby, the protagonist needs to re-evaluate whether to change the anchorage.
Of course, it is best not to change the anchorage easily. The maneuverability of the walnut boat is too poor, and there is not a suitable wind direction to assist in offshore or beaching every day.
From the information package, the protagonist discovered that the scouts entered the gloomy shrubbery and searched cautiously, but soon they were attacked by some indigenous ants.
These indigenous ants were common hairy ants. They seemed to be foraging for food and discovered the scouts of the Divine Envoy King who had invaded the territory. An encounter broke out between the two sides, and the scouts prepared to retreat, but there were a large number of nearby indigenous hairy ants and they quickly surrounded them.
Only under the desperate cover of other comrades, one scout escaped to deliver the news. The other three soldiers were trapped in the enemy's formation and were probably in danger.
Fortunately, this was an encounter, and the indigenous hairy ants also responded hastily. Otherwise, in any ant kingdom or tribe's ant colony, if there was a premeditated ambush, none of the four scouts would be able to escape.
It seems that the bush is out of reach. The number of the God's Envoy King warriors on the ship is limited, so there is no need to waste them in vain on such an occasion. There is no ant queen on the ship to replenish the losses. There are only some ant eggs placed in the shade at the bottom of some cabins. There are ant eggs of all classes, but the protagonist does not intend to hatch these ant eggs unless it is absolutely necessary.
The bush with hairy ants lay in front of the river beach. The soldiers of the God's Envoy King had to collect food and also be on guard to prevent the hairy ants from chasing them.
Fortunately, there was no warning of the enemy's appearance after a long time. It seemed that the hairy ants were not interested in this empty river beach, which made the God Envoy King's army breathe a sigh of relief.
But not being able to enter the bushes also made many of the protagonist's plans fail. Originally, the protagonist planned to park the fleet here for a long time. The river beach was not a suitable camping location. The protagonist's original plan was to enter the nearby bushes to build a nest to accommodate the army and rest for a few days.
At the same time, the food resources in the shrubs are obviously more abundant than those in the river beaches. This small river beach composed of pebbles and gravel has been turned over several times by foraging ants. The food resources accumulated over the past few days have been basically excavated, including algae, shrimps, aquatic insects, and drifted grass seeds. etc. are collected. It is conceivable that even if they continue to be stationed on the river beach, they will hardly be able to collect much food later.
Now there are two choices before the protagonist:
One is to start a war with the indigenous ants and capture this bush to obtain nests and food production sites.
But one of the characteristics of hairy ants is that each nest has a large population. It is not uncommon for tens of thousands of hairy ants to gather in a small nest. With the current combat effectiveness of the Divine Envoy King's Legion, even if the four legions in the fleet are not top-notch main forces, they are fully equipped with weapons and equipment. It is not a problem to eliminate an indigenous ant nest, although they may face three-digit battle losses.
If you can get a safe and stable nest and resource-rich land, a three-digit casualty price is not a bad idea.
But the protagonist is worried that if the indigenous hairy ants here are not a single nest, but belong to a country with a vast territory and a large number of ant populations, then the God Envoy King's army will stir up a hornet's nest by rashly starting a war.
It is difficult for this lone army to face the ensuing revenge of the enemy. If it is trapped in a long-term siege, the food reserves will soon be exhausted. This will be a disaster, and it may be too late to even reboard the ship.
Without the Flying Knight, the protagonist would have no idea about this land, unable to grasp the intelligence of the local indigenous people, and would not dare to act rashly.
The second option is to set sail and find another safe anchorage where food can be obtained.
The key factor that finally made the protagonist decide to adopt the second plan was that the ants discovered that the water level of the river was still rising.
The river has entered the flood season, and the river surface is much wider than usual.
During the half day we were anchored, the water in the river had risen close to the rocks where the fleet was anchored. Originally one-third of the walnut boats sat on the beach, but now almost all of them are floating on the water again.
The turbulent river water hit the ships, and the reins holding the fleet were stretched straight. As the fleet was driven by the current, it swayed from side to side, and it seemed that it might break at any time.
The protagonist hurriedly ordered the few ants still on the shore to return to the boat immediately, and then took the initiative to untie the anchor rope, allowing the fleet to continue downstream.
The fleet did not raise its sails, and allowed the river water to gradually take the fleet away from the river beach, gradually rush into the center of the river, and carry them down the river.
Due to the impact of the current, the fleet fell head to tail on the river after untying the anchor rope. Now the protagonist's boat became the leader of the fleet.
The protagonist finally decided not to be trapped in this barren and dangerous river beach, nor did he plan to start a fight with the natives. This river is so long, there is always a suitable anchorage.
As for drifting further away from their homeland, the fleet has already been going down the river all night. If the flying knights thought of going down the river to search, they wouldn't mind flying a little longer.
The scenery on both sides of the strait changes as the fleet advances. Perhaps it seems to humans that the distance is only one or two kilometers, but to the sailing ants, it seems to have traveled through an entire world.
Forests, grasslands, shrubs, peaks, low hills, plains, piles of rocks, sand, and tidal flats. The scenery on the shore changes rapidly. In just a short distance, there are so many different terrains, showing the complexity of this land.
Time gradually came to afternoon, and the protagonist, who was looking out from the bow of the ship, found a mooring place that looked very suitable.
It was an isolated sandbank in the river. The terrain was higher and it didn't look like it would be completely submerged by the flood.
There is a lone tree on the sandbank, and the ground is full of green grass and greenery. Moreover, there should not be indigenous ants settling in Guxuan River.
So the protagonist ordered to adjust the sail direction and head towards this sandbank.
