The telescope must have been an epoch-making invention at this meeting, and the ministers and generals were very shocked when they saw it, and even the civilian officials understood that this thing was of great military use.

Several generals even looked at it in their hands and couldn't put it down.

The emperor said that the telescope is currently a top-secret object, only for the military, and the sailors are equipped with one to three personnel per ship, and more than 100 households in the army, which are equipped when they go to war, and must be handed in when they return.

Each telescope is numbered, and losing it is a felony.

But after five years, the imperial court may be opened to civilian use.

The technical content of this thing is not very high, and Zhu Gaoxu can't keep it for long if he wants to, and it is good to keep it for five years.

After looking at the binoculars, the emperor waved his hand, and Kochi took everyone to another place.

The ministers often come to the Department of Science and Technology with the emperor, and every time there is something new, they will come to see it, Yang Shiqi has a good memory, and he immediately said: "This has been rebuilt?" Not like that last time? ”

The ministers looked at it, and there was a tall tower built in front, a bit similar to the Ming army sentry tower, with a circumference of about three or four meters, and a height of about seven or eight meters, and there were some devices on it, like the impeller of a windmill.

The emperor stood in front of this tower and said to the people: "What do you say about this thing, let's talk about its efficacy first." ”

"There are two large telescopes installed on it, which can quickly transmit messages through the post station, and the news thousands of miles away can be transmitted to the Beijing division in about an hour."

"What?" The scene was fried, and the ministers couldn't believe it.

This is the original optical communication (or visual communication) invented by the Frenchman Claude Chapp in 1791.

The idea was originally the brainchild of the British scientist Robert Brown. Hooke (1635-1703) proposed that he build microscopes and telescopes, and then suggested that letters and related coding symbols should be hung on a high wooden frame so that they could be received from a distance, but Hooke did not do this.

In 1790, when it took four days for a Parisian messenger to deliver a letter from Paris to Strasbourg, Chap found a way to shorten the communication time.

On 2 March 1791, Chap made its first public demonstration, delivering a message between Brlon and Parcé, about 16 kilometres away. The message is: "If you succeed, you will soon be bathed in glory." ”

The principle is very simple, through the construction of a large number of signal stations such as post stations, continuous transmission of information.

Each signal station is about 10 to 15 kilometers apart, within sight of each other, either on an existing height, such as a watchtower wall, or on a tower built specifically for this purpose.

Each tower is equipped with two telescopes — one pointing to the nearest signal station on the line, the other pointing to the nearest signal station on the other side of the line — and a device that Chapp calls a signal marker. The latter consisted of two movable wooden booms connected by a long and movable wooden crossbar called an adjuster. The crossbar and boom are balanced with an iron block. They are painted black to increase their contrast with the sky.

The crossbar can be placed vertically or horizontally (it does not transmit a signal when it is in an inclined or diagonal position). Each arm can be set at seven arbitrary angles, each 45 degrees apart. This results in a total of 98 (2 x 7 x 7) unique locations. Six positions were reserved for the control signals, leaving the positions of 92 cipher signals (letters, numbers, commonly used syllables in the alphabet), and later improvements eventually resulted in 40,000 codes.

On a clear day, the transmission time for each symbol at each station was 20-30 seconds, and France was able to travel 540 miles per minute at the highest speed in history, which was quite impressive at the time.

Zhu Gaoxu didn't have time to explain to them how to pass it, he could only say that we had already built a post station across the country (outside Jiayuguan was under construction), and the main official road was one every 20 li, and the secondary official road was one every 40 li.

This kind of visual communication, the weather requirements are relatively high, and it does not work at night, the signal station in France is between twenty and thirty miles, and the main official road of the Ming Dynasty is basically enough, and a small amount can be added to the secondary official road.

The difficulty is that Da Ming does not have English, so Zhu Gaoxu switched to pinyin.

Zhu Gaoxu said: "It will take at least two years to build a tower from the whole country to Shazhou and Kabul. ”

"In the past two years, I will successively let the staff of post stations from all over the country go to Beijing for training, and primary schools across the country will also promote pinyin."

"After three years, it can basically be put into operation."

"By then, from Kabul, which is more than 5,000 miles away, the news will only be an hour or two away."

"Think about it, except for overseas, in the future, all the news and orders of my Ming states and governments can be conveyed within an hour, what kind of scene will it be."

The efficiency of Emperor Ling's rule has improved, everyone thought.

But immediately someone knelt down and bowed: "Your Majesty Shengming, long live Daming." ”

The ministers knelt down and shouted Long live Shengming, and turned their heads to see which shameless one was patting on the back, it turned out to be Mao Xin, the commander of the Jinyi Guard.

This thing was the strongest before the radio came out, it was the fastest, the most efficient, and it could be used for other purposes.

In 1799, Napoleon seized power through a coup d'état. Chap met with Napoleon and proposed to use the signaling system for commerce. He suggested using it to transmit daily commodity prices and national news, but Napoleon agreed to only one civilian use: the weekly transmission of the results of the state lottery.

So after this thing is established, Zhu Gaoxu can also use it to do other things in the future.

And this thing also has a benefit in the Ming Dynasty, after the completion of France in history, like the surrounding Netherlands and Prussia have learned successively, and everyone is guarding against each other, with their own unique code, for fear of being leaked when transmitting.

But Zhu Gaoxu didn't have this worry, first of all, the people don't have telescopes now, even if they have telescopes, they can also see it, where can the people pass on this information?

You said that even if Shaharu had a fine division in Beijing, and saw that the Ming Dynasty issued the emperor's military order, he just put on his wings and flew to Kabul to spread the news, but he did not come as fast as the Ming army signal tower.

Therefore, Zhu Gaoxu doesn't even need to keep secrets, so he doesn't need to design complex and changeable code combinations.

At this time, a minister had an idea, and Jin Youzi asked: "According to Your Majesty, can this thing be used as a letter to deliver a letter to the family?" ”

Zhu Gaoxu's face suddenly darkened, and he wrote to your sister: "Only for public use." ”

But he was thinking in his heart, if you want to send a letter, you can also send a letter, and in the future, you will receive ten taels of silver per word, and Lao Tzu will see if you can send it.

When the radio first came out, the telegraph was quite expensive, which was a good way to make money.

Ministers and generals are more interested in telescopes and don't seem to be very interested in this.

After all, this thing has a fairly obvious improvement in the emperor's ability to control.

If there is a problem with the official in the future, it will be passed from the state capital at the hour, and he can be dismissed at the second hour.

Everyone will not even have a chance to intercede and make amends.

Just as he said these two things, Zhu Gaoxu laughed: "Which, the day after tomorrow Daming Bank will open, which one, you-" You all understand.

The emperor's monthly newspaper helps the bank to blow the wind, but there don't seem to be many people in the court and the people who want to save money, and everyone understands what the emperor means.

"The minister's family has no money." Natsuhara immediately shouted.

“。。” Zhu Gaoxu's face was black.

(End of chapter)