"It's not that there isn't." Li Hengsong said, "There is a battalion officer named Jiang De, his battalion is stronger, and the military discipline is good. Others were scattered in the battalions. ”

"So, how many of these people can add up?" Guan Zhuofan asked after him.

Li Hengsong raised his face and thought for a while: "There are always six or seven hundred." ”

"Cousin Ai, this time Longhair is coming, it will be a tough battle. As the saying goes, good steel should be used on the blade, and I have a thought - if these people are scattered in various battalions like pepper noodles, it is actually useless, so why not gather them into a battalion of elites like 'choosing a front', and hand them over to the one you mentioned...... Jiang Delai leads? ”

The so-called selection of strikers is the practice of selecting commandos and death squads when breaking a city or breaking a formation.

"Why are you bad? It's just that the selection of the front also costs money! In Li Hengsong's words, there was a bitter taste, "Most of the 20,000 silver released by Songjiang Mansion has been sent down, and part of the arrears have been paid, and the rest in my hand is less than 3,000 ......."

Guan Zhuofan nodded, remained silent, bent down and took out the two envelopes in the pages of his boots, and handed them to him.

Li Hengsong was surprised, opened the two envelopes and took a look, and was immediately stunned - although it was too late to count them, one had tens of thousands of taels, and the other had thousands of taels, which was obvious.

"Yixuan...... This...... What does this mean? ”

"This is Xuan Jun's private self, and now that we are going through the difficulties together, we have to have money for everyone to spend." Guan Zhuofan smiled and said, "The big one is fifteen thousand taels, for Cousin Ai to choose your edge." The little one of 5,000 taels is a little bit of the younger brother's personal dedication for Cousin Ai's appreciation. ”

Li Hengsong was moved-this is really planning for him! stood up, waved his head at Guan Zhuofan, and said excitedly: "Yixuan, with a character like you, this battle will definitely be won!" I didn't say it, my 3,000 people, all for your motivation is, the 5,000 taels you gave me, I don't want it, even the original 3,000 in my hand, it will be used as a salary! ”

What Guan Zhuofan wants is what he said - the troops in the Shanghai area must be fully controlled, and only when a war can be successful. And Li Hengsong's inspired spirit can be regarded as an unexpected gain.

After some discussion, the two of them decided to eliminate the weak and retain the strong in Jiang De's battalion, select people from each battalion to supplement them, integrate the elite of a battalion of 700 people, and transfer all the foreign guns of the whole army to Jiang De's battalion, so that there are about 300 guns.

"Xuan Jun's guns are also nervous, you can allocate him a hundred first, and let him use a shotgun for the rest, and when the fight starts, I will think of replenishing it for him."

"That's great, there are 400 foreign guns, and you can do something about it." Li Hengsong said happily, "Yixuan, how are you going to arrange it?" ”

"It's nothing more than three lines," Guan Zhuofan said, "I let Wall's foreign guns team be stationed in Zhoupu to help defend the southern front." On the western front, Ding Shijie's Chinese army was stationed in Sijing, of which Ixan assisted in the defense of Songjiang and Ding Xianda assisted in the defense of Qingpu. As for the northern line, the main point is in Jiading......"

"Okay, Jiading is for me to help defend." Li Hengsong said happily. Jiading City is thirty miles north of Nanxiang, and it was originally in his defense area. "Yixuan, in this battle, you are the real chief officer, you must be stationed in Shanghai City, and you must not go out lightly, so that you can respond from all sides."

Guan Zhuofan's face turned slightly red, thinking that 20,000 silver bought this sentence, which shows that there is no money to spend money. For him, there was no intention of going to the front line to meet the long-haired white blade, and Shanghai was naturally the safest place.

"It's just that in terms of contact, there must be a set of established methods, so as not to fight and not be able to respond." Li Hengsong said while thinking.

"With Nanxiang's side, we use cavalry to send a message, and I have prepared a team of messengers." Guan Zhuofan said confidently, "As for the direction of Sijing and Zhoupu, I have another way. ”

"Oh? What's the idea? ”

Guan Zhuofan hesitated slightly, but still told him: "Telegram." ”

Li Hengsong opened his mouth wide, not knowing why.

What is a telegram?

*

*

The three Danes hired by Sihe Foreign Bank are indeed competent. Of the two telegraph lines, the one to Sijing was almost completed, and the one to Zhoupu was slightly slower than the previous one because it was necessary to cross the Huangpu River and it was necessary to slowly lay the cable down the river by barge in the middle of the night when there were few people and few boats. Wherever the telegram passed, the villagers stayed away - these high poles, and the cables of the volley flight, were strange and terrifying.

Guan Zhuofan thought to himself, what a fluke, no one has cut cables to sell for money in this era.

On the twenty-seventh of the year, there was another good news—Libin's cousin had returned from Hong Kong, and had brought back a whole fifteen telegraph operators with him.

