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

Chapter 620 Conspiracy
Li Yu was planning to let Lu Bicheng study in the United States for a few years. Anyway, she had already had this idea and fully agreed with it.

"Choose a major." Li Yu said.

Lu Bicheng thought for a while: "I have been writing lyrics, polishing manuscripts, and painting these years, so I should major in literature and fine arts."

"OK," Li Yu said with a smile, "With the ability of Lu Da's talented woman, she can easily get a doctorate."

Lu Bicheng said: "It's not that simple. No woman has ever received a doctorate."

The first female doctorate in China was Zheng Yuxiu, one of the first batch of students sent by the Work-Study Society in France. She received a law degree from the University of Paris in 1924.

"So there is a chance to compete for the first place." Li Yu said.

"It's not just words." Lu Bicheng said.

Li Yu said: "After all, I can get a degree from a top university in the United States. At that time, I was even more of a role model for women in the new era."

This was very attractive to Lu Bicheng, but the thought of staying in a foreign country for a long time made her a little uneasy, so she said, "Can Xian'er come with me?"

Li Yu said: "In this case, I will have to attend elementary school in the United States for several years."

"Isn't it possible?" Lu Bicheng asked tentatively.

"Okay," Li Yu said, "but you have to personally grasp the Chinese studies part. Fortunately, Columbia University has good lectures on East Asian culture, and there are also teachers who teach Chinese studies in Chinatown."

Lu Bicheng said happily: "Thank you, Brother Yu!"

She asked Fengling to accompany her again. When the time comes, Li Yu will let Situ Meitang take care of her, and there won't be any problem. And I will go there from time to time.

Naturally, He Yujie was also on the same journey. The American Physical Society had already sent two telegrams, so he couldn't be too disrespectful.

Li Yu's boat docked at the Shanghai pier, and the group took a train to Shanghai first.

I met Zhang Taiyan after a long absence in Shanghai. He was put under house arrest by Yuan Shikai for three years. After Yuan Shikai's death, Li Yuanhong released him. After being freed, Zhang Taiyan didn't want to stay in the capital for a minute and immediately ran to Shanghai.

In the past few years, Lu Bicheng has regularly sent some money to Zhang Taiyan's new wife Tang Guoli, for which Zhang Taiyan has always been grateful.

Not many of Zhangmen's disciples are rich. Although there are a few who are professors at Peking University, they happened to encounter a lot of troubles in the capital, and their salaries have not been paid for several months.

"My little friend Shucai, remember these accounts first, and you will definitely pay them back later." Zhang Taiyan said.

"It's easy to talk!" Li Yu knew that he couldn't refuse due to his temper, and then asked, "Where will Mr. Taiyan go next? Before coming here, President Li Da said that he wanted you to be the director of the National History Museum."

Zhang Taiyan said: "President Li Da is a perfect man, but I really don't want to go back. Besides, writing history is not my strong point. I am going to travel around Nanyang to relax and relax."

Li Yu said: "It's really time to go out for a walk."

Zhang Taiyan said: "I also wish you a happy journey. It is rare for foreigners to invite Chinese people to give speeches. I have always been happy about this from the bottom of my heart."

Li Yu cupped his fists and said, "See you later."

-

Farewell to Zhang Taiyan, Li Yu and others got on the ship.

Li Yu was not idle on the ship and wrote all the main parts of "Alien" non-stop.

After arriving in New York, Li Yu and his party received a very grand welcome.

Michelson and Millikan, two leading figures in the American scientific community, were naturally present. In an instant, three Nobel Prize winners were gathered together (although Millikan has not won the prize yet, it is basically recognized in the industry as a matter of time), and the lineup is very spectacular.

New York celebrities such as Rockefeller Jr., Edison, Tesla, Stuart Meitang and others also attended the welcome party.

The lecture will be held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

A long red carpet was laid out in the hotel. Li Yu shook hands with the celebrities present and introduced him to He Yujie.

It was the first time for He Yujie to see such a large battle, and he experienced firsthand how influential Li Yu was abroad. In the past, these names had only been seen in books.

Michelson, the most senior person, made the opening remarks: "It is an honor to invite Mr. Li Yu and Mr. He Yujie. Their experiments are very important and even exciting! You have opened a door for mankind to peer into the microscopic world. And Mr. Li Yu He also made extremely instructive and forward-looking predictions. It is not an exaggeration to call him a scientific prophet.”

There was endless applause from the audience.

Li Yu walked up to the podium and simply said: "Thank you Mr. Michelson for the praise, but I really can't bear the word prophet. As for the experiment that discovered the proton, many of the specific operations came from Mr. He Yujie. I only proposed the experimental concept and framework." Without Mr. He Yujie, this experiment would not have been completed, let alone the current honor.”

