Daming: Apocalypse of Longevity

Chapter 243 Telegram
Zhu Tianqi said: "No need, you can eat in this cafeteria, why can't I?"

Seeing the emperor's insistence, Xu Guangqi could not say anything more. Wang Yuanbao had no choice but to go to the cafeteria and ask the chef in the cafeteria to use his special skills to cook several specialty dishes for Zhu Tianqi and Xu Guangqi. However, the ingredients in the cafeteria were limited. I couldn't make anything big, so I could only scrape together five side dishes of three vegetarian and two meat dishes, which was enough for two people.

Zhu Tianqi and Xu Guangqi chatted while eating, and asked about Xu Guangqi's recent situation and some things about Xu Guangqi's family. Zhu Tianqi discovered that Xu Guangqi had resigned from the position of chief minister of the cabinet and came to work at Shuntianfu University. After becoming the principal, my complexion became obviously much better.

Thinking about it, it's true that Xu Guangqi is much more worry-free as the principal, and he is doing things that suit him. He must feel a lot more comfortable, and naturally his health will be much better.

After dinner, Zhu Tianqi drove back to the palace. After he returned, he would continue to prepare for the construction of a steelmaking industrial base and a railway transportation system.

In addition to building railways, Zhu Tianqi also planned to lay a telegraph communication system. The structure of the telegraph machine was simple and easy to manufacture, and direct communication with the telegraph machine only needed to lay a wire. It was low-cost, low-tech, and easy to implement.

Not only that, as a time traveler, Zhu Tianqi does not even need to go through the long development and evolution process of the telegraph machine. He only needs to choose the most mature model to imitate, and for the convenience of ordinary people, he can also directly use Chinese telegraph codes.

The so-called Chinese code is a type of code that is different from Morse code, but the basic principle is the same. They all use current signals that are on and off to express different information. Morse code corresponds to English letters, numbers, Punctuation, and there are many more Chinese characters than English letters. Naturally, it is not possible to design a corresponding code for each Chinese character.

Therefore, there are fewer types of current signals in Chinese telegraph codes. You only need to set ten telegraph code signals corresponding to ten digits from zero to nine, and then send the numbers through telegraph codes. Each group of four digits represents a Chinese character. In the end, you only need to write a Chinese code book, specify which Chinese character corresponds to each four-digit number, and translate the digital telegram by consulting the Chinese code book.

For example, if the first Chinese character in the Chinese character code book is "ah", then to send a telegram, just send "0", "0", "0" and "1" directly. The reason why four zeros are added in front is for the same purpose. For convenience, divide them into groups of four numbers, otherwise everything will be messed up.

According to such rules, the telegraph operator who receives the telegram only needs to write the corresponding numbers on the paper according to the current signal he hears, and then divide these numbers into groups of four, and finally consult the Chinese code book to translate them into Chinese characters are enough.

The same goes for sending a telegram. First write down what you want to send, then translate each Chinese character into the corresponding numerical code by consulting the Chinese character code book, and finally send it out in sequence according to the telegram code corresponding to each number.

In this way, the difficulty of sending and receiving telegrams is greatly reduced. Telegraph operators only need to be proficient in ten types of telegraph signals representing ten numbers. As for the use and translation of telegraph machines, it is relatively simple and does not require special training. The training can also be easily mastered.

After making these plans, Zhu Tianqi began to gradually put them into practice. He first sent someone to find Xu Guangqi and told him about the new project he wanted to do. Xu Guangqi also showed great interest in it.

Xu Guangqi had been exposed to electricity before. He had made a homemade generator under the guidance of Zhu Tianqi, so he was naturally quite clear about what "electricity" was. However, he only knew that electricity could be used as power to replace human and animal labor, and even It can also emit light and generate heat, but I didn’t expect that electricity can also transmit information and sound for thousands of miles.

However, Xu Guangqi knew the emperor's "supernatural power", so although he was very novel about the "telegraph" project proposed by Zhu Tianqi, he had no doubt about the authenticity and feasibility of the matter.

Zhu Tianqi told Xu Guangqi about the telegraph project, naturally not to ask Xu Guangqi to help him personally, but to ask Xu Guangqi to issue a public announcement to the students in the university to establish a "communications" discipline, which includes two branches: "communication technology" and "communication engineering" .

