The end of the 19th century was a period of rapid expansion of the human telegraph network. The transmission of information truly reached thousands of miles. Although telegram transmission between Europe and Asia had to go through several transfer stations, a telegram could be transmitted within three days. Fly from London to Beijing.
This is an information transmission efficiency that humans cannot imagine. The entire world's intelligence system has undergone profound changes because of telegraph technology.
But what is surprising is that at this critical moment of great change, the Chinese people led by Xiao Letian have moved to the forefront of the times, while Europe has lagged behind.
The CIA's investment in telegraph technology is currently the largest in the country. A variety of encryption technologies have made the Chinese intelligence system the most secure place in the world.
Not only that, the CIA also has a large number of code-breaking experts, including a large number of mathematicians and engineers poached from Europe.
The first thing to fall was the Russian telegram codebook. Now the telegrams of the Russian Embassy in Beijing are undefended in front of the CIA, and no secrets can be kept.
The confidentiality level of British telegrams is much higher. At present, the CIA has only cracked about 8% of the British telegram codebook. Now it has only cracked the header and end titles of the telegram. In other words, a British government telegram, Wang Huaiyuan and the others could only determine that the telegram was sent by a government agency in London to a certain unit or individual.
For example, the British Treasury sent a telegram to Ai Liguo. Neither the sender nor the recipient was a secret, but the content of the telegram could not be known unless a spy directly stole a code book or relied entirely on Manpower to study and decipher.
However, such a method was already considered unparalleled in 1869. Don’t forget that the largest telegraph company in Asia is now controlled by Xiao Letian, from Ryukyu to Shanghai, to Tanggu, to Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Fuso, and North Korea. The submarine cable systems to Nanyang are all laid by Chinese capital.
Controlling the submarine cable actually controls the main information transmission channel in Asia. Although the telegraph company has British and American shares, control will always be in the hands of the Chinese.
Since the departure of the Tsarist Russian Expeditionary Force, the British intelligence station on the Chinese has not stopped. They cooperated with the French intelligence agency and began to play both sides. Taking advantage of the chaos of the war, they began to collect a large amount of intelligence from both sides.
The most typical one was the operation against Ryoma Sakamoto in Hong Kong. Although Ryoma was finally tricked by Ryoma, it was not the British who suffered, but France and Tsarist Russia.
After that, British spies swarmed to Ryukyu to find out the secrets of the Chinese people, the secrets of the Zhiyuan, various military intelligence, and various civil affairs intelligence, with extremely arrogant arrogance.
How could Xiao Letian tolerate these people's rampage? The CIA's counterattack has been secretly continuing, and the concealment is so deep that even Ai Liguo has fallen into the trap.
Within a month of the outbreak of the war, the telegraph system from Europe to Asia, especially the submarine cable, experienced several failures in succession, sometimes even interrupting communications for more than eight hours.
British intelligence officers analyzed that this may be because the impact of the war disrupted the daily maintenance work of the telegraph company, which triggered a series of telegraph failures, but Ai Liguo, Weitoma and others did not pay too much attention.
But what they don't know is that this is actually a conspiracy by the CIA. The only purpose is to prevent some of the latest news from Europe from being transmitted to Asia in time, causing confusion in the normal intelligence communication mechanism, and ultimately causing underreporting or loss. .
Ai Liguo and Weitoma had no idea that just when they were plotting to sneak attack on the Chinese and the Zhiyuan, a diplomatic conflict that was destined to go down in history occurred on the European continent, that is, the "Eames Telegram" incident .
The Franco-Prussian War was destined to start. Not only did Xiao Letian know the historical development in advance, but more importantly, Bismarck did not hide the start of the war from Xiao Letian. Now the Chinese and Prussians have reached a secret agreement. Alliance, the cooperation between the two parties has already reached the level of allies.
Prussia wants to unify Germany, but France will never allow this to happen. The conflict cannot be bridged, and the final outcome can only be a bloody battle.
Prussia sought the unification of Germany and claimed the territories of Alsace and Lorraine, which would require victory in the war. The French saw it clearly, but the French were a little too arrogant. They had always underestimated Prussia's determination to fight. At the last moment, the French still thought that they could make Bismarck surrender with high-pressure diplomatic means.
France did not stop the Prussian-Danish War and the Prussian-Austrian War. Bismarck's deception tactics were very successful. While he used military force to recover a large amount of land, he carefully lowered his posture in front of the French Emperor. This gave the whole of France a sense of illusion.
They felt that the Prussians were just cowards who picked on weaklings, and it was okay to bully Denmark and Austria. Facing France, which has the world's largest army and the second largest economy, these northern barbarians would never dare to show off to France. Bayonet.
Don't forget that Napoleon defeated Prussia several times and beat these people to pieces.
Before the Franco-Prussian War, the diplomatic conflict lasted for more than two years. The underlying conflict was of course land, colonies, national hatred, etc., but the superficial conflict was the crisis of the Spanish throne.
France and Prussia both had their own supporters, and both sides also legally had the right to inherit the Spanish throne. The two countries were tit-for-tat and refused to give in. The diplomatic conflict attracted the attention of the entire Europe.
The Spanish issue is France's unshakable bottom line. Regardless of the fact that France did not directly intervene in the Prussian-Danish War and the Prussian-Austrosian War, that is because the conflict of interests for France in these places is not great.
But Spain is different. This is France's traditional rear area. Napoleon III will never allow France to be in danger of being attacked from both sides.
This is the consensus in France that core interests cannot be challenged. Therefore, in this diplomatic conflict, France appeared very aggressive and strong.
In contrast, Bismarck's diplomatic approach is flexible and flexible. It is tough and weak at one moment, just like a shrewd sea fisherman working out his strength with a big fish. Have to collect it.
Gradually, the patience of the French was exhausted first, and a French diplomat named Benedetti ignited the fuse of this conflict.
At that time, King William I of Prussia was on vacation at the Ems Spa in Koblenz, but many newspapers in Spain broke the news that William I once again supported his cousin's succession to the Spanish throne.
The furious Emperor ordered the diplomat Benedetti to personally ask the King of Prussia why he always went back on his word as a king. Didn't he already express his disapproval of his cousin's accession to the throne?
Why are there so many contrary news at this moment? Is this a conspiracy or have you really changed your attention?
The French Emperor urgently needed a clear answer from the King of Prussia.
