The north wind whistled by, and the colorful fallen leaves and the withered yellow, dark green, and mottled desolate earth formed a cool painting!
Another harsh winter is coming!
Different from the previous two years when they could spend the winter comfortably, this winter, the civilized ants will face the endless attacks of the destroyers. They are destined to be trapped in their nests and can only be beaten passively.
But obviously, there are still many civilized ant tribes who cannot see the horror of this winter. How can the ants in the warm and comfortable overwintering nest know the cold and ruthless winter wind before they have experienced the fear of being dominated by the destroyer of winter? !
In autumn, Zhu Jue, who had experience fighting the Destroyer in winter, was already arranging winter defenses. After another cold wave arrived, he took advantage of the brief recovery of the temperature and took advantage of the Destroyer's last wave of offensive to retreat. No new attacks were launched for the time being, and the Divine Envoy King's Legion took the lead in withdrawing and deploying its defenses from the frontline battlefield of Marching Ant Kingdom.
In order to avoid the Destroyer's front, the main force of the expeditionary Angel King's army even gave up the long-running [Hope City], leaving only weapons and supplies that could not be taken away in this camp, and then blocked all entrances and exits, using Sand and dead grass camouflage ant mounds, cleaning up traces of nearby activity and pheromones and disguising them as naturally formed mounds in the hope that the Destroyer will not be interested.
The Legion of the God Envoy King moved all the way to the hills in the hinterland of the Marching Ant Kingdom's territory, and built a hidden and strongly fortified camp in the depressions of the hills that were sheltered from the wind. After hoarding enough supplies, they also wiped out all the pheromones on the ground around the camp, relying only on air traffic for external communication.
Zhu Jue also suggested to the marching ant country that the army retreat for the winter, leaving a small number of old, weak, sick and disabled in each nest on the front line to contain the destroyers, retaining the effective strength, and then consider counterattack after the next spring.
The "King Khans" of the marching ant kingdom have not heard of the terror of a destroyer enemy ant that can attack at any time in the harsh winter, but they still rejected Zhu Jue's suggestion. The victory in the last battle made the "King Khans" "Believing that the Destroyer was nothing more than that, he refused to retreat.
At present, the two million troops assembled on the front line have been dispersed and deployed in 72 wintering nests on the three front lines of defense. It is indeed a difficult decision to abandon safe and warm shelters for mobilization in cold weather.
Zhu Jue was disappointed with this passive defense of scattered troops. He sincerely hoped that the powerful Marching Ant Nation could retain more effective forces in the harsh winter to prepare for next year's war. The deployment of the marching ant kingdom is almost the last resort. It is destined to be defeated by the destroyers who take the initiative to attack, resulting in heavy losses.
By the spring of next year, less than half of the two million army ant warriors may survive. Even a vast and wealthy country like the army ant cannot make up for the loss of millions of warriors in a short period of time in the barren early spring.
Zhu Jue tried hard to persuade him to no avail, and even used the name of the Civilized Ant Tribe Military Committee to try to change the deployment of the marching ant nation, but was still rejected. Moreover, the weather was getting colder and colder, and Zhu Jue finally gave up. Even if the Marching Ant Kingdom agreed to change the deployment, it was too late. A large number of Marching Ant soldiers who were not cold-resistant would freeze to death on the way to mobilize troops.
Rather than freezing to death in vain, it is better to maintain the status quo and hope that these warriors will fight off some Destroyers in the winter defense battle!
Fortunately, the Angel King's army on the front line has retreated to a relatively safe place. If the Destroyer cannot break through the three defense lines of the army of marching ants in the winter, which are composed of continuous and scattered nests, it will not be able to threaten the camp of the God's Angel King's army. .
Zhu Jue rushed to increase the number of troops in this camp to nearly 200,000 before winter, and the supplies were enough to last until May next year. There are more than 20,000 pavement ant warriors among them, who can have certain outdoor activities in winter.
After next spring, this force directly under Zhu Jue's strong control will be the decisive force to launch a counterattack against the Destroyer.
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At the same time, north of the homeland of the Ant Alliance, on the battlefield against the Pavement Ant Empire, the civilized ant alliance also began to prepare for the winter.
After the victory in the battle of [Liu San City], the Civilized Ant Clan Allied Forces launched a series of battles to regain the lost territory. The leaf cutter ant tribe was the main force, supplemented by the Divine Envoy King Army and the troops of various tribes in [Liu San City]. .
The early stages of the war went relatively smoothly. Taking advantage of the insufficient and scattered forces of the Pavement Ant Empire, the civilized ant coalition regained large areas of lost territory, including many nests with important locations, rich resources, or forests.
However, as the Pavement Ant Imperial Army received a large number of reinforcements from the mainland, and most of the remaining lost land was located on the plains, the Leafcutter Ant Army, as the main force, was not good at fighting on flat ground, and the two sides began to fall into a stalemate.
Currently, including important nests such as [North Pine City] and [Beihua City], there are still many lost lands that are still firmly occupied by the pavement ant empire. As many as two million pavement ants have migrated to these lands.
As the harsh winter approaches and progress is uncertain, the civilized ant coalition forces are forced to suspend their Northern Expedition and begin to build defenses to survive the winter.
Zhu Jue recalled the Divine Envoy King's army to deploy defenses in [Liu San City] and the local [Panxia City], leaving the frontline defense to the leaf-cutting ant army.
Considering that the pavement ant empire army, like the destroyers, has winter combat capabilities, the leafcutter ant army faces considerable military pressure. Fortunately, they have suffered losses, unlike the arrogant army ants who cannot listen to the opinions of the civilized ant military committee.
In the end, the leafcutter ant army chose a flexible defense strategy, leaving a small number of troops on the front line to defend various camps, while the main force gathered in the relatively safe rear to overwinter. All strategies were based on the principle of delaying until the beginning of next spring.
After completing the winter defense of the two battlefields, Zhu Jue returned to the main nest of the Ant Alliance [Pioneering City] before another cold wave arrived.
For more than half a year, Zhu Jue has been fighting in various battlefields, rarely sitting in the main nest, and most of the internal affairs are entrusted to the joint conference of all ethnic groups and the implementation of decisions of various ministries. But the corresponding price paid was Zhu Jue's reduced control over the country.
The Crow Honey incident took place in this context, which made Zhu Jue, who had developed sufficient political sensitivity, sense a dangerous atmosphere.
Taking advantage of the fact that troops could not be used in the winter, Zhu Jue returned to [Pioneer City] to spend the winter. He also took this opportunity to reorganize the government and the ant nobles, suppress opposition and ill-intentioned forces, and eliminate potential threats.
In the first two days after returning to [Pioneer City], Zhu Jue was still learning about some situations, listening to reports from various ministries, and secretly listening to reports from the intelligence system.
After roughly understanding the inside story, Zhu Jue began to deal with some backlogged cases, intending to start from there and regain his authority!