Communication technology is naturally the discipline that develops telegraph machines and optimizes telegraph machines and related codes; while communication engineering is the discipline responsible for laying telegraph lines and building telegraph systems.

Xu Guangqi specially held a school-wide meeting for this purpose, and used his homemade micro generator to explain to the students what electricity is and its application and other basic electrical knowledge. These college students have all passed the provincial examination, and there are still quite a lot of them. It is based on physics, so it is not difficult to understand electrical knowledge.

But even so, the students still felt novel and excited when they came into contact with "electricity" for the first time, and showed great interest and enthusiasm.

Later, Xu Guangqi announced to them that the imperial court was going to build a telegraph communication system next and needed to train a group of talents in the telegraph communication industry to contribute to the construction of the Ming Dynasty telegraph communication system. He hoped that students who were interested in developing telegraph communications would be enthusiastic Sign up.

Although this is a good opportunity for the students of Shuntianfu University, and the mysterious power of "electricity" is indeed fascinating, these students are not as convinced of the emperor's knowledge and ability as Xu Guangqi. It seems that the so-called telegraph communication is still a bit "ethereal" and too unrealistic. It is still unclear whether it will succeed or not!

To put it bluntly, looking at telegraph communication from the perspective of students, they still feel that this matter is too unreliable. Maybe they will not be able to accomplish anything after working for a long time. If the court's "experiment" fails, this project will also With the subsequent bankruptcy, he was equivalent to an "experiment" and was abandoned along with the telegraph communication project.

Of course, there are also those who really fall in love with "Electricity" at first sight. Many college students who are really interested in physics have not been able to find their favorite subject or specific research direction after enrolling in school. But now the "Electricity" shown to them by Principal Xu Guangqi ” made them feel that they had been opened to a new world and had an infinite yearning for electricity.

In the end, seven students found Xu Guangqi and wanted to sign up for the research and study of the telegraph communication project. Xu Guangqi then gave these seven students the relevant information that Zhu Tianqi had given him in advance, and also gave them information about telegraph communication. video lessons for them to learn from.The information and video courses Zhu Tianqi gave Xu Guangqi naturally did not contain the complicated history and theoretical knowledge of telegraph development. They only explained the principles of the simple telegraph machine that the Ming Dynasty would use next, as well as some information about current, electromagnetism and electromagnetic waves. relevant knowledge, and also prepared a set of prototypes for Xu Guangqi.

Naturally, this set of prototypes cannot send and receive Chinese codes to each other as Zhu Tianqi imagined. It still needs to be modified to a certain extent, and the codes and Chinese character code books must be compiled.

It is not difficult to design ten types of telegraph codes corresponding to ten types of Chinese characters. After all, these students have never been exposed to telegraph codes and will not be confused with other telegraph codes. As long as they memorize these ten types of telegraph codes, they can also learn to use a telegraph machine to send these Ten types of codes are enough.

As for the compilation of the Chinese character code book, it was simple. Zhu Tianqi directly bought a dictionary, and then asked people to number each Chinese character according to the order of Chinese characters in the dictionary. For the Chinese characters that did not exist in the Ming Dynasty, he directly deleted them, and compared them with the Ming Dynasty. If the writing method was inconsistent in the Ming Dynasty, it was changed to the writing method in the Ming Dynasty. This work is not complicated, but it is tedious after all.

After the Chinese character code book was compiled, Zhu Tianqi directly customized and printed a large number of them in the Krypton Life Store, which was enough to satisfy the first batch of telegraph operators in the Ming Dynasty.

After a month of research and study, seven students from the Communication Department of Shuntianbu University finally succeeded in replicating the first Ming-style Chinese code telegraph. Of course, the parts required to make the telegraph were all provided by Zhu Tianqi. After all, Although the structure of this telegraph machine is very simple, some small parts cannot be easily manufactured by Ming Dynasty's current industrial level.

Then, Zhu Tianqi received the news that Shuntianfu University successfully sent and sent telegrams. Zhu Tianqi was very excited when he heard the news. He personally went to Shuntianfu University and brought awards to seven bachelors of the Department of Communications. The medals were made of pure gold. It is not only valuable, but also a supreme honor.

