After about a week, the flying caravan of bullet ants and Maolin ants arrived at [Xinyang City] one after another.

On May 2, the caravan of the Bullet Ant Clan arrived first.

When the protagonist receives the news and goes out to greet him, the swarm of locusts of the bullet ants has landed, and the huge locusts are lying everywhere on the ground.

The protagonist does not witness the spectacular sight of many locusts flying in unison, he only sees the information package from the troops patrolling the outpost.

If it weren't for the fact that the Sentinels had known that friendly troops on locusts would arrive in the near future, the number of locusts would have been enough to provoke the guards to fire back with artillery and ballista.

The caravan of bullet ants had about 100 flying locusts, and most of the locusts had storage spaces filled with merchant ropes tied to their bellies, and many of the various goods in them were exchanged from the civilized ant tribes along the way.

The territory of the bullet ant clan is barren, and it is an important source of income to earn the difference through caravan trading.

In the Bullet Ant Clan's aerial caravans, the Bullet Ant Rider sits at the locust's neck, where there is a proposed saddle made of rope.

The protagonist meets with the leader of the bullet ant caravan, a female, a huge bullet ant female, who has to lean down to meet the protagonist's tentacles.

This big man was very straightforward, and he didn't wait for greetings, and directly reported their requirements:

The Bullet Ant Clan brought 2 locusts as agreed, and they were to exchange 10 snail shell concentrated crow honey and 20 snail shell concentrated honeydew at the agreed transaction price. At the same time, the bullet ants also wanted to trade some pottery and hematite powder for other commodities.

The protagonist asks a Shengong ant named "Xiaoshang" next to him to be in charge of business affairs, and docks with the bullet ant female ant, and the two sides quickly understand their respective material payments and income.

The protagonist asks the other person if they can exchange more locusts this time.

Before, at the conference, he was afraid that the inventory of crow honey and the like would be insufficient, so he didn't dare to book too many beasts, but when he came back, he still had a lot of crow honey reserves, enough to exchange 6 beasts at the current trading price, and with honeydew, a total of 10 could be traded.

The bullet ant female calculates and rejects the protagonist's proposal, saying that there are a lot of goods in the caravan at present, especially with the addition of 30 snail shell honeydew and crow honey, and there are no spare locusts to trade. And she can't make the deal with the locust, so she can only bring the protagonist's suggestion back to the meeting to discuss, and if it passes, she will come back to trade next time.

The protagonist had to give up for the time being.

The caravan of the Maolin ants arrives the next day, when the caravan of bullet ants has flown away, and the caravan of bullet ants is still going to trade in the [Sacred Tree City] of the Leaf Cutting Ant Country, so the protagonist does not leave them for the night.

The trade between the Divine Envoy King Legion and the Maolin Ant Clan was even larger, and the Divine Envoy King Legion bought a large amount of salt, and in addition to the 2 giant dragonflies that were preserved, they bought an additional 4 giant dragonflies in one go.

Anyway, nearly half of the giant dragonflies in the Maolin ant caravan were transporting salt, and the Divine Envoy King's legion bought the most salt, and many of the giant dragonflies became rich after the transaction. The male ant who led the caravan was very old, and according to the political system of the Maolin ant clan, he was able to make a decision on the dragonfly trade.

The Divine Envoy King's legion also sold a lot of things, in addition to honeydew and crow honey, there were also some stone tools, pottery, fermented drinks, ropes, and hematite powder.

But in general, in the trade with the Maolin Ant Clan, the Divine Envoy King's legion paid a lot of goods, which was really due to the fact that those giant dragonflies were too expensive.

The previous trade with the Bullet Ants was the same, in order to buy the Beasts, the Divine Envoy King had to sell honeydew and crow honey in large quantities, while the other commodities Bullet Ants asked for very little.

In the past, the protagonist felt that the production of honeydew and crow honey in the territory was more than enough, but now that he can trade with other civilization ant tribes through flying caravans, the protagonist suddenly feels that there are too few valuable goods on hand.

If they relied solely on honeydew and raven honey for trade, the legions of the Divine King's would inevitably be too economically dependent on a single commodity, which would be risky.

In the event of an epidemic or natural disaster, resulting in a decrease in the production of honeydew and crow honey, the army of the Divine Envoy King will be left with no goods to sell.

In addition, the honeydew and crow honey industry occupies a large amount of land and ant population. Moreover, there is always a limit to the needs of other ant tribes for honeydew and crow honey, but the more materials that the Divine Envoy King's legion needs, the better.

The protagonist doesn't want to rely solely on honeydew and crow honey exports in exchange for supplies, and at the same time feels that the barter transaction method is too primitive and extremely inconvenient to trade.

The idea of minting coins flashes through the protagonist's mind.

————

After the transaction, the Divine Envoy King Legion finally officially formed the first air transport team, including 2 Star Beans, 2 Flying Locusts, and 6 Giant Dragonflies, which can transport about 200 big-headed ants or paving ants at a time, or equivalent supplies.

Although the single capacity is not satisfactory to the protagonist, it has the ability to initially develop the south bank of the Qing River.

The distance between Xinyangcheng and the south bank of the Qing River is only about 30 meters, which is the narrowest section of the river in the vicinity, thanks to the local peninsula topography, so the river has to make a bend here.

Although the current of this section of the river is slightly turbulent, if it is a boat ferry or a bridge, it will definitely not be chosen here. However, the turbulent water has no effect on air transportation, and this section of the river is the shortest and the most suitable place to cross the river.

The protagonist asks the convoy to step up their training, especially so that the big-headed ants and paver ants learn to control the beasts, and cannot rely entirely on the purchased alien pilots.

At the same time, some ants from the scientific research team and the breeding farm also came to investigate and study the methods of domesticating insects such as dragonflies and flying locusts.

In [Xinyang City], preparations have already begun to be made for the materials and ant mouths needed to establish the first colony on the other side of the Qing River.

The protagonist plans to transport a legion in batches to the opposite bank, where a shrub was originally occupied by a colony of burrowing ants, but this spring it was controlled by nearby leafcutter ants.

The protagonist plans to exterminate this small colony of leafcutters, and then colonize the colony and colonize the colony.

The local soil is poor and not suitable for cultivating farmland, so it is better to develop the fungal cultivation industry of the leaf-cutting ant tribe according to local conditions, as well as the honeydew and crow honey industry of the big-headed ant grazing.

After that, depending on the situation, the territory on the south bank of the Qing River will continue to be expanded, and it will be built into the safest rear.

————

Reality does not allow the protagonist to carry out his colonization plan with peace of mind.

Although he rejected the plan of the Leaf Cutting Ant Nation to join forces to attack the Red Fire Ant Country, he wanted to avoid the war for the time being.

But war, a commonplace thing in this world of ants, did not let go of the protagonist.

On May 10th, the messenger of the Red Fire Ant Kingdom suddenly arrived in [Xinyang City] and demanded that the Divine Envoy King Legion immediately provide tens of thousands of ant warriors to the suzerainty country and go to [Hive City] to assemble.