The protagonist then asks the Ministry of Industry to transport the coal to the iron-making blast furnace, but this amount of coal is not enough to make iron once, and some charcoal in stock must be added.

Two days later, the Minister of Industry, Shengong Ant "Xiaoshi", reported that the iron smelted from coal was of good quality, and after experiments, it was found that it was no worse than that smelted from charcoal, and there was no problem of brittleness of the finished product caused by a small amount of sulfide in the coal that the protagonist was worried about. Moreover, the coal has strong firepower, and the time for producing molten iron is even shorter.

The protagonist is very satisfied, and coal is indeed more convenient to use than charcoal.

You must know that in order to burn the charcoal needed for the blast furnace, [Xinyangcheng] and [Februarylancheng], which have not many trees and shrubs, have already collected all the branches in the vicinity, and even have to transport wood from other secondary nests for charcoal burning over long distances.

These woods also have to be dried or shaded, and then cut into small sections, fired in the kiln, and then extinguished and waited for the temperature to drop before leaving the kiln.

If the amount of coal trade can support the consumption of blast furnaces, then the Divine Envoy Legion will not have to destroy the local vegetation environment, and will be able to greatly increase production without expanding the new charcoal kilns and blast furnaces!

However, the trade volume of coal is also a big problem, a blast furnace is fired and cleaned for 4 days, about 7 times a month, each time the coal is consumed according to 200 grams, a month to 1400 grams of coal, that is, 1.4 kilograms. This weight is equivalent to the weight of 5,000 large-headed worker ants.

The Black Fire Ant family says they have no problem with the amount they extract, and the main bottleneck is transportation.

The locust caravan of bullet ants carried less than 100 grams of coal this time, and even if it was calculated as 100 grams, it would have to fly 14 times to meet the fuel needs of a blast furnace for a month. But in fact, considering the distance, weather and other factors, a caravan of 12 locusts can fly three or four times a month.

In other words, it takes the capacity of four or five caravans of this size to ensure the normal operation of a blast furnace, and there are far more than one blast furnace in the two alchemy bases of the Ant Alliance.

It would be nice to increase the air transport capacity, but there are only two locust caravans in total for the bullet ants, and the Ant Alliance is not rich in its own air transport capacity at present, and most of them are still beasts that are not suitable for long-distance transportation, which can only ensure the need to cross the river and open up the colony on the south bank, and it is also beyond the reach of trade with the Black Fire Ant Country.

The territory of the Black Fire Ant Nation flies west on the south bank of the Qing River for about a day, and it is impossible to dig a long canal across the Qing River.

The protagonist thinks that maybe he can wait for the south bank of the Qing River to gain a foothold, explore a line of communication along the south bank of the Qing River to reach the territory of the Black Fire Ant Nation, and then form a convoy of beetles with a much larger load than locusts to transport coal.

Although it is calculated that the beetle convoy will travel for more than a week each way, the flying caravan has to fly once a week anyway, and the volume of the ground convoy can still be several times that of air transport.

Think about it, in the human world, coal is a resource at most by railway, sea and other cheap transportation methods, how can there be an airplane to transport coal, that is not a small volume and expensive freight to death!

It's a pity that the Ant Union does not have advanced and developed water transportation capabilities, otherwise both sides are guarding the Qinghe, which is a natural "highway"!

It's not that the protagonist hasn't used the idea of using walnut ships as a means of transportation, there are many walnut trees in the Black Forest, and building walnut ships is not a problem.

But the walnut boat is okay to go east along the river, and there is no power at all to go upriver to the west, and there is no bee pulling fiber now, even if there is fiber pulling, it is impossible to overcome the resistance for a week.

Water transport programmes are now limited to the state of the art and can only be shelved.

————

Coal can only be used as supplementary fuel for blast furnaces for the time being, and the production supply of blast furnaces is barely enough for the current consumption of the ant union, and increasing production is not a top priority.

The priority of development is the formal implementation of the "Southward Expansion" strategy in accordance with the resolution of the United Assembly of Ethnic Groups.

Before the war with the Red Fire Ant Country, the Ant Alliance was preparing to colonize the ant crew and materials on the south bank of the Qing River, but the war disrupted the plan and took away a lot of materials.

This time, the ant alliance country, which has no external trouble, can finally concentrate on the implementation of the national policy strategy.

The new commander of the 2nd Legion, which is responsible for carrying out the strategy of "southward expansion", is "Rambotu II", which is the name given to him by the protagonist himself, they are the first male ants to hatch in the New World of the Ant Alliance, and the best of them are given the honorary name of XX II.

The 2nd Army Corps will be responsible for the first landing on the south bank, clearing the local forces and covering the subsequent migration of ants.

The ant warriors climbed the backs of the star, dragonfly, and locust, and these flying insects were equipped with saddles on their backs, which could transport about eight squads of warriors across the river at a time, and a legion needed to carry them back and forth seven times.

Fortunately, at the target location on the other side of the river facing [Xinyang City], the original burrowing ant tribe has been wiped out, and the leafcutter ant tribe that conquered here does not have a strong control over this land, and the first batch of soldiers who landed are not easy to encounter any fierce resistance.

On July 18, the "Southward Expansion" strategy was officially implemented!

The convoy was loaded with Divine Messenger King warriors, and in a matter of moments it had flown across the wide river and landed on the other side of the river.

The protagonist rides "Little Black", and there is a small wave of flying knight Gong Wei by his side, closely watching the river crossing operation in the air.

I saw that the warriors of the Divine Envoy King came down from the backs of the flying beasts one after another, and the well-trained ones quickly found their commanders, regrouped into small teams, and then each team covered each other and arranged a circle formation at the landing site.

The first to arrive is to search the vicinity and expand the scope of their investigation.

The convoy returned immediately after unloading the fighters, preparing to transport the second group of troops.

There were only a few scattered leafcutter ants in the vicinity, and when the Flying Knights spotted them, they led the Scythe Ant Scouts to come and destroy them. Some leafcutter ants that hide in the shrubs are also found by the scythe hunters, who are good at searching trees.

The leafcutter ant here is not the same species as the leafcutter ant country, without the striking 3 pairs of spikes on the chest and back, and is one size larger, but the common denominator is that they can't beat the tall scythe warriors armed to the teeth.

The Scythe Hunters quickly took control of the vicinity of the landing site, and based on the direction of the movement of several leafcutter ants trying to escape, they determined that there was a nearby tree nest of a leafcutter tribe that the Flying Knight had not previously discovered.

When the entire army of the 2nd Army Corps arrived on the south bank, half of its forces were divided to sweep the nest, and the rest of the troops were deployed on the spot.

The flying convoy continued to transport the ants here, and the new arrival was a group of large-headed worker ants, who began to look for a suitable location to build a stronghold.