Li Yu's words were intended for Millikan to hear, intentionally or unintentionally.

Michelson is old and will retire in a few years. At that time, Millikan was the undisputed leader of the American physics community, and some of his codes of conduct would greatly influence future American physicists.

Not long after Li Yu spoke, he left the main stage to He Yujie, intending to cultivate his popularity.

In fact, according to the tradition of European and American universities and laboratories, He Yujie's role is more like an assistant.

He Yujie's English is good, and he explains in detail how to conduct step-by-step experiments and how to analyze the existence of protons.

Because there were people from non-physics circles and media reporters present, I didn’t go into too much detail. I just gave a general outline, but it was enough.

After the regular questions, Michelson suddenly said: "Last year's Nobel Prize was not awarded because of the European War. Can we suggest that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation reissue the 1916 prize?"

His words suddenly opened up Li Yu's thinking. This happened many times since then, and even Einstein's Nobel Prize was reissued.

"I agree with Mr. Michelson's proposal!" Li Yu said, "Science is supreme and cannot be stopped because of a dirty war."

Edison also said: "Sweden was not involved in the European war. If the war stopped early, there would indeed be a possibility of reissue."

Rockefeller Jr. said: "I'm afraid, we will also participate in this battle."

"We?" Millikan asked, "You mean?"

Rockefeller Jr. said, "America is going to war."

"Impossible," said Astor, the owner of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. "Our entire industry is so prosperous now, why should we spend the money we just earned through the war? It must be a conspiracy between the British and the French!"

Young Rockefeller leisurely lit a cigar: "That telegram will be made public soon."

Tesla knew about radio and asked, "Where did the telegram come from?"

Rockefeller Jr. said: "Sent from Berlin. Deciphered by Room 40 of the British Admiralty Building."

"Room 40" is the public code name of the code-breaking agency of the British Naval Intelligence Service.

As early as the night when Britain declared war on Germany, the British cable ship "Targonia" quietly sailed to the English Channel and cut off all five German submarine cables in the North Atlantic to interrupt Germany's communications.

However, the emergence of radio made communications somewhat "ethereal" and difficult to completely interrupt. The British were forced to form a code-breaking team.

Prior to this, the UK had not cracked codes for nearly a century, which was equivalent to starting from scratch. But they had to do it because their opponent Germany had put too much effort into communications.

World War I was almost the beginning of a large-scale communications war.

Because of its emphasis on encryption, Germany suffered a lot of heavy losses to the Russian army.

On the Western Front battlefields in which Britain and France participated, including the Battle of the Somme, the British and French coalition forces had always wondered in the early days why the German artillery fire was always extremely accurate.

Later, a French military checkpoint discovered a peasant woman carrying a basket. Since she often passed through the battle line, only routine inspections were conducted at first. The basket contained ordinary hard-boiled eggs and nothing else.

A sentry playfully threw an egg into the air and caught it.

It was such a random move that shocked the peasant woman. The sentry immediately realized something was wrong and conducted a more careful inspection. After they peeled off the egg skin, they found that there was a simple defense plan and unit number of the British army drawn inside.

This is a kind of steganography invented by a German chemist: first use acetic acid to write on the eggshell. After the acetic acid dries, the egg is cooked. The writing is printed on the egg white through the eggshell, and the appearance of the egg usual.

Steganography is just a small trick in local battles. The real big deal is radio.

The British Post and Telegraph Office had a branch in Stockholm and intercepted many German telegrams, but it has never been able to decipher them.

In November 1914, the British Navy finally decided to gather a group of mathematicians, linguists, semioticians, and chess masters to decipher codes.

The initial progress was not smooth, but they accidentally obtained the German code book on the battlefield.

Once the British navy sank a German destroyer. The German captain threw a box containing confidential documents into the sea. A month later, the British army salvaged it. Inside was a code book. Through this code book, Correspondence between German military attachés in Madrid, Washington, Buenos Aires, Peking and Constantinople were known to Britain.

Later, Germany upgraded its encryption program and changed the codebook regularly, but it was far less cautious than during World War II and was still deciphered by the British army from time to time.

Li Yu knew what Rockefeller wanted to say, but he knew too much, so he didn't speak.

Tesla said: "Germany has dozens of different passwords and several different levels of encryption. What does it have to do with the United States?"

"Anyway, it will be on the news within two days. It doesn't matter if I tell you part of it in advance," said Rockefeller Jr. "A month and a half ago, Room 40 intercepted a German top-level '0075' encrypted telegram in the United States."

Edison was surprised: "British? Intercepted in the United States? German telegram?"

"So it's interesting," Rockefeller Jr. blew on his cigarette. "The sender is German Foreign Minister Zimmermann."

Edison said: "A telegram sent to us by the Germans?"

