From the simultaneous construction of Shengjing and Tokyo (Shanghai) to the beginning of this month, it took more than five months to complete the Shengdong telegraph line, which was more than 600 miles long, before the opening of the Shengdong section of the railway. In addition to the telegraph offices at each end of Shengjing and Tokyo, this telegraph line set up telegraph sub-bureaus in Zhenjiang, Danyang, Changzhou, Wuxi, and Suzhou. A few days ago, the commissioning of the telegraph line was completed, and today, Feng Yunshan came to the General Telegraph Bureau to test the reception and reception of telegrams.

The stone building is the office building of the General Telegraph Office. And this Shengjing telegraph room was set up on the second floor of the stone building. Entering this spacious hall, there were already dozens of telegraph office personnel waiting for two telegraph machines.

According to an American engineer named Morse in the telegraph office, these two telegraphs were the simplest Morse manual telegraphs purchased from the United States, and they consisted of three parts: electric keys, a printing mechanism, and a paper strip and tray. The telegram mainly uses the electric key to shoot the telegraph signal, the short time of the key represents the "point", the time of the key is long, about three times the length of the point, it represents the "stroke", and the hand is raised without pressing the electric key on behalf of the interval. The opposite side of the newspaper is distinguished by listening to the length of the sound to distinguish the "point" and "stroke", which can be manually copied, and the symbol of different lengths can also be recorded with a paper recorder.

Feng Yunshan looked at the two extremely simple telegraphs in front of him, two coils and magnets wrapped around an iron shelf, plus a few electrical components, and several rows of contacts as electric keys, and couldn't help but laugh dumbly.

"This is the Morse telegraph?" Feng Yunshan asked knowingly, but in fact, it only led to the following topic: "What rules do you use to convert into Chinese characters?" Our telegraph in the Chinese Empire can't use your original Morse code to convert it into English alphabet and then translate it into Chinese characters, that would be too troublesome! What I ask for is to convert the signal directly into Chinese characters. ”

Mock was originally an apprentice in a grocery store in Baltimore, USA, because he helped Morse build a telegraph facility because of odd jobs, learned about telegraph technology, quit his grocery store job, but because he was not recognized, he lived on the streets, and later had to work for the Central Railroad Company to survive. Fortunately, he was favored by his boss Big John and sent to the Chinese Empire, and after a period of exploration, he has now become the chief engineer of the General Telegraph Bureau.

"The emperor is relieved, Mr. Cheng has asked us to convert directly to Chinese characters. The principle is similar to Morse code, but due to time constraints, the number of Chinese characters included is limited. Mock preemptively responded in half-English and half-Chinese.

Cheng Hengsheng hurriedly answered and said: "Your Majesty, just like Mr. Mo Ke said, Wei Chen extracted 2,000 Chinese characters from the three books of "Analects", "Sanziwen" and "Qianziwen", and thought of a coding method, encoding them with 4-digit Arabic numerals, corresponding to one Chinese character. When sending or receiving a telegram, only these four Arabic numerals need to be compiled, which Weichen calls the 'four-code telegram manual'. ”

"What a four-yard telegram!" Feng Yunshan praised! He originally came up with this idea, and he wanted to point it out in this telegraph office for them to study, but he didn't expect that Cheng Hengsheng, who had just come into contact with the telegraph, would come up with this method without a teacher, and improve the Morse code, which was originally only adapted to 26 English letters, to a four-code telegram that adapts to Chinese characters.

"Pass the order and name the four-code telegram 'Cheng's four-code code' to reward Cheng Aiqing!" Feng Yunshan looked at Cheng Hengsheng with satisfaction, this guy is really a talent, just a traditional Confucian scholar, I didn't expect my brain to be so flexible, and he must be reused. So, Feng Yunshan immediately put down his command: "The newly established Ministry of Communications is divided into four divisions: the Railway Division, the Official Road Division, the Water Transport Division, and the Telegraph and Post Division. Cheng Aiqing was transferred to Vice Minister of Communications. ”

So, Feng Yunshan's words, the Cabinet of the Chinese Empire, added a new subordinate department, the Ministry of Communications.

However, this is also what Feng Yunshan has planned a long time ago, originally separated the transportation and railways, and has always been placed under the Ministry of Public Works, but now, the Ministry of Public Works is getting bigger and bigger, Zeng Yuyan slowly can't take care of it, and Cheng Hengsheng was originally the deputy minister of the Ministry of Public Works, and now he and the transportation railway and the newly established telegraph business are also in line with the times.

The establishment of this Ministry of Transportation is very necessary! Feng Yunshan has always heard a saying when he was a child, if you want to get rich, you must first build roads! This is more than 100 years of experience. And this road, the most important thing is naturally the official road, but the official road has been in place since ancient times, and it can only be improved, and the most successful and can change the process of the empire's industrialization is naturally the railway. Secondly, there is telegraph communication, and in order to strengthen its rule, it is necessary to develop the telegraph business, and by the way, in order to promote economic circulation and the flow of people, the postal service must also be put on the agenda. Feng Yunshan's idea is naturally to combine the railways he wants to vigorously develop and the constantly improving official road and post station system to promote the development of postal services.

