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

Chapter 687 Divine Punishment
When I met Li Yuanhong again, a lot had changed in just two months: President Li had stepped down again.

And this time, it was obvious that he stepped down out of resentment - he was forced to do so.

"Grand Secretary Li was robbed while riding on a train, and I was also robbed, and what was robbed was the presidency." Li Yuanhong said helplessly.

During this period, there was a "Drive Out the Li Movement" in Beijing, and even many civil servants participated in it. To be more precise, they participated in the wage-demand movement against the Beiyang government. That's right, they were unable to pay wages again.

This is actually quite fatal. Although people don’t say that whoever has milk is the mother, it is not okay to have no milk either.

Li Yuanhong did not want to abdicate, but the Zhili clique pushed him too hard, so he decided to leave Beijing and move his presidential palace to Tianjin. Before leaving, he asked his concubine to take the three seals of "Seal of the Republic of China", "Seal of the President" and "Seal of the Army and Navy Marshal" and hide in the French Hospital in Dongjiaomin Lane. Then he and several important officials took a special train to Tianjin.

But his actions were known to Cao Kun, and as soon as the train arrived at the station, he was blocked in the carriage by Wang Chengbin, a high-ranking official from Zhili.

After being trapped for more than ten hours, Li Yuanhong had no choice but to tell them that the seal was in Dongjiaomin Lane and then agreed to step down as president.

This was absolutely a real insult to Li Yuanhong.

Li Yu looked at the servants coming in and out carrying luggage and asked, "Are you moving away?"

"We can't stay here anymore!" said Li Yuanhong.

"Fortunately, Tianjin is not far away," Li Yu said, "and you have many old friends there."

Li Yuanhong smiled bitterly and said, "I plan to go to Shanghai first to see if there is anything that can be done."

Li Yu knew how the situation would develop, but he couldn't say much. He could only wish him a safe journey.

Although President Li Yuanhong was forced to join the Revolution of 1911, he always behaved like a staunch republican and believed in the republic from the bottom of his heart. In the remaining years, every Double Tenth Day of the Republic of China, Li Yuanhong would hang up lights and celebrate, because he believed that everything he was most proud of in his life was given to him by the revolution and the republic.

Unfortunately, "republic" has almost become a joke now.

Later, the drama played out on the political stage of the Republic of China was the famous story of Cao Kun bribing the presidency.

In recent years, Congress has not even been able to gather all its members. In order to hold a congressional election, at least three-fifths of the people must be present, which means more than 583 people.

But the current Congress can’t even muster 583 people, let alone .

That's why Cao Kun came up with the idea of ​​giving every member of Congress a 500-dollar attendance fee.

As the election date approached, Cao Kun's side even directly announced that as long as the members of parliament attended the meeting, they could receive 5,000 yuan even if they did not vote for Cao Kun. This was enough to barely get the required number of people.

As for the election results, needless to say, Cao Kun was definitely elected with a high vote.

There were a few interesting spoiled ballots at the scene. The name on one of them was "Sun Meiyao", the previous train robber. It was obviously a prank by a certain congressman.

There was another discarded ticket with "Five Thousand Yuan" written on it, which was quite ironic.

This bribery campaign cost a total of more than 1300 million US dollars, which is not a small amount.

However, this money did not come from Cao Kun himself. It was sponsored by various provinces. For example, Yan Xishan donated 50 yuan.

If there are sponsors, there are certainly saboteurs. When Cao Kun bribed the election, Fengtian clique leader Zhang Zuolin threatened that if Cao Kun did not accept the bribe, he could receive the same amount of money from him. Zhang Zuolin called it "anti-bribery election."

But it must be said that Cao Kun did some practical things. For example, three days after he took office, he promulgated the first official "Constitution of the Republic of China", commonly known as the "Double Tenth Constitution."

This constitution can be said to mark the completion of the great constitutional project that lasted for ten years.

-

"Breaking News! Breaking News! A massive earthquake in Tokyo, Japan, killed tens of thousands of people!"

Due to the inconvenience of information transmission, the news of this earthquake, which occurred yesterday, only reached the country today.