Young Rockefeller smiled and said: "If it is sent to us, do we still need to decipher it?"

"I remembered, we have a diplomatic telegraph line." After all, Tesla had been engaged in communications for many years and knew better. "That line starts from Berlin, passes through Copenhagen, and crosses the Atlantic to New York and Washington. Currently, Germany is still allowed to use."

The British did not dare to cut off the Americans' telegraph lines.

Rockefeller Jr. said: "It was this line. The original deciphered version of the telegram content was,
01588075柏林外交部1月16日。极机密。阁下本人参阅。发致2479的帝国公使。拟于2月1日开始无限制的潜艇战。以迫使英国在几个月求和。收电后即报收到。齐默尔曼”

Astor said: "It turned out to be unrestricted submarine warfare. Isn't this what happened? The president recalled the ambassador to Germany because of this incident, expelled the German ambassador to the United States, and severed diplomatic relations with Germany. Everyone knows it. ”

Young Rockefeller said proudly: "So the key lies in the part of this telegram that has not yet been deciphered, that is, what does '2479' represent."

Everyone asked together: "Where?"

Young Rockefeller took a puff of his cigar and said slowly, "I can't say."

Eddie said angrily: "You might as well not say it from the beginning!"

Young Rockefeller spread his hands: "I just said, you can all see the news in two days with your own eyes."

As the largest plutocrat in the United States, Rockefeller Jr. must have known this top-secret information through political informants.

But he said it very honestly, and the U.S. Congress was indeed prepared to make it public.

As for the key code name "2479", Hall, the leader of Room 40 in the UK, has already figured it out: it represents Mexico.

It's just that he didn't decipher the code through code, but an espionage operation.

Hall's first intuition was that it was Mexico.

As a master of espionage, he was familiar with the intelligence community: Diplomatic agencies in the Americas often used Western Union's commercial telegraph cables, which ran from Washington to Mexico. The telegraph office kept a copy of all telegrams transmitted over its lines.

So the Mexico City telegraph office must have what Hall wanted!
Hall immediately sent a British spy to sneak into the Mexico City telegraph office and successfully obtained a copy of Zimmerman's telegram.

While the copy was still encrypted, the telegraph office's copy used a lower level of encryption that was easily decipherable.

Through the harvest in Mexico, Hall managed to learn that "2479" stood for Mexico.

At this point, it was a complete victory, and with it, Britain could almost hear the president of the United States declaring war on Germany.

Because Germany's actions have offended the United States: the old American Monroe Doctrine is to become the boss of the Americas, and no one can touch their own back garden.

Germany actually teamed up with Mexico to steal homes? How could the United States endure this?
However, after receiving the intelligence from Britain, US President Wilson did not believe it at first, thinking it was a trick played by the British and he wanted more sufficient evidence.

This did not trouble Hall. He knew that since this telegram followed the US diplomatic route, a copy would definitely be found in the United States.

After the American copy was found, Wilson was speechless, just do it!
Anyway, the United States already had good reasons to join the war. The debts of Britain and France on Wall Street were too high.

There is a saying that if you owe the bank one million, you will panic; but if you owe the bank one billion, the bank will panic.

Therefore, the United States must keep the Allies, otherwise who will repay the tens of billions of dollars in debt?
If Britain and France lose, they will have to spit out all their war dividends over the years and bear the consequences of inflation (there is too much hot money in the market and inflation is normal. It took many years after the First World War for the United States to suppress inflation. go down).

The United States is already in the same boat as the Allies.

Now we just lack a reason to start a war.

Wilson and Congress immediately published the Zimmerman Telegram in newspapers, igniting the anger of people across the United States and paving the way for the draft.

The Germans were quite speechless when they learned about this. Logistics Minister and German industrial tycoon Rathenau commented: "This trick is so sad, I can't even laugh at it!"

The Mexico mentioned earlier uses a lower level of encryption, which is quite suspicious: why do the telegrams received by Mexico and the telegrams intercepted by the British in the United States not use the same level of encryption?

One version speculates that because the Mexican consulate is not a high-level German foreign agency, German Foreign Minister Zimmermann did not issue the top-secret "0075" code book to the consul there, but used a low-level code book.

There is also a second version: the German ambassador to the United States made a fatal mistake. After he translated the received Zimmermann telegram using the new "0075" code copy, he encrypted it with the old code copy and sent it to Mexico. city……

Just let it be, the loopholes are too obvious. As for the real reason, it is impossible to know.

And to take a step back, Zimmerman's plan to unite with Mexico to help it regain Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona did not win the support of Mexico at all.

The Mexican government is not stupid. It asked me to send troops to retake these large territories. Isn't it just trying to seize food from the tiger's mouth? The Germans think highly of me! What kind of support are you talking about? Germany itself is blocked!
I can afford this pot! ?