Chapter 426: Food Crisis (Ask for a subscription, ask for a monthly pass, ask for everything!) ）

In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the military, economic, and local political power building of the Suicha Military Region, in the next few days, accompanied by Ma Zheng, the chairman not only inspected the troops in the defense area of the Suicha Military Region and the local political power in various banner counties, but also inspected the arsenals, clothing factories, iron and steel factories, explosives factories, and other military enterprises.

Through the 10-day inspection, the chairman and others had a relatively intuitive feeling of the political, economic, and military development in the area under the jurisdiction of the Suicha Military Region. Although there are many problems in the Suicha Military Region, the results are gratifying in comparison.

To the surprise of the chairman and others, it took only more than a year for the Suicha Military Region to conquer Suiyuan, and in just over a year, they actually built this famous city in northern Saibei into a large-scale city integrating military defense and military production, which was even more brilliant than the achievements made by the central government in Yan'an, which was really surprising.

The only thing that worries the chairman and others is that the agricultural production of the Suicha Military Region is in trouble. Compared with the handicraft industry, the most important thing at the moment is agriculture, and the food in the war era is comparable to the existence of gold, and sometimes you may not be able to buy food with gold in your hand.

On the one hand, the soil in northern Saicha is not suitable for agricultural production, and the weather is extremely dry, so even if the crops are barely planted, the harvest will not be very good.

In addition, there are many wars and disasters, so last year's harvest in the Tumut Plains, which is famous for its grain production, was not good. Fortunately, Ma Zheng instructed the military and political cadres in all banner counties at the beginning of spring, and clearly instructed them to lead the common people to repair rivers, dig canals, level fields, and do a good job in agricultural production as soon as spring begins.

At the same time, in the name of the General Headquarters of the Military Region, the Military Region has also issued agricultural guidance that this year, all the land in the defense area of the Suicha Military Region will be planted with corn, potatoes, and other high-yielding and drought-tolerant crops. Even in a year of great drought, the harvested grain should be fed, even if the coarse grain tastes bad.

But it's good to think about it the other way around, what kind of taste is still important in this era, and it's good to have food. However, the current situation of agricultural production in northern Cyprus is still very worrying, after all, nearly 200,000 military and political personnel of the Suicha Military Region are all in need of food and drink, and if there is no stable rear to continuously provide for them, it will be difficult to feed such a huge army by capturing alone, and it will be even more difficult to ensure the combat effectiveness of the troops.

Ma Zheng was not at all worried about this, and he knew very well that it was not agricultural production but industry that was restricting the development of the Suicha Military Region. In northern Xinjiang, the Suicha region has always been vast and sparsely populated, with a shortage of labor, and at the same time the infrastructure is weak, with only one railway and an imperfect road network, all of which have seriously restricted the development of the Suicha Military Region.

As for grain production, it is of course a problem, but based on the experience gained by Ma Zheng in later generations, the agricultural production conditions in the Suicha area are still very good, especially the Tumut Plain, represented by the Tumut Left and Right Banners and Tuoketuo County, is a good place for grain cultivation. However, at present, the vast majority of these places still belong to grasslands, and only a few places have been reclaimed as cultivated land, so this year's task is to reclaim all these places, and as long as this task is accomplished, agriculture will no longer become a restrictive factor in the Suicha Military Region.

In fact, what Ma Zheng is most worried about now is not his own territory, but the situation of the Eighth Route Army in other regions and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo border region, including Yan'an. Based on his knowledge of history, the situation in these places is not very optimistic in the next two or three years. Especially after 1941, the economic development of the border areas fell into difficulties, and entered the most difficult period since the War of Resistance Against Japan, the first of which was the financial crisis.

As we all know, the economic resources of the government of the border region are very narrow, partly relying on the funds allocated by the national government and partly on the tax revenue within the jurisdiction. However, with the deepening of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Nationalist Government began to impose an economic blockade on the border district government, coupled with natural disasters, so that the income of the border government plummeted, and the situation was very grim.