Li Yu happened to be walking out of the Peking University campus with Zhu Kezhen and Li Siguang. Zhu Kezhen bought a newspaper, read it and said, "Wow, it's so serious? The entire Tokyo area was razed to the ground? Even the Japanese Imperial Palace was affected."

At that time, Emperor Hirohito of Japan was entertaining foreign guests at the Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, when there was a sudden and violent earthquake. The emperor was so frightened that he quickly ran to the garden outside the palace and saw the newly completed 12-story Tokyo Tower collapse in an instant and break into two parts; at the same time, almost all the surrounding high-rise buildings collapsed, like a landslide.

Li Siguang also glanced at the newspaper: "There was also a tsunami, and thousands of ships sank. But judging from the scale reported, the epicenter should not be in Tokyo Bay."

Li Yu said unconcernedly, "Indeed, if it was in Tokyo Bay, it would not be tens of thousands of people, at least nearly one million would be killed or injured, and the entire Kanto Plain of Japan might be engulfed by the tsunami."

Li Siguang said: "I remember that more than 200 years ago during the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, a large-scale earthquake occurred in Shandong, with more than 50,000 casualties."

Zhu Kezhen suddenly said: "It would be great if there was a way to predict earthquakes."

"Prediction is impossible," Li Yu shook his head, "even if we give early warning, it's impossible."

Li Siguang was a geologist after all, so he asked, "Early warning? Are you referring to the mechanism proposed by the Americans?"

"Yes," Li Yu said, "half a century ago, an American imagined that he could use the speed difference between the transverse and longitudinal waves of an earthquake to send telegraph messages to cities outside the epicenter tens of seconds in advance."

The principle is very simple. There are two kinds of waves in earthquakes, transverse waves and longitudinal waves.

Longitudinal waves travel fast, about 7km/s, but have little destructive power;
Shear waves travel slowly, at about 4km/s, but they are very destructive.

The area above the earthquake source is called the epicenter, which is definitely the first place to be hit by earthquake waves. It can then emit signals to the surrounding areas using electromagnetic waves that propagate at the speed of light.

The person who proposed it was called Cooper. It was in 1868, just six years after Maxwell proposed the concept of electromagnetic waves. Even Hertz had not yet confirmed the existence of electromagnetic waves, let alone the knowledge of radio.

Li Yu continued, "Unfortunately, this system cannot be put into practice because, first of all, it is impossible to know where the earthquake occurred; secondly, there may not be any radio transceivers in that place."

Even Japan, which first had a usable earthquake early warning mechanism, did not have one until the 1990s.

Li Siguang sighed, "You are right. This is the problem. We can only passively bear the disaster of the earthquake."

When Li Yu was a child, he heard a rumor that "Li Siguang once predicted four major earthquakes. The first three have already occurred, including the Tangshan earthquake and the Wenchuan earthquake. Where will the fourth one be?"

But in fact, Li Siguang only started to do earthquake research in his later years, and he never said such words, he just described the earthquake belt.

I don’t know how this rumor got out, and it’s become known to almost everyone. It’s quite strange.

From the perspective of media studies, the person who made up this rumor was really good at it. Rumors can only spread if they seem to be true. A well-known person like Li Siguang is undoubtedly the best catalyst, because it is difficult for ordinary people to verify whether Li Siguang actually said such things.

So, this is where it’s hard to dispel rumors.

Spread a rumor and break a leg.

Later, some countries also controlled the news based on such considerations. If someone controlled a certain media, even a very large one, and then spread rumors, it would spread widely. If you want to dispel the rumors and save the situation, it would cost several times more.

The key is that many people just like to listen to stories made up by rumors, which is very difficult to deal with.

Zhu Kezhen said: "The death toll is similar. The magnitude of the Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan seems to be similar to the Shandong earthquake 200 years ago."

After hearing his words, Li Yu suddenly had an idea and said to Li Siguang, "Dr. Li, are you interested in establishing a theoretical model for earthquake magnitude?"

"What's the magnitude of the earthquake?" Li Siguang asked.

"It is to conduct a quantitative analysis of the magnitude of the earthquake," Li Yu said. "It has many benefits. It can guide rescue work and help earthquake research."

Li Siguang was very interested and asked, "How do we quantify it?"