Shaking his head, Feng Yunshan returned to his purpose today.

Cheng Hengsheng said on the side: "Your Majesty, it's time to arrive, according to the agreed time, at mid-hour, that is, at 14 o'clock, a telegram will be sent from the Changzhou Branch." The contents of this telegram have been sealed in advance with fire paint, packed into a letter, and sent to the General Administration overnight yesterday for sealing. After receiving the telegram, you can verify it. ”

Feng Yunshan nodded and said that he understood, Cheng Hengsheng was quite thoughtful, and waited for the Changzhou Telegraph Branch to send the telegram to see what the content was, and then compared it with the content sent in advance to verify whether the telegram was distorted.

Soon, it was time for the agreed delivery. The entire telegraph room was so quiet that even the heartbeats of the crowd could be heard. In front of one of the telegraphs, there were already two telegraph operators, one was an apprentice telegraph operator, and the other was Moke, the chief engineer of the telegraph office.

It was 14 o'clock. The telegraph did not make a sound. Just when everyone was waiting a little anxiously, a crisp ticking sound suddenly sounded on the telegraph, and everyone was straight. The telegraph operator hurriedly took a pen and paper and wrote it down.

"Tick T

The two of them each recorded a series of numerical codes.

Soon, after a round of ticks, the telegraph apprentice and Mo Ke independently wrote out the telegram code, and then handed it to Cheng Hengsheng.

Cheng Hengsheng took out a hand-copied notebook and said, "Your Majesty, this is the Chinese characters excerpted from the Analects and other books to form the "Four-Code Telegraph Manual". ”

After speaking, I checked the "Four-Code Telegram Manual" and consulted it:

"1, 8, 3, 6, together is 1836, which is exactly the word 'I'."

"2741, but it's a 'emperor' word."

"0972, but it's a '10,000' word."

“……”

"Your Majesty, the contents of the telegram are combined, but they are for: Long live my emperor, the empire is eternal!" After Cheng Hengsheng finished speaking, he asked someone to take the secret letter sealed aside, handed it to Feng Yunshan, and said, "Your Majesty, Weichen dares to ask Your Majesty to open this secret letter with his own hands and open the sealed contents!" ”

Feng Yunshan knew that this was to let him personally verify the accuracy of the content of the telegram, so he readily agreed, and immediately untied the three fire paints, took out the seal, and looked at it, there were exactly eight big characters inside: Long live our emperor, the empire is forever.

"It worked! It's really 'Long live my emperor, the empire is forever!' Everyone present couldn't help but jump up for joy, and they knelt on the ground and shouted in unison: "Long live my emperor, the empire will be forever!" Long live our emperor, the empire is eternal! ……”

…….

Half an hour later, the telegraph machine heard the sound of ticking and clicking again, which was a message from the Zhenjiang Telegraph Bureau, compiled as: General Bureau, the train arrived in Zhenjiang City at 14:22 p.m.

It turned out that Cheng Hengsheng sent people in advance to talk to Zhenjiang, Danyang, Changzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou, and Tokyo sub-bureaus, and today is the day when the Shengdong section of the Suzhou-Zhizhi Railway is opened to traffic.

When everyone heard the news, they cheered again!

Zuo Zongtang exclaimed: "Wonderful! Your Majesty, with this railway train and this telegram that can be transmitted for thousands of miles, even if my Chinese Empire has a territory of thousands of miles, I don't have to worry about being uncontrollable! ”

Zeng Guanlan, who has always been old and unfazed, also shouted: "The weapon of the country! Your Majesty! With this railway, although it is not a moment, but a few hours from Shengjing to Zhenjiang, tomorrow morning can arrive at Suzhou Prefecture, Tokyo City, 600 miles away, one day can reach! This, doesn't this mean that as long as there is this train, it is like everyone is 600 miles in an emergency? In the future, even if there is a shortage of food in Shengjing, there is no need to panic, and the grain will be transported by train from Suzhou Prefecture in one day, which is extremely convenient! Merchants are also more convenient, goods circulation, exchange of have, wonderful! ”

As the vice premier of the cabinet, Zeng Guanlan has been busy recently, and has been busy with the civil affairs of the Chinese Empire, and seeing the benefits of this railway, he naturally thought of the convenience for the people's livelihood and the daily life of the people in the empire.

Xu Shou, vice minister of science and technology, also reported: "Your Majesty, according to Weichen, when the empire's railways and telegraphs develop on a large scale, these six hundred miles can be removed!" Moreover, Your Majesty, our Ministry of Science and Technology recently conducted a study on the steam engine of the train, and found that as long as the quality of the steel used to make the steam engine is improved, the cylinder pressure of the steam engine can be safely and significantly increased. The increase of the back pressure of the steam engine will not only effectively improve the efficiency of the steam engine, but also make the power more sufficient, simply put, applied to trains and ships, can make trains and ships run faster! ”