When the little emperor walked into the telegraph branch in the Forbidden City, the first thing the eunuchs under the division did was to hurriedly hand over a handkerchief to King Lu, and the others hurriedly followed the emperor who entered the telegraph branch with his back hand like a walking bend.

King Lu's snot was about to fall out of his mouth, but he still raised his little brain and did not take the handkerchief, but looked at the little eunuch and said: "Brother Huang said, the widow should be mature, and he has passed the age of wiping his nose." ”

So His Royal Highness chose to eat snot?

In the face of the most favored person in the world, even if King Lu eats snot, the little eunuch can't say anything wrong, he can only smile and wipe the crystal clear snot under the nose of King Xiaolu to his mouth that is about to freeze, and then asked in a low voice: "Your Highness, why did Your Majesty come to the telegraph room?" ”

King Lu blinked, as if he was puzzled by someone asking such a question: "If you come to the telegraph room and don't send a telegram, what else can you do?" ”

Anyway, King Lu didn't care about the eunuchs around him, anyway, the snot had disappeared by itself, and Wan Liye, who pushed the door open, had already raised his legs and stepped over the threshold to enter, and he had to catch up with the imperial brother quickly.

Although the telegraph had been in existence in the Ming Dynasty for several years, it was still a novelty for Wanli.

The telegraph room in the palace was built this year, located outside the Wenhua Gate, next to the Donghua Gate, and far away from the palace complex.

At first, the imperial court did not plan to build telephone poles in the Forbidden City, except for the cabinet and the Jinshui Bridge, there were no telephone poles in the Forbidden City, except for a few eunuchs and palace maids who served the emperor into the military room, no one knew that the emperor installed a steam engine, a generator and a light bulb in the ear room next to the dormitory.

Wires are easy to catch fire, and most of the palace buildings in the Forbidden City are wooden structures, and the erection of wires is easy to cause disasters, so only the road surface stones around the Wumen Gate, Jinshui Bridge, and Cabinet are warped to lay circuits.

Originally, the only telegraph room in the palace was the cabinet telegraph room, and even the six departments on the other side of the moat belonged to the internal telegraph of the cabinet.

But after the little emperor's repeated requests were ignored, he paid for his own money to build a courtyard outside the Wenhua Gate, and also dug the stones on the ground all the way to the Qianqing Palace, and built his first telegraph route, and then took the telegraph room as the center to build seven lines such as the sweet room, the Shangshan Supervisor, and the Imperial Horse Supervisor.

The telegram outside the palace had a codebook, but no one told the emperor, but fortunately the emperor was very clever and he didn't use a codebook.

For example, the telegraph line of the Qianqing Palace through the telegraph room and the sweet room, Wan Liye's Wanli ship table has several corresponding three rows of buttons, he pressed the first one in the upper row, and a light will be lit in the corresponding position on the side of the sweet room, which means 'I want to eat silk nest tiger's eye candy', and press the second one in the upper row, that is, 'I want to eat planting pine and reducing boiled cakes'.

There is only one button in the second row, which means that on the basis of the first row of silk nest tiger's eye candy, it means that 'King Lu is also there, send three servings, and the little fat thief can eat it'.

However, most of the time, the eunuchs in the sweet room sent small snacks over, and there was no King Lu in the Qianqing Palace, only Wanli who was lying on the couch with his feet crossed and waiting for takeout.

There is only one button in the third row, and when Wanli presses this button in the military room, a square seal will fall on the side of the sweet room, and a pony will be printed on the paper, which means 'starving, hurry up'.

The first eunuchs in the sweet room could ride through the imperial road with this piece of paper, but since the emperor was beaten by the queen mother, he couldn't do it later.

As we all know, there are two takeaways, and the same is true of Shang Shanjian's telegram.

The Imperial Horse Supervisor is also much the same, the electric light is on, and the horse is prepared.

The first phase of the Forbidden City telegraph network greatly improved the enjoyment of Xiao Wanli's life, but Wanli was not satisfied, he still wanted to control the Forbidden City.

