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

Chapter 337 Magic can defeat magic
When Li Yu returned home, he heard Uncle Wang's son crying in pain again. It had been many days, but he still hadn't succeeded in quitting.

Not long after, Uncle Wang came back trembling with a pack of medicine, which was a smoking cessation powder bought from Watsons.

But this thing Li Yu is very clear, it is the IQ tax.

With the development of medical science in later generations, it is not easy to get rid of drugs. How can it be done with a small pack of smoking cessation powder.

As mentioned before, its ingredients are nothing more than some cheap supplements, with the addition of soot and smoke left over from the burning of opium, and some advanced morphine.

How could this thing be used for detoxification!

Early the next morning, the pale-faced Uncle Wang approached Li Yu: "Sir, I have been tied up for so many days, why does my son still look like a ghost? The rope and cloth strips that entangle him are bloodstained on his hands and feet. I, I I can't take it anymore!"

Uncle Wang burst into tears, and Li Yu sighed, but he had nothing to do.

Li Yu asked, "Is it really unbearable?"

Uncle Wang wiped his tears and said: "He tried hard to break free, and his arms were dislocated several times. If Master Huo was not here, we would not even set his bones. But Master Huo said that there are too many dislocations, and if this continues Not a good thing."

Among the means of detoxification, there is indeed a "dry quitting", which does not use any drugs, but stays away from drugs abruptly. Of course, the process is more painful.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were no related drugs.

What's more, even if there are drugs, there are many addicts who will relapse in future generations.

Therefore, even in modern society, detoxification is still a very difficult thing.And it is a special test of people's willpower, but how many willpowers do addicts have?

——Almost an endless loop.

Seeing that Li Yu hadn't spoken, Uncle Wang asked tentatively, "Why don't you give him a big cigarette, first slowly?"

Li Yu shook his head and said firmly, "Of course not!"

At this time, missionaries in the late Qing Dynasty had brought a drug to quit smoking, but that thing was even more nonsense, because it was called "morphine".

吗啡的化学分子式为C17H19NO3，海洛因的化学分子式为C21H23NO5，看得出非常接近。

As for opium, it is a drug made by mixing various substances together, without a chemical formula.But the main alkaloid in opium is morphine.

So it can be seen that using morphine to detox is definitely a bad idea.

Uncle Wang plopped down on his knees: "Sir, no matter what, you must save my only son! I will pay for the mistakes he made in this life; if you can save him, I will be a cow and a horse for you in the next life to repay your kindness." !"

"Get up!" Li Yu pulled him up, "I've already said, don't kneel down to me casually at home, I'm not used to this."

Uncle Wang wiped his tears: "Then can you save him?"

Li Yu said, "Take care of him first, and I'll think of a way."

Wang Bo said happily: "Sir, you have great powers, you must have a way!"

These servants in Li Yu's family really regard Li Yu as a god.

After he left, Li Yu called Yu Heqin, who knew chemistry, and the two chatted, but they still had no good ideas.

Yu Heqin hated drugs and all kinds of opium dens very much, and once thought of using chemical methods to detoxify from drugs, but failed.

Li Yu also hates drugs. It should be said that Chinese people hate drugs because of history.

Looking at the whole world, in terms of the strength of drug control, no one can compare with the future China. It is really banned to death.

According to our efforts, let alone the Golden Triangle, Silver Triangle, and Mexico, even in the so-called "Lighthouse Country" Laomei, at least tens of millions of people want to eat peanuts.

Because there is one rule, assuming that there is 100g of drugs in a 1g ball of flour, but it cannot be separated, then it will be counted as 100g!
It can be called shoot to kill, never let go.

At that time, a British man was executed for drug trafficking in China. The British were furious and protested frantically.But... Protests are futile.

Because of modern history, the Chinese really hate drugs.

Li Yu felt very overwhelmed, not just Xiao Wang, because his situation was not an exception.

Everyone knows that Humen sells cigarettes, but the anti-smoking campaign promoted by the imperial court finally failed because of the defeat of the two Opium Wars.

The humiliating "Tianjin Treaty" was signed, and the British forced the Qing court to change the name of opium to "foreign medicine" and allow the opium trade.

