When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 1199 His Majesty the Great Sun, Horn, provides guidance on the improvement of the signal machine.
This is the outskirts of the Holy Mechanism, and the platform for the Clockwork Locomotive is not far away.

On a mound about ten meters high, there stands a brick and wood tower.

It stands atop the green hill, its lower layer made of red bricks, with gray-white mortar filling the gaps.

The first and second floors, constructed of brick and stone, are about five meters high. Above that, there are the third and fourth floors, constructed of wood.

From the windows on the fourth floor, you can see two binoculars, one with magnification of 30x to 65x, protruding from the front and one at the back.

Above the third and fourth floors, there is a truss frame made of cedar wood, with pulleys mounted on it.

Horn roughly estimated that it would be about 10 to 15 meters tall.

However, before Horn could get a good look, he heard a voice say, "Oh dear, I was wondering why it was all cloudy this morning but suddenly cleared up this afternoon. It turns out it's His Majesty who has arrived!"

Horn turned his head and, sure enough, Brandon was jogging over with a bunch of shareholders.

As the saying goes, one's environment shapes one's character, and Brandon has long lost the rough and burly demeanor he once had as the gambling den manager, instead gaining a more priestly and easygoing air.

"Is this Brandon's signal?" Horn casually asked Brandon to confirm.

Brandon didn't understand why Horn was suddenly interested in this, but he still enthusiastically introduced it: "Yes, this is the great signal machine of our Holy Alliance, developed by our Holy National Lottery Company under the leadership of the great Holy Grandson, in accordance with the principles of Salvation Holy Principles and the Five Tenets, under the glorious light of our Holy Alliance's great Holy Principles..."

Horn was already used to Brandon's buzzing.

He squinted and looked the signal over from top to bottom before looking down at the explanation in the signal's documentation.

In essence, the Brandon signal is the same type of signal as the Sap signal from the Napoleonic era.

They are all optical signal transmission systems.

That is, the signal is identified by a telescope and human eyes, and then transmitted to the next station.

To be honest, it's not much different from a beacon tower; it's essentially just an extra observation point.

However, it would still be incorrect to say that the Brandon signal and the Sharp signal were indistinguishable.

The Sharp signal transmits messages using the shape of its swing arm, while the Brandon signal uses fluorite.

Fluorite is a special mineral found throughout the entire empire; it can be found everywhere.

Low-grade fluorite can only emit a faint light.

In contrast, the fluorite crystals from many fluorite refining workshops in Long Causeway City, when covered with glass lampshades, emit light indistinguishable from electric lights.

On the Brandon Signal Tower, a row of seven fluorite stones of different colors are embedded in the upright bracket.

Behind each glowstone hangs a small hammer made of slime nucleus powder. When the hammer strikes the glowstone, it triggers the glowstone to glow.

In this way, by using light and shadow, 128 characters can be expressed, which can completely cover the letters, numbers and symbols commonly used in the Empire.

A signal tower has two operators:
The operator at the front uses a binocular to record the brightness and darkness of the lights at the previous station, while the operator at the back uses a signal to transmit this information to the next station.

"...In this way, in weather like today, a symbol can be transmitted in 30 seconds."

From Jeanne d'Arc to Kelleypolis, a journey of 15 stops, the total time from dispatch to receipt is only seven or eight minutes.

Brandon introduced himself with a big smile, but his pronunciation was obviously stilted, indicating that he had memorized it at the last minute.

He is the general manager of the lottery company, not the chief engineer of the signal machine company.

He only memorized it specifically to show off in front of the Holy Grandson.

"How long does it take to transmit that 10-character sentence completely?"

“Five minutes.” Brandon held up five fingers. “Your Majesty, that’s fast. Normally, even a fast horse would take two or three days.”

"Does Your Majesty not know the time required for fast horse transport?" Petit sneered, and Brandon immediately broke out in a cold sweat.

"You just mentioned weather like today, right? What about foggy days? Can lights penetrate that fog?"

Brandon's forehead was covered in even more cold sweat: "Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't..."

"When is it okay? When is it not okay? What are the remedies if it's not okay?" Horn's eyebrows slowly rose; he hated ambiguity the most.

Brandon quickly tried to salvage the situation: "It won't work in rainy, foggy, or snowy weather. If we can't receive the signal, we'll have someone from the previous station ride a horse to the next station to report it manually."

