After the staff meeting of the 33rd Infantry Division, intern staff officer Chen Wanxin took the paperwork signed by his superiors, and then borrowed a horse from the division headquarters of Dayushubao and rushed to Yiju.

It is about 30 miles from Big Elm Fort to Yiju, and it takes about 3-4 hours to ride a horse. It's late autumn, the sun is shining, and the harvested fields on both sides of the road bring a good view, revealing the scenery in the distance. Compared with the blooming flowers of the season, in fact, the autumn in Liaodong is also colorful.

In particular, the original forests of the local area are naturally growing in green, yellow, gold, and red colors during this season, and it looks like a naturally generated Western-style oil painting from a distance, which is really pleasing to the eye. However, Chen Wanxin didn't have time to take care of these scenery, but just rushed forward.

When Chen Wanxin arrived in Yizhou City, it was not too late. Compared to the past, the city of Uiju is obviously much more prosperous, especially after the railway was extended to Uiju, and the connection between the city and Kannai became closer. The supplies were transported to Uiju by cheap trains, and the Mongol tribes near Uiju were able to exchange their harvest for the supplies they needed in Uiju, and Uiju became another terminal market for trade with the Mongolian tribes outside the Kansai.

The economic prosperity of the city not only provided sufficient material support for the local garrison, but also attracted many merchants and public service departments. For example, the post office has already been stationed here in advance, and after Chen Wanxin entered the city, he just thought for a moment, and then pulled his mount and went to the Yizhou post office on East Fourth Street.

As a frequent visitor to this place to send letters, Chen Wanxin was obviously familiar with this place, and after handing over his mount to the door outside the post office, he pushed the door and walked in. The door hadn't fully opened, and he couldn't help but shout: "Lao Huang, can the signal you said last time work?" ”

The Euiju Post Office is not large, and it was originally a rebuilt old shop, with a front store and a backyard layout. The front is used to receive civilians or military personnel who send letters, and the back yard is the storeroom where the staff of the post office live and store mail.

Unlike other shops in Uiju City, the floor of the post office is made entirely of Fujian tiles, the walls are inlaid with many semi-mirrors, and the ceiling is hung up to conceal the beam structure of the roof. Since the roof tiles block the roof, it is necessary to light kerosene lamps in the room during the day.

However, because of the tiles on the floor and the reflection of the mirrors on the walls, the interior of the post office is brighter than the shops with natural light. It is said that some silk and satin Zhuangzi in the capital have begun to adopt this shop decoration method, the silk under the light is more gorgeous than in the sun, and it can also impress those ladies and ladies to buy **, so that many pioneers have made a lot of money.

Of course, the promotion of this new decoration method has also led to the rise of the architectural ceramics industry in Fujian, Guangdong and other places. The ceramics industry in these two places began to specialize in architectural ceramics and sanitary ware, and no longer competed with Jingdezhen for the manufacture of tableware and porcelain, which further caused the industrial division of the ceramic industry.

Song Yingxing, the governor of Fujian, who is famous for his research on the ceramic industry, is also highly respected by the ceramic industry in Fujian and Guangdong. The development of Beijing's glass industry and chemical industry has also caused the cost of mirrors to drop sharply, so that ordinary people can afford to use glass mirrors, which were regarded as luxury goods ten years ago.

As for the decorative panels used in ceilings, the wood processing industry has been further promoted. The expansion of the woodworking industry, in turn, has stimulated the popularization of the use of hydraulic cutters and steam engine-driven panel cutting machines. Through these seemingly inconspicuous civilian products, Daming's industry is consolidating its foundation step by step and accumulating a large amount of capital needed for the industrial revolution.

However, ordinary people in this revolution are not aware of this, they just feel that their lives are becoming more and more convenient, and the money in the city is getting better and better. Many young people who have studied or joined the army have begun to refuse to live the same life as their ancestors, and want to go outside to see the world and change their way of life.

In the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the ordinary people of the Ming Dynasty finally had the idea of wanting to open their eyes and see the world, which was unimaginable in the past. However, in today's Hebei region, this is a gradually emerging trend.

The improvement of transportation facilities, the establishment of the police system, and the opening of post offices in various places have also made it no longer a life adventure for young people to go out and never look back. Of course, this kind of population movement is different from the movement of disaster victims, and it is an orderly and beneficial flow that promotes the distribution of social labor, so it has also won official recognition and support.

The flow of people in society not only stimulates the development of cities, but also brings huge opportunities to the transportation and postal industries. This government department, which was established only after Chongzhen ascended the throne, has rapidly grown into a huge organization in less than 12 years.

Both the transportation industry and the postal industry are now rich in oil and water, and the transportation and postal departments, which are responsible for managing these two industries, have become the third richest department under the household department and the prime minister's yamen by virtue of their huge profit returns.

However, the Ministry of Communications and Posts has too much money in its hands and has its own bank, which makes the officials of the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Prime Minister's Yamen have some other thoughts. They wanted to split the Ministry of Communications and Postal Services into two departments, which would be placed under the control of the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Prime Minister's Yamen.

The idea of the Ministry of Household and the Prime Minister's Yamen was naturally opposed by Shang Shu Tian Yang of the Ministry of Communications and Posts, but after all, the Ministry of Communications and Posts was a newly established department, and the officials in the Ministry were still a little shallow and could not compete with the two yamen led by Guo Hou and Feng Quan.

