This pontoon bridge can only be erected for a short time every year. It must be taken back when the river freezes in winter and during the rainy season to prevent damage to the pontoon bridge.
Although the Ant Alliance still has a lot of inventory of walnut boats and other pontoon construction parts, it can also replenish supplies through collection and trade every year.
But after all, it is a large floating bridge with a length of more than ten meters. Such a huge project requires a lot of materials and energy, and it cannot be squandered.
The protagonist also plans to build a pontoon bridge south of [Red Iron City] next year to make transportation between the two sides easier.
At this time, those ants that had reached the south bank through the pontoon bridge were moving carefully on the undulating bridge.
This is a small colonization team composed of one to two hundred ants. Each colonization team has a leadership composed of 1 queen ant, 2-4 male ants and magical worker ants; a defense force composed of twenty or thirty retired soldiers, and dozens to one or two hundred worker ants.
These colonization teams will first arrive at [Pioneering City] and other established south bank nests. After receiving a small batch of food and supplies there, they will spread out like radiation and advance towards the entire vast territory.
They need to build a brand new auxiliary nest on a land without settlements, accumulate as much food as possible before winter, and then breed queens based on the food inventory at the end of winter. They will start large-scale production after spring, and gradually have the ability to The ability to feed back.
Some of the places where the colonization teams went also had alkali, salt, pebbles and other resources, and these resources had to be gradually developed.
The tasks of these colonization teams are very heavy. Fortunately, it is the season just after the golden autumn. In places where no ants have settled, at least there will still be plenty of food after the nests are built.
Among the fallen pine cones in the coniferous forest, there are pine nuts rich in oil; among the dead branches and leaves everywhere there are fresh corpses that have just been frozen to death at night; if you search carefully, you may even be able to find them on the back of a certain dead branch. , find those delicious eggs that haven’t hatched yet!
In comparison, the colonization teams on the north bank of Qinghe River were even more difficult, especially the colonization teams heading north of [Hive City].
Difficulties, even dangers, were the common challenges faced by these small colonization teams on the North Shore. The area they set out for—the area north of [Hive City] and south of [Panellia City]—had fallen once during this year's war, and the Red Fire Ant Nation once ruled this area.
In order to cope with the never-ending food requirements of the Pavement Ant Imperial Army and the huge material needs for rebuilding the country's army, the local red imported fire ants and slave ants almost emptied the lake to fish, destructively plundering local food resources.
They cut away all the edible grass, leaving even the roots in many places. Local game animals also suffered heavy casualties in large-scale hunting, and it took not a year for them to recover. The large-scale reproduction of brown-helmeted wax scales by ant slaves also caused extensive damage to vegetation.
What these colonization teams have to face is the dilemma of possible insufficient food. But this is just a predicament. What's more terrible is that they shoulder the heavy responsibility of winter resistance.
The areas north of [Hive City], [Panasia City] and south are designated as winter war zones by the protagonist.
Considering that enemy pavement ants can maneuver and attack outdoors in winter, and the main ant species of the Angel King's legion - big-headed ants, hunter ants, etc. do not have this ability, the number of pavement ant warriors in the legion has increased. Very limited.
Therefore, the battle in winter will inevitably be a situation where the enemy attacks and our troops disperse and defend in each sub-nest.
In the past, when facing the Pavement Ant Barbarian Army, the Divine Envoy King Army could also carry out key defenses in strategic locations such as [Linshui City], but now the terrain at the junction of the Ant Alliance and the enemy is open, and it is impossible to build a "one ant" army. It is a fortress that cannot be opened by tens of thousands of ants.
In addition to the two fortresses [Hematite City] and [Hive City] in the rear that must be defended from retreat, the protagonist chose to build multiple nests in the open terrain of the buffer zone for in-depth defense strategy.
Each of these hierarchical depth defense fortress groups will be built into an underground fortress to attract the enemy to attack one by one, consuming their troops and supplies, and exchanging time for space.
The defenders of these underground fortresses each only have a few squads, and they are basically retired soldiers, many of whom are missing arms and legs. The defenders were not equipped with artillery, and only relied on jaw knives and a small amount of explosives to fight. Even the jaw knives are old items that have suffered serious wear and tear, so even if they are captured and reused by the enemy, they will be damaged very quickly.
These underground fortresses are very narrow inside, and they completely use the terrain to delay the enemy's capture of the place as long as possible. Once they encounter an attack, with the strength of the defenders, there is no hope of victory at all. Their only tactical goal is to delay it for as long as possible.
A total of 55 such defensive bases have been deployed. A total of tens of thousands of colonization teams, mainly retired, disabled, and old ants, have already set off, and the construction of the secondary nests has been basically completed before the pontoon was completed.
There is not even a single queen in these sub-nests, which also shows that the Ant Alliance is not optimistic about the ability of these sub-nests to survive the winter!
The protagonist even estimates that once the pavement ant empire attacks in winter, these long and isolated underground fortresses can delay the enemy until spring. However, probably 90% of the ants in these secondary nests will not see the sunshine after next spring!
This line of defense means sacrificing oneself to protect most of the territory and ant mouths of the Ant Alliance. This is the "winter defense line" in the northern border of the Ant Alliance!
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This is a nest chamber located deep underground and far away from the core area of the nest. It is also a workshop.
In this workshop, the light is relatively bright, with a large amount of light blue light coming from fluorescent bacteria, illuminating the nest so that at least you can see clearly.
These fluorescent bacteria were not planted on the wall, but had been pulled out one by one and piled together in piles.
This is a workshop that uses fluorescent bacteria to extract a mysterious liquid that can explode and burn.
The protagonist cautiously stepped into this place for inspection, and don’t blame him for being cautious. This workshop used to self-destruct on average once a month, killing and injuring hundreds of ants each time.
Now, the only safety measure here is to separate the multiple workshop nests from each other with a thick layer of soil in between. Even if one nest is destroyed, the ants in other nests can still survive.
These workshops are located in [Pioneer City]. They were moved from [Xinyang City] with a narrow underground space this year, and have gradually developed into a domestic fluorescent bacteria extract production center.
If the scientific research team had not reported important discoveries to the workshop, the protagonist would never have wanted to set foot in this very dangerous area!
A gentleman does not build dangerous walls!