Now that it has been legalized, it is impossible to enforce a smoking ban.So in fact, opium has been poisoning the Chinese people, and it was not until after the founding of the People's Republic of China that the complete prohibition of drugs was truly realized.

Moreover, after the "Tianjin Treaty", the Qing government decided to "fight poison with poison". Li Hongzhang, the governor of Zhili, said: "It is neither possible to prohibit British merchants from selling foreign tobacco, nor to prohibit Chinese people from eating foreign tobacco. The ban on opium poppy in all provinces should be temporarily relaxed. ".

The subtext is obvious.

As soon as this opening was opened, the output of China's self-produced and self-grown opium poppy increased greatly, and because poppy cultivation is far more cost-effective than other crops, in the three provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan in the southwest, poppy cultivation has even become the main business of farmers.
Due to the price advantage of domestic opium, by the 1880s, the Manchu Qing opium was completely self-sufficient.Even in the late Qing Dynasty, opium began to be exported.

Yes, you read that right, it was not Lin Zexu who finally defeated imported opium, but domestically produced opium.

But in any case, the harm to the common people has not been alleviated at all.

Until the period of the Republic of China, there were still a lot of people who smoked opium.

This is a very bad thing that hurts the national power.

Li Yu really wanted to change this situation, but he didn't know what to do for a while.Because he lived in an era where drug control was so strong that he never had to think about it. ,

-

The next day, Tang Shaoyi came to Li Yu's mansion.

"Brother Shucai," Tang Shaoyi said after entering the door, "Your guess is indeed correct. The woman from Japan called Kawahara Koko is a Japanese spy!"

"Hush!" Li Yu hurriedly stopped him, "Let's go to the back room to talk."

He was worried that Konoe Zhaoxue would hear.

Japan really attaches great importance to espionage work. For half a century, Japan has been desperately carrying out espionage infiltration everywhere in China.

Konoe Akiyuki, Kawara Koko, and the future Yoshiko Kawashima are just the tip of the iceberg.

Moreover, the status of the leader of espionage in the Japanese military is not low, which shows that Japan attaches great importance to it.

The two came to Li Yu's study, and Li Yu told Zhao Qian, "Be careful, don't let anyone in."

Tang Shaoyi said: "Are you so careful in your own house?"

"Earn a fall and gain a wisdom. You can't fall twice in the same place!" Li Yu said, and then asked, "Has Heyuan Caozi started to act in the Gonggong Palace of Mongolia?"

Tang Shaoyi said: "That's right, we decrypted their telegrams according to your method, and indeed they used the most basic encryption method. From her reply, we know that the Japanese side sent four 'special task teams' from the capital city." ’, their purpose was to blow up Russia’s Dongqing Railway Jiangqiao and other military facilities and transportation hubs in the northeast.”

Li Yu said, "It's all secret information, you probably wouldn't disclose it to the Russians, would you?"

"Dog eats dog, we don't care! We just want to know what they are going to do," Tang Shaoyi said, "He Yuan's name is Shen, and the information is first sent to Chengde, and then from Chengde to the capital. But this process is difficult for us to detect. .”

Li Yu immediately understood: "Tang Daotai means that the telegram sent by the Japanese from Chengde to the capital has been encrypted at the military level?"

Tang Shaoyi nodded: "Yes, our telegraph class in Beiyang has just been established, and we don't know how to start with slightly more complicated passwords. So come to ask the brothers and sisters for advice."

Li Yu knows that cryptography is a branch of mathematics, and its role in warfare is as important as the radio system itself.

Li Yu said frankly: "Deciphering is not an easy task. It requires a professional mathematics expert, and it is best to understand Japanese and Japanese writing habits, and a lot of text analysis and comparison are required."

Tang Shaoyi said: "So troublesome? It's hard to find someone who knows both mathematics and Japanese. The only thing I can think of is you, brother Shucai."

Li Yu said: "I have talked about it before, and this alone is not enough. It is necessary to monitor for a long time and accumulate enough telegrams to facilitate deciphering."

"I understand. It's good to have a direction. At worst, we will continue to train in the school!" Tang Shaoyi said, "Speaking of the school, we Beiyang can also subsidize your school in Tianjin to train more students who understand mathematics and Japanese. Isn't it wonderful!"

