Leaving the port of San Diego, the fleet headed east for more than an hour before encountering a cold California snap heading south.

The fleet immediately turned southward, and the speed was noticeably faster.

The Keelung was at the end of the fleet, and the tall chimneys were emitting black smoke as the steam engine suppressed the rotation.

The subtropical sea breeze was very strong, blowing the sun, moon and red flags on the mast of the "Keelung" to the sound of hunting. Captain Haiying Yang stood on the slightly undulating slipway, constantly giving orders to command the ship.

Political Commissar Chen Tianxiong stood behind Haiying Yang, squinting his eyes and looking into the distance.

After more than a month of turbulence at sea, it is finally time to return home!

Two hundred nautical miles south of the California Current, you will enter the trade wind belt. If the fleet turns westward, it will be carried by the warm current of the north equator all the way to Taiwan. The trade wind belt is smooth, the wind and waves are small, and it should be able to reach Taiwan at the end of the month!

After more than a month of sea sailing, Political Commissar Chen's face became a little dark, but his heart was quite comfortable. Crossing the ocean and experiencing the test of strong winds and waves, he can be called a real sailor.

"Political commissar, call from the duty room of the Military Commission!" The little correspondent ascended the slipway with a glimpse of the ship.

"Is it time to get in touch?" Chen Tianxiong looked at his watch disappreciably and stepped off the bow of the boat.

The Keelung and Kaohsiung warships each carried a shortwave radio station, and the duty room of the Central Military Commission called them every two hours to keep an eye on the situation of the two ships' long-distance voyages.

After more than 30 minutes, Chen Tianxiong walked out of the telecommunications room and boarded the slipway again with a frown.

Originally, he wanted to do a good job in the Navy, but he didn't expect Bai Baoxiang to call in person to explain the situation of the American Bureau and persuade him to stay in the Americas and bridge the relationship between the American Bureau and the Central Committee.

Chen Tianxiong sighed, he didn't expect that he would also become a paster and a firefighting team.

Haiying Yang glanced back, saw Chen Tianxiong's face gloomy, and felt that something was wrong, "Political commissar, what's wrong?" What happened? ”

"Nothing!" Chen Tianxiong sighed, "The duty room transferred a notice from the executive committee that I have retired." ”

Because of some changes in the strategic development of the Americas Bureau, Chen Tianxiong was appointed by the Executive Committee as the Central Inspector.

"Impossible!" Seahawk Young didn't believe his ears a little.

"It's true, the Americas Bureau is short of people, and the Executive Committee asked me to stay here and work." Chen Tianxiong shook Haiyingyang's hand hard, "I hope there will be a chance to partner next time." ”

Although the "Chinese Etiquette" stipulates that the handshake ceremony is a formal etiquette, it excludes the Western handshake ceremony. But when the cadres are emotional, they don't care about these regulations at all.

The Keelung broke away from the fleet, reversed course, and came to the open sea near the U.S.-Mexico border, where it anchored and stopped.

A few hours later, a fishing boat slowly approached.

"Haha, Secretary Lin!" Seeing Lin Hanlong, secretary of the American Bureau of the Chinese Renaissance Party, appear on the bow of the fishing boat, Chen Tianxiong's brows flashed twice, "I really didn't expect it, I thought we would have to wait for the Central Committee meeting to meet again." ”

"Welcome, welcome!"

Lin Hanlong was very enthusiastic and said directly, "The Inter-American Bureau, and I personally welcome the decision of the Central Committee. ”

By the time the fishing boat entered San Diego Bay, the sun was already setting in the west, and the sunset was half the red sky.

In the backyard of San Diego City Hall, a cocktail party to welcome the new District Attorney Nils is underway.

The town hall was originally the Spanish Doge's Palace, and the backyard is a large Spanish-style seaside garden.

Large manicured shrubs wrap around a lawn with an elaborate sculptural fountain in the center. Babbling water, green trees and flowers, the gentlemen and ladies of San Diego's high society are dressed in gorgeous costumes and scattered on the lawn.

The tables have been set up, and the chefs are making food on the spot. Servants walked through the guests with cocktail trays in hand, diligently pouring their glasses with a variety of fine wines.

Nils, the protagonist of the party, is having a cordial conversation with a judicial officer and his wife, when suddenly there is a burst of laughter. The well-dressed city officials and their wives all gathered around Chow Weisen, Professor Davis, and Professor Martin for a lively conversation.

He is an Honorary Member of the French Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. Professors Davis and Martin are also well-known scholars in California. Seeing that they could come over to participate in the reception, the upper-class people in San Diego were all overjoyed, and they lined up one by one to toast and make a familiar face.

Nils was uncomfortable, raised his glass, and drank it all. He placed the empty glass on the servant's plate, exchanged it for a cocktail, said sorry, and walked away from the crowd to the edge of the garden, looking condescendingly over the harbor of San Diego.

The sea breeze gently blew Niels's face, the white sails in the harbor, the fishing songs, the trumpets, and the charming pictures of hundreds of fishing boats returning late made him forget the troubles just now, "It's at sea again!" Once again, the sea is home! I welcome you, welcome you, roaring waves! ……”

Nils couldn't help but whisper Byron's poetry.