What are the operators' salaries like?

"The monthly salary is 30 dinars. They are hired from nearby villages. They need to have good eyesight, but they don't need to be literate. They just need to fill in the blanks."

Brandon's "filling in the grid" refers to giving the observers a pre-printed grid paper.

When the light is dim, paint it black; when it's bright, paint it white.

"What is the construction cost for 100 kilometers?" "It depends." Brandon swallowed hard. "Generally, it's cheaper if there are old imperial-era outposts along the way and it's closer to the main road, and more expensive if it's not."

The main reason Brandon was able to deploy these signal machines so quickly was that he inherited a lot of legacy from the old empire.

To guard against a potential rebellion by the Thousand Rivers Valley people, the empire, the church, and local nobles left behind numerous sentry towers.

Now, Brandon and his team only need to make minor modifications to the sentry towers to achieve large-scale coverage of the signal network.

"I see." Horn didn't say much, but walked straight toward the signal tower.

The group quickly followed, entered the tower, and went up to the control room, where two young men were standing at attention.

Horn didn't say much, he just touched and looked at it from all angles.

The internal structure of the signal tower is actually very simple: seven levers correspond to seven hammers.

Pulling the lever upwards raises the hammer and dims the fluorite lamp, while pulling it downwards lowers the hammer and brightens the fluorite lamp.

Next to the lever is a rocker arm, which is used to remove and replace the hammer.

After walking around, Horn had a basic understanding of the signal.

He pulled up a chair and sat down: "Call the chief engineer of this signal machine over."

Not long after, a man with messy hair and a stubble beard arrived.

"Are you the inventor of the signal machine? What's your name?"

“Hmm.” The engineer was from Fran, and his Leia language wasn’t fluent. “My name is Sharpcha.”

"I have a few suggestions," Horn said, getting straight to the point, and the people around him immediately pulled out small notebooks. "Take a look and see if they're feasible."

But the engineer was clearly new; judging from his disgusted expression, he didn't like the scene.

Any truly great engineer is bound to be proud of their field.

Professionals are one thing, but how can Sheng Sun, who is not a professional accountant, dare to comment on such high-end mechanical design?
Sharpchat secretly grimaced at the thought of Brandon forcibly naming the signal after himself.

However, he wouldn't show it; the only resistance he could offer was by not taking out his notebook to take notes.

“Change the seven fluorites to two, left and right, and use binary to represent characters.” Horn held up one finger. “For example, left lit and right dark followed by left dark and right lit represents a letter…”

Horn's suggestion was simple: change the seven fluorite stones to Morse code.

It simply transformed the binary representation caused by time differences into spatial differences.

For example, left bright and right dark means a dot, the opposite means a dash, double dark means the end of a character, double bright means the end of a word, and a space is added.

The brightness lasts for two seconds, so transmitting a single letter, including confirmation time, takes a maximum of 10 seconds.

It takes about one and a half minutes to transmit 10 characters.

"Second, change the lever to a pedal; pressing it makes it light up, and lifting it makes it darken. Also, change the two people to one..."

This requirement means that instead of one person recording and another performing the operation, the two people can be combined into one.

Since only two fluorite stones need to be adjusted at a time, it is possible to receive and send simultaneously.

For the operator, with both feet on the pedals and eyes facing the lookout, step on the left pedal when the left indicator light is on, and step on the right pedal when the right indicator light is on.

Just follow the example.

By reducing the transmission interval within the signal tower, 15 stations can be transmitted in just 3 minutes.

"What if it's a false alarm and you step on the wrong step?" Sharpcha asked instinctively, immediately drawing sharp stares from those around him.

Horn pressed his palm down, looking at him with appreciation: "We can prioritize the messages."

For example, military messages have the highest priority and need to be transmitted four times for confirmation, while stock prices and lottery tickets only need to be transmitted twice.

If the receiver doesn't see it clearly, or the sender realizes it sent the wrong message, it can flash two lights to indicate that it needs to resend the message.

Finally, a punch recorder can be installed on the signal machine.

Every evening, the previous station has to hand over the punched cards to the next station for comparison.

Whoever makes a mistake must correct the error message during the night shift.

I must say, the seven fluorite stones can also produce false alarms, but their error correction won't be as quick or convenient.

(End of this chapter)