The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 596 Despicable Japanese Monkey

After Teng Yuzhao dictated the telegram, he signed his name on the draft telegram in the folder handed over by Zuo Baotian, and then handed the observation mirror to the impatient Ye Zugui.

Watching Zuo Baotian holding a folder and walking quickly to the telegraph station in the cabin, he wrote three "Confidential" characters on the upper right corner of the telegram, and then handed the telegram to the radio operator, who then translated and sent it out.

Teng Yuzao wrapped his coat tightly around himself, walked back to the table and sat back in his seat. He pondered silently as the radio beeped.

Teng Yuzao knew that his two recent telegrams would not have any effect on the Russian army, because by the time Alexeev received the telegram sent by Wei Jinghai from the confidential room of the General Staff in the Marshal's Mansion in Tianjin, everything would be too late.

The telegram sent to Alexeev was not sent through the Tianjin Telegraph Office, but was sent to the Far East Governor's Office in Lushun through a secret line connecting the Tianjin-Fengtian telegraph line.

In order to reduce as much clues as possible for the other party to determine the source of the telegram, Teng Yuzhao even specifically instructed Wei Jinghai not to sign or even put a title on the draft telegram.

The purpose of Teng Yuzao's warning telegram was not to make the Russian army prepare immediately, nor to create a panic atmosphere for the Russian army led by Alexeev that was invading the Northeast, but to make Alexeev and a group of senior Russian officers believe that all the warning contents of these mysterious telegrams were true.

In this way, when necessary, he could send the Japanese army's movements to the Russian army in a timely manner.

Of course, Teng Yuzao also hoped to have the opportunity to send a telegram to the Japanese army with relevant news about the Russian army. The purpose was the same as that of the telegram sent to Alexeev.

Teng Yuzhao hoped very much that these two mortal enemies would fight to the point of both being on the verge of death, so that he could take advantage of the situation.

"Ding ding ding", the telegraph machine that had been silent for a while suddenly rang again, which made Teng Yuzhao stop thinking and look up to see what was going on.

Seeing that the radio operator at the communications office was nervously copying the telegram, Teng Yuzhao knew that he must be receiving a telegram, which made Teng Yuzhao stunned.

It’s so late, nothing should happen!

Could it be that some emergency had occurred? Wei Jinghai sent a message to himself.

The court should not allow anything to be detrimental to itself. Li Yaoting's security bureau is very efficient, and they are able to grasp many confidential matters within the court in a timely manner.

Not only in the various departments of the imperial court, but even in Yixin's palace and Yuan Shikai's Henan Army, there were people planted by Li Yaoting. Although most of these people were menial workers, low-level officials, or middle and lower-level officers, and there were few people of status, they were still able to obtain a lot of valuable information.

According to Li Yaoting's intelligence and the news from Zai Yi, Yingnian, Zhao Shuqiao and other former pro-war ministers who had received favors from Teng Yuzhao, the court had been very stable recently. Although a group of princes, ministers and nobles headed by Yixin, as well as some ministers who were attached to Yuan Shikai, had secretly put many obstacles in his way, as long as the matters involved Zhili and himself, they were all suppressed when they reached Cixi.

The only thing that made Teng Yuzhao a little regretful was that Tieliang had already written to Cixi, suggesting that Cixi transfer Zhang Zhidong from Huguang to the Grand Council.

Moreover, except for the more important military decisions, Wei Jinghai and Yang Shixiang can generally handle them, and he is hardly needed. For many things, he only knows the details through reports sent from various places every day or every week.

Now, he is only responsible for presiding over more important military affairs.

Teng Yuzhao even sometimes thought that his current situation was very similar to that of Chiang Kai-shek in the future.

If there was nothing happening in the court or the army, then what could it be?

Could it be that something went wrong at the telegraph office?
Since yesterday, people from the Russian and French consulates have appeared at the Tianjin Telegraph Office. They obviously want to find out the source of the mysterious telegram.

As for whether there are other Chinese people who are instructed by the consulates of these two countries and are doing the same thing, although it has not been confirmed yet, Teng Yuzhao is sure that there must be some, but they have not been discovered yet. After all, it will be more convenient for these people to come forward to search for clues.

If it involves people from the consulate, you really have to report to him.

"Commander."