Li Yu said: "Cultivating mathematics talents is already within the scope of my plan, and since I want to study abroad, foreign languages ​​are of course a compulsory course."

Tang Shaoyi said: "After I returned to Tianjin, I went to find brother Fan Sun. His school will be built soon. We will work together to make Zhili a pioneer of new learning."

Yan Fansun has now been appointed by Yuan Shikai as the supervisor of Zhili schools, and the schools in Zhili area are under his control.

Tang Shaoyi is an optimistic person, as long as there is hope, she will not despair.So after hearing Li Yu's words, he felt better, took out a cigar from his pocket, lit it, and took a puff.

Li Yu had an idea when he saw it: "Yes!"

Tang Shaoyi wondered: "Who has it? Could it be..."

Li Yu smiled and said, "I suddenly had an idea."

Tang Shaoyi asked: "What idea makes you so excited?"

Li Yu asked back, "Tang Daotai, have you considered writing a letter to ban smoking?"

Tang Shaoyi just took a puff of her cigar, and looked at the smoke rings she spit out.

Li Yu quickly added: "I'm talking about banning opium and opium."

Tang Shaoyi said solemnly: "Brother Shucai really cares about his family and country, but banning smoking is not an easy task. Now opium accounts for a large proportion of the imperial court's taxes."

Li Yu said: "However, opium poisons the souls, making the people lose their labor force, and even the crops cannot be cultivated. The harm is far-reaching."

Speaking of it, smoking opium is really a very troublesome thing.

The process is very cumbersome, there are many procedures, you must be very proficient, and the cycle is repeated, even an expert opium smoker will spend a lot of time on it.Therefore, people with lofty ideals who opposed opium smoking in the late Qing Dynasty always repeatedly emphasized that people who smoked opium were wasting hours of time every day.

Tang Shaoyi said: "Master Lin once said with great concern that opium would lead to 'the country has no silver to use, and the king has no soldiers to use'. But now the opium produced in the Southwest has solved the outflow of silver, and the court has become less vigilant about it. few."

"This is not an attitude towards my own people!" Li Yu said angrily.

Tang Shaoyi smiled and said: "Brother Shucai, you are passionate, I understand, but there are some people in the imperial court who only care about money."

Ever since the super corrupt official Qing Prince Yikuang became the Chief Minister of Military Aircraft and monopolized the power, he valued money even more.

Li Yu clenched his fist and said reluctantly, "It seems that there is only one way."

Tang Shaoyi asked curiously, "What way?"

Li Yu said, "Tang Daotai should know about cigarettes, right?"

"Cigarettes?" Tang Shaoyi said, "I saw them in the concession."

Li Yu sighed: "It can only be used to replace opium."

Tang Shaoyi had a quick mind, and immediately figured out Li Yu's train of thought, so she asked, "Cigarettes are less harmful than opium?"

Li Yu said, "It's even smaller than the cigar you're smoking, but the harm still exists."

Li Yu has actually said the most crucial point.

The rest of Tang Shaoyi can think of it, naturally, let a less harmful thing that can replace opium be in power, which will neither affect tax revenue nor become a drug.

"I understand!" Tang Shaoyi said, "Brother Shucai, you really deserve to be the emperor's teacher, you can come up with such a wonderful way to get the best of both worlds!"

Li Yu said helplessly: "It's not the best of both worlds, at most it's the lesser of two evils."

Historically, it was indeed the advent of tobacco that really drove opium out of the market.

To put it bluntly, tobacco is actually the same thing as opium, and it is also a kind of soft drug, which is addictive and harmful to health.

But tobacco is much less harmful than opium smoke;
Second, the large-scale cultivation of tobacco may contribute even more to finances.

This makes the most important reason for the imperial court to ban opium - taxation, a perfect answer.

At this point, opium may begin to be completely banned.

To put it bluntly, can you expect the Qing government or the Republic of China government to achieve the kind of extremely firm anti-drug efforts after the founding of the People's Republic of China?
Just kidding, I think highly of them.

So Li Yu thought of this curve method.

Anyway, opium was really banned, not because of anything else, it was tobacco that copied it.

