Recife, Brazil, Thursday, April 3, 1636, rain.

Winds from the sea carry torrential rain back and forth over the capital city of Brazil's Pernambuco region. The Dutch West India Company fleet, which dominated the area with huge winds and large waves in the open sea, was confined to the harbor, and the gorgeous Southern Fleet was unable to carry out any military operations because of the maintenance of its ships. In addition to the frigates that remained to protect the landing grounds of the northern port of Olinda, several main forces were urgently maintained at the distant Butterfly Island naval base.

However, these did not affect the offensive operations of the Brazilian Dispatch Brigade under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Scott. Braving the wind and rain to launch an attack, which in the past would have been prevented by any of the senior officers of the Army Command. But this time, it was clear that Scott had made a decision that others had to agree with.

Because at this time, the fleet of the Dutch West India Company also lost its mobility and combat effectiveness due to strong winds, and even due to heavy rain and humid weather, the Dutch ground mercenary troops occupying Recife would face the situation of partial failure of musket artillery. For the Chinese Army, which has basically reloaded with Type 30A rifles and 32A rotary tube machine guns that use coiled copper metal bullets, this is probably the best time to storm the city.

However, the commander of the Dutch mercenaries apparently did not sit idly by, but very skillfully mixed his men into the buildings of the city according to the defensive plan, and even hid many cannons in the buildings to avoid the interference of rain, thus forming large and small defensive barricades.

Regrettably, Scott lacked direct-aim heavy firepower in this kind of urban assault and defense, and the only light field artillery company of the Foreign Legion had only four 75mm field guns, which was not enough to allocate to all offensive areas. And the Dutch mercenaries hiding in those residential buildings also made it difficult for the 60mm mortars of the Chinese and US Army to play a role. Recife was not going to be able to fight recklessly, because there were still a large number of civilians in Recife who were being held hostage by the Dutch, including the thousands of Chinese who had settled in Recife, which was the focus of domestic attention.

Today, Recife is overcrowded, with a few thousand ordinary inhabitants and a large number of indigenous enslavements. More than 4,000 Dutch West India Company mercenaries and about the same number of armed sailors were also cowering in the city's fortified areas. The 2000-odd Chinese and US Army officers and men attacked from the very beginning, and they would also face the problem of gnawing hard bones in the favorable weather.

……

The assault and defense of Recife, which began on March 31, had been going on for four days, and in the pouring rain, the whistling shells had kicked up clouds of mud on the edge of the rudimentary and mottled South American cities, and the explosive power of the high-explosive shells had not been diminished much by the wind and rain.

Officers and men of the Chinese Army weaved between the streets and buildings of the city in platoons, and the light of guns flashed in the urban areas of sturdy stone buildings or rudimentary wooden buildings, and the ruins of blasted buildings or corpses were also mixed with mud and water, piled up in the streets and alleys.

Scattered on the brick and gravel streets, groups of Chinese Army officers and soldiers wearing the armbands of the Foreign Legion Brown Bear Brigade allowed the muddy water to coat their bodies. Still in patches or half-crouching or prostrate in the broken walls.

Different from the caution of the combat infantry, on the simple temporary position on the side of the street, the officers and men of the 32A turn-tube machine gun crew half-knelt in the muddy water, rhythmically firing a series of bullets, the high-temperature bullet casings that were pumped out of the chamber jumped in the rain, and large empty bullet casings gradually piled up around the machine guns.

The dense bullets splashed flowers on the exterior wall of a building more than 200 meters away, pinning down the Dutch mercenaries who tried to fire outside behind the windows. On the ground, not far from the window, the bodies of two officers and soldiers of the Ornate Foreign Legion were lying quietly in the rain.

In the gap between the suppression of machine-gun fire, a 75-mm field gun was finally pushed by artillery from one end of the street ruins. The drenched artillerymen fixed the guns with all their hands and feet, and stuffed the shells into them. At a distance of 200 meters, the high-speed warhead penetrated the building that had already caused casualties to more than one of the infantry of the Chinese Foreign Legion.

