The terrain in the Luliang Mountain area is fragmented, and the proportion of slope land is large. The climate is also relatively arid, with concentrated precipitation, sparse vegetation, and less than one-tenth of the flat arable land. The vast majority of cultivated land is spread over slopes ranging from 10 to 45 degrees. The plots are small and scattered, which is not conducive to water conservancy and mechanization, and it is impossible to cultivate in a row.

Therefore, there are no patches of green yarn tents in the base area of Luliang Mountain, and there are no vast fields, but traces of land reclamation can be seen everywhere on the slopes and ravines, and every spring, these places will be planted with corn, sweet potatoes and potatoes, all of which are drought-resistant varieties developed by the seed cultivation center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of the Far East using modern technology.

In particular, sweet potato is the most, as a crop with high and stable yield, it has the characteristics of wide adaptability, strong resistance to stress, drought tolerance and barrenness, and less pests and diseases.

Although there is a general drought and no rain in the northwest region at present, and the soil is arid, so that the premature aging of crop stems and leaves affects the formation and accumulation of carbohydrates and reduces the yield, the Far East has adopted drought-resistant excellent seeds, so that the yield per mu in the Luliangshan base area can reach more than 1,000 catties, and even 2,000 catties in some areas.

Today, the crops in the Luliang Mountain area are mainly sweet potatoes, supplemented by corn and potatoes, which basically guarantees the food needs of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the base areas.

The base areas are located in the territory of Daming, and they are all old and borderland, and the environment is harsh, so it is obviously unrealistic to get the support of the Far East Company. The company can only use airships to provide very limited support to the individual base areas. In the face of more than one million soldiers and civilians in more than a dozen base areas, the company's annual transportation volume can only be a drop in the bucket.

Therefore, each base area should also adapt measures to local conditions as much as possible and do their own work to provide sufficient food and clothing. Fortunately, the Far Eastern Commercial Firms, which are active in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, have spared no effort to support the base areas. Relying on their influence in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, they used various channels to provide strong support to various base areas.

The Far Eastern Group Commercial Bank mainly provided various production and living materials to the base areas, including cotton cloth, farm tools and ironware, poultry and livestock, pots and pans, etc., which greatly improved the conditions of the base areas.

Under extremely difficult conditions, various base areas have also organized the displaced people to do their utmost to solve the housing problem by digging caves, building wooden houses, and erecting shacks, and so on, and by making use of their own strong conditions.

Of course, the conditions in all aspects of the base areas are still extremely difficult, but as long as the problems of clothing, food, housing, and transportation are resolved, the stability of the base areas will be greatly guaranteed, and the support of the vast number of displaced people in the base areas will also be won.

The livelihood of the displaced people in the base area is guaranteed, and they have a sense of belonging to the Far East, and the next work will become very smooth. Of course, the construction of grassroots work in various localities will come to fruition.

At present, the Far East has established a sound grass-roots organizational structure of detachments, brigades, and squadrons in various base areas of the Ming Dynasty, and has trained many grass-roots management cadres and political work cadres at all levels, as well as a large number of activists. These people are the seeds of the future Far East, and they will play an important role when the company becomes the owner of Daming.

Due to the conditions in each base area, the grassroots squadrons at all levels came out of the primitive commune state, and the displaced people were crammed together in a dozen people, living in a unified cave, wooden house or shack, eating in the public canteen, and even pooping in the public toilet. In peacetime, labor production, political and ideological education, military training, and infrastructure construction in base areas are all carried out in a unified organization and collective.

Although this kind of organization will restrict the development of the productive forces, the current conditions in various base areas are such that it is nonsense to want to contract production to households. Anyway, the company is about to enter the Central Plains, and at that time, the various bases will inevitably be dissolved.

At present, each base area is like a huge military camp, as long as you are in every corner of the base area, you can feel a strong order, even if a few homeless people travel, they must follow the standard queue action and keep walking in columns.

Displaced people in such an environment will become unruly after a long time, and even if they leave here in the future, this order will affect them for many years. Therefore, various base areas also took this opportunity to vigorously cultivate activists among the displaced people as reserve cadres of the company.

At present, a guerrilla detachment has been formed in each base area, each with a brigade directly under the detachment and six guerrilla brigades, with a number of nearly 6,000 people. Weapons are mainly spears and arquebuses, supplemented by some front-loading guns as fire support units.

The ratio of spearmen to musketeers in the troops is generally seven or three, and each brigade is equipped with an artillery squadron, equipped with about ten Tiger Zun cannons or Franc machine cannons.

As the countdown to the company's southward march to the Central Plains began, in order to strengthen the firepower intensity of each base area, the Military Commission equipped the brigades directly under each guerrilla detachment with a fire support squadron equipped with six water-cooled heavy machine guns and three 70-mm infantry guns.

In order to improve the mobility of the armed forces in each base area, the company did everything possible to transport a large number of war horses from the northern steppe to each base area, so that the brigades directly under each guerrilla brigade were also assigned to two or three cavalry squadrons.