This shows the amount of money to be paid, thirty-five taels of silver a month, which is twice their salary in Hong Kong, so that it took only three days for Libin's cousin to recruit enough people, stating that he would give another bonus for a period of two years. Such conditions are unusually generous, and everyone is full of energy, so they set off immediately, and would rather come to Shanghai to spend the year.

Most of the people who came in this group were Cantonese, and the one who led the team was called Bian Ning, who was from Panyu, Guangdong, and was a talented man. His person is very calm, and he speaks official words well, but when he saw Guan Zhuofan, he didn't take his identity as a talent to heart, knelt down to say goodbye, and said "Meet Lord Guan".

"Mr. Bian, please," Guan Zhuofan was very polite, "This trip is really hard for you, and in the future, I will entrust a few telegraph rooms in Shanghai to Mr. Bian." ”

"It should work." Bian Ning said calmly, "Whether it is sending or receiving newspapers, or translating newspapers, there is no problem, please rest assured." ”

This group of people came to speak foreign languages, but many of them did not speak the official language well - Hong Kong, speaking the vernacular of Cantonese, but in the form of pen and ink, there is no problem, after all, everyone uses the same Chinese characters, so there is no delay in translating telegrams between Chinese and English.

So the secretary office of Yazhong first took them to the rented house next to them to put down their luggage, and Guan Zhuofan gave an extra month's allowance, which is not only a meeting gift, but also a "New Year's gift" for the New Year. After everything was settled, he invited Bian Ning to the signing room and talked closely.

"Mr. Bian, in addition to sending and receiving newspapers, there are two other things to discuss with Mr."

"Yes, please command."

"I don't dare to do it, it's all a reluctant request, whether I can do it or not, it all depends on what Mr. means." Guan Zhuofan said with a smile, "The first one, I have a total of six telegraph machines in my hand, in addition to the three in three telegraph rooms, the other three, I want to use them to set up a telegraph school, please Mr. Bian assign teachers to teach some people for me." ”

"Yes," Bian Ning nodded, "and there are less than fifteen people in the three telegraph rooms. It's just that the telegraph is easy to learn and difficult to master, and it depends on familiarity, so it can't be effective all at once. The other thing is that you have to be able to speak English. ”

"Well, that's the second thing I want to say. It is not difficult to find a few people who can speak foreign languages and study them first, but in the future, if China wants to run its own telegraph, and there are more people who want it, it cannot be said that only those who can speak foreign can serve as telegraph operators. ”

Bian Ning didn't answer for a while, blinked, and was a little confused: If you don't know foreign languages, how can you be a telegraph operator?

"The Morse code used in the telegraph is nothing more than the length of the dots to represent the twenty-six letters of the English ......"

As soon as Guan Zhuofan said this, Bian Ning was startled, and in addition to being surprised, he admired the Guan master in front of him: "My lord is wise, it is indeed like this...... Adults can send telegrams? ”

"I'm just paying lip service, and I just happen to know a little bit of the truth." Guan Zhuofan smiled and continued, "If it is a set of numbers, it is naturally okay to use the code to represent it?" ”

"Yes."

"Then, each set of numbers, corresponding to a Chinese character, doesn't it become a Chinese telegram?"

It's not unusual, it's just-

"There are always tens of thousands ......of Chinese characters," Bian Ning thought for a while, hesitated and said, "How can you remember so many?" I'm afraid that there will be trouble translating the newspaper. ”

"We don't go to the examination room and make a fuss, as long as we can explain the meaning clearly, where can we get tens of thousands." Guan Zhuofan said confidently, "I think it is enough to select two or three thousand commonly used words from the Kangxi Dictionary. As for the translation of newspapers, you can mark these 3,000 words with numbers, compile them into a book, and look through them at will, although it is a little slower, is it a Chinese telegram! After a long time, you will naturally be able to be familiar with your hands as you said, and you can translate it without turning the booklet. ”

This stupid method sounds whimsical, but Bian Ning has repeatedly scrutinized, but there is no flaw.

"This method works!" Bian Ning was also excited, "What the adult means, I ...... it"

"Mr. Bian," Guan Zhuofan smiled, "This is a matter of immeasurable merit that can be fame through the ages." ”

Bian Ningbei understood - if this is the case, didn't he become the inventor of the Chinese telegraph? In ecstasy, he hurriedly left his seat and asked for peace: "This is all due to the instructions of Lord Guan, the cultivation of Lord Bian Ning Xie!" ”

Guan Zhuofan said in his heart, this is deserved. Such a Chinese telegraph code should have been invented by a French devil in China more than ten years later, and the name was "New Book of Telegraph".

Hehe, don't care about your new books and old books, Lao Tzu can do it easily, and you don't even have to pay the copyright fee.