The explosion of the shells blew a large cloud of flowers stirring mud, smoke and debris, and the sound of the artillery was not yet gone. The officers and men of the Magnificent Foreign Legion in the streets charged.

……

In addition to several key offensive areas, there were also fierce battles on several streets, and a half-company of Chinese and American Defense Army units advanced in the rain.

The soldiers of the Chinese Army who rushed through the block were once again suppressed by a volley fired from a row of diagonally opposite buildings. The soldier who had been hit fell into the muddy water and let out a groan of pain, then was dragged behind a low wall by panicked companions with backpack straps.

"Concealment, fire cover! Why did Qiao Yan choose such an offensive line? Damn it. There are Dutch people in every house! ”

In the midst of the shouting, Yu Shan raised his rifle and aimed at a mixed wooden building across the street, and in the rain-drenched sight, the wooden windows of the building that the Dutch were holding on to were ajar, and several Dutch mercenaries who hurriedly filled the flintlock pistol with gunpowder lead bullets were faintly visible.

Dozens of 30A rifles fired one after another, and a Dutch mercenary who was about to launch after loading and pushing open the window was hit, holding his chest and hanging on the window, and the rest of the Dutch mercenaries lowered their bodies and did not dare to rise again.

The sound of gunfire in my ears continued, and the sound of bullets flying at high speed seemed to be back and forth overhead. Ren Xingzhong carried a rifle and quickly approached the outer wall of the building where the enemy was hiding, and as soon as his body rolled, he leaned against the wall with muddy water. Looking at his comrades-in-arms who were hiding behind a broken wall dozens of meters away and shooting for cover, Ren Xingzhong gasped for breath to adjust his state, and the dirty rain continued to flow into his mouth along the steel helmet, wetting his chapped lips that had not dripped for several hours.

After resting for a few seconds, Ren Xingzhong untied the cluster grenade tied together with three grenades from his waist, looked up at the window sill that was close at hand, took a deep breath, pulled the fuse, stopped for a second and then suddenly got up and threw it in.

The Type 27B wooden-handled grenade, with a single charge of 120 grams of explosives, is an offensive grenade, and the number of fragments is greatly reduced and the explosive power is greatly enhanced, so as to ensure the safety of soldiers' offensive operations. This melee weapon, which focuses on blast blast damage, works wonders for enemies hiding in enclosed buildings.

At the same time as throwing the cluster grenade, Ren Xingzhong rolled towards the other side of the wall with his head in his hands to get away from the explosion point. For an ordinary mixed-timber building, a cluster grenade with a total explosive charge of 360 grams is enough to blow it up.

Two seconds later, a powerful shockwave blasted a large mass of bricks and wood directly from the inside out of the building that had been fired before, mixed with the corpses of two Dutch mercenaries who had bled from the inside.

Dozens of Chinese officers and soldiers rushed forward at this time. Run towards the building that has exploded.

Most of the exterior walls of the building were blown open to reveal the inside of the building, and it was clear that the mixed wood building, which covers a large area, had a deeper interior. Most of the Dutch mercenaries on the second floor were buried in the collapsed ruins by the explosion on the first floor just now. Inside, however, under the cover of the remaining buildings, an American 8-pounder gun was pushed out by several Dutch mercenaries and aimed just at the street outside the ruins, and one of them quickly poked his torch towards the tail of the gun.

"Cannon! Get out of the way! ”

With his subordinates, he was about to rush to the breach of the building, and Yu Shan, who was running, shrank his pupils, and immediately threw away his rifle and rolled into the muddy water of the ruins. The gorgeous soldiers fell to their stomachs, and then they felt a tsunami-like sound of cannon and rolling waves of impact in their ears. Countless shotguns swept overhead at supersonic speeds.

