On August 13, Zhu Jue finally arrived at the border of Xizuzijieyi Country.
Going further, it is theoretically within the sphere of influence of the army ants, and it seems that it is about to be safe. But in fact, the place we are going to pass next is a mixed bag, and it is far from safe.
Even though the civilized ant coalition conducted a sweep of the area last time and wiped out many indigenous ant tribes in order to smooth the logistics and transportation lines, there are still many hostile indigenous ants living in the area.
If the coalition of civilized ant tribes with strong soldiers and horses can ignore these tribes, the other side will not dare to provoke them. It's just that now the morale of the civilized ant coalition is low and the organization is chaotic, but they are like a long earthworm without the ability to resist.
While Zhu Jue was resting at the northernmost stronghold, he heard the news that some of the previously evacuated troops had been attacked and plundered by indigenous ants.
This stronghold was one of a series of small strongholds that Zhu Jue proposed to build to protect transportation lines. It could accommodate thousands of ants. The defenders had two teams of warriors, half of them thin-legged ants and half of marching ants.
At this time, the stronghold was densely packed with tens of thousands of ants, all of whom were evacuating and crowded into small nest rooms for the night. These ants are already considered happy. There are still a large group of ants who can only spend the night in the wild. Fortunately, the summer nights are not cold, otherwise non-combat attrition will be very serious.
The information about the attack by the indigenous ants was brought by the Flying Knight. After the flying knights found Zhu Jue again after the haze subsided, they established air communication with Zhu Jue!
Zhu Jue rejected the suggestion to follow the flying knights to fly directly to the Marching Ant Kingdom. After receiving the order to retreat, the flying knights had established a new flight base in a nest in the north of the Marching Ant Kingdom, where it was safe.
Zhu Jue planned to complete the evacuation on foot while gathering available troops. Although the marching ant country is much closer to the ant alliance than it is now, it is still difficult to expect the mainland to provide a large number of troops to supplement. Zhu Jue still plans to gather as many troops as he can control as much as possible, so that in the next stage of the war, he will have more troops on hand. If you have soldiers, you will have more say.
Zhu Jue was in this nest that night, continuing to use his dual identities as the supreme commander of the civilized ant alliance and the envoy king of the Thunder God inheritance clan to gather a new group of ants around him.
Now Zhu Jue has gathered a group of troops who are willing to obey his orders in the past two days.
Including more than 200 warriors of the Divine Envoy King, because there were 6 team captains among them, they were organized into 6 unsatisfied teams. In addition, the surviving legion commander is responsible for directly commanding the army. This severely understaffed legion currently serves as Zhu Jue's personal guard, responsible for protecting Zhu Jue's safety.
Zhu Jue also gathered more than 1,200 honeypot ants and army ant warriors, but there were not enough commanders, so he temporarily formed 2 temporary legions with a total of 33 squads.
There is also a group of thin-footed ant warriors who have lost contact with the senior leaders of their tribe and are willing to temporarily obey Zhu Jue's command. There are more than 2,000 ants, but there is also a serious shortage of commanders. They have temporarily formed a temporary army with a total of 57 squads.
The next day, Zhu Jue set out on the road with this small army that obeyed his orders.
Different from the chaotic ant colony on the side, this small army led by Zhu Jue is relatively orderly. The marching ant army is in the front, Zhu Jue's guard army and the thin-legged ant army are in the middle, and the honeypot ant army is in the rear. Get moving on the road.
The road looked a bit run down due to the recent weather. When the army ants were transporting before, the road conditions were not like this. The army ants transformed the road according to their own customs. They often used local materials, pine needles, hay, dead branches, and gravel to build simple protective walls on both sides of the road, which could block the entry of some fierce insects and also Can block part of the line of sight. The roads have been tidied up and there are no scattered obstacles, making it easier for the troops to pass smoothly.
Now this temporary road has long been washed away by rain. Broken wall materials and other obstacles are piled up and down on the road. Some sections of the road have accumulated water, making the road very rough. The marching ants have to climb over the obstacles to move forward. The ants detoured around the water, leaving behind new guidance pheromones, but no ants ever thought of clearing the road.
After all, escaping is the most important thing now!
However, through the flying knight investigation, Zhu Jue knew that there was no Destroyer activity within half a day, and no Destroyer was rushing here. The area was temporarily safe, so he ordered the forward troops to clear the road while marching to facilitate the evacuation of the follow-up troops. to retain more warriors in the future.
At dusk that day, Zhu Jue's troops arrived at the third small stronghold. It was almost sunset. Some ants that had arrived earlier had already moved into this stronghold and occupied all the rooms inside.
Zhu Jue originally planned to lead his troops into the stronghold for the night, but he had to give up when he saw the situation. Except for the big-headed ants, other ants do not have the habit of digging temporary nests before camping. Zhu Jue wanted them to dig simple caves, but the commanders of his tribes all said that they were tired from traveling for a day and were unwilling to do it. Zhu Jue sighed with emotion. This improvised force still needs to be adjusted, so it can only be given up.
In the end, this team huddled together and hid in the grass to survive the night. It was not cold at night, but except for the ants on the outside, the ants inside were still very warm. At sunrise the next day, Zhu Jue found that 19 ants had died during the night, mostly from suffocation caused by crowding.
In addition to losses, there were also gains. Before setting off that day, Zhu Jue actually saw another legion commander of the Divine Envoy King's legion among the troops filing out of the stronghold. There were more than 300 Divine Envoy King warriors gathered around him, most of whom were It's artillery.
Zhu Jue was overjoyed. No one knew the role of these experienced artillerymen better than him. He praised the regiment commander and temporarily organized the soldiers of the Divine Envoy King around him into the Guards Artillery Corps, commanded by him, and followed by Advance within the center and ask him to secure the artillery.
————
During the march that day, there were ants escaping from the front. When I asked, I found out that there were indigenous ants in front of me looting along the way. The evacuating thin-footed ants had no intention of resisting and had no fighting ant style. They all took over the road without fighting. escape.
This escaping Thin-legged ant didn't even know how many indigenous ants there were, so it just ran away with the crowd. According to her, the ready-made commander of the Thin-footed Ants sent out a signal to evacuate without any supervision at all, which led to the chaos.
Zhu Jue looked up at the sky. The flying knights who had been overhead did not warn him. They probably felt that there were not many indigenous ants and were not enough to threaten Zhu Jue.
Zhu Jue immediately decided to order the troops to move forward to annihilate this bold indigenous ant. I also want to use a victory to boost the morale of the army, which has been extremely depressed!