Although it took these seven college students a full month to successfully modify and imitate a telegraph machine that met Zhu Tianqi's requirements, for people who had never come into contact with a telegraph machine, it was already very powerful, and Zhu Tianqi naturally wanted to imitate it. Large rewards and role models are used to encourage college students to invent and create more, which is crucial to the development of science and technology in Ming Dynasty.

Subsequently, seven college students perfected and optimized the telegraph they produced. Next, the telegraph named "Daming Qi No. [-]" can be put into mass production.

Communication between telegraph machines requires wires to connect. Now Ming Dynasty does not have the ability to make wireless telegraph machines, and these wires are also a troublesome problem for Ming Dynasty, because the core of the wire is easy to say, whether it is using copper wire or other All metals can be made, but the insulation layer on the outside is a troublesome thing.

It is impossible to manufacture plastic with the current technological level of Ming Dynasty. Although Ming Dynasty also has many materials that can replace plastics, not only are the effects unsatisfactory, but the cost of making the insulation layer is also too high. On the contrary, it is not cost-effective. It is better to simply do it directly. It's a good time to buy wires in the Kryptonian store.

To lay a telegraph line, the number of wires required is naturally countless, but fortunately, the telegraph line does not have high requirements for the quality of the wires. The cheapest wires purchased from the Kryptonian store are enough. The price is about [-] per day. You can buy a copper-core wire with a lifespan of about ten meters. In other words, you can buy seven miles of wire with a lifespan of one year. The price can be said to be quite low.

The first telegraph line in the Ming Dynasty was laid from Shuntianfu University to the Forbidden City. The lines were all grounded. The ground needed to be dug up, and then the wires were buried and then covered up, so basically there was no trace on the surface at all. There are no wires buried underneath, and it has no impact on people's lives.

However, the telegraph needs electricity, but the power consumption is negligible. The telegraph in the Forbidden City is installed on the edge of the city wall, next to the small hydroelectric generator built by Xu Guangqi, which is just enough to power it.

As for Suncheonbu University, there is no need to worry about electricity. Their classrooms have long been equipped with thermal generators. The lights and projectors used for daily study are all powered by these thermal generators. In addition to some coal consumption, There are no other problems, and now it naturally relies directly on a power generation room in the university to power it.

In fact, there is no need to install a telegraph machine at such a short distance from the Forbidden City to Shuntianfu University. Unless there is a particularly urgent message that needs to be delivered, sending someone on horseback to deliver the message will not be much slower. Overall, it will not delay things. , the main problem that telegraph needs to solve is long-distance communication.

However, the reason why Zhu Tianqi wanted to lay this line was mainly because of the symbolic significance of this line. Now the Ming Dynasty has mastered the technology of manufacturing telegraph machines and laying telegraph lines. The next step is to promote it nationwide. Zhu Tianqi needs This was used to show officials the advancement and convenience of telegraph communications.

To be honest, Zhu Tianqi was actually quite worried that the promotion of telegraph communications across the country would be opposed by ministers and officials, because when the Qing government just started laying telegraph lines, it encountered great resistance, and The reason for those who objected at that time was that "the telegraph lines would destroy the feng shui of the Qing Dynasty and suck away the Qing Dynasty's atmosphere..."

Zhu Tianqi feels that this reason is not a joke to people of this era. He also believes that many people in the Ming Dynasty will definitely oppose the laying of telegraph lines on this ground, so they must first be made aware of it. The advancement and convenience of telegraph communication, as well as the importance of developing telegraph communication to the progress and development of Ming Dynasty's communication industry.

However, to Zhu Tianqi's surprise, when he gathered all the officials in front of the telegraph room by the city wall and showed them the sending and receiving of telegrams in front of them, all the officials were very impressed by it. They were shocked, and then they clapped and praised in unison.

Zhu Tianqi didn't expect that things would go so smoothly. It was so smooth that he could hardly believe it. However, he soon realized the problem. How could the officials in the DPRK support telegraph communication? They didn't know what they were doing to them. Whatever they were showing, I thought it was some kind of "feudal superstition" activity or a magic trick.

Although they couldn't understand it, how dare they not support the "show" performed by the emperor?Naturally, as long as someone takes the lead, they will all clap and praise Zhu Tianqi.

(End of this chapter)