Beacon Theatre Princes
The earliest communication facilities in China can be traced back to the ancient beacon tower. At that time, whenever there was an enemy invasion on the frontier, the garrison soldiers would pass military information through fireworks on the beacon platform. In the Western Zhou Dynasty, King Youwang of Zhou smiled for Bo Meiren, and the story of the princes of the Beacon Drama was also written into today's middle school history textbooks. With the progress of society, later there were methods of transmitting information such as carrier pigeons, flags, and caravanserais. These primitive means of communication have run through thousands of years of Chinese history.
The transmission of information by electrical signal did not appear in the United States until the 19th century. In 1837, the American painter Samuel Morse invented a telegraph code to transmit signals, and the telegraph was born. In 1876, the American inventor Alexander Bell invented the telephone, which directly converted the acoustic signal into an electrical signal and transmitted it along a wire. In 1901, the Italian radio engineer Galielmo Marconi invented radio communication. Since then, the communication mode of transmitting electrical signals has been widely used and rapidly developed. Today, mobile phones have become an indispensable communication tool in people's daily lives.
Standard Morse code comparison table
The telegram was introduced to China during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty. From 1871 to 1873, the Danish Great Northern Telegraph Company and the British Great Eastern Telegraph Company successively set up offices in Shanghai, China through submarine cables, and opened telegraph services. In 1877, Li Hongzhang, the leader of the Foreign Affairs Movement, erected a wire more than ten miles long between the Governor of Tianjin, Yamen, and the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, which was used to send telegrams. This was the first telegraph line run by the Chinese. In 1879, Li Hongzhang set up a military telegraph line from Tianjin to Dagu, Beitang and other forts. In September 1880, Li Hongzhang proposed to the imperial court to establish the Tianjin-Shanghai telegraph line, which opened the era of China's large-scale independent construction of telegraphs.
However, in the geographically isolated hunan, there was no proposal to erect wires until 1890. At the beginning of the year, Hubei prepared to erect a wire between Hankou and Jingzhou and Xiangyang in the form of an official governor and a commercial office. Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang at the time, in view of the fact that hubei and Hunan provinces were blocked by Dongting Lake and the transmission of official documents was very inconvenient, he proposed to erect a power line from Jingzhou, cross the river from Shashi, and reach Changsha and Xiangtan through Lizhou, Hunan. After being approved by the Naval Affairs Bureau, Zhang Xu, then the inspector of Hunan, sent people to start surveying the route, and basically determined the direction of the route to Changsha via Lizhou, Changde, and Yiyang. At the end of the year, the imperial court officially approved the opening of the telegraph line.
Tianjin Telegraph General Bureau at the end of the Qing Dynasty
In the spring of 1891, Sheng Xuanhuai, the general office of the General Office of the General Bureau of Telegraphs, sent people to lead a line engineering team into Hunan to prepare to start the construction of the wire from Jingzhou to Changsha. Unexpectedly, this project encountered a lot of resistance in Hunan. At that time, Hunan people were conservative in their thinking, extremely xenophobic, and deeply hostile to foreigners and imported products. In addition, there was a man named Zhou Han in Ningxiang, Hunan Province, who wrote a large number of anti-foreign propaganda materials and spread them everywhere through the channels of book engraving and distribution, which caused an extremely bad impact on society. One of the books, "Ghost Cult Damned," was printed in hundreds of thousands. The book portrays the missionaries as terrifying. Therefore, many people suspect that the erection of wires is a conspiracy of foreigners, and they are worried that this foreign thing will destroy local feng shui.
The first stop for wires to enter Hunan is Lizhou. Although the local government of Lizhou has done a lot of evacuation work, repeatedly stating that the electric poles are erected by Chinese, without the participation of foreigner craftsmen, and will not hinder the feng shui of folk graves, fields, and houses, the project has not yet started, and rumors have been spread in society. Some people deliberately spread rumors that the wires were set up by foreigners, and also said that after the wires were erected, if children and livestock damaged the poles, they would be executed, and the consequences would be endless.
