The battle of Madrid was brutal: the only tall building in Madrid, the telephone building, fearlessly towered in the sky infested by German bombers. The floors above the www.biquge.info have been bombed repeatedly, but the government offices on the lower floors are still working as usual. No matter where the city was bombed, the work went on as usual.

Enemy bombardment began in September, causing fear. Now that the citizens of Madrid have learned to live in fear, the feeling of helplessness has disappeared from the fear of the citizens since September 17, because on the day Lin Jun and Andlupf began to take to the skies to defend Madrid, men and women were in tears of joy and slapped each other at the sight of fighter jets in the air. They threw their little hats into the air and hugged and danced and sang and shouted demonstratively. Ours! Our planes! Ours! And whenever they go out, the people of Madrid will lean on one side of the street, knowing that enemy shells will fall on the other side of the street.

Lin Jun didn't know that the people of Madrid were happy to give their plane a nickname - Lion Nose, maybe the five short body of the Yi 16 is a bit like a lion's nose, but he still has to admire the rich imagination of the Madridians.

"Lao Xie, how is the situation on the front line now?"

"There is no room for optimism, intelligence indicates that the fascist army is massing in large numbers in the northwest and may attack from this direction. But there are also two good news, a Soviet artillery expert will come to us to guide the work, and the new 11th International Brigade has entered Madrid, and our battalion will be temporarily assigned to the 11th Brigade to cooperate with the infantry to fight the enemy. Although Xie Weijin said two good news, he could still see that he was a little worried.

The new 11th International Brigade was the first to rescue Madrid, and the main defense of Madrid has been held by the 5th Militia Regiment. It was a combat-ready force, half made up of workers (almost all of whom were **), the backbone of the Republican Army. The Republican Army, on the other hand, did not have a regular army in the true sense of the word, and the combat effectiveness of the friendly and neighboring units of the Fifth Regiment was not very good, the situation was worse, the composition of the soldiers was more complicated, the mood was impatient, and when the battle situation was unfavorable, they would run away and push back. During these days of fighting, the 5th Regiment was always present in the most intense places of battle, and did not allow the enemy to step into the city of Madrid!

While Lin Jun and Xie Weijin were talking, the guards came in to report that several visitors had arrived, and one of them was a newly arrived artillery expert.

A total of 5 people came in, 4 men and 1 woman, and Lin Jun recognized two of them. That female comrade should be the famous ** member Dolores Ibaruli who had the title of "Flower of Passion" in the Spanish Civil War, and another person Lin Jun knew made Lin Jun very surprised - he shouldn't be here at this time, he might be in France or somewhere else, maybe Valencia or some other European city, anyway, he shouldn't be in Madrid! He has a painting folder in his hand, and he is Pablo Picasso.

The other three were H-H. Voronov, a military adviser and artillery specialist, Ivanov, a Soviet lieutenant colonel, a Soviet military adviser, and Mikhail Koltsov, a well-known journalist for Pravda.

After Xie Weijin invited everyone to sit down, he immediately got to the point.

Ivanov took out a few letters and sent them to Lin Jun, "Comrade Andrei, this is what Comrade Stalin, before I came to Spain, and your wife and Comrade Arkhipov, chairman of the Party Committee of the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy, asked me to bring to you. ”

"Thank you, Comrade Ivanov." Lin Jun has not heard from home for almost two months, although he is anxious to know the content of the letter, but the occasion is inconvenient, he still endures.

"Comrade Xie, I will cooperate with your work in the future, and of course, you will still be responsible for the specific affairs of the artillery battalion." It was Voronov who spoke. He made his attitude clear: I am only an adviser, not a power-grabbing one. "And our future coordination with other units will be connected by Comrade Dolores, our "flower of passion".

It seems that Voronov is still a cheerful person, and his words relaxed everyone present.

"Comrade Xie, the coordinator and the signal corps will report to you soon." She speaks very eloquently.

"Welcome, welcome! With the help of experts and coordinators, the combat effectiveness of our battalion will be greatly increased, and we can teach those fascists a good lesson. ”

At this time, Picasso, who had not spoken, spoke, he was talking to Lin Jun, in Spanish. Lin Jun couldn't understand, and after Ivanov's translation, it turned out that Picasso was coming to see Madrid's air defenders. "I heard that the air hero who defended Madrid for more than a month is here now, so here I am. Comrade Andrey, I want to draw you a sketch, is that okay? ”

"Oh my God! Picasso wanted to sketch me, but he couldn't ask for it, willing, willing! I'm 10,000 willing! Lin Jun was ecstatic and said, "Of course you can, Comrade Picasso." ”

Picasso is a member of the French **, so Lin Jun still calls him comrade.