If there is no large-scale promotion of tobacco, perhaps the spread of opium will be longer and wider.

Tang Shaoyi excitedly said: "Brother Shucai, you don't know that Marshal Yuan is thinking about joining the officials to submit a memorial and implementing the "No Smoking Regulations", but he has not considered the follow-up strategy. You have really helped Marshal Yuan a lot!"

Historically, it was not until two years later, that is, in 1906, that the Qing court actually promulgated the "Ten Regulations on Smoking Ban".

In 1907, the Sino-British Anti-smoking Treaty was signed with the United Kingdom.

From the Opium War in 1840, when opium opened the modern history of China, to the official ban on smoking in 1907, the damn thing opium has survived in China for too long.

Should have fucked up long ago!
Then around 1909, the Qing government participated in the International Anti-smoking Conference and gained international support.

Britain agreed to gradually reduce the import of Indian opium in the next ten years in accordance with the Qing government's smoking ban.As a result, the external difficulties of the Qing government's smoking ban were relatively properly resolved.

Of course, the sooner these things are implemented, the better!

Tang Shaoyi immediately used the telegraph machine at Li Yu's home to send a telegram to Yuan Shikai in Tianjin to report the situation.

While sending the telegram, Li Yu said to Uncle Wang: "You and Zhao Qian go to the foreign firm in Dongjiaomin Lane and buy a few packs of cigarettes for your son to use first."

Uncle Wang said happily: "Cigarettes? Can it cure his drug addiction?"

Li Yu said: "It should be effective, but you can't completely give up the method of 'quitting'. Cigarettes are just a transitional method. In mathematics, this is called substitution and simplification. Turn a difficult problem into an easier one. problem, and then figure out a solution.”

Uncle Wang couldn't understand the mathematical expressions of "replacement" and "simplification", so he said, "Mr. is indeed a fairy-like person, so I'll go right away!"

After sending the telegram, Tang Shaoyi felt more at ease, smoked a few cigars, and said, "Finally, there is something that can eliminate opium!"

Li Yu said: "This matter still needs to be promoted at the court level."

"Don't worry about the emperor, as long as the princes and nobles are not hindered from earning money, the matter will be easy!" Tang Shaoyi said, but then said after a pause, "It's just that the Shanghai side may not see it anymore."

Li Yu said, "You mean the Sassoon family, the richest man in Shanghai?"

Tang Shaoyi said: "Of course they are. I think you may have to take some time to go to Shanghai to take care of the establishment of your school. It is not easy for Sassoon to be in the Shanghai concession."

Speaking of which, most people don’t know that the most imported opium to China is actually a group of Jewish drug cartels.Among them, the largest and longest-lasting one is the Sassoon family in the Shanghai Concession.

The Sassoon family made huge profits by selling opium, which made their family known as the "Oriental Rothschild family".

In addition, there is another misconception in the eyes of most ordinary people: that the main body of dumping drugs to China during the First Opium War was the East India Company.

This view is wrong!

In the first Opium War, the proportion of opium sold by the East India Company was already negligible.

The real situation is: the British government at that time transferred the right to operate opium from the East India Company to Jewish opium dealers.

Of course, the nationality of these Jewish drug dealers is British, and it is not wrong to say that the British imported opium into China.

But it was not the British government or the East India Company that directly sold opium, but the family-owned Jewish drug dealers who paid a lot of taxes to the British government.

The Sassoon family has strongholds in India, where opium is produced, and China, where it is sold, and has completed the integration of opium production and sales. Many foreigners in the Shanghai Concession lamented that "money flows to the Sassoon family like snowflakes."

Even Hartong, the super real estate developer in Shanghai that Li Yu had met before, was associated with Sassoon in his early years.

Almost half of the cigarettes sold by Lin Zexu in Humen belonged to the Sassoon family.

Sassoon was furious. He happened to be married to the powerful Rothschild family, so they lobbied in the British Parliament together, which made the British Parliament vote to launch the Opium War with a slight advantage.

There is no need to say more about the latter.

From this perspective, the Sassoon family, a super drug cartel, is even more destructive than the later Colombian or Mexican drug cartel groups.

(End of this chapter)