The first is intelligence.

In order to fully grasp the information of the Empress Dowager Li and Zhang Juzheng, the little emperor made the feat of digging open the imperial road for two and a half miles overnight and then filling it in, and unknowingly buried all the circuits in the palace vertical and horizontal, and then repaired the plank road in the Ming Dynasty, and installed buttons at the noon gate, corner tower, and Cining gate, and one of the missions of the military eunuchs who were stationed everywhere was to press different buttons when the Empress Dowager Li left the palace or Zhang Juzheng entered the palace.

Wanli liked the telegram the most, and because of this thing, two eunuchs who tried to complain to the Empress Dowager Li that they had not studied well were sent by the 'angry emperor' to Nanjing as a clean army because they deceived the Empress Dowager to blame the emperor.

Since then, no one dared to speak ill of the emperor to the Queen Mother.

Because it's useless to say it, as long as the queen mother leaves the palace, the emperor will inevitably be studying the scriptures hard.

Then the wood was completed, and the little emperor's telegraph room was easily connected to the telegraph network outside the palace.

This made the ministers more and more annoyed by Chen Mu.

In fact, the ministers have no right to interfere in what happened in the Forbidden City, so what makes the ministers seem to have the power to control the emperor? The answer lies in the household department, the imperial financial power.

Most of the emperor's self-made ideas cost money, and in the relatively enlightened dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, if the emperor's needs were unnecessary, for example, the stupid boy in the Forbidden City wanted to dig the roots of the city wall and bury wires, then the minister could argue with reason and not give the emperor money.

What else can you do without approving money? If he doesn't give Emperor Daojun money, can he still soar?

Non-existent, right.

But Wanli is different, Wanli only uses eunuchs to do things.

Because he has money, and even he thinks he has a lot of money, this year, when the coal merchants in Beizhili sent silver, they specially sent their cronies and eunuch Wang An to pass the word: "This year's filial piety is exempted from half, the people's coal price will be reduced by three points, the weather is cold, don't freeze my people." ”

The eunuch in charge of the telegraph room stood respectfully in front of the door, and the roaring steam engine next door to the telegraph room made it warm like spring even if the charcoal fire was not burned, but the Wanli Emperor could not stand this warmth, and as soon as the front foot stepped into the room, the back foot froze.

"Too noisy, too noisy!" They put their hands on their ears and shouted to the eunuchs: "I want to send a telegram to the border army, where can I send it, take the map, let me see it!" ”

Wanli's words made the eunuch who was the head of the telegraph house nervous, and asked cautiously: "Grandpa Rong asked a little, what do you want to do to find the border army?" ”

"You do things honestly, don't ask around." The little emperor didn't have much power with a tiger face, and said in a few words: "Go and get the map." ”

The anxious eunuch hurriedly waved his hand, and after a while, the map was taken, and the map marked more than 40 marked areas, large and small, from the Yalu River in the east to the northwest Jiayuguan in the northwest.

However, according to the distance, the map is also marked with the range of 'half a day', 'one day', and 'three days', and the emperor pointed to the map and asked, "What does this mean?" ”

"Back to Your Majesty, according to the situation of the construction of telegraph networks in various places, Beijing sent a telegram, and the three prefectures of Beizhili, Shandong, Shanxi, Xuanda, and Weihui, Zhangde, and Huaiqing in Henan Province were telegraphed for half a day; South of the Yellow River, north of the Yangtze River, Shaanxi, Liaodong and other places, it will be delivered in one day. ”

"Three days is the news to spread to the sea, but if the news is to be transmitted to a certain capital or township, it will take seven days." The eunuch said, raised his bowed body slightly, and said: "That is to say, any order of Your Majesty, at most seven days, can inform every inch of land in the sea. ”

The little emperor pondered this mechanism thoughtfully, and nodded slowly: "Send the nine-sided soldiers, I am the great tomorrow......"

The eunuch's head shook like a rattle: "Your Majesty, you can't send it out, we don't have this word in the ciphertext, so avoid it." ”