"Okay, shall we sit by the window? Comrade Mikhail of Pravda is also going to interview you, so let's draw a picture of "Defenders of the Republic in Conversation"" Picasso said as he opened his folder and took out a charcoal pencil.

Lin Jun sat on the edge of the bed at Picasso's request, and across from him was Mikhail.

"Hehe, Comrade Picasso doesn't sketch easily, Andrei, now you're even more famous." It was Dolores who spoke, while everyone else was there to say that Lin Jun was lucky.

"Hehe, hehe." Lin Jun himself could only respond with a giggle there. To have Picasso sketch himself is more happy than to get another medal.

A few people over there talked about work, and Mikhail also took out his notebook and began to talk to Lin Jun.

Xie Weijin and several other comrades were talking about the situation of the war and the development of events, and the main content was very mixed: the situation was not optimistic, and the republic had lost almost the entire southwestern part of Spain. Germany and Italy, under the guise of cooperating with the Francoists, escalated their aggressions, and intelligence showed that the number of "intervention forces" was increasing, and that they were constantly providing logistical support to the rebels. In the rebel camps, there is also ongoing infighting between competing groups. Regrettably, however, within the camp of the republic, the divisions between the **, the Socialists, the anarchists and the supporters of the left-wing republican form of government were even more acute. And the policy of Largo Caballero, the right-wing socialist of Valencia, who ran, was ambiguous and inconsistent.

And in the full sense of the word, the current republic does not yet have a regular army. Morocco did not gain independence, which was exploited by the fascists, who carried out demagogic propaganda and collected ****** troops into their own troops. Basconia and Catalonia demanded autonomy, which the government was extremely unhappy about, which led to differences of opinion among the anti-fascist forces. The masses of the people, full of revolutionary zeal, are ready for self-sacrifice. The most destructive to them are the anarchists, who lack a minimum of discipline: they fight today and rest tomorrow. Sometimes they take risks without consulting their superiors, and sometimes they expose their fronts to the enemy. They seized weapons from state warehouses and hid them. They don't admit to anyone, they don't care about anyone. They don't like people very much, they look down on the Socialists, they hate government officials, they are either self-defeating heroes, or they are panicking.

The logistics are not on track for the time being, and the situation on the front lines is not good, all sides are watching the battle situation in Madrid, and as long as Madrid holds on, there is hope of winning the war.

The conversation over there reached Lin Jun's ears, and he was a little upset, and his conversation with Mikhail was also a match.

Mikhail mainly came to interview Lin Jun and his brigade in the defense of Madrid, he had been in Spain for some time, he had long heard about the glorious combat history of the "Soviet Union Aid to Spain's First Fighter Group", and had also seen their planes take to the air to fight. After the Kremlin learned that Lin Jun was shot down and injured by ground artillery fire, he immediately ordered the staff of Pravda in Madrid to find Andrei and write a report on Andrei's fighting process and send it back to Moscow.

As a veteran journalist, Mikhail knows that this is a "god-making" move, in order to create a new "god of war" and a new combat hero. According to this request, what Mikhail needs is only the "great deeds" of the hero of the air battle in front of him, not Madrid for some reason.

"Write whatever you like." After talking to the reporter in front of him for a while, Lin Jun already understood what he meant, but he still put forward his opinion: Regarding the reason why he "returned" to Madrid, he must write that he was shot down, "I am not Superman." ”

Mikhail interviewed Lin Jun in Madrid, and it stands to reason that he should be commanding troops in Valencia at this time, and this problem can only be left to Mikhail to figure out by himself. Heroes will also be knocked down, but how to be shot down, there is an article to do here.

It should be said that Picasso rarely sketched a certain person, and as soon as he arrived in Madrid this time he heard that the pilot comrade who had faithfully defended the Madrid sky for more than a month had been wounded, and now the artillerymen of the international column were wounded. So I found Dolores and wanted to meet the pilot. At that time, Dolores was about to come to the artillery barracks, and Picasso came with him.

After more than 30 minutes, Picasso's sketch was finished and the interview was finished. Lin Jun took the painting from Picasso's hand, on which is a scene of the two talking, with simple lines outlining Lin Jun and Mikhail opposite him, and Pablo Picasso is signed on the back of the drawing paper. This is a standard figure sketch, and bears no resemblance to the Impressionist style.

Lin Jun wanted to return the painting to Picasso.

"Hehe, this is a small gift for heroes."