Chapter 29: Defeat step by step
Although on each front, the Mystic Ants have a significant disadvantage compared to the Paving Ant Barbarian Army.
However, the advantage of the mysterious ant's combat power is too strong, and it has always grasped the initiative on the battlefield. And no matter how much the front-line troops lose, their rear can be replenished in a steady stream, and the effect in terms of soldier supply is comparable to that of the paving ant barbarian country, or even slightly superior.
The paver ant barbarians must also take care of production after war, otherwise millions of paver ants will go hungry. Therefore, the paving ant barbarian army cannot devote all its strength to the war, and must retain a large number of professional ants to collect grain.
Their economy will also lose a little bit of blood as the war-swept area expands, weakening the war potential.
The mysterious ant who has the initiative does not have this concern, the protagonist does not understand the economic system of this kind of ant now, if the other party really feeds on the captured ant carcasses, eggs and pupa, then they naturally hope that the scale of the war is as large as possible, and it is completely possible to feed the war with war, which is the advantage of the relatively backward economic system at the war level to the advanced, just like the nomads of the human world against the farming peoples during the war.
On the main nest front, the mysterious ants were like a bamboo at first, and after conquering seven secondary nests in a row, they approached the main nest of the paving ant barbarian country again.
On this front, the mysterious ants have invested more than 10,000 troops, and more than ninety percent of them are big mysterious ants.
The Paving Ant Barbarian Army concentrated hundreds of thousands of main forces to resist in this area, but even with such a huge numerical advantage, the Paving Ant Barbarian Army was still repeatedly defeated in field battles.
This time, the Flying Knights get first-hand battlefield information and hand it over to the protagonist in time.
The scene that the protagonist sees is that although the mysterious ants are obviously inferior in numbers, they dare to give up their wings regardless of it, and directly break through the middle of the paving ant barbarian army with a sharp formation.
It was difficult for the oncoming paving ant barbarian army to resist such a swift assault, and the big mysterious ant could easily tear through any line of defense in front of it with its small beetle-like body.
Every time, no matter how thick the formation on the front of the Paving Ant Barbarian Army was, it would be torn apart in a short period of time, and the troops on both flanks would not even have time to adjust the formation to return to reinforcements.
Subsequently, the escort force of the commander-in-chief of the rear of the Paving Ant Barbarian Army was raided, and the command system was completely disrupted.
The communication between the mysterious ants is much closer, they sometimes gather together to break through the formation of the paving ant army that holds on to the group, and sometimes they are divided into small units to intersperse in a roundabout way, seize the advantageous terrain, and divide and surround the enemy.
Looking at the battle situation from the air, there is quite a sense of déjà vu that the CCP army defeated the national army in the Huaihai Battle in the movie "Armageddon".
What makes the protagonist even more curious is that, judging from the information package brought back by the flying knight, there are no heralds in the mysterious ant army who can communicate back and forth, and I really don't know how these mysterious ants can cooperate seamlessly with each other in the absence of heralds.
You must know that the Divine Messenger King Legion under the command of the protagonist, even if there are a large number of heralds, the flying knight has to play the role of a herald, but it is also difficult to be able to command each legion, and it is even more difficult to control the tactical actions of each squad.
But the mysterious ants can even split into small groups of dozens of individuals, and still achieve flawless tactical coordination.
This may be the advantage that the Mystic Ant has over its size and individual combat power that is more feared by the enemy.
After several major battles, the main force of the Paving Ant Barbarian Army suffered heavy losses, and even with an endless stream of replenishment, the battle line was still retreating step by step.
Later, the paving ant barbarian army no longer dared to engage in field battles with the mysterious ants, but relied on each secondary nest to establish an underground defense line in front of the main nest to resist step by step.
Although the Mysterious Ant has the advantage of size and individual combat effectiveness in narrow underground street battles, the Paving Ant Warrior can trade the lives of ordinary soldiers for enemy casualties, rather than most troops inexplicably losing command and fighting on their own until they are defeated.
After the Paving Ant Barbarian Army changed its tactics, the casualty ratio of the two sides finally narrowed slightly, but it could not change the strategic disadvantage of retreating step by step.
The mysterious ants, while fighting, are constantly transporting a large number of captured ant carcasses, ant eggs and ant pupae to the rear.
The protagonist once orders the Flying Knights to follow the mysterious ant army transporting ant corpses all the way, trying to find out why the other party needs these corpses and prove whether they are an anteater race.
But instead of placing the loot in the secondary nest closer to the front line, the convoy of the mysterious ants headed north. The Flying Knights followed for several days, running out of supplies and had to return, ultimately failing to discover where the enemy's corpses were hoarded and what they were for.
In addition to the main nest battlefield, the second most intense battle is the eastern battlefield.
From the eastern wooded area from northeast to southwest, the mysterious ants launched an attack on the eastern border of the Paving Ant Barbarian Nation.
There are 3,000 mysterious ants on this front, which is about the same as the original two legions of the Big-headed Ant Kingdom.
The troops drawn to this front by the Paving Ant Barbarian Army have about thirty or forty legions, about fifty or sixty thousand.
The advantage of the Paving Ant Barbarian Army in the proportion of troops on this front is not as great as that of the main nest battlefield, and it adopted the strategy of relying on the secondary nest to hold on at the beginning, and the speed of defeat is slower than that of the main nest battlefield.
However, the three thousand mysterious ants are still constantly defeating the paving ant barbarian army with the advantage of the main nest, and the soldiers are already approaching the northern expeditionary army of the big-headed ant kingdom entrenched in the [bridgehead].
And the Northern Expeditionary Army of the Big-headed Ant Kingdom is still standing still in the near future, and they are also ignorant of the earth-shaking situation on the north bank of the Great River.
Recently, due to the fierce war in Hebei, the protagonist rarely sends flying knights to reconnoiter the movements of the Northern Expeditionary Army, and it is best for them to stay still, otherwise they will have to disperse the forces of the already weak Paving Ant Barbarian State.
The last two fronts were lackluster, with no more than 1,000 mysterious ant troops on each road, and only more than 10,000 paving ant barbarian troops facing each other.
These two roads are not the key offensive routes of the mysterious ants, but the defensive paving ant barbarian army has fought with the enemy and has not lost too much territory.
But this could not hide the disadvantage of the continuous defeat of the two main battlefields, and as the war became more and more unfavorable, the economy of the paving ant barbarians gradually suffered.
Although it will not affect the food supply for a short time, in the long run, it will be difficult for the Paving Ant Barbarians to have enough food and soldiers to resist for a long time, and they desperately need a deadly victory to drive out the enemy, as was the case in last year's battle to defend the main nest.