The two gorgeous soldiers who couldn't avoid it were shattered by the shotgun that rushed out of the muzzle before they could make a sound, and the flesh and blood of the stumps torn from the body flew like rain in the direction of the ballistic trajectory in an umbrella shape, dyeing the muddy rubble flowing on the ground a hideous red, and the remnants of the corpses that had been turned into the muddy water were no longer visible.

A deformed steel helmet rolled to Ren Xingzhong's feet, with an unknown semi-solid red and white on it, which made the face of the soldier who had just completed a blasting attack change slightly, and then dragged his rifle and turned over over the collapsed outer wall of the building.

The Huamei soldiers, who had dodged the bombardment just now, did not stop advancing, but took advantage of the gap after the opponent's cannon was fired, jumped up, held their rifles, bayonets and rushed forward with wild shouts. A wave of a dozen Dutch mercenaries rushing out of the building, also armed with flintlock pistols with bayonets, crashed into each other in the rain.

Ren Xingzhong, who was the first to approach the cannon, ran into a strong man with a flintlock pistol who had fallen from the stairs in the building. The body was no worse than that of his opponent, but he was hit by the Dutch mercenaries with the force that came from the air, and he hit the door with only half of the side left.

The crumbling wooden door shattered instantly, and Ren Xingzhong and the Dutch bearded mercenary who threw himself down crashed into the house at the same time, and then both fell to the ground.

Both had not had time to take bayonets in the previous battle. However, the Dutch bearded mercenary who had the first-mover advantage stared at him fiercely, and the flintlock pistol in his hand was pressed against Ren Xingzhong's neck, eager to crush the throat of this strange gorgeous soldier on the spot.

It's hard to breathe, and it even feels like my neck is about to break. Ren Xingzhong could only hold on to the other party's flintlock pistol with both hands, and his body was struggling desperately. In the short interval of the struggle, Ren Xingzhong still saw the scenery in the house clearly out of the corner of his eyes. I saw a middle-aged Chinese woman hugging a pair of children tightly, her body curled up in the corner under the collapsed bed. With a frightened and helpless expression, he watched the desperate struggle close at hand.

Consciousness was blurred, and the strength in his hands gradually weakened, and in Ren Xingzhong's hazy vision, the Chinese women and children hiding in the ruins at the foot of the bed seemed to be their childhood family.

Suddenly feeling a lightness on his body, the Dutch bearded mercenary who wanted to put himself to death tilted his head and fell to the side, Ren Xingzhong's already unsustainable breathing finally regained its smoothness, and then let out a loud cough.

"Don't be too pretentious, wars are not fought by you alone. Hurry up and get ready to attack the next place. ”

Yu Shan held a bloody grenade in his hand, and pulled up the wheezing soldier with a smile. The head of the Dutch mercenary who fell beside Ren Xingzhong had been knocked out, and it was obvious that Yu Shan had put a lot of effort into that hammer just now.

Picking up his rifle and about to walk out, he seemed to remember something again. Ren Xingzhong hurriedly retreated to the house, squatted on the corner of the bed that was already leaning against the wall, untied his backpack, took out a few things from it, and gently put them on the floor.

Two cans of canned beef, a packet of compressed dry food and a bag of fructose are not much, but they are enough to ensure a day or two of nutritional calories for an adult, which is more than enough for a child.

"Auntie, it's safe here, take the children to the camp outside the city, where there is food and shelter." After Ren Xingzhong finished speaking, he wiped the bloody rain on his face, and strode out with his rifle.

Ignore the warnings of adults. The child who got out of the bed hugged the canned food and candy, and then the silence of the house was restored, except for the rain that continued to fall from the ceiling of the collapsed building.

……

As night fell, the rain did not abate, and the Brazilian Brigade of the Chinese American Army, which had been desperately resisted by Dutch mercenaries in all offensive areas, finally stopped the offensive and chose the advantageous terrain to move to the defense in place.

Under the direct fire of 75 mm field guns and the gradual pull-out strikes of the attacking infantry, the Dutch perimeter defenses in Recife were basically emptied, and the number of captured Dutch mercenaries exceeded 500.

