The blast furnaces of the Angel King's Legion also add a lot of silicon when smelting iron, which can increase the popularity of the molten iron, even for casting small castings such as jaw knives.
This silica is the crystal gravel commonly seen on river beaches. Its main component is silica and is very easy to collect. This experience also comes from the original experience of smelting copper in my hometown.
In the past, the silica sand used in [Dongyangcheng] had to be transported all the way from [Dahu City], but [Xinyangcheng] is more convenient. There is a river beach not far from the city for sand mining.
The large-scale iron-making continued until November, at an average rate of more than one kiln per week, until all the charcoal was exhausted.
The Angel King's Legion finally received a large number of iron tools and weapons. Both the 1st and 2nd legions were able to replace them with iron weapons with better performance. The replaced weapons were given to the 3rd legion or stored in warehouses. spare.
Outdoors, although there was early snowfall in October, forcing the ants underground, in early November, the weather improved a lot for a while, and the daytime temperature could reach more than ten degrees, as if it was autumn again.
At this time, no matter how warm it is, the ants in Anxin Maodong will generally not go out.
The protagonist took advantage of this opportunity to form and dispatch three exploration teams of pavement ants to explore the nearby area.
In other seasons, the Angel King's Legion does not dare to leave the nest too far. They are safer only in areas where there are no ants, such as the peninsula and the northern woods.
If you go further east, you will reach the territory of the Belly Ant clan. Although the Belly Ants cannot defeat the warriors of the God Envoy King, they still make a lot of profits from trade. But this does not mean that they can tolerate the activities of the God's Envoy King warriors in their territory.
The Divine Envoy King's Army has no intention of irritating this important partner for the time being, so it has never crossed the Golden Beach area.
Going north through the woods is the territory of red fire ants, and going west along the river bank is the territory of leaf-cutter ants. The Angel King Army also does not want to come into contact with these two forces prematurely.
Therefore, the dormant Divine Envoy King's army has been stuck in a small territory for several months, not daring to take a step beyond the realm. However, the protagonist is not willing to do this, and for future considerations, he urgently needs to master nearby intelligence, instead of just relying on the information selectively provided by the ants.
So taking advantage of the nice weather in winter, pavement ants, which are good at outdoor activities in winter, came in handy.
——I am the dividing line——
The protagonist bids farewell to the three leading male pavement ants one after another at the entrance to the nest.
The three pavement ant kings will each lead twenty pavement ants to explore in three directions: east, west, and north, collect geographical information, and search for resource distribution.
The pavement ants were equipped with equipment and food according to the specifications of previous winter operations, which was enough to last for four days.
According to the plan, they will explore the furthest distance possible in two days, and then use more than a day to return and report the investigation results to the protagonist.
After saying goodbye, the pavement ants came out of their caves one after another.
When they leave the cave entrance, the protagonist can no longer see them. If everything goes well, they can meet again in four days.
The pavement ants come to the ground to stretch out in the morning sun and let the heat fill their bodies.
At this time, there was no snow on the ground, and the previous thick snow layer gradually disappeared under the continuous warming.
But even if there is no snow, you can still recognize that this world is winter when you look up.
The previous violent snowstorm had left no trace of green in the trees or on the ground. There were no pine or fir trees nearby, only bare tree trunks everywhere. Only on the peninsula, a small holly plant stubbornly maintained its dirty leaves, which were almost invisible.
Winter is gray, driving away all colors: driving away the green of grass and trees, driving away the white snow that reflects the golden sunshine, driving away the colorful fruits, flowers and life, leaving only monotony, boredom and silence, just like a movie Black and white silent film.
The pavement ants quickly finished warming up and headed in their own direction under the leadership of their respective captains.
The whole world seemed to have been pressed on the pause button, and even the wind was stingy and stopped teasing the small branches. In the whole world, there are only three groups of tiny ants, making a few traces on the earth.
——I am the dividing line——
In the evening three days later, the protagonist welcomed the first returning team of pavement ant exploration teams.
They walked through the woods to the north for a day and spent a night in an abandoned wormhole. Then the next day, they found a huge and towering ant nest.
This ant nest is consistent with the information about the main nest of red imported fire ants provided by the ants. It turns out that the main nest of red imported fire ants is not far to the north of the forest, and the straight-line distance from [Dongyang City] of the Divine Envoy Legion is actually so close.
Before winter, the Angel King's Army had never known this. Out of their own interests, the ants did not disclose the existence of foreign ants to the red imported fire ants of their overlord country, nor did they inform the Angel King's Army of specific information about the red fire ants.
The protagonist is very lucky to have discovered this in winter, otherwise he would have planned to build a secondary nest in the woods next year. If he got too close to the fire ant's territory, he would definitely be discovered by wandering scouts.
After knowing this information and obtaining a rough map of the forest provided by the exploration team, the protagonist decided to designate the northern half of the forest as a restricted area as a buffer between the fire ants' territory.
The exploration team also introduced a strange feature near the main nest of fire ants, which is that there are a large number of circular pits surrounding the ant mound, but the exploration team did not find anything surprising about these pits.
The protagonist guessed that these pits might be obstacles like trenches, but didn't think much about it.
The next morning, the second expedition to the west returned.
They would only come with more than half of the soldiers, and the rest would die outside.
According to the leader of the male ants, they were attacked by the reeds while marching along the river bank.
The attackers were dragon lice. The previous snowfall did not freeze the Qinghe River. Some aquatic insects survived under the shelter of the relatively warm river water. The recent warm weather has made these hungry survivors even more ferocious.
Fortunately, most of the exploration team still ran out. As long as they stay away from the water, even powerful dragon lice are useless.
The exploration team finally discovered the woods when they were approaching the limit of exploration. They also saw the tree nest of leaf-cutting ants, and determined that this was the territory of leaf-cutting ants. This leafcutter ant group should be the force that competes with red imported fire ants for local hegemony.
The exploration team heading east returned last. They took the shortest but most difficult route.
After crossing the golden beach and the forest territory of the ant, there was a large dry shallow lake bed, full of pebbles and lack of vegetation. The exploration team wandered around in it for two days and found nothing before returning.
