A Man of Science and Engineering in Troubled Times Wandering in the Late Qing Dynasty

Lu Xun also sent a telegram to Li Yu from Tokyo. He and Jiang Baili had already packaged and sent all the experimental equipment, but because it was relatively expensive, it took about a week to arrive.

Li Yu felt that it was time to rent a bigger house in the capital as a laboratory.

Uncle Wang went to the teahouse and found Cui Laosan, the intermediary melon skin hat.

Now Li Yu's status is not what it used to be, and Cui Laosan, the melon skin hat, can be regarded as witnessing that Li Yu has come to the present situation without a single copper coin and can only rely on pawning strange pens.

Seeing Li Yu, Cui Laosan nodded and said, "My lord, what can you do with me?"

Li Yu smiled and said, "Of course I'm looking for you to rent a house, what else can I do?"

Cui Laosan said: "We can also introduce people to work, and besides being a housekeeper, we can also be a pimp..."

Feng Ling who was behind heard Cui Laosan's words, and mocked: "What good place can you find? Don't use this to fool our master!"

She was also popular in the Bada Hutong back then, and the people inside were clear.

Cui Laosan smiled and said, "That's right, that's right! Master Emperor, what kind of house do you want to rent?"

Li Yu thought for a while and said, "As close as possible, the area should be larger."

Cui Laosan patted his head and said: "It's closer, but it needs to be bigger. This requirement... don't tell me, there is really a house that is very close and big, but... hey, forget it!"

Li Yudao: "Just talk about it."

Youngest Cui swallowed and spit: "Master Emperor, you can't say that you heard it from me. It's the house next to you. Master Baron has left. If you can rent the house, you can rent it. It's better if you can sell it."

Li Yu asked in surprise, "Leaving?"

Cui Laosan said: "Master Baron was infected with the willow disease. It is said that it is still very serious. Some time ago, for some reason, he beat a maid at home with a rake. , It’s too scary. The court was also afraid that he would disturb the people like this, so he was forcibly sent outside the pass.”

Li Yu knew before that Baron was suffering from syphilis. Most of the disease cycle and evolution time is relatively long, but it may also be shorter. Baron seems to be unlucky.

Syphilis will go through three stages from mild to severe. From Cui Laosan's narration, Li Yu can roughly guess that Baron should have reached the most serious stage of tertiary syphilis.

Syphilis virus (strictly called Treponema pallidum) may cause extremely serious damage to any part of the human body at this time.Attacking the eyes and ears will lead to blindness and deafness; attacking the heart will cause a terrible aortic aneurysm; attacking the brain or spinal cord will cause severe personality distortion, rage and violence, and even dementia and paralysis.

This Baron was pretty much the last thing.

Although he is Rong Lu's son, Rong Lu is dead, and the status of the Rong family has dropped sharply; his younger sister Youlan is still the princess of Prince Jin's mansion. It is too embarrassing to tell such a thing, so he is simply thrown out of the pass.

Moreover, Emperor Tongzhi may have suffered from a similar disease back then. Most of the records about this are secretive and false, and it is not clear whether it is really syphilis.In short, the Qing court had lingering fears about this, just as they were afraid of smallpox when they first entered the customs.

Feng Ling knew about this kind of disease, and while she was trembling with fear, she secretly applauded.

Li Yu asked, "So the Rong Mansion next to it is empty now?"

Cui Laosan said: "Isn't it! Everyone is terrified. It is said that this kind of willow disease was transmitted from foreigners. It is very evil. Otherwise, how could Master Baron go crazy and beat people to death!"

Syphilis did indeed begin to spread in Europe.

When Columbus first discovered the American continent, he should have brought it back to Spain.

Voltaire called it the "first fruit" gathered by the Spaniards from the New World.

Of course, the Europeans brought the Indians even more terrible smallpox.

Unexpectedly, so many things happened in the capital during this period of time.

Li Yu asked, "What about this house?"

Cui Laosan said: "If Master Di Shi wants to buy it, the original price is 4 taels, but now it only costs 2 taels."

Li Yu gasped, although it was too expensive to cut at the waist.

Cui Laosan looked at Li Yu's eyes, and said: "This kind of deep house and large courtyard are hard to come by. There should be about ten courtyards inside. If you count the small courtyards, there are about seventeen or eight courtyards. And there are more than ten courtyards inside. There is a small garden, which is definitely a good choice in this area.”

It is indeed very large, almost seven or eight times the size of Li Yu's current residence.

Li Yu covered his head. He didn't have any spare money to buy real estate right now, so he asked, "Where should I rent it?"

Cui Laosan said: "If you rent, it will cost at least 80 taels a month."

The rent-to-sales ratio at this time seems to be quite reasonable, at least much more normal than Li Yu's previous life, but the number is a bit too coincidental, 1:250.

But this number should be within a reasonable range before 200-300.

Li Yu said, "I'll rent it for now."

