Short video spoiler history: The beginning of modern warfare

Chapter 83 Telegraph Machine

During the Hongwu period, Jinling City.

From ancient times to the present, the concept of heaven and earth is that the land beneath our feet is the earth, and the sky is the sky. The two correspond to each other and may be the same size.

Now, with the help of the perspective of Voyager 1, we know that the land beneath our feet is earth, but the sky is not sky. It is much larger than we imagined.

People have lost their concept of the distance of 2 trillion kilometers, but the comment section has thoughtfully converted it into a relatively easy-to-understand unit, which is years.
This is just the scope of the solar system
"If Voyager 1 started flying from the year when the First Emperor unified the six kingdoms, it would have only flown less than one-tenth of the distance so far." Liu Ji kindly calculated a number for everyone.

This is another unimaginable length of time. A thousand years is a lot of changes for the human world, and Voyager 1 has not been able to fly out of the solar system for years. What about outside the solar system?

Can't it fly faster?
Hexing Tea and Snack Shop.

"The stars, the moon, the sun, and the earth, there's clearly nothing holding them back, so why don't they fall down?" Mr. Su said to himself.

When the diners next to him heard this question, they burst into laughter and said, "You are worrying too much!"

Mr. Su shook his head. He knew the story of the man from Qi who was worried about the sky falling, so he said seriously, "In the story, there is a man from Qi who was worried about the sky falling, so he lost his appetite."

"It says: The sky is where the air is stored. If you succumb to the air and breathe, and move around in the sky all day long, why should you worry about collapsing?"

"It is also said that the sun, moon, and stars are also shining things in the accumulated air, and even if they are made to fall, they cannot harm anything."

"It's hard to judge whether the content about the sky is correct or not, but the content about the sun, moon and stars is obviously wrong, so strictly speaking this is not worrying about the sky, but it should be called worrying about the stars and the moon."

"."

"Hahahaha, that makes sense!" The others laughed, and even the wrinkles on Manager Wan's forehead deepened a little.

People all laugh at those mediocre people who worry needlessly all day long and bother themselves and others. However, these strange and fantastic ideas are sometimes an important source of power for promoting scientific exploration and development.

[“In the past, transportation was slow, letters were far away, and a lifetime was only enough to love one person.” This is our fond memory of life in the last century.]

[But in fact, in the last century, or even in ancient times, the correspondence at that time, without the filter of film and television drama interpretation, was not beautiful at all]

[For example, in ancient times, short-distance communication mainly relied on shouting, which is what is meant by "the roads are connected, and the chickens and dogs can hear each other." At that time, if you didn't have a loud voice, you might not be able to make friends.]

[Long-distance communication mainly relies on signals and letters, such as the smoke signals used at the border. However, this method of communication can only transmit very small amounts of information such as "enemy attack", which is really inconvenient.]

[Speaking of letter delivery, I believe everyone has heard of Du Fu's poem: "The war has been going on for three months, and a letter from home is worth ten thousand pieces of gold." At that time, there was no post office or postman. Although government offices generally had post stations, you couldn't use them whenever you wanted.]

[So when people deliver letters, they usually ask someone they know to deliver them, or they pay merchants to deliver them. In this case, it is normal for letters to be lost. After all, the world is full of ups and downs, and you might run into a bandit instead of Ai Guang at a corner.]

[Until the 19th century, communication methods were based on the development of transportation, until the advent of electricity.]

[The telegraph is an invention that once shone brightly in human history]

[I will take a minute to show you how the telegraph works. First, find a signal light and connect it to the wires. Then install a switch in the middle. When you close the switch, the signal light turns on. When you open the switch, the signal light turns off. Is that right?]

[Congratulations, you have learned the communication principle of the telegraph. With it, you will be able to transmit information between Nanjing and Beijing in seconds after traveling through time. With this skill, you can at least get a title from the Zhu family! ]

During the Hongwu period, in front of the Fengtian Palace in Jinling City.

Information transmission between Nanjing and Beijing within seconds? ! !
Sun Chuanshi from the Science Department, Du Ping who had just been selected from the Imperial College, Hu Weiyong, Wang Guangyang and others all had changing expressions, from excitement to bewilderment.
"What did Tianmu say just now?"

"I explained the communication principle of the telegraph"

"Telegraph? What's the principle?"

"Just turn the switch on and off. The signal light will turn on and off."

Xu Da listened to everyone's repetitive chatter and resisted the urge to hit anyone. What a bunch of good-for-nothings, they can't even understand such a thing!

The veins on Zhu Yuanzhang's forehead jumped a few times. How did he learn the principle of the telegraph? Is this telegraph really as magical as people say? Is my talent really so dull?
Impossible, this young man must be trying to be mysterious!

Zhu Yuanzhang glanced at his ministers and saw that everyone had a confused look on their faces. He became more certain of his guess. Only Xu Da had a strange expression on his face.

"Tian De, do you understand the principle of this telegraph machine?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked. In front of the sky curtain, the generals and the officials of the Ministry of Science were actually the same. You could tell from their eyes.

