Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire-Chapter 394: Zero breads and thousand of fish

A delegation to Farini arrived this morning, according to the report brought to me, but the news reached me only now because my Agents gathered information. Then it took an hour for the message to arrive.

To my relief, it wasn’t too urgent. But it was not great, either.

An ambassador of the Vardish Empire—the same one who visited Farini earlier—came to announce that the Vardish Empire won’t accept Naregan Kingdom’s claims on Eastern Expanse Reach and won’t let the insulting attack on it slide.

The last hope of the Naregan Kingdom, according to the ambassador, was to plead for mercy, leave Eastern Expanse Reach immediately and pay reparations.

When Farini refused, the ambassador bragged about the massive fleet that was en route to these shores. When Farini still refused, the ambassador lost all composure and began spitting colorful and meaningless insults at Farini, which my bees have dutifully documented.

"Treacherous cur", "a green peacock" (which was a racist insult *and* a Naregan euphemism for a cuckold), "you are doomed to sit on your own sword" (I had a feeling this just meant ’go fuck yourself’) and more, not all of which I or my bees understood.

To his credit, Farini stayed calm despite all this. But he couldn’t let these insults slide in front of the court, either.

The ambassador had time only to realize what a mistake he did before Farini’s guards attacked the ambassador’s escort. The Vardish guards were killed and the ambassador himself was caught.

For insults against the High King, he was punished according to the law and tradition—executed by drowning.

What I learned from this incident—except for the new insults—was that the Vardish Empire was about to counterattack. We needed to prepare defenses in our harbors, too: both the one in the Naregan, and the ones in the Eastern Expanse Reach.

I expected this outcome, so the harbors already had reinforced garrisons. But to be extra ready, I gave Bloodhero a special order to execute.

She was going to prepare several teams of dragon riders that could carry oil, gunpowder and also a few Hardbees.

The seas were already patrolled by Naregan ships that will notice the Vardish fleet from afar. The special dragon rider teams will live on these ships until they spot a threat.

Then the dragon riders will deliver the Hardbees and their incendiary load to the ship, and the Hardbees will set the place on fire. If they could light up something far enough from the human eyes that they wouldn’t be able to put the fire out before it grows too large, the ship will drown before it even reaches Naregan shores.

And it cost the Bee Empire almost nothing. After three years of training dragons, both adults and chicks, we had plenty of dragon riders for all our needs.

So I focused fully on the kingdoms we had to save.

***

"We need a plan, girls. We can’t save these humans without a plan. And before you start—not saving them isn’t an option, I’ve already thought about it."

The Empire Council all nodded, including Whisper’s signaler.

"You’ve told us already, Father, yes-yes," Things-Things said timidly. "We’ve been thinking plans just like you asked. We are ready to make plans now."

"Good. Then I will start with my idea, and you will give opinions and suggestions."

I stood up from my seat to lean over the new addition to the Council Chamber—a paper map of the continent laying on the table. I have spent hours painstakingly recreating it from my memory and then redrawing it because my hands weren’t as precise as my recollection.

The borders were drawn on it with a coal pencil based on the main Council Chamber map. I pointed my finger into an area next to Naregan Kingdom.

"We will start from the Barahi Kingdom. It will take very little to make it become our protectorate. Then we can use its resources—as few as there are—to help us with the other places. Of course, this will require a food investment, which we can’t provide. But..."

I pointed at another area, closer to the sea.

"Judji can, if they can transport fish away from the sea. And catch more of it. We have access to sea, too, but Judji has way more fishermen and fishing boats than Naregan Kingdom and Eastern Expanse Reach combined. They barely eat anything *but* fish."

I pointed at the next area.

"Kachi-Chi can sustain itself for a bit by fishing and hunting if we can construct a dam for its river. But from what the Agent Bees gathered, a dam like that will take years to create even by human hands. The river is too big. But perhaps... Perhaps humans under our control can build machines that are as big as the river?"

My hand tapped the map for the last time.

"Hatha Kingdom. They are too religious and too zealous. We will leave them for last, when they are the most desperate—because otherwise they will refuse to join the Naregan Kingdom without a war. They might still refuse, but they will be easier to defeat then, at least."

I sat back in my seat, folded my arms in front of me and looked over my Advisers.

"And that’s about it. The rough plan, which doesn’t explain *how* we will achieve much of it. Of course, we will start by sending Agents to all four countries. But what about the fish?"

Ambrosia tilted her head.

"Fish. The swimming beasts? We can just dry their meat. This way it won’t spoil for months."

"Uh, yes, that’d be an obvious solution but... it only works for bees, because we can guard the dried meat from other insects. Humans will dry the fish in large pieces and they will be eaten the moment they turn their eyes away. Humans in the Eastern Expanse Reach had already complained about this problem. Bees from our army there had to guard the largest stores of food."

Bloodhero perked up.

"Then we can just guard the dried fish!"

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