Niels was born into a declining aristocratic family in England, and his father's New York factory went bankrupt due to a financial crisis. Because of his family's financial crisis, he graduated from college and came to California for a better future.

Byron was one of the great English Romantic poets of the early 19th century, and Niels was very fond of his poetry. Byron's characters are arrogant, fanatical, romantic, but full of rebellious spirit, which often resonates with Nils's heart.

“…… Yet I had to wander to a foreign land, for I would drift on the ocean like a grass falling from a rock, no matter how fierce the storm or how high the waves were. A magnetic baritone recited passionately along with Niels.

Nils quickly turned around, and standing in front of him was Weiss. Lando, San Diego's police chief.

"Mr. Director, do you like Byron's poetry too?" Nils was a little surprised.

Lando is a burly figure, with short hair, bright eyes, and an angular mouth, he looks like a well-trained soldier, but he didn't expect to be a literature lover.

Langdo spoke short and forcefully, "I was a sergeant in the expeditionary force to Lidupan, and I came to America after the end of the Greek Revolutionary War. ”

"Oh my!" Niels was suddenly in awe, "Mr. Lando, you turned out to be a volunteer in the Greek War of Independence, and you turned out to be a freedom fighter in Byron's army. ”

Byron was one of the leaders of the Greek War of Independence, and was appointed commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force to Lidupan by the Greek Independence Government, leading a large number of European volunteers sympathetic to the support of Greek independence to fight against the Turkish army.

"Call me Weiss!" Lando looked at Nils calmly, and said in his heart that Zhou Weisen is still powerful, and the identity he forged is very effective.

After being accepted into the Crossing Regiment, Lando came to the United States. With the help of the space-time box, he obtained a large amount of technical information, especially the top-secret information of the United States in steel smelting, so Lando also became the most wanted target of the United States in the original plane.

After completing his intelligence-gathering mission, Lando joined the Bureau of the Americas and became the only time-traveling party with an official San Diego identity. The rest of the Americas Bureau is basically engaged in economic work, and the political identity can only wait for the election year to come, when the time comes, to try to get a few more state and county legislators.

"Fortunately, fortunately, I am an admirer of Byron." Nils shook Lando's hand excitedly, "I'm a romantic, I like love; I'm also an idealist and I seek freedom. So, I love Byron. ”

After some conversation, Nils found that Lando was not only proficient in military affairs, but also familiar with politics, history, law, economics, science and technology.

"Dear Weiss, you really don't look like a retired soldier, you should be a scholar!"

"I once hoped to fight for Italy's independence, but unfortunately there were too many bullet marks on my body, and I couldn't do it!" Lando gently stroked a scar on his forehead, and his tone was very calm, "Now, I can only flip through the articles in books and magazines to find the passion when I pursued independence and nation-building. ”

This sentence has a sense of heroic twilight, and Niels feels that the Byronic hero described in the poem is standing alive in front of him. He solemnly raised his glass, "Cheers to Italy!" ”

The more the two talked, the more speculative they became, and Nils couldn't help but have a few more drinks.

Looking at the reception scene, the majority of the Chinese with black hair and yellow skin who looked very similar to the Indians, he couldn't help but say, "San Diego, it seems to be the world of the Chinese!" ”

"Dear Nils, you shouldn't hate the Chinese, should you!"

Nils said unabashedly, "I hate the tyranny of the monarchs of the East, I hate the ignorance of the East, and I hate the arrogance of the East. In my dictionary, Oriental people are synonymous with depravity, shamelessness, and abomination. ”

"Honey." Landau shook his head and told Nils in short, forceful terms, "What were we Europeans doing a thousand years ago, when the Far East was a great and prosperous empire, when the Chinese wore silk, used fine porcelain, and drank fragrant tea? ”

"This—" Niels' tongue knotted.

"In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, due to the blockade of the United Kingdom, we in the United States were poor and weak at that time. In order to get out of the economic crisis. Washington sent a sailing ship, the Empress of China, hoping to get a large quantity of silk, porcelain, and tea from the East to get rid of the depletion of the treasury. You say, at that time, what was the image of the Chinese in our hearts? ”

Nelston for a long time, "But they're too ...... now!" ”

"Those who were invaded by barbarians were ruled by the barbarian Tatars, just as Greece had done before." Landau asked Nils, "Some time ago, the envoys of the Ming Kingdom visited, can you still see them savage, ignorant, and arrogant?" ”

Ma Jiayi, Xu Nanying, and Wei Ce took the Keelung ship to visit the United States on behalf of the Ming regime, from San Francisco to Sacramento, the capital of California, and then to the capital of the United States, Hua ~ Shengton, along the way they showed elegance and open-mindedness, erudition, wit and humor, fully demonstrated the richness of the Chinese, and were widely praised everywhere they went.

Nils nodded silently, intellectually speaking, he had to admit that the Chinese were indeed excellent, and they should definitely belong to the category of Caucasians.

In fact, American society at that time did not form a clear racial concept of Chinese.

In the original time and space, in the eighth census in 1860, only California divided the Chinese and classified them as aliens. Elsewhere there is no clear racial division between Chinese and whites. In Louisiana, until the 1870 census, Chinese were explicitly classified as white.