Li Yu took them back to his office at Peking University and started drawing on paper: "For example, at a distance of 100 km from the epicenter, a small amplitude of the seismograph is set as the benchmark. Then the actual amplitude is divided by this benchmark amplitude, and mathematical techniques are used, such as taking the logarithm, to get a number, which is a more accurate quantitative result, that is, the earthquake level."

This model is actually the Richter magnitude scale jointly developed by Richter and Gutenberg of the California Institute of Technology in 1935.

The principle is not complicated at all. According to this model, the base amplitude is 1 micron, which is 10-6 meters.

If the amplitude reaches 1m, divide 1m by 1 micron, which is 10 to the 6th power; take the logarithm, which is 6, which means a magnitude 6 earthquake.

Similarly, if the amplitude is 10m, it is a magnitude 7 earthquake;
An amplitude of 100m is an earthquake of magnitude 8.

But this method has limitations, and it is not very accurate above level 7. But it is still the most popular model, and even though many alternative models have emerged, the name is still used.

Before Li Yu traveled through time, the most widely used formula was an energy formula, which was an empirical formula to be exact (not that accurate, after all, people still don't understand many things about earthquakes), but it was widely used:

Earthquake energy E=10^(4.8+1.5M)

Where M is the earthquake magnitude.

According to this formula, the energy gap between two magnitude earthquakes is about 32 times.

If the difference is two levels, such as a magnitude 6 earthquake and a magnitude 8 earthquake, the energy difference is about 1000 times.

If the earthquake magnitude differs by only 0.1, it would be 10^0.15 times, or about 1.4 times.

The Great Kanto Earthquake was initially measured at a magnitude of 7.9, but was later revised to 8.1.

Although the difference is only 0.2, the energy gap is actually 2 times.

Li Siguang's eyes lit up: "This is a very good idea! If you add some mathematical calculations, you can measure the magnitude of an earthquake anywhere on Earth."

Li Yu said: "That's it!"

Zhu Kezhen was amazed as he watched from the sidelines: "I once again admire Mr. Li Yu's scientific thinking incomparably."

Li Yu smiled and said, "Thanks to your words that reminded me."

Li Yu and Li Siguang did what they said. Li Yu had plenty of money, so he could do any project he wanted. He quickly established the theoretical framework and then measured several aftershocks of the Great Kanto Earthquake, with very good results.

In this way, the data is available and the paper can be written immediately!

Taking advantage of the news popularity of the Great Kanto Earthquake, this paper written by the "Two Lis" was first published in China's "Science Magazine" and was quickly translated into multiple languages ​​and published.

But from now on, the Richter magnitude will be renamed "Lee magnitude".

Fortunately, for Chinese people, the pronunciation has not changed at all, so the change is not noticeable.

The Japanese have been shaken for thousands of years and are almost driven crazy. They are particularly interested in this paper. If the Imperial University of Tokyo had not also been severely damaged in the earthquake, they would have invited Li Yu and Li Siguang to give lectures there.

Li Yu himself was well-known, and thanks to this paper, Li Siguang also became an internationally renowned scholar at an early stage.

Although earthquakes cannot be predicted, there are still many areas that can be studied. For example, as mentioned above, the magnitude of earthquakes is a science. In addition, there is another important indicator about the destructive power of earthquakes, namely intensity.

The word "intensity" is no stranger to those who have studied civil engineering. In fact, in architecture, we do not talk about magnitude, but intensity, which is the degree of damage an earthquake may cause to a building.

Intensity is very important, because a small earthquake does not necessarily mean it cannot cause a major disaster. The key is where it occurs.

While Li Yu and Li Siguang were busy with their scientific research, Zhang Zhenfang suddenly found Li Yu and mentioned something: "Master Li, the abdicated emperor of the Qing Dynasty also wants to donate to Japan."

Li Yu said, "Why is he joining in the fun? Didn't the Shanghai Red Cross make donations out of humanitarianism and send a rescue team? The Beiyang government also donated 20 yuan. For a poor country like ours, it can be said that they have done their best. Besides, we don't know how much money the abdicated emperor has. Recently, it was all mortgaged from the Salt Bank. What else do they have besides the cultural relics in the Forbidden City... Oh my god, do they just want to donate cultural relics?"