Zuo Baotian's words interrupted Teng Yuzhao's thoughts again. When Teng Yuzhao looked up, he saw Zuo Baotian and the radio operator who had just received the telegram coming to him.

Zuo Baotian said, "Marshal, the radio station on our airship just intercepted a radio message."

Zuo Baotian's words made Teng Yuzao stunned, and then he asked again.

"What's the content? Where was it posted?"

Teng Yuzao's question made Zuo Baotian feel a little embarrassed, and he quickly signaled to the radio operator next to him to answer Teng Yuzao's question.

"Marshal, I don't know the content, nor do I know where it came from."

Seeing that Teng Yuzhao was a little surprised, the radio operator hurriedly spoke again.

"Marshal, this intercepted telegram should have been encrypted. Although we don't know the content of the telegram yet, the intercepted telegram signal is very strong, much stronger than the test signal we received from the Ordnance Department of the same station."

"So, I think the radio station that sent the telegram should be very close to our airship, probably only a few kilometers away, and should be right below our airship."

The radio operator's words made Teng Yuzhao feel ecstatic.

Because, below the airship, there was only a squadron of the Tsarist Russia's Pacific Fleet, but as far as he knew, the Russian warships were not yet equipped with radio stations.

In addition to economic reasons, current electronic components are still not up to standard. If you want a radio station with high power, you must install large and complex coils, as well as more amplifying devices and other settings. Therefore, high-power radio stations with longer transmission distances are large in size.

Although the transceiver on the airship is not unusual in size, since it is placed on the airship, it is almost equivalent to installing an antenna several thousand meters high on a ground radio station, so it does not require too much power to transmit the radio signal far.

Due to this advantage of the airship, the radio station of the former superior Fourth Town, which has moved to Shanhaiguan, has very low power for the convenience of marching. In order to solve this problem, an airship must now be stranded in the sky near Luannan as a relay station between it and Tianjin.

Since there are no radio stations installed on the warships of the Pacific Fleet, it means that there are other warships with radio stations installed on the sea below.

As far as he knew, the Japanese, who had always been closely following the development of equipment of European powers, had already made great efforts to install radio stations on their main battleships. The Japanese had long made targeted preparations for the Pacific Fleet. They also had a habit of suddenly launching a war by surprise attack, so how could they not be prepared to conduct forward reconnaissance?

It is possible that the Japanese would temporarily install radios on the forward reconnaissance ships. In other words, the message just intercepted was probably a signal sent by the Japanese forward reconnaissance ships to the main fleet behind to report the situation.

It is really meaningful to intercept the Japanese telegrams.

Current radio telegraph technology is not yet very mature. Although countries have begun to use codes because of the disadvantage that radio signals can be easily intercepted, these codes are extremely crude and easy to crack.

It would be great if we could use this to crack the telegraph communications of the Japanese Combined Fleet and even the Japanese Army.

"good, very good!"

"Not only the time of receipt, but also the current situation of the Pacific Fleet on the sea, the number and type of warships, and the names of the warships must be recorded in full. Return and give it to Director Lin immediately, and have the message deciphered as soon as possible."

After the radio operator left, Teng Yuzhao excitedly spoke to Zuo Baotian again.

"Please record this and tell Lin Liansheng to select capable personnel to set up a code-breaking unit in the Communications Department of the General Staff. He will be the head of the unit. They will not only collect and decipher the Japanese codes, but also the Russian codes. If the Tianjin Consulate or the foreign consulates in Beijing install radio stations in the future, their codes will also be deciphered."

"Also remember that this matter is top secret and only a few of us, including the Chief of Staff, know about it."

After thinking for a while, Teng Yuzao said to Zuo Baotian, "Also tell Lin Liansheng that I have some experience in deciphering codes. I will personally teach the people he selects and explain how to decipher codes."

Zuo Baotian knew that the code currently used by the Zhi army was compiled according to Teng Yuzhao's instructions, and under Teng Yuzhao's insistence, the communications office had to change the code every month.

"Marshal! The Japanese fleet has turned off its lights."

Ye Zugui stood up from the observation mirror with excitement and some regret, and said loudly.

Ye Zugui walked back to the table while talking, and Zuo Baotian asked with some confusion.

"Minister Ye, the Japanese fleet of dozens of warships is sailing in the dark. Aren't they worried about a collision?"