By the time the battle had been fought, about a third of the entire port of Recife had fallen into the hands of the Chinese Army, but in the course of the battle. Hundreds of civilians were still implicated, and the Dutch defended more intensively, and the use of 75mm field guns and explosives would have caused even more civilian casualties.

"Lieutenant Colonel Scott, today another 17 people were killed and another 41 wounded, which is twice as many casualties as yesterday. Now that the Dutch have figured out our tactics, they have begun to mix soldiers and artillery in the civilian buildings of Recife with all the consequences, and God knows how they chose their burial grounds. Makarov stood behind Scott and read aloud the day's general report of the battle. It looks terrible, and if the safety of civilians is to be considered, we have to put up with such casualties! ”

"Today is also much faster than yesterday, the soldiers are working hard. Their table is beyond my imagination. Soon the second reinforcements of the Foreign Legion will arrive, and our strength will be strengthened. Scott, who was sitting at the wooden table, meticulously wrote a letter and gave orders to his sergeant major without looking back, "The staff group meeting just now has made adjustments to the battle plan. Stop the offensive tomorrow. Strengthen the defenses, and then continue to send letters to the Dutch asking them to lay down their arms. That's right. Then send out reconnaissance teams to mobilize as much as possible the civilians in the neighborhoods near the front line to withdraw. ”

"The Dutch still have far more troops in the port and in the city than we do, and I don't think the Dutch will fail if the Southern Fleet can't immediately encircle and blockade the port. God testifies that if we hadn't taken that little mercy into account, we would have razed this place to the ground with a cannon! Makarov was a little displeased when he heard that there was another truce and that he would send emissaries to make the Dutch surrender.

"The war in Europe is over, we will soon have more warships gathered, and the Dutch don't have much time. But what Congress would have preferred was to make the Dutch themselves aware of the consequences of the occupation of Brazil. Scott rolled up the finished letter and looked back with a smile, "This is a letter to Admiral Tronpe, commander-in-chief of the fleet of the Dutch West India Company, asking him to stop kidnapping civilians. It may be that in his eyes, I am not qualified to convey much attitude to him, but in the past few days we have proven the ability to hit the Doge's palace and port of Recife at any time. ”

"Well, maybe you're right. But Mr. Lieutenant Colonel, the soldiers are very tired and nervous, and I hope that the liquor supply will be opened this evening, so that they can forget for a moment the casualties that have occurred in the past few days. ”

Makarov was so rude and nervous on the battlefield, but now he showed the attentiveness of a qualified sergeant major. To Makarov's construction, Scott nodded in agreement with a smile.

Makarov left, the general command regained calm, Scott took out a photo of his daughter from his pocket, which he took with his daughter before his departure last year, although the price of taking pictures in China is still very expensive, but this is the only way to touch his daughter's face thousands of nautical miles away.

……

The camp was separated from the rain, and the officers and men of the Chinese Army who had endured several days of bloody fighting could finally rest and breathe.

Due to the bad weather, supplies from the Olinda landing site were severely restricted, and now the food rations of the front-line combat troops are basically limited to military canned food, compressed dry food, a small amount of cigarettes and candy, and the supply of alcohol is extremely limited.

Among the ruins of the rain-sheltered buildings, a large pot of vegetable soup from an abandoned Chinese house in the city was boiling on a kerosene stove, mixed with a jar of beef, which smelled mouthwatering fresh vegetables.

