staging posts

To enable these great fleets to maintain the Pax Ming in the immediate region and sail through the Indian Ocean to Africa, it was necessary to create staging posts in what is today Southeast Asia, he wrote.

要用这些庞大的舰队维持周边地区的‘大明’统治，打开通过印度洋前往非洲的通道，在今天的东南亚一带修建中途集结地是有必要的，他写道。

AS THE rebel insurgency flowed and ebbed across Libya this year, it passed through most of the staging posts in Muammar Qaddafi's life.

今年，利比亚武装力量风起云涌，近来淡出帷幕。革命之火燃遍穆阿迈尔？卡扎菲生命历程中每一个中转站。

The tunnels were very small, only two feet square ( about 0.37 m ²), though larger chambers were dug to house the air pump, a workshop, and staging posts along each tunnel.

这些隧道都很小，只有两英尺宽（约0.37平方米），不过也挖有大洞穴来容纳气泵，一个工场以及沿各个隧道而建的数个中途站。