The main force of the Paving Ant Barbarians failed to capture the "Waterfront City" in a short period of time as planned in previous years, and then used this sub-nest with relatively complete facilities and plenty of space as a new cantonment point, material warehouse and new departure base, which led to the current temporary departure base often facing food shortages due to birth defects.

The solution of the paving ant barbarians is mainly to transport supplies from the main nest with abundant materials to this place from time to time.

The main nest of the paver ant barbarians is less than half a day's journey from this temporary departure base, and when the weather is still good, this transportation guarantee can barely be maintained by relying on the transport team composed of paver ants and worker ants.

The recharged worker ant convoy must quickly complete the journey on the same day and then return, or else be forced to camp in the wild at night in winter, which is absolutely lifeless.

And when the weather is bad, such as cloudy days and no sunlight, it means that this transportation will be forced to be interrupted - without continuous recharging of sunlight, paver ants and worker ants will not be able to move in the wild, which also means that the food stock at the departure base will be urgent.

When the first snowfall of the winter fell, it was a major disaster for the already fragile Paving Ant Barbarian Army's logistical transportation line, which not only led to intermittent transportation lines, but also led to the death of a large number of Paving Ants.

The cause of death was not the cold, but the humble departure base could barely maintain the thermal insulation needs of the troops. It was not due to hunger, the grain and straw transport team organized by the main nest with all its might basically maintained the consumption of the departure base, and the ants were not life-threatening if they were slightly hungry for a day or two.

The biggest casualties came from the damage of the grain convoys.

Due to the snowfall, the main nest and departure base of the paver ants can only send people to each other at the same time, clearing the snow while covering the road with dark materials, so as to use the heat of the sun to expand the width of the road and clear the stubborn ice and snow.

In the middle of this, there was a large number of non-combat attrition - many paver ants suffered frostbite during construction, which was mainly due to the rapid decrease in body temperature caused by prolonged exposure to ice and snow, and the energy obtained from the sun during the day was no longer enough to offset the elapsed part of the temperature. If not treated by their peers in time, these frostbitten and frozen paver ants can easily die - although the paver ants have partially adapted to the winter climate, the cold is still the most feared killer in their eyes.

Even after the road was opened, the grain and straw convoys traveling along the road often lost a lot of manpower.

The ants are so small that sometimes when a gust of wind blows in the wilderness, a large number of snow particles from the surface of the loose snow layer are blown onto the roads that have been cleared.

These snow particles instantly become the deadliest killers, and when they melt, they quickly suck the heat out of the paving ants, causing them to freeze and frostbite. To add insult to injury, the paving ants don't have nerve tissue on their exoskeletons, and they don't feel like they're stained with white death until their bodies get stiffer and stiffer, and it's too late!

Fortunately, the paver ants were transported in groups, and everyone would work hard to clear the snow from their companions, so that the casualty ratio could be controlled. Frostbite and freeze to death are often unlucky people at the end of the line who have no one to take care of them.

Moreover, due to the low temperature, the speed of the grain and straw transport team of the Paving Ant Barbarian Army was also greatly reduced, and they had to divide the original one-day trip into two days and spend the night at the departure base. Not only does this cause problems to the already crowded departure base, but the long journey also obviously increases the chance of damage to the convoy.

In just two transports after the heavy snowfall, the Paving Ant Barbarian Army lost about hundreds of worker ants, most of which died or were abandoned due to factors such as incurable and certain disabilities.

The harsh winter climate caused the logistics of the Paving Ant Barbarian Army to be intermittent, and many of the Paving Ant Barbarian warriors who attacked in the third wave could only eat half-full, which reduced their combat effectiveness.

In order to maintain the food supply, while sending an appropriately sized army to continue the attack on the "Waterfront City", the Paving Ant Barbarian Army also had to allocate a large number of men to forage for food - foraging for food in the winter.

This is not an easy task, and a large amount of frost damage is prone to occur if you are not careful, and the nearby grain fields that can be found in winter are very limited.

The paving ant barbarian warriors who went out hunting also basically moved along the roads where the snow had been largely cleared, and they searched everywhere as they went, touching everywhere with their originally sharp tentacles, but now slightly less sensitive due to the cold.

There are two main types of food they can find:

One is the insects that are frozen to death in autumn and winter, most of the insects' lifespan ends when winter comes, their corpses are well preserved by the low temperature of winter, and the ants collect these "frozen meat" that has been hard, and then transport it back to the nest to thaw, decompose and eat.

Finding these carcasses is not just a matter of luck, paver ants have their own way of finding this kind of food, experienced paver ants will leave the relatively safe road, venture out to some leeward rocks or trees, and then organize people to dig by hand, where there are often insects to spend the last days of their lives until death strikes. Nowadays, it has become the most popular "mine" for the paving ant barbarians, providing a lot of meat as a supplement to the stored grain.

There are also eggs that are buried in the ground, and these eggs are the ones that the insects try to preserve with all their might. The eggs are usually buried in the soil and wait for spring to hatch in relatively warm ground.

Since insects generally bury their eggs in the ground according to the steps of digging burrows, laying eggs, and sealing burrows, or use ovipositor tubes to inject eggs directly into the ground, paver ants confirm the location of eggs based on the traces of digging in the ground and the small holes in the ovipositor tubes.

The search for eggs can only be done on snow-free ground, which results in very few eggs that can be harvested, and the eggs are so nutritious that only the king and king of paver ants can enjoy these foods.

In general, the food that the Paving Ant Barbarian Army searched for in this way could only partially supplement the food shortage caused by the lack of transportation capacity. Due to the harsh climate, the transport team sent by the main nest cannot guarantee the frequency and quantity of transportation.

Under all kinds of difficulties, the commander of the Paving Ant Barbarian Army also realized that it was not a good thing to be dragged on the north bank of the Great River like this.

Now, the time has come when they must make up their minds.