"Don't work too hard, Xingzhong, your table in the past few days is enough to be written into the company's battle report." Yu Shan took a sip of corn wine, and showed a concerned expression to the little soldier who was drinking soup on the side, "You must know that there are too many guys who want to be in the limelight, and their names may not be able to be reported until they die." ”

"Capo and Song Sanwa died, and I only got their signs back. After the Dutch opened fire, the whole street was covered with their bodies......" Yu Shan continued to take care of himself, and took out two soldiers' nameplates from his pocket, playing with them in the palm of his hand with a self-deprecating smile, "We're okay, I heard that the Foreign Legion that has been the main attack has suffered the most casualties in the past few days, and more than 20 people have died with the help of artillery...... So, no matter how tempting it is, don't be a soldier. ”

Kabo is the Delaware first-class soldier that Ren Xingzhong met when he first participated in the White Horse Valley Purge War. During the day, the Dutch were crushed when they were hiding in the building and firing their guns.

"Sergeant Major, why don't you go on the offensive tomorrow? I estimate that in three days, we will be able to wipe them all out. Ren Xingzhong wiped his mouth and put down the lunch box, it seemed that he was not affected by Yu Shan's "intimidation", but after a few days of bloody battles and repeated dangers, his fighting spirit was even higher, and he was completely the same as when he was in South Africa.

"The order from above says that the Dutch have already frightened us, and there is no need for us to pay the price of attack. For the chiefs. We are like beads on an abacus, which go up and come down again. They can play as much as they want......" Yu Shan put down the wine bottle. Scooping the pieces of meat from the canned food easily, he shook his head with a smile, "I'm curious, why do you like to fight with the Dutch so much?" ”

Ren Xingzhong did not answer the question. He just slowly lowered his head, took his rifle, and began to meticulously wipe it.

"Yu Shan. Send soldiers with good marksmanship to the roof of the building to keep vigil. At this time, Qiao Yan walked in, still holding a copy of the document in his hand, "The brigade headquarters requires each company to submit a list of commendations for outstanding soldiers tomorrow, and you are also ready to do so." ”

"It's really morale-boosting, as if we've won the war." Yu Shan dragged the notice of the brigade headquarters nonchalantly, just glanced at it, and looked to the side, but the soldiers in the original position were gone.

"He's so positive, does he think his marksmanship will be better than others?" Yu Shan touched his chin, completely unable to understand this little soldier who was "pinned on high hopes" by himself.

……

The next day, Friday, April 4, 1636, Qingming.

Founded in 1624, the Ivy League College, located along the river on the east side of the southern part of Manchester, is probably the most enviable private university in the country and the most stringent higher education institution in the country.

While the grading of national residency has begun to fade into everyday life, only the Ivy League universities still maintain strict rules on permanent residency. And from 1630 onwards, in addition to the free entrance examination for guaranteed students, even the best high school graduates had to enroll in a one-year preparatory course for $200 before they could take the college's official entrance exam, and finally the three-year tuition fee for formal admission was as high as $900. If you do not pass the final exam in the preparatory course, you will be allowed to repeat it for a maximum of one year.

As a result of the harsh application system, admission qualifications and high tuition fees, by 1636, the total number of students enrolled in various majors in the Ivy League was only more than 550, and the total number of graduates of various majors was less than 100 each year, which was much lower than that of other national universities. Behind these figures is the annual increase in investment by several large domestic private funds.

The best faculty and the rigid classical rules of the university leave the much larger CAPU in the dust. It is said that the salaries of teachers in various majors hired by Ivy League colleges and universities are almost calculated according to class hours, and the families of students who can enroll, except for the escort students, are basically all high-income classes in China, and the families will also choose at least one of the best children to enroll. However, due to time travel or age at birth, there are still fewer than 20 children from crossing families who are studying in preparatory classes or college majors in the Ivy League.

Compared with the modern and majestic Capital State University of Manchester, it is more like a vast Western-style classical green manor. The garden-like trees are interspersed with elegant lawns, flower terraces, pools and school buildings. Most of the campus roads are tree-lined gravel paths that can only be walked, and the lampposts on the side of the road are all polished and masonry of pure natural stone brought from Haizhou, which seems to shield from any interference from foreign fashion civilizations that may break the classical atmosphere here.

