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Zhu Youzhen suddenly fell from his horse, left and right were shocked, and was about to come forward to rescue, but when he saw him jump up, he couldn't help but drag Maldini off the horse, and said with a smile that made people feel cold: "Father Ma, ah no, Master Ma, Ma Shenxian, can you let this king take a look at your precious pigeon?" ”

Everyone was very surprised, and they didn't know what a pigeon was worthy of Qin Wang Chitose so excited. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info Zhu Youzhen was like a crazy demon, and urged Maldini to hurry back to the city to see the pigeons.

Soon, the crowd arrived at Maldini's apartment. Maldini pointed to the two pairs of pigeons in the cage and said, "Your Highness, they sent the letter." ”

Everyone looked closely, and saw that it was just an ordinary gray dove, and it didn't look unusual. Zhu Youzhen was like a treasure, and asked Maldini to tell in detail how the pigeons delivered the letters.

Maldini laughs: "Thousands of years ago, the ancients discovered that pigeons had the habit of homing and were very accurate in their orientation, so they began to use pigeons to convey messages. Of course, not all pigeons are suitable for communication, only those breeds with excellent physical strength and accurate positioning, and they must be professionally trained. In recent years, pigeon racing has become popular among European royal families, that is, the carrier pigeon is taken far away from the nest and released, and whoever breeds the pigeon first returns home will win. They were just a game, but for those of us who came to the East to preach, we had to use carrier pigeons to deliver our messages because there was no postal system available to us. ”

"What is the speed of the carrier pigeons? Will there be a situation where the carrier pigeon will not come back? Zhu Youzhen hurriedly asked.

"If you want to talk about speed, it's much faster than a horse." Maldini said, "I heard that the post station of Daming delivers ordinary letters for 180 miles a day, and the express mail is called '600 miles expedited', that is, it can travel 600 miles a day. But my carrier pigeons can fly one hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty miles an hour. Even if you only fly half of the day, you can fly more than 1,000 miles, so it only takes less than two days to get from Jingyang to Macau.

"As for the situation in which the pigeon could not return, it was not that the pigeon could not find its home, but that it was due to an accident on the way. For example, being attacked by birds of prey, or being hunted, or encountering extremely bad weather. This is so common that carrier pigeons, although they have existed since ancient times, can only be used as an auxiliary means of communication. Moreover, the letter should be private, but as long as the carrier pigeon is intercepted, anyone can see the content of the letter, so we have no way to use the carrier pigeon. ”

Zhu Youjian pondered for a moment and then said, "Father Ma, just now this king has promised to help you build a church in Xi'an City immediately. Do you want to build another one in Qinwangzhuang? ”

How clever Maldini was, he immediately said in astonishment: "Your Highness, are you going to exchange a church for these carrier pigeons?" ”

"Of course, it's not just these few, I want you to teach this king the whole way of raising and training carrier pigeons!" Zhu Youzhen said eagerly, "Okay, in a word!" ”

"Okay!"

Maldini certainly did not miss this great opportunity, knowing that since the Holy See sent them to Daming to preach, decades have passed, except for a few churches built in Beijing during the Wanli period, there has been no progress in the missionary cause. Now Zhu Youzhen suddenly promised to build two churches for Maldini, which was enough to make Maldini "canonized".

And for Zhu Youzhen, this is definitely a good deal. As a modern person, he understands the importance of communication speed!

In this era, information was transmitted mainly by post stations, and the main means of transportation at post stations was horses. But as Maldini said, no matter how fast the horse is, it is only 600 miles a day, and the speed is even slower in the remote mountains; However, China has a vast territory, thousands of miles from east, west, north and south, and what happened on the border will take several days for the Beijing division to find out, and then the disposal measures will be fed back, and it will take the same amount of time. If it's an ordinary civil administration, it's fine, it's nothing more than inefficiency; But if it is an emergency military situation, when the court gets the news, it is often the daylily that is cold.

So since he came to Qinwangzhuang, Zhu Youzhen has been thinking about how to establish a faster way of communication. Obviously, you don't even think about telegraphs, telephones, or even e-mails, because with the level of science and technology in this era, it is impossible to have them. And cars, trains, airplanes and other rapid transportation vehicles also don't know that the Year of the Monkey can only be invented, so Zhu Youzhen has always been at a loss.

But today, the living example of the Duke of João and Maldini communicating with carrier pigeons suddenly gave him a glimpse of the light! The carrier pigeon has all its drawbacks, but it has one of the biggest advantages, that is, it is fast, several times faster than a horse, and it is not affected by the terrain!

As for the shortcomings of carrier pigeons, Zhu Youzhen thought of a way to make up for it almost instantly. Afraid of losing your letter and leaking it? It's simple, just encrypt the contents of the letter! For example, you can make a set of ciphers, each word corresponds to a set of numbers, and then each party to the communication holds a codebook, just like deciphering a telegram, except that the transmission tool is replaced by a carrier pigeon.

And the easy loss of carrier pigeons is not a big problem, can't you raise more? Sending a letter can allow three, five or even ten carrier pigeons to be delivered at the same time, as long as one of them is delivered, it is worth it. Besides, raising pigeons is easier than raising horses anyway, and the money for one horse is enough for a hundred pigeons. As long as the pigeon industry forms a scale, the state prohibits the hunting of carrier pigeons in the form of legislation, and it may not be long before the pigeon transmission can completely replace the post station system!

Even Zhu Youzhen, the candidate responsible for domesticating carrier pigeons, has thought about it, so let the red lady and Herzhe do it! The two of them have nothing to do now, and the red lady is from the acrobatic team, acrobatics and circus are basically the same thing in this era, and her team originally raised monkeys, bears and other animals, so it should not be a big problem for her to raise pigeons. Herzhe was an excellent Jurchen hunter, and he also knew the habits of birds very well, so he was familiar with it.

Just do it, Zhu Youzhen immediately found the two of them and told him what he thought. Seeing that Zhu Youzhen attached so much importance to the carrier pigeon and handed over such an important task to herself, the red lady suddenly felt that her face was bright; Herzhe was a little reluctant, and muttered: "Lord, people just want to go to war with you and kill all those jackal-like Jianzhou Jurchens to avenge the clansmen, how can you let Herzhe raise small animals?" It's boring! ”

Zhu Youzhen had to coax and deceive, saying that the carrier pigeon had been trained, and first let her communicate with the tribesmen far away at the mouth of the Heilongjiang River, which made Herzhe resentful.

Doing two major things in one day, Zhu Youzhen felt a kind of joy that he had never felt before, as if the whole world was in control. He rushed back to the palace in a hurry, and just wanted to share his happiness with a few ladies, when suddenly Yan Ling broke in and reported urgently: "Your Highness, the eunuch Wang Chengen, the eunuch of the celebrant Bingpen, came to Shaanxi to deliver the decree, and has now arrived in Xi'an!" ”

"Oh?" Zhu Youzhen was taken aback, and hurriedly asked, "Is it just a decree for this king?" ”

"It's not just you, but also the Lord of Lishan!"