Cui Laosan said: "If you rent, the longest is one year."

Li Yudao: "Then rent it for a year first."

It's not too late to buy again if you have the money.

Cui Laosan asked: "Master Emperor, are you really not afraid?"

Li Yu asked, "What's there to be afraid of?"

Cui Laosan said: "I heard that Hualiu's disease is very serious! Even foreigners are afraid of it. If they get it, they will go crazy and lose their children and grandchildren! No one dares to buy or rent it."

Li Yu said with a smile: "I am a student of Western learning, so of course I only dare to rent if I am sure."

Cui Laosan gave a thumbs up: "The emperor is indeed the emperor! Even this can be subdued! I heard that the Rong family invited a shaman to practice the method, but it is useless."

Li Yu asked again: "How long has Baron been away?"

Cui Laosan said, "It's been more than a month."

Li Yu said: "I see, you go get the land deed and sign it."

Cui Laosan said happily: "Come here! Master Emperor, you are really my living Bodhisattva, no matter how difficult it is to rent a house, it is so easy for you to deal with."

It seems that the house rented by Li Yu has really happened. The house he lived in and the house he rented for Xie Yuxi all died. The Rong Mansion rented at this time has also died, and some people have suffered from syphilis.

In fact, if it weren't for these things, it would be really hard to rent such a good location. After all, there are not many houses in Beijing now.

Feng Ling tremblingly asked: "Sir, is there really no problem?"

Li Yu said steadily, "Don't worry, I have my own measure."

In fact, the syphilis virus is very fragile and only takes the human body as the only host. Once it leaves the human body, it will die quickly.

In addition to mother-to-child transmission, only by bodily fluids.

So now the nearby Rong Mansion is actually very safe.

Li Yu rented the current house at a low price because everyone was afraid of the dead in the house, out of feudal superstition; then Rongfu is really a blind spot in knowledge.

Of course, they are not to blame, because the cause of syphilis is still unknown, so everyone is of course afraid.

The syphilis virus was discovered in 1905. Before that, human beings did not understand the cause of the disease.

- Fear often stems from the unknown.

However, Feng Ling lived in Bada Hutong, the land of fireworks, and knew the terrible disease of Hualiu, but she still had lingering fears, "Sir, I'm just afraid..."

There is no way, in order to dispel their doubts, Li Yu said: "Go and buy some high-grade liquor, disinfect it, and there will be no problem."

In fact, it is just a kind of psychological comfort.

Fortunately, Fengling and the others believed it was true, after all, in their eyes, Li Yu was an omniscient god.

After signing the contract and paying the money, Li Yu can use this mansion. It has to be said that Rong Lu, as the most important minister of the dynasty, lived in a really big and luxurious residence.

Although there are many houses in the capital that are bigger than it, such as some palaces, even the garden in Natong not far from Jinyu Hutong is bigger and more exquisite.

But this house is definitely in the upper echelon of the big houses in the capital.

Zhao Qian was alive and kicking when he entered the gate: "My God, such a big house! I can't even imagine it!"

He ran around inside a few times, almost lost his way, and it took him a long time to go back to the main hall, "If you live here, if you go to a hut at night, you may go the wrong way."

Such a big house, of course, will not be completely used as a residence, at least half of it should be used as a small experimental base.

Simply doing theoretical research doesn't take much space, but when it comes to experiments, at least two or three courtyards need to be freed up.

Li Yu still has great ambitions, and he will slowly use them all in the future.

They got to know each other for a day or two, and they were almost settled.

Uncle Wang, Zhao Qian and Feng Ling were also extremely happy to have a better place to live.

But Uncle Wang still has a headache: "It's such a big house, it will be difficult to clean it in the future."

A few days later, the courier from Tokyo finally arrived, along with the radio device sent by Zou Zhou from the United States.

Li Yu hired many short-term laborers to transport all these facilities back.

Fortunately, there is a new house, otherwise I really can't let it go.

The experimental equipment was specially placed in a larger yard.

The fifteen sets of radio devices sent by the United States are not small, and they are placed in another yard.

Zou Zhou sent a telegram saying that Tesla had made some improvements, and Li Yu immediately took it out and studied it first.

Zou Zhou was very careful and made a detailed list.

Li Yu took out one of the sets, and soon saw the clue: Tesla designed a superheterodyne circuit for the radio device.

Simply put, this circuit can effectively prevent two signals with similar frequencies from interfering with each other in the receiver, and can ensure that signals of different frequencies are distinguished, so that the receiver can receive signals of different frequencies separately.

The actual history will not appear until ten years later, and the designer is another American radio engineer, Armstrong.

But as Li Yu made the electronic triode come out ahead of schedule, this design was easily realized.

Tesla is indeed a genius-level figure in the field of engineering, with a very strong ability to comprehend by analogy.

These devices in front of me are not simple radios, they all have the ability to send and receive information, and they can even be used as radio stations.