In order to solve the financial difficulties, the government of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Border Region has adopted a series of measures to increase the government's fiscal revenue. These include measures such as adjusting fiscal policy, vigorously developing the economy in the border areas, increasing tax revenue, and issuing public bonds.

However, although these measures have eased the difficulties of the Eighth Route Army of the border region government, they have had a very serious impact, and because they have greatly increased the burden on the peasants, they have seriously dampened the production enthusiasm of the masses in the border areas, affected the relations between the Communist Party and the masses of the people, and even caused incidents in which the masses of the people wantonly cursed the leaders of the government of the border regions.

For this reason, the Party Central Committee put forward the slogan of "do it yourself, have enough food and clothing," and thus triggered a vigorous large-scale production movement.

Now that the economy of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo border region has shown such bad signs, Ma Zheng believes that it is necessary to make a suggestion to the central authorities, otherwise it will seriously affect the course of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

Think about it, in the two or three years after 41 years, all units of the Eighth Route Army focused a large part of their energy on material production, and people used it to open up wasteland and farm, so there was still time and energy to fight devils, so this also gave the Japanese who were also having a bad time to breathe. If the Party Central Committee had realized this problem earlier and found a way to solve it earlier, it would not have been as passive as it was in history.

Since he knows these things, he naturally can't hide them, and remind them early so that the chairman can take precautions as soon as possible. However, how to say this is a technical job, and if you say it too bluntly, it will inevitably make people feel like showing off. If it is too vague, it will not achieve the effect, but fortunately, a chance event gave Ma Zheng a chance.

On 24 April, this is the 10th day that the working group has been stationed in the Suicha Military Region, and in the past week, the party Central Committee has been extremely satisfied with all aspects of the Suicha Military Region after conducting inspections and visits in various directions. Evaluating the strength of the Suicha Military Region at a comprehensive level, they have far surpassed the Eighth Route Army.

Today's Suicha Military Region has completely grown into a behemoth, which requires troops to have troops, territory to have territory, materials to have materials, and equipment to have equipment. It was a small kingdom that was completely self-sufficient and self-produced and self-sold, which was much stronger than the situation of the Eighth Route Army, which was scattered in all directions.

But the only thing that worried the chairman and others was the problem of food, after all, when they first arrived, they knew that the grain stock of the Suicha Military Region had bottomed out. In addition, the chairman and others also heard that under such circumstances, the headquarters of the military region had taken out a small amount of grain in stock and distributed it to local peasants as seeds, which further aggravated the food crisis in the Suicha Military Region.

As we all know, there is a cycle of grain production, from spring planting to autumn harvest, which is a few months. But people need to eat, and no one can wait for months without eating or drinking. The chairman was very worried about how the Suicha Military Region would survive these few months, knowing that it was not only the army that was now in a situation of food shortage, but also the vast majority of the peasants who had no surplus grain in their hands.

The impact of food shortage is fatal for an army, without food, the soldiers will not have enough to eat, and if they do not have enough to eat, their combat effectiveness will decrease. At the same time, if you don't have enough to eat for a long time, you may become malnourished, and even the soldiers will get sick as a result, resulting in a large number of non-combat attrition. When war breaks out, the consequences are even more catastrophic.

The consequences of the lack of food for the common people are also very serious, and now there is a shortage of food in the entire military region of the Suicha Military Region, the soldiers are not full, the peasants are not full, the student dolls and workers are also hungry, and in a short time people can still use bark and wild vegetables to satisfy their hunger, but these things will be eaten up one day, and if there is no solution, it will inevitably cause riots.

Everyone knows very well that it doesn't matter if you are Chinese or Japanese, whether you are a Kuomintang or a Communist Party, who the people recognize who can feed them. If you can't eat enough, even if the king of heaven and Lao Tzu comes, it's useless, and the people still don't recognize you.

However, just when the chairman and others were worried, Ma Zheng took the initiative to report the plan to the chairman and others to solve the grain problem and asked for approval. (To be continued.) )