Ye Zugui explained with a smile, "The Japanese fleet had to turn off the lights, otherwise they should be worried that their lights would be discovered by the Russians as the curvature of the sea surface decreased during the voyage."

"Also, even though they turned off the lights, they would not leave no lights at all. Generally speaking, they would leave a few weak lights behind the warships so that the warships behind could know the position of the warships in front and prevent collisions."

While Ye Zugui and Zuo Baotian were talking, Teng Yuzhao had already poured out a cup of warm ginseng soup from the thermos bottle fixed to the bulkhead with a clip.

The thermos in Teng Yuzao's hand was produced by the Zhendan Industrial Development Company and is one of the products to be taken to the United States to participate in the expo. However, Teng Yuzao has already applied for a patent for this thermos.

Thermos, a common heat-insulating product in later generations, had been invented by Scottish physicist Dewar in 1892. However, it was only used in laboratories, hospitals, and expeditions and was not widely promoted. Teng Yuzao purchased the patent from Dewar through Zhang Deyi, the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom, for only pounds.

Then, Teng Yuzao applied for a patent for the new thermos bottle and handed it over to Zhendan Industrial Development Company for production.

Although the prototype of the thermos flask appeared more than ten years ago, it was originally used to store liquid gases, which is the so-called Dewar flask.

Historically, just last year, just one month later than Teng Yuzao applied for a patent, a German named Berg applied for a patent for the thermos bottle. However, his promotion was not successful, and it would take another 20 years for the thermos bottle to be truly promoted on a large scale.

By exhibiting the product at the expo, Teng Yuzao is preparing to launch it on a large scale, and he even has to find a company in the United States to cooperate in setting up a factory.

Teng Yuzhao was very fortunate that there was gold everywhere during that period. Just this thermos bottle brought him at least tens of millions of dollars in profits in twenty years.

The evening of February 1904, 2 was destined to be an extraordinary time and an important time node that will be recorded in history.

In winter, although the temperature in the Yellow Sea is not much lower than usual, the weather is still very cold.

The sea surface caressed by the sea breeze made regular sounds of waves. The Russian Pacific Fleet squadron anchored in the anchorage outside the Port of Lushun was also immersed in this dark night.

All officers and soldiers of the squadron had almost the same idea, that is, they all did not take a small country like Japan seriously.

Therefore, except for the sailors on patrol duty, everyone else hid in their cabins on this cold night in early spring, either sleeping, chatting aimlessly, or silently missing their hometown.

The same goes for officers, who are not much different from the sailors on a warship. The difference is that officers have their own privileges. They can hide in their cabins in the dark night and quietly drink a few glasses of vodka or French brandy to entertain themselves.

But under the cover of night, a huge danger that could take their lives was approaching them step by step, and all the officers and soldiers of the Pacific Fleet were still unaware of it.

Because the Combined Fleet led by Japanese Vice Admiral Heihachiro Togo had secretly approached the warships of the Russian Pacific Navy Squadron anchored in the outer harbor anchorage.

Just as the sentries on duty on each ship were dozing off in the lee, the ships of the Japanese Combined Fleet, which had already deployed in battle formation, suddenly opened fire in unison, declaring war on Russia without declaring war.

The whistling sound of dense large-caliber naval artillery shells and the huge roars caused by explosions around Russian ships shattered the beautiful homesickness dreams of Russian officers and soldiers.

Among the eight ships of the Pacific Fleet Squadron, which were in the early rain and unprepared, two were hit and caught fire in the second wave of shelling by the Combined Fleet.

Since the Japanese Navy's shells used Shimose gunpowder, which is picric acid explosive, it posed a great threat to the Russian Navy. Almost all warships that were hit would instantly catch fire.

The artillery shells using Shimose gunpowder have a series of amazing characteristics. First of all, the shells are extremely sensitive and can cause an explosion even if they hit a tiny rope.

When this type of shell explodes, it will not only form shock waves and shell fragments like ordinary black powder or dynamite shells, but will also be accompanied by a fire with a central temperature of thousands of degrees, which is said to be able to ignite steel.

The most terrifying thing is that the flame formed by the explosion of this gunpowder will spread like a gasoline fire, and can continue to burn for a period of time even in water.

The Pacific Fleet, which was hit suddenly and violently, panicked. When the Russian sailors rushed out of the cabin and ran to the battle posts to launch an organized fight, five minutes had passed.
(End of this chapter)