Late Qing Dynasty Telegram
Shortly after the start of construction, there was a blockage. Because the technician who guided the installation of the poles was from Shanghai, wearing a suit and a hard hat, this "strange costume" was very eye-catching to the local gentry, and he suspected that he was a foreigner craftsman. Soon, the local conservative gentlemen made a banner that read, "Expel foreigners and ban foreign threads", inciting trouble, and the local people responded one after another. Angry people destroyed and burned the poles, iron hooks, porcelain bowls and other materials in Majiahe, Qingnitan, Mengxi Temple and other places.
After the incident, Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, and Zhang Xu, the governor of Hunan, immediately sent people to investigate and deal with it. The Lizhou government then arrested 13 people who had caused the incident and ordered the gentlemen to compensate for all the losses. Although the incident was put to rest, the local gentry were still very resistant to the erection of electric wires, and always believed that the wires were installed by foreigners and would inevitably attract foreigners into Hunan in the future. Because it was summer time, there was more rain, and the place where the pole was erected was flooded, and the line work fell into a state of stagnation.
Shortly after the pole burning incident in Lizhou, changsha also had a pole burning incident. At that time, the wood used to erect power lines in Changsha was piled up on the land and water islands. He Jinsheng, a student of Yuelu Academy, and others learned that the wood was used to erect power lines, so they rushed to Shuiluzhou at night and set fire to the timber. He Jinsheng fled Changsha after committing the crime and hid in the countryside of Shaoyang. The government's investigation was unsuccessful, and finally it was not resolved.
Due to obstructions in the project, Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, decided to suspend the installation. In October of that year, Zhang Zhidong went to the imperial court to state the reasons for the resistance and suspension of the erection of the power line, saying that this matter could only be slowly enlightened by the local gentry in the future, and then handled as appropriate. The plan for the first telegraph to enter Hunan was foiled.
The telegraph operator of the Qing Dynasty Telegraph Office delivers the newspaper (sculpture)
Hubei, which is adjacent to Hunan, opened the first telegraph line as early as 1884, and then successively erected wires between major cities. But Hunan, which is separated by a lake, still relies on the post road to transmit official documents. In 1895, Chen Baozhen, who had a sense of innovation, became the inspector of Hunan. The following year, Chen Baozhen proposed to Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, that a power line between Hunan and Hubei be erected again. The timing of the wires was better this time. Due to the defeat of the Xiang Army in the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War in 1894, the Hunan people after the defeat were painfully determined and began to seek change, and some people of insight took the opportunity to set off a restoration movement. Under the impetus of Chen Baozhen, Hunan began to develop mining, manufacturing, ships, telegraphs, and electric lights, and the weather was new. Therefore, this time the erection of the wire is relatively smooth. However, the power line erected this time is not the same as the old line five years ago, but from Changsha to Hubei through Xiangyin and Yuezhou. In May 1897, the telegraph line from Changsha to Wuchang was completed, and a telegraph sub-bureau was set up in Changsha to open a telegraph business. Since then, with the expansion of telegraph lines, branches have been set up in Xiangtan, Liling, Changde, Hengzhou and other places, which are under the jurisdiction of the General Telegraph Bureau in Shanghai.
The tortuous journey of the telegraph line into Hunan reflected the stubbornness of the Hunan people at that time and their unwillingness to accept new things. However, once the Hunan people have learned the trick, the changes are also amazing, even very radical. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Hunan people's customs changed greatly, from extreme xenophobia to active study abroad, and even studied abroad to form a trend, and the number of international students ranked among the best in the country. Many of these international students later became the backbone and key players of the Xinhai Revolution. (Text/Xie Zhidong)
Map of the telegraph trunk line at the end of the Qing Dynasty
【Reference】
1. Hunan Tongjian, Hunan People's Publishing House, 2008.1
2. General History of Hunan (Modern Volume), Hunan People's Publishing House, 2008.11
3. Modern Industrial History of Hunan, Hunan People's Publishing House, 2013.1