The cavalry squadron of the guerrilla detachment in the base area belongs to the main fist unit of the detachment, and its weapons and equipment are basically the same as those of the newly built cavalry division, except that the number of war horses for each soldier is only two.

There is no way, the conditions in the base area are too poor, and they can't afford to raise a large number of war horses. Even the main mode of transportation in the base area is mainly unicycles, and some two-wheeled field carriages are also equipped.

Because the base area is located in the territory of the Ming Dynasty, in order to cope with all kinds of emergencies, each base area has also vigorously developed the militia armament, and almost all the people in the base area are soldiers, and each squadron will automatically be transformed into a militia squadron in wartime.

Every winter, the base area organizes training for the displaced people of various grassroots units, and in the spring and summer, it also spends a certain amount of time to organize the training of the displaced people during the slack season.

The militia was relatively rudimentary in their armament, mainly spearmen and shield bearers, with one hundred and fifty men per squadron and one hundred and twenty spearmen and thirty sword and shield men. Each brigade was directly subordinate to a musket squadron with one hundred and fifty arquebusiers. Each detachment was assigned to three musket squadrons and one artillery squadron.

Of course, the conditions in each base area are still difficult, and the situation of weaponry is not optimistic, especially the serious shortage of muskets and artillery, even the spear is sharpened with a wooden stick, and the square shield is also used by a few wooden planks.

Although the conditions were extremely difficult and the materials were extremely scarce, the training in the various base areas was not ambiguous at all. No matter how cold the weather is every winter, the training of the main guerrilla detachments and grassroots militias at all levels has never been delayed.

Even for ordinary grassroots squadrons, the level of queues, internal affairs and organizational discipline are very high. The training of various basic tactical arrays has also been hard for several years, and even ordinary militiamen have formed subconscious tactical movements in the continuous hard training.

In the past few years, more than a dozen base areas in the Ming Dynasty have organized the main guerrilla detachments and a large number of armed militias to actively attack every year; after several years of fighting, the main guerrilla brigades and militia armed forces in various base areas have been invincible in the battles with the displaced people's army, the Daming official army, and the landlords' armed forces in various parts of the northern Ming Dynasty.

In the era of cold weapons, warfare relied more on collective strength, and discipline and morale often played a pivotal role in battle.

Facts have proved that even a group of homeless people with crude weapons such as wooden sticks, but after years of strict training, against the well-equipped but lax military discipline of the Ming Dynasty officials and soldiers, they are also chopping melons and vegetables, sweeping all the way.

Under such difficult conditions, the base areas were able to rely on their own efforts to solve the problems of food, clothing, shelter and transportation. Capture on the battlefield is also an important way to supplement the base areas.

The intelligence stations of the Intelligence Department of the Central Military Commission stationed in various parts of Daming have also given great cooperation to the various base areas and provided them with a large amount of information. Each base area has also formed its own intelligence force and established a limited intelligence network around the base area.

When necessary, the armed forces of the various base areas will also call on the airship units of the Air Force Department to provide limited air support for their operations and provide air support such as battlefield reconnaissance, transportation and supply, and communication relays.

In recent years, these base areas have gradually taken control of the areas around the base areas and captured a large number of landlords' tunpu and Daming towns. He even organized several large-scale operations, captured the cities of several state capitals, and then plundered the materials in the city, plundered a large number of displaced people and craftsmen, and then abandoned the city.

In the past few years, various base areas have also subdued a number of displaced people and provided them with a certain amount of assistance. It has also established cooperative relations with some relatively large bandit armies. And with the cooperation of the Ministry of Intelligence, through bribery and inducement, a large number of intelligence personnel were planted in these exile troops, and a lot of valuable information was obtained.

Starting next year, the company will go south to the Central Plains on a large scale, and the Military Commission has also begun to speed up its deployment. In particular, a certain amount of armed forces have been strengthened in more than a dozen base areas in various parts of the Ming Dynasty.

In addition, a large number of main forces at the battalion and company levels have been gradually dispatched to the base areas, and during the period when the main forces move southward on a large scale, these dozen or so base areas will blossom all over the Ming Dynasty.

Don't underestimate the dozen or so base areas of the Ming Dynasty, once the Far Eastern Army moves southward on a large scale, they will also pour out of their nests and launch attacks on the areas around the base areas with the main force of guerrilla troops and militia at all levels.

This is because the Central Military Commission has strengthened a certain number of main forces in various base areas, and various guerrilla detachments have also possessed a certain ability to attack fortified positions. With the cooperation of intelligence stations in various places and the support of the Ministry of the Air Force, it is completely possible to capture the state capitals of all parts of the Ming Dynasty.

Before the arrival of the main force of the Far Eastern Army, it occupied various key transportation hubs, wharves and ferries, material distribution centers, commercial centers and other key targets in the north of the Ming Dynasty. (To be continued.) )