Just do it!
After the rain cleared up, although the ground was still full of mud, the worker ants of the Angel King Corps had already begun the construction of the flood drainage ditch project.
At this moment, the enemy has not yet attacked, the mine has not resumed work, and there is no shortage of food. Instead of letting thousands of worker ants idle in the nest, it is better to start construction now.
Counting the regular army soldiers who helped, tens of thousands of ants participated in the construction of the flood ditch project from the beginning.
There is still a lot of scattered water on the forest floor now, but this water is like a signpost for the direction of the flood ditch, marking where the low ground is.
Although the final planned drainage location is tens of meters away from [Hematite City] in a straight line, in fact the ants do not need to dig all the way there. They only need to use the general terrain direction to dig out sections of passages and move some The depressions that already have water accumulation can be connected in series. In this way, the amount of work can be reduced by more than half.
The flood drainage ditches dug by the ants are about one decimeter wide and half a decimeter deep. The ditches surrounding [Hematite City] and the Hematite Mine are wider and deeper. The requirements for drainage here are higher, and these drainage ditches are also It can also serve as a military defense.
The ants first moved away the dead branches and leaves on the ground, and then dug the soil for construction. The ants' construction speed was not slow, even if the soil was very muddy after the rain, but with iron tools, it was no problem.
The more troublesome and dangerous part of the project is when the waterlogged area needs to be dug out at the end. This last step is particularly prone to accidents.
Construction ants generally dig from low-lying areas to high-lying areas. Otherwise, if the reverse is true, the water left in the high areas will rush down before the drainage ditch is dug, and flow in all directions, destroying the construction site. The ants swept away. Although this current construction method is safe most of the time, once it enters the last step and needs to dig through water, the risk increases sharply.
Generally, if the water level in the upstream puddle is relatively shallow, the ants will carefully dig out the last section of the channel bit by bit, and then immediately withdraw when the water starts to flow down, allowing the water to naturally open up a gap, and wait for the water to flow. When the flow is almost gone, continue digging a little more, and start over and over again. When the water is gone, the trench is dug.
If they encounter a pit with high water level and large water storage capacity, the God Envoy King Army will use a precious mysterious ball bomb to blow up the last section of the ditch to prevent the water flow from being too strong and the ants having no time to evacuate during the ant force construction. .
However, in actual construction, even if there is a perfect plan, accidents such as dam breaks often occur, and dozens of ants will be lost every time. In the end, the protagonist strictly ordered the regular soldiers of the Divine Envoy King's Army not to participate in the final stage of the construction. To avoid the loss of elite soldiers.
By the end of September, although there were two more thunderstorms in the middle, the drainage ditches of [Hematite City] and Hematite Mine had been completed. After the sacrifice of more than 300 ants, a slightly winding ditch dozens of meters long was built. The Yigong River starts from [Hematite City] and the Hematite Mine in the northwest, and leads all the way to the depression in the southeast.
Fortunately, the leaf-cutting ant army has not come to harass during this period, allowing the God Envoy King's army to concentrate on the construction.
The leaf-cutting ant army is still accumulating strength. They have gathered more and more troops on the eastern border, and there are already 300,000 more. It seems that the newly emerged ants in the rear are gradually joining the army, gradually making up for the previous period. The battle damage of time.
As for the red fire ant army, after some rest, it also began to gather at the border again, seemingly preparing to invade the mainland of the leaf-cutter ant country. Also benefiting from the containment of the Red Fire Ant Army, the Leaf-cutting Ant Army is no longer concerned about dealing with the God Envoy King's army.
After the flood drainage ditch was built, it experienced several rain tests in early autumn, confirming its effectiveness. After there was no threat of floods, the Angel King's army gathered tens of thousands of worker ants of big-headed ants, pavement ants, and belly ants in [Red Iron City] for mining.
As the mining volume increases significantly, the protagonist discovers the current transportation capacity of the Angel King's army and begins to limit the external transportation of the mine's output.
At this time, the blast furnace in [Xin Yangcheng] was already operating at full capacity, so a new blast furnace was built in [February Lan City], a secondary nest closer to the mine, as a new iron smelting center. Although the defense here is not as good as [Xinyang City], it is still in the hinterland of the territory. After weighing the balance, the protagonist decided to build this iron smelting center for the sake of higher iron production.
Whether the iron ore is transported to [Xinyang City] or [February Lan City], the ant transport team needs to walk southeast for a day or two, a distance of about one kilometer.
Ants transport iron ore, either by relying on a large number of worker ants to carry it with their jaws, or by beetles carrying containers on their backs. This kind of transportation capacity was enough to handle a small amount of iron ore in the past, but as the hematite mine was destroyed by the God's Envoy King After the legion took over, the amount of ore output increased to dozens of times with the investment of a large number of ant hands, and now the transportation capacity was not enough.
Whether we continue to increase the number of ants in the transport team or increase the number of beetles, it will seriously squeeze out resources that could have been used in other aspects, which is very uneconomical in the long run.
After the drainage ditch was built, the protagonist had an idea when watching the flood pouring to the southeast. After repeated calculations, the protagonist finally made up his mind:
He wants to build a canal connecting the two iron smelting centers of [Hematie City] and [Xinyang City] and [Yue Lan City].
River transportation and sea transportation were the most economical and fastest modes of transportation for human civilization before the invention of railways. Both China and foreign countries have dug a large number of canals since ancient times, which have played a great role. The most famous one is the incredible Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.
The canal to be excavated by the Angel King's Legion is estimated to be 1.4 kilometers long after the protagonist's on-site measurement. Water needs to be diverted from a stream northwest of [Hematie City], from high to low, and naturally flows to [Xinyang City] ] and flows into Qinghe River.
This distance, even if we take into account the use of naturally formed depressions, the amount of work is roughly equivalent to humans digging a canal of more than 100 kilometers. This amount of work is not small.
According to the project volume estimated by the protagonist, it will take about 10,000 ants for more than a year to complete the construction. If interference factors such as winter and rainy season are included, it is estimated that it will take more than two years for 10,000 ants to complete the project.
But once it is completed, a large amount of hematite can be quickly transported down the river to the smelting center, which will greatly save the ant and animal power required for transportation. It can be said to be a century-old project that will benefit the future!
Taking advantage of the fact that neither the red fire ant country nor the leaf-cutter ant country has much time to worry about, and the Angel King's army faces little external military threat, the protagonist decided to mobilize 30,000 ants of various races, striving to complete 40 to 50% of the project volume before winter this year. , and then make sure the canal is completed by next summer!
