After winter came, Zhu Jue still had no time to spare. He was either busy experimenting with new tactics in the underground training ground with the winter training troops, or secretly tinkering with something in the laboratory with the scientific research department.
In my busy life, without knowing it, the 10th year of the New Calendar passed quickly, and in a blink of an eye, it was the New Year’s Eve of the New Calendar.
After Zhu Jue popularized the calendar, at least the educated noble ants knew the meaning of New Year's Eve and Spring Festival. Just because the Spring Festival means that spring is coming soon, the ants are full of goodwill and expectations for this festival.
On New Year's Eve, ants from all races and classes in the Ant Alliance have been looking forward to it for many days. Zhu Jue's instructions before winter included instructions for each nest to hold a New Year's banquet on New Year's Eve.
Although the ants in the Ant Alliance have no worries about food and clothing on weekdays, even ordinary worker ants will not go hungry. However, high-end foods such as meat cannot be eaten every day by worker ants, and nobles at all levels also have limits on honey dew.
Only this New Year's banquet, it has been announced long ago that the ants up and down can eat all kinds of delicacies and honeydew insect meat without limit.
Most ants also have food and sex needs. Most ants do not need the latter. Those who need it have no need after the age of marriage and flight. Only eating and drinking are their most basic instincts. Every ant does not want to miss the food and drink on New Year's Eve. Opportunity.
The cost of such a banquet is huge, and most civilized ant tribes cannot afford it, or are unwilling to afford it.
Zhu Jue didn't care. The productivity of the Ant Alliance was not comparable to that of other ant tribes. Throughout the 10th year of the New Calendar, the Ant Alliance had no large war expenditures. Nowadays, granaries are piled high in nests everywhere. Expansion and new construction can accommodate production.
There are countless granaries scattered underground and in ant mounds.
In the vegetarian granary nest, the straw baskets are filled with various grass seeds, mostly setaria seeds, hemp seeds, barnyard grass seeds, wild beans, etc. Dried mushrooms were piled on the straw mat as high as a hill. There are also the same amount of dried vegetables, dried fruits, and dried bamboo shoots.
In the meat warehouse, long ropes passed through the roof of the warehouse, and the ropes were densely covered with strips of meat. This warehouse was full of dried mealworm meat, that warehouse was full of smoked mealworm meat, and the other one was full of smoked mealworm meat. The warehouses are all filled with salted fly maggot meat, and some warehouses are filled with hunted game.
There are also special warehouses for liquids such as honeydew and fermented drinks. They are usually placed on the periphery of ant mounds or in shallow underground areas where the temperature is low. They are placed in large pottery urns and covered with lids, so they will not go bad throughout the winter.
This is just the reserve of one nest, which is enough to feed millions of ants for a year. The warehouse here is bigger, and the warehouses in various places have at least 6 months of grain storage.
With such a rich reserve of supplies, the Ant United Nations held a banquet to boost morale, so there was no pressure.
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December 31st, Year 10 of the New Calendar, is the day of the banquet.
In the evening, banquets were held simultaneously in hundreds of venues.
Ordinary worker ants usually eat and drink in the nest chamber where they live or in nearby empty nest chambers. There is nothing special about it. The food is taken from the worker ants' food warehouse by themselves. There is no restraint or supervision, and they can eat and drink to their heart's content.
The middle- and lower-level nobles had banquets in various conference rooms or specially opened temporary restaurants. Their banquets were of a much higher standard. Hot food cooked in a unified manner was delivered in large pots from the central kitchen near the combustion chamber. The food is fresh and hot.
Zhu Jue and the senior officials of the various tribes in the Ant Alliance, together with about 300 ants, had a banquet in the conference room of the joint conference of all tribes, which was provided by Xiao Zao, a dedicated chef ant team.
At the banquet, there were famous dishes such as broth, soy milk, fried maggot meat slices with dogwood, stewed dried meat with tofu, covered barnyard noodles, stewed mealworm meat with tubers, grilled locust legs, and fly egg soup that were popular in the previous two years. There are some new dishes too.
For example, after bean paste, noodle sauce, and meat sauce became popular among all walks of life, many ants spontaneously ate raw meat, lettuce, and steamed grass seeds as dips in the sauce.
In the Ant Alliance, only a few high-ranking nobles and officials can regularly eat cooked food that consumes a lot of fuel. Most ants still eat raw food, just like their ancestors.
Sauce is a side dish that is best paired with raw food, so it has become popular very quickly. Some Fuchao will also use dogwood, ginger seeds and wild garlic to season the sauce to develop a sauce with regional characteristics.
For the banquet of high-ranking ants, eating comes second.
Zhu Jue sat on the main seat, and representatives of various tribes presented him with food. This was a way to join the ant tribe and show their loyalty to the God Envoy King.
"Little Flower" represents the big-headed ant clan and first presented cooked mealworm eggs to Zhu Jue. Representatives of other ethnic groups also took turns to come forward in the order of their ethnic groups' submission.
"Floating Leaf II" presented boiled dried earthworm meat on behalf of the pavement ant clan. This earthworm was dug at the canal construction site on the south bank of Qinghe River and was extremely large.
The sturdy and huge female ant "Qing" presented a roasted mantis foot on behalf of her tribe. This was the most ferocious prey captured before winter by the ants who are good at hunting.
The leaf-cutting ants "Baicao" presented dried mushrooms grown by their own tribe. Then came the contribution of the male ant "Lao Tao" who succeeded the dead "Old Heart" plant, and then the representatives of red forest ants, burrowing ants and black turtle ants.
After the contributions were over, it was time for the climax of the banquet - the gladiatorial fight. This gladiatorial battle is not a gladiatorial battle between insects and beasts, but an ant gladiatorial battle similar to wrestling.
Ever since Zhu Jue opened the Insect Beast Arena and Gambling in the country, it suddenly aroused the ant spirit in the country to be brave and fierce. Only then did everyone realize that in addition to fighting and hunting, martial arts can also be displayed in this way.
I don't know when, but the gladiatorial battles between ants became popular in various places, usually regardless of the venue. Two nobles who couldn't stand it agreed on a bet, such as a day's worth of honeydew, and began to compete.
The ant nobles can fight in person, or they can assign their subordinate ants to fight. There were casualties in the early gladiatorial fights. Zhu Jue realized that it is better to block the fight and formulate the rules of ant fights himself:
Both parties must fight alone, not many against one. Draw a circle as big as a holly leaf on the ground. Both parties are not allowed to leave the circle, otherwise they will lose. They are not allowed to carry jaw knives or armor, and are not allowed to attack the compound eyes, anus, or spiracles. , tentacles and other weaknesses; if an ant is held up in the air by the opponent and cannot resist, if it leaves the circle or lowers its body and surrenders, it will be counted as a loss.
Soon, this kind of ant wrestling, which releases hormones, has no venue requirements, has bets, and is not officially prohibited, became popular.
At this banquet, the ant nobles who were well fed and drunk also watched the gladiatorial games to add to the fun. Most of them sent their subordinates to fight, and some nobles even participated in person.
Only the hunting ants were not happy. Their individual fighting power was too strong. Zhu Jue did not allow them to compete with other ants, so they could only compete among themselves, otherwise there would be no suspense.
"Qing" was angry. What she was thinking was: You can't bully other ants, it's boring...
Amidst the excitement, the 10th year of the New Calendar has come to an end, and the 11th Year of the New Calendar has officially begun!