Zhang Zhenfang said: "It's just what you think!"

"Isn't this causing trouble?" Li Yu was speechless. He had just helped the Forbidden City protect a large number of cultural relics in the Jianfu Palace, and the little emperor was causing trouble again.

Historically, this was Puyi's largest donation ever.

The impact of the Great Kanto Earthquake was quite large and shook almost the entire world.

——This is where it’s unfair. If something happens in a developed country, the whole world knows about it. But if tens of millions of people die in a backward country, no one may care.

This kind of thing happened not once or twice, but many times in the future. Until Li Yu traveled through time, it remained unchanged.

There are many examples to mention, such as the plague that Wu Lien-teh was involved in. If it had not broken out in Hong Kong and affected the British as well, it would not have attracted much attention.

Later, when the Ebola virus, the highest level and higher than HIV, appeared in Africa, Europeans did not care for a long time. It was not until a stowaway suddenly arrived in Europe and the United States that these foreign masters became scared. It turned out that the virus from the other side of the world could reach the core areas of Europe and the United States within 24 hours by just taking a plane.

As for war, there are more examples...

Back to the young Emperor Puyi, he had the same motivation and wanted to let the world know about the great kindness of Emperor Xuantong, so he decided to provide a huge sum of money for relief.

Of course, they didn't have any money, so they took out cultural relics estimated to be worth about 500,000 or 600,000 yuan and gave them to Japan.

Yes!

It’s nonsense just to think about it!
Donate cultural relics for disaster relief???
Is there paste in your brain???

Historically, the Japanese envoy was very happy and accepted it with pleasure!

The imperial court was stupid, but the Japanese envoy was not. How could he refuse something given for free? The key point was that it was a priceless cultural relic. How could he refuse it?

Li Yu quickly called the small court and told them that he could open an express channel through the Salt Bank to quickly make a valuation, and out of kindness, he would increase the valuation by 10% as a reward.

That is to say, give the cultural relics to Li Yu, and then not only immediately provide the small court with 500,000 or 600,000 oceans for them to donate, but also give the small court another 50,000 or 60,000 oceans as pocket money.

The young Emperor Puyi would not refuse, after all, he had tens of thousands of dollars in his hands; even if he wanted to refuse, Li Yu could still bring up the draft Cultural Relics Protection Law that had just been issued by the Republic of China.

Oh, it’s such a headache!

Li Yutai hopes that Feng Yuxiang will come to Beijing as soon as possible!
As for Li Yu himself, it is impossible for him to donate money to the Japanese. There is no way!
Because it is really like throwing a meat bun at a dog, and it is a wild dog that doesn't even remember the favor!

It is hard to imagine that the Japanese have such distorted social psychology that they do many unreasonable things.

During the chaotic days after the earthquake, the Japanese even fabricated a rumor that the North Koreans were going to take advantage of the situation to riot.

The most crucial thing is that several authoritative newspapers in Japan, such as Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun, also reported that North Koreans wanted to riot.

Then the Japanese launched the "Tokyo Massacre" in Tokyo, but the target was Koreans.

In just one week, the so-called Self-Defense Group spontaneously formed by the Japanese people killed more than 7000 Koreans.

The way to identify North Koreans is to ask the suspected passers-by to say a few Japanese words. Although most North Koreans in Japan can speak some Japanese, their accents are different. They use the accent to identify whether they are North Koreans and then kill them without mercy.

This vague criterion was very inaccurate. Some Japanese from mountainous areas were killed because of their accents, and even some Japanese who stuttered were killed.

These dogs have gone blood-thirsty.

But what Li Yu could not forgive was that they later killed more than 700 Chinese people.

So why should we donate to the Japanese?
Li Yu can help any country in the world that is affected by disasters, even any other country in the Eight-Nation Alliance.

Except Japan, that doesn't work.

These beasts deserve it!

The Nationalist government donated money to them, Mei Lanfang also performed many charity shows to raise funds, and the Shanghai Red Cross was also part of the first international rescue team to arrive.

But was it useful? Didn’t the Japanese launch the September 18 Incident a few years later?
So, this is not a natural disaster, it is a punishment from God!