After the meeting, the Leafcutter Ant Nation negotiated with the protagonist alone, and used a small amount of star beetle eggs and the gold sand previously exchanged from the Ant Alliance Nation to trade a batch of emergency food and send it to the front line.
Although the representatives of the Black Fire Ants agreed to provide food at the meeting, water from far away could not quench their thirst. It would take at least half a month for their supplies to arrive by airlift, and the coalition forces on the front line could not wait that long.
At this time, 100,000 coalition troops were stationed not far away, and they could not march. They went out to forage every day, but it was not easy to collect food for such a large army, and enemy ants continued to harass them.
The queens and females of the leafcutter ants were so anxious that they would not have traded away the gold sand they cherished so much had it not been for the lack of means of payment.
After the formal meeting, the protagonist presented the Leafcutter Ant Nation with several clay pots of the latest fresh food from the Ant Nation--Muginger Garlic Sauce.
These foods are recently made using new resources discovered on the south bank of the Qinghe River. As the name suggests, the main ingredients include ginger seeds and garlic. The two are mashed together, sprinkled with salt, poured with fermented acid water, and stirred together. .
This kind of ginger garlic sauce has a strong, sour and spicy taste, and is actually very popular among the ants in the Ant Federation, especially the noble ants, who want to dip everything they eat into this sauce.
The protagonist knows that spices are very popular. Ant Nest has also obtained a small number of plants with special smells in the past, but most of them have a bland taste and the yield is not much.
Now that I saw this situation, I suddenly felt that this thing could also be exported to earn foreign exchange, so I tried it this time.
He was also worried, what if other ants have different tastes from the big-headed ants? Fortunately, after trying it on various vassal ant tribes in the country, the response was pretty good.
The protagonist did not wait for the other party to react, but flew back, and then took a group of flying knights to escort him on a long flight to the south bank of Qinghe River.
From the name of this nest, you can know that this is the origin of Mujiangzi. It is located at the southern border of the current Ant Alliance. There is a large forest nearby. There are many indigenous ant tribes in the forest, but currently both sides are in peace.
And not far to the west, there is another one.
After arriving, the protagonist followed the guide worker ants to the nearby production area of Mijianzi. This is a small highland with dense trees, and the jiangzi tree is hidden in it.
After arriving at the nearest Mujiangzi tree, you can see that it is a small tree about four to five meters high.
In addition to this tree, there are more than ten wood ginger trees in a small area nearby, which is rich in resources.
There are not many leaves on the tree at this time, but the flowers are in full bloom. The small yellow flowers are clustered together. If you look closer, you can see that the small flower buds look like linden flowers.
These flowers are still very fragrant, and some bees are flying up and down around the flowers. The ants are also competing with the bees for food, harvesting a large number of flower buds.
These flowers can also be used to make jam. The taste is different from the seeds that the ants harvested last year. They are not sour and pungent, but have a unique sweetness.
Speaking of discovering the unique taste of mujiangzi, it was a coincidence. The colonization team arrived here before winter last year. After setting up a simple nest, they were busy collecting food from everywhere.
At that time, the fruits of the nearby wood ginger tree had fallen to the ground in large quantities, and the dense tree seeds were carried back by the ants, because according to experience, the tree seeds are edible, and these tree seeds have a unique smell that attracts ants, even if they have been down the tree for a long time. The taste has become quite bland.
In addition to extracting the seeds and grinding them into powder for winter food, these wood ginger seeds were also transported to the north bank of Qinghe River after spring to supply military supplies. At that time, the ants did not think that this kind of food was so unique that it needed special reporting.
Later, "Secretary II" accidentally tasted this taste, told the protagonist, and followed the instructions to try to make the popular Mujiangzi Garlic Sauce.
The protagonist thought to himself that the vast south bank of Qinghe River seemed to be a treasure trove of Feng Shui, so he came to inspect it!
At this time, his thoughts began to deviate from the direction of the initial inspection, because he noticed the bees around the wood ginger tree.
Previously, when the Angel King's Legion was in its homeland, there were bee flying knights. Although the flying speed of the bee flying knights was not as good as that of the fly flying knights, they had a larger carrying capacity and stable flight. They also had stings as weapons. They were combat flying knights. Best mount.
However, when they drifted away from their homeland, none of the bee eggs carried by the walnut fleet survived. The Ant Alliance lost the ability to cultivate bee colonies and could only use flies as mounts.
On the north bank of Qinghe River, within the activity range of the Ant Alliance, no hives were found, probably because leaf-cutter ants, red fire ants and other tribes are relatively strong. The hives occasionally discovered are also outside the reach of the Ant Alliance.
Until now, the protagonist sees bees moving again.
The next step is to send the army over, find a way to occupy the hive, and plunder the queen and eggs - the protagonist determines the fate of this hive of bees.
Then, he ordered the accompanying flying knights to quietly follow the bees in search of the hive. Then inspections resumed.
The ants were walking back and forth on the wood ginger tree. At this time, they could not collect tree seeds. In addition to collecting flowers, there were still some ants digging through the bark of the tree, doing something laborious.
The protagonist came over to take a look. The unique sour and spicy aroma here was strong. It turned out that the worker ants were using iron jaw knives to dig out some sawdust from the branches of the wood ginger tree. These sawdust can be used as a substitute for the wood ginger tree and have the same flavor. It's just more difficult to obtain, as a supplement before the new mujiangzi comes down.
Before leaving, the Flying Knight had reported that he had found the location of the beehive, which was a small nest inside a rotten tree. The protagonist contacted to send a legion to carry out the mission.
Then, the protagonist flew to a place located on a hillside, with a large amount of wild garlic growing nearby.
Wild garlic was discovered after it grew wildly this spring. Its strong smell attracts ants, but it can scare away many other bugs. It is edible and repels insects.
These wild garlics are mainly eaten for their young leaves and bulbs, with the bulbs being the top quality. In addition to being mixed with mujangzi into sauce, it can also be used in a variety of dishes.
The protagonist sees wild garlic everywhere and the yield is huge, so he asks the worker ants to collect more.
After he returned in the afternoon, he began to mobilize more ants to go and settle there. There were only one or two thousand ant colonies each, which was not enough to produce a large amount of spices.
Moreover, both places are close to the border, and indigenous ants are infested nearby, so defenses need to be strengthened.
