Chapter 380 Picking up the leaks
Chapter 380 Picking up the leaks
"Your Highness, this thing is called @#$%^"
Maria was confused. "Shao, his words were mixed with words I didn't understand. They were not all English, French, German, or Russian."
Shao Quanzhong waved his hand and said, "I know what this is. Just ask him where he got it."
The other party had no problem understanding English. "I'm a &%￥%, this thing is my %￥#￥..."
Basically no communication.
The old beggar was disgusted by his poor English, fearing that the other party would get impatient and ignore him. "I can - um - um - perform, yes, perform, live."
Shao Quanzhong waved his hand and said, "Let's go to the Hailing Arsenal and ask him to follow us."
Seeing the old beggar carefully holding the broken bag and walking very slowly, fearing that the treasure would be broken, Shao Quanzhong waited impatiently and said, "Tell him to get in the car."
The old beggar was invited to ride in a donkey-drawn sedan with one or two rubber tires. He was valued. He was very happy and apologized repeatedly after getting in the car, "I'm sorry, I'm Italian--"
Shao Quanzhong ordered, "Maria, send someone to send a telegram to the Tongwenguan in Beijing immediately and ask them to send an Italian translator."
Maria did not move. "Shao, there is no one in Tongwenguan who knows Italian. Italy was just founded last year and has not yet established diplomatic relations with the Qing Dynasty."
Well, Shao Quanzhong used to be the minister in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Unfortunately, he never went to work and is not familiar with the business, but his secretary knows it.
"Shao, I suggest you ask Nobel to be the translator. He knows Italian."
Shao Quanzhong shook his head like a rattle, "This thing is too important. Nobel is not a pure scientist. He has too many ulterior motives. We cannot let him get involved."
Shao Quanzhong was worried. "How about going to Shanghai or Hong Kong to find a Roman missionary? Well, it would take too long——"
I slapped my forehead and asked, "Italian? Can you speak Spanish?"
Before Italy gained independence, it was part of Spain.
The old man was ecstatic and nodded repeatedly, "Yes, yes!"
Then he uttered a series of words that sounded like Spanish, “suspected” because no one at the scene understood Spanish.
But this was easy to handle. When everyone arrived at the Hailing Arsenal, the Spanish maid that the guards had called from Qiao Garden on horseback was already there.
Although Isabel was in Madrid, she had a room in Hailing and a lot of things she brought as a dowry. She left two Spanish maids to look after it and tidy up and clean the room, which were now useful.
The communication was finally smooth. "Your Highness, my name is Antonio Meucci. I am from Florence and immigrated to Tusten Island in New York. I live in the Italian community there."
"I independently developed this 'talking telegraph'. In order to develop this thing, I gave up my original job and spent all my family's money, but no factory was willing to buy my design, and I fell into financial difficulties."
"Just when I was in despair, I saw in the newspaper that His Highness had invested 10 million taels of silver to advance computer technology and electromagnetic technology."
"I thought that a man like you who understands science must know the value of my invention, so I borrowed money from a loan shark and bought a boat ticket to come to you—"
Well, Shao Quanzhong blushed a little for once. He knew little about science, but he really understood the value of this guy's invention.
It seems that his big head and money to promote electromagnetic research have also had an unexpected effect, making his reputation for science and technological inventions spread all over the world. This is Shang Yang's setting up a tree and buying a horse bone for a thousand gold.
If this old man is not bragging, the investment in electromagnetism and computers will pay off and make a fortune.
"I understand your stuff, but I just think it shouldn't appear now. Is it because of poor quality?"
How could the telephone be invented in 1871? Although the telephone in this guy's hand looks like a bell and has a single tube, the thing with a crank next to it looks like a telephone.
In Shao Quanzhong's impression, the telephone was invented much later, and the inventor was not called Meucci. It seemed his name was "Be" or something.
"No problem at all. My wife is paralyzed and bedridden. I installed a telephone of my own design between my studio and home. If my wife needs care, I can just call her and run home to take care of her at any time."
