Spring is coming very quickly.

After the warm and humid air flow from the south moved north, the first spring rain brought vitality to this long-bleak land, and in just a few days, a large number of plants felt the breath of spring, began to wake up from dormancy, and competed to bloom tender green leaf buds.

Around the wet yellow wax plum with raindrops, there is a new green everywhere, whether it is trees or shrubs, they are doing their best to absorb water, grow, and compete for future sunshine and space.

As if to make up for the deficit of last year's disaster year, or the rebound after being suppressed by the cold winter, this year's spring looks unusually lush and vigorous in the eyes of the protagonist.

The animals are only slightly behind the plants, and the insects that have successfully wintered have begun to leave their shelters where they have been hiding for the winter and are voracious in their new spring food.

Those insects that cannot survive the winter have also passed down their genes, and a large number of eggs buried in the ground, in the dead branches and leaves, deep in the trees, and on the back of the branches begin their life cycle.

A series of miraculous changes are taking place inside the eggs, from chaos to gradual formation, like a small universe growing, until the small larvae finally break out of the shell and usher in a new life.

Most eggs hatch into a chubby, writhing worm that comes in a variety of shapes and colors:

Some are dusty, moving on tree trunks or on the ground, and if you don't look closely, you will be deceived by their protective colors.

Some, on the contrary, are unusually brightly colored, colorful and mottled, and have burrs that are intimidating to predators, making them look poisonous and difficult to mess with. But this protection doesn't always work, and there are always some powerful predators who can avoid or ignore burrs and toxins and enjoy the good flesh of this protective body.

The remaining worms have green, white, and yellow bodies, soft, smooth, and no burrs, and they hide on the leaves of plants to eat wildly, gnawing out the whole leaves one by one, and they can grow in a circle in just a few days, and after a while they begin to spin silk, form cocoons, and start a new round of life cycle.

The larvae of spiders are more special, they are not caterpillars, and they already have the appearance of adults as soon as they break their shells. They gather in clumps and molt little by little using the nutrients and energy stored in their bodies until they reach adulthood.

Although wild aphid adults, like most insects, cannot withstand the winter, they can only lay their eggs on dead leaves, weeds, stubble tubes, and soil crevices for wintering.

But thanks to the protection of the ants, some of the adult aphids spend the winter in warm nests, and in the spring, they are carried by conscientious worker ants to nearby plants, where they begin to suck the sap and reproduce.

Instead of hatching from an egg, these aphid larvae are born directly from their abdomen, and are born in the form of small, crystal-clear aphids, green and shiny, as if carved from a single piece of jadeite.

The worker ants are dedicated to the larvae, and the adult life span is running out, and after giving birth, these aphids will die quickly, and the new generation of aphids carries the strong demand for honeydew in the "Dongyang City".

However, the herds of "Dongyang City" have encountered a lot of troubles recently, perhaps because this spring is too vibrant, giving birth to too many kinds of arthropods, and some newborn carnivores have begun to target the delicious, numerous and defenseless aphid swarms. Although the herders and worker ants tried their best to defend themselves, they were also difficult to take care of.

The protagonist is rewarded, but he only sees it as a small episode and does not pay attention to it - after all, "Dongyang City" is now full of problems, and the protagonist is very busy, and it is difficult to spend too much effort on all kinds of small things.

The ground training of the Beetle Corps has begun, and it will be able to form combat effectiveness in a short period of time.

Messengers to the north, New Salt City, and South City are on their way, and they will bring back the most detailed and accurate information.

After a whole winter of consumption, the materials of "Dongyang City" are a little tight, and it is necessary to hurry up production.

In the farm, mealworms and fly eggs are already hatching, and batches of newborn larvae are feasting on the corpses, garbage and other waste accumulated throughout the nest over the winter. As a supplement, ants bring a lot of fresh plants to replenish them with water and trace elements.

These plants come from farmland. After the beginning of spring, it is the task of the farmer worker ants to sow seeds, and they first have to remove the weeds from the fields.

After a whole winter of idleness, some weed seeds that have been brought to the farmland by wind, water or other factors have also begun to germinate, and the ants must be cleaned up in time to leave room for food crops.

These weeds have just sprouted, and the stems, branches and leaves are still very delicate, and the worker ants can cut them effortlessly with just their large jaws. If it takes another week or two, the stems of some plants will be so tough that they are difficult to cut with a clay knife or a stone knife, and they must be cleaned by lighting a fire.

In addition to supplying feed to the farm, the cut shoots and young leaves are also seasonal vegetables for the ant nest. These tender plants are so digestible that ants eat them raw – as omnivores, ants are not picky about their food, and the abundance of food is also good for their health.

In the recipe of the protagonist, there are also many more plants recently, with roots, stems, leaves, buds, and petals. In addition to dipping honeydew in raw salads, the protagonist often cooks these plant ingredients with seeds and jerky, and slightly adds one or two carefully selected fine salt grains, which is a rare delicacy.

With the exception of livestock and crop farming, which were slower to achieve, large numbers of ants were organized to gather and hunt in order to quickly increase food stocks.

The gathering team is mainly made up of worker ants, who sweep across an area in groups of hundreds in a row, collecting all the food that can be eaten, easy to collect and bring back. These include: insect carcasses, unhatched eggs, fungi, and more.

The hunting team is dominated by veteran ants and reserve ants, and there are many worker ants to assist. They hunted in groups of fifty, and few insects could withstand the siege of such a large number of ants.

Whether it is a snail with a carapace, a slimy slug, a caterpillar with long thorns, or a ferocious bug, as long as they are targeted by ants, most of them will be doomed.

In the event of a large prey, several squads can also work together.

However, soon the hunting party reported some information, which attracted the attention of the protagonist.