Regardless of gender, the students walking on the campus are uniform and solemn spring school uniforms, one of the school's largest sponsors, Yang Wenwen Life Art Group, the boys' black suit school uniform is classic, and the girls are elegant and conservative black long-sleeved over-the-knee skirts decorated with white lace. Each student wears a silver brooch on his chest, holds an umbrella, holds a textbook, and whispers. Walking through the spring rain-drenched campus in twos and threes.

In a two-story school building near a large artificial pond, a finance advanced math class continues. There were about 20 male and female students sitting in the classroom, and the middle-aged European-American lecturer on the podium was writing slowly and methodically on the blackboard paragraphs of analytic geometry that made the scalp tingle.

The shiny glass windows are covered with writhing raindrops, and the crystal water marks divide the scenery outside the window into strips, through which the distant objects appear exaggerated and distorted by the refraction of the water.

There were textbooks and some workbooks on the table, but the 18-year-old blonde girl's eyes did not fall on these textbooks that should have been preoccupied in class, but pinched the pen and looked a little distracted at a vacant seat not far away - it was the position of another female classmate of the same major.

Today is the National Qingming Festival, the daughter of the Norwegian painter family. Now he is taking leave to visit the grave in the cemetery in the north of Manchester City. The corpses of the fallen officers and men of the European Expeditionary Fleet were repatriated at the beginning of the year and buried in the National Cemetery in Manchester. A total of 21 Chinese and American naval officers and sailors who fought on land were killed in the Battle of Dublin between Spain and England, including his classmate's fiancé, a naval second lieutenant gunner.

Retracting her gaze, Anne carefully straightened the diary book on her desk again, and then continued to turn a deaf ear to the sermon on the podium, just burying her head in her diary.

“…… This kind of problem seems to be very difficult, but in fact, the solution can be found in textbooks and tutorials. So. I will not give the final answer, please understand and deduce for yourself. ”

Descartes, who turned 40, was in a good mood, and this was one of the "smartest" classes he had ever taken in six years since he emigrated to Europe and the United States. Descartes was a well-known scholar in Europe before he immigrated, and he had good attainments in mathematics, philosophy, chemistry, and physics.

and Queen Christina of Sweden to make a history of lace love regardless of whether it is true or false. Probably in this way, the fate of being imprisoned and suppressed by the European Church will no longer exist. Today, Descartes is at home in China, with huge room for academic development, and is also a professor of mathematics at an Ivy League university. Not only have many academic problems that I had been pondering hard have been solved and inspired. He also formed a deep personal friendship with Li Ping, an honorary professor in the Department of Mathematics, who was even the president of the country.

"Miss Anne, I see that you have been writing carefully from the beginning. But I think. Listening, thinking, and asking questions is the most important thing you should do right now, rather than writing all the answers on the spot, and math formulas are just the objects of your private communication. Seeing the blonde girl in a corner of the audience writing with her head down, Descartes spoke at a very slow pace, and many Chinese Chinese words were quite awkward and unclear, but at least the meaning was more clear.

All the students' eyes turned to each other, and Anne was agitated and secretly moved the journal from the table to her lap.

"I'm sorry, Professor Descartes......" Anne stood up with her head down, her journal behind her back, her face flushed.

"It's okay, you're a smart and studious student...... In addition, the new batch of matriculation students will be entering the school in a few months, Miss Annie, I will communicate with your department head guò and would like to ask you to be the summer math tutor for the matriculation students, would you like to? ”

"Thank God, I'm honored, Professor Descartes." Anne nodded hurriedly.

After class, Anne avoided the usual good girls, went to a rain shelter outside the school building alone, and continued to open the diary.

“…… Pray to the merciful God that will bring you back to me safe and sound. For the state, you are just an insignificant ordinary military man; But to me, you are the whole ...... of my life."

Juanxiu's handwriting slowly covered the snow-white diary, a few drops of rain wet the footers, and also moistened a few ink words that had not yet dried quickly, the girl stared blankly at the words she had just written, and her thoughts had flown to the South American coast thousands of nautical miles away. (To be continued......)