So Tian Yang hollowed out his mind to find supporters, and under his active search, he found that the only person in the DPRK and China who was really willing to ally with him was the General Staff, which was rejected by the civilian clique. There are still many connections between the General Staff and the Ministry of Communications and Posts, such as the construction of railways and highways to increase the speed of troop transportation, and the delivery of letters to the soldiers stationed at the border gates.

Therefore, the two sides soon began to make contact, and the signal plan was essentially a message transmission system for the transmission of military telegrams. This kind of message transmission originated from an idea of the emperor, and the use of optical principles to turn words into signals to transmit them, thus replacing the hundreds of miles of expedited horse delivery business of the military department.

However, in order to establish such an unprecedented information transmission route, it is necessary not only to build a large number of relay stations, but also to train enough personnel for cāo) longitudinal signals, which is a considerable investment and does not see the benefits. Neither the Ministry of Household nor the Prime Minister's Yamen were willing to invest money in this plan, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs had too many plans to invest, and this seemingly unimportant plan was shelved.

It was not until the officials of the Ministry of Communications and Posts felt the crisis that they invested a large amount of money in the construction of the Yizhou-Jinzhou-Beijing information transmission system, which was the initial construction of this experimental line. Although Chongzhen had completed this route at the beginning of the twelfth year, the information transmitted by several experiments was missing and wrong, so the practicality of this route was once doubted.

If it weren't for Tian Yang's gritted teeth and insistence on investing funds, the professors of the General Staff and Yenching University would almost have to give up this arm plate signaling system and continue to build a military pigeon transmission system instead.

With the almost unlimited investment of the Ministry of Communications and Postal Services, the signals used in signal transmission routes are becoming more and more perfect, and new results are constantly being made in the research of cryptography and related mathematics.

Hearing Chen Wanxin's shout, Huang Chengwu, the director of the Yizhou Post Office, suddenly looked away from the mail in front of him, looked at Chen Wanxin who walked in and said with some surprise: "Why are you asking this?" But what a coincidence, tomorrow we're going to do the 44th test. ”

Chen Wanxin suddenly said with a smile: "That's great, can you change the content of the test, I have an urgent message to send back to Beijing, if you catch the train back, it will take at least 10 days, I hope it will be transmitted to the capital tomorrow." ”

Huang Chengwu thought for a while and said, "It's not impossible, but who are you going to pass it on?" Messages that are too complicated may not work. ”

Chen Wanxin thought about it, took a blank piece of paper from the counter, then wrote a sentence on it, and then handed it to Huang Chengwu and said, "It's not complicated, just one sentence." ”

Huang Chengwu glanced at the white paper, which read, "Bring 200 deer hunting guns to Yizhou quickly, nephew Wanxin." Such a sentence. He then nodded and said, "That's it, that's fine." You come and send me a message at 8 o'clock tomorrow, who is the recipient? ”

Chen Wanxin breathed a sigh of relief and immediately said, "It's my uncle, Wei Chenxi, the director of the Beijing office of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau..."

Early the next morning, before eight o'clock, Chen Wanxin arrived at the post office, the weather here was very good, the sun was shining, and the sky was empty. Huang Chengwu then took Chen Wanxin to the southeast city wall of Yizhou City. A wooden and iron machine more than three people tall was erected here, consisting of one support mast and six signal arms.

Chen Wanxin watched with great interest Huang Chengwu with two helpers to pull the signal, he quickly understood the operation of the signal, each signal arm is equipped with 3 positions, through the combination of 6 signal arms in different positions, you can realize the encoding of letter and numeric information.

At a distant station equipped with a telescope, you can see the signals from neighboring stations, collect them, and transmit them to the next station.

Although there was only a message of more than 30 words, Huang Chengwu was very cautious and sent it three times, which took more than 3 minutes. After watching him finish his work, Chen Wanxin couldn't help but ask with great interest: "How much time does it take to pass it to the capital like this?" Can you get there before falling? ”

The work is not complicated, but Huang Chengwu sweated nervously, he wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, and said a little absent-mindedly: "There is a signal station every 12 kilometers, and it is about 120 kilometers in an hour." We are about 520 kilometers away from Beijing, and it takes about 4 and a half hours to reach the capital.

Wait until 3 p.m. to wait for the news to come back to know if it will succeed or not. In addition, the message you want to transmit has been sent by the postal train last night, and even if the signal transmission is not successful, it will be delivered to the capital in ten days..."

In fact, there was no mistake in this signal transmission, and after ten months of repeated testing, a signal transmission system using optical principles was finally completed by the Ming people.

Once the signaling system matured, it soon became the most important for the military and businessmen. The railway department also used it as a transmission mode for train dispatch, which greatly increased the efficiency of train operation.

Of course, in the early days, the cost of this kind of message transmission was quite high, and each word within a thousand miles was worth about a Ming Yuan, and every additional 500 miles of distance from a thousand miles needed to add 0.5 yuan.

The drawback of this signalling system is that it can only be used on land and is extremely affected by the weather. In order to change these defects, Daming and foreign scientists are actively looking for a way to transmit signals that are not affected by weather and light, which once again promotes the progress of science and technology. The chapter content is being restored, so please visit it later.

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