Chapter 381: Tesla and Radio

As time reached the latter half of 1896, an experiment at the Royal Academy of Sciences drew Gao Da's intense attention.

Speaking of the person in charge of this experiment, there is one figure who must be mentioned: Nikola Tesla.

When Gao Da had just established the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, he had already thought about recruiting this world-famous inventor from history.

The name of Nikola Tesla is known to all in later generations, and his "War of Currents" with Edison is a topic frequently discussed by people of the future.

During the period when Tesla was about to be expelled from university for being unable to pay tuition, personnel from the Royal Security Intelligence Agency found him. After revealing their Spanish identity, they immediately expressed a willingness to fund his tuition, with the condition that Tesla must join Spanish nationality and immigrate to Spain after finishing his university studies.

At the time, due to being destitute and wanting to continue his studies, Tesla agreed to the demands of the Royal Security Intelligence Agency personnel.

It was precisely because of this that Tesla arrived in Spain so smoothly and successfully entered the Royal Academy of Sciences.

Because he was engaged in research at the Royal Academy of Sciences while studying in depth at various Spanish universities, Tesla quickly absorbed a vast amount of knowledge and became an excellent scientific researcher.

At Gramme's power laboratory, Tesla's performance was quite outstanding; he even helped Gramme develop generators with higher power and storage batteries capable of holding more electricity.

It was precisely the invention of high-power generators that made the use of electricity a reality. Currently, more than half of Spain's factories have introduced electricity, and in this regard, it can be said that Tesla has made monumental contributions.

For a scientist who can be called a polymath, Tesla would certainly not be limited to research in the field of electricity.

He declined the appointment as chief engineer of Gramme's power laboratory and, while retaining his position as a specially appointed engineer, began his own independent research and development.

Among Tesla's research, besides his work on electricity, the one that Gao Da paid the most attention to was his research on radio.

The era of commercial radio prosperity was in the 1920s, but the invention of radio can be traced back to the 19th century.

The early 19th century was the period for establishing radio theory, while the mid-to-late 19th century was the stage for technological breakthroughs in radio.

As early as a few years ago, Tesla had already mastered the principles of radio communication and had attempted to transmit signals using high-frequency oscillators.

Last year, Marconi had achieved Morse code transmission over a distance of several hundred