As they were talking, they had already arrived at the Hailing Arsenal, where all the conditions Meucci requested were available. In fact, he just wanted to lay a telephone line, and then in a different room, Shao Quanzhong successfully communicated with Maria.
Shao Quanzhong, a country bumpkin, actually misunderstood. What he thought was a hand-cranked telephone was actually a hand-cranked generator that powered the telephone. The telephone invented by Meucci could not be dialed by shaking, and could only be transferred manually.
But as luck would have it, this thing actually turned out to be a phone.
The test call was successful. Shao Quanzhong looked at Meucci in surprise. "You have this thing. Are the Americans blind? Is there really no company willing to produce it?"
"Well, my English is very poor, so I can only introduce my invention in Italian newspapers. But we Italians don't have factories in the United States now. The rich ones are all gangsters..."
"In 1860, I set up a booth at an exhibition to display my invention, but because of my poor English, no one willing to invest understood my Italian..."
"You invented the telephone so early?"
"I started researching in 1849, and the technology was mature in 1860."
“You didn’t apply for a patent?”
"I couldn't afford the $250 required to apply for a final patent. I applied for a provisional patent that needs to be renewed every year, but no one has ever paid attention to it."
"I sold another phone sample to a second-hand store for $6 to apply for a provisional patent. I can no longer afford the $10 fee to retain the provisional patent for the next year..."
"Well, Your Highness, you will buy my invention, right?"
Looking at Meucci who was full of hope, Shao Quanzhong laughed up to the sky, "I will use one million taels of silver to exclusively purchase your invention, and hire you as the technical vice president of Huaxia Telecom, with an annual salary of 10,000 taels of silver, the same as my salary as a prince, are you satisfied?"
Meucci almost fainted, but luckily there was nothing wrong with his heart. After confirming again and again, he trembled and asked.
"Can you give me a thousand dollars right away? It took me more than a month to get here by boat, and my paralyzed wife at home has run out of money. She will soon starve to death without anyone to take care of her."
"If I don't pay back the $400 loan shark for my travel expenses in time, the godfathers in the community will tear down my house, and the 24 cats in my house will become stray cats. I will go back to my country to bring my wife over..."
No, you are so poor and you still have so many cats?
"You don't have to do this, Maria. Send a telegram immediately and ask the ambassador to the United States, Zeng Jize, to personally pay off Meucci's loan sharks, bring Meucci's wife and the 24 cats to Hailing, and arrange an expert building for Meucci in Xiaoxiang Cliff."
"Immediately set up Huaxia Telecom Company and register Meucci's technical information in the name of the company with all patent institutions around the world for the longest patent."
"Call Guangdong New Army and ask them to call Quan Ren back to me. Have him retire immediately and become the president of Huaxia Telecom."
"Buy Ren Jun's telegraph line laying company for me. As the first batch of installation employees of Huaxia Telecom, the technicians there will be exchanged for Ren Jun's shares in Haoguozi Military Industry."
"The Wen family allocated the factories and equipment of Huaxia Telecom and started producing telephones and selling them all over the world."
Shao Quanzhong was resolute and decisive, and he made his subordinates work around in circles. Soon, Meucci, who was once a beggar, had one million taels of silver and became the technical vice president of a large company with an annual salary of one and a half to two million in modern currency.
If it weren't for Shao Quanzhong's reputation for being a big brain that made him decide to come to China with high-interest loans.
Meucci sent his telephone invention to the Western Union Telegraph Company of the United States to request adoption. Then, after three years, there was no news, and when he went back, he was told that the technical data and samples were lost.
Sixteen years after he invented the telephone, Bell, who used the same laboratory with him, applied for a patent for the telephone, and Bell's AT&T became the world's monopoly telecommunications giant.
Meucci angrily sued Bale, but died of poverty and illness before the verdict came out.
On June 2002, 6, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Resolution 16, declaring Meucci the inventor of the telephone, and Meucci was finally respected by the world.
By that time, he had been dead for 113 years.
(End of this chapter)