Xu Da clasped his hands and said, "I am too stupid to understand your meaning!"

Zhu Biao scratched his head and tried hard to recall what Tianmu said. He said in surprise: "If this can really convey information, it's just like the smoke from a beacon tower. Although it's more timely than the smoke from a beacon tower, it's not as powerful as people say, right?" Liu Ji's eyes lit up. He could only deduce this far, but what after that? Where is the breakthrough point?
Nanjun in the late Han Dynasty.

Zhang Fei looked at Zhuge Liang and then at Pang Tong. He wanted to say something several times but stopped himself. Finally, he couldn't hold it in anymore.

".military adviser"

"The lights are turned on and off, and at most I can only do the beacon tower. I don't know the rest." Zhuge Liang interrupted him with a red face. In fact, he has always had a lot of things to do.

Although generators have been developed today, research on electricity is still insufficient.

The awkward look on Pang Tong's face disappeared, and he heaved a sigh of relief. He looked at Zhuge Liang in surprise, and finally sighed: "The principle should be to use the lights on and off. For example, if the lights are on, it means the enemy is attacking, then at least this information can be conveyed."

"As for how to convey more information, I really can't guess!"

"What should we do then?" Zhang Fei nodded. The two military advisors were talking about the same thing. It was right once he thought about it, but it was obvious that there were still many things he had not figured out.

"Wait! This kind of knowledge is very subtle and cannot be mastered in a few days." Liu Bei was calm. The young man in Tianmu obviously had a more eccentric personality and was deliberately being mysterious. The two military advisors were able to guess one or two of this riddle, which was already good enough.

[I believe everyone will curse at me for saying this, but don’t worry, we are still missing one thing, that is the famous: Morse code, also known as Morse code]

[Morse code uses "." and "—" to represent short and long telecommunication pulses. For example, if we press a switch and then release it immediately, the signal light will flash, which is represented by "."]

[Then we press the switch for about 1-2 seconds and then release it. At this time, the signal light will light up briefly, indicated by “—”]

【By manipulating the switch, we can transmit a series of “.” and “—” messages from Nanjing to Beijing, right? 】

Then we stipulated that, for example, three “.” represent the Arabic numeral 0. We only need to quickly press the switch three times in Nanjing, and the traffic light in Beijing will quickly flash three times, thus transmitting the Arabic numeral 3.

[For example, we can use “..—” to represent the Arabic numeral 1. By pressing the switch twice and pressing it for 2 seconds, the receiver in Beijing will see the signal light flash twice and then light up for 2 seconds at the same time.]

[After receiving this information, write it down, and then translate it into the number 1 according to the pre-agreed “..—” combination table]

[By the same token, we can also use different combinations of "." and "—" to specify the numbers or English letters they represent, each stroke in Chinese, etc.]

[Of course, the telegraph in movies and TV shows does not use signal lights, because the invention of the telegraph is earlier than the light bulb, and the solution is also very simple]

[Replace the signal light part with wires wrapped around a metal rod, which will generate a magnetic field. The magnetic field will suck the iron sheet on the top of the metal rod down and hit the iron block to make a "ticking" sound. In short, the principle is like this.]

[Of course, wires have resistance. The longer the distance, the greater the resistance. If you want to send a signal 300 kilometers away, it will be troublesome if the voltage is not enough.]

[The solution is to set up a relay station every 100 kilometers. Its structure is very similar to that of the receiver, but it uses a magnetic field to suck the wires down, complete the closed circuit, and automatically connect the wires to transmit information. It is still very simple. ]

During the Hongwu period, Jinling City.

Zhu Yuanzhang was amazed, this is so wonderful!
"It turns out that electricity has such wonderful uses!"

"The most important part is the Morse code, which summarizes the meaningless flashes and lights and arranges them to correspond to different information!"

"Does that mean that as long as a receiver is connected to the same wire, the same information can be received?" Zhu Biao said shockingly.

Zhu Yuanzhang and others were shocked when they heard this. In this case, isn't there a risk of information leakage?

Information from ordinary people is not a big deal, but if it involves military or national affairs, it would be bad.

"This is easy to solve. As long as our own code is not leaked, even if the information is stolen by others, it should not be deciphered." Liu Ji analyzed calmly.

Zhu Yuanzhang and others breathed a sigh of relief, that was good.

The others also breathed a sigh of relief when they heard this, and the people in the Science Department were also thinking hard, are there any other flaws and shortcomings in this way of transmitting information?
The curtain has ended here, but the people in front of the Fengtian Hall are a little uncomfortable. The shortcomings and deficiencies have not been pointed out. Isn't that irresponsible?
"Great! We can replace the receiver with an automatic punching machine, so we can optimize the receiver, right?"

"Damn it! You traveled through time and space and still want to take advantage of ordinary people. If the radio operator loses his job, you should compensate him."

"I've traveled through time and space, and I'm still doing this? I must be trying to curry favor with someone powerful!"

"So that's how it is. I finally learned when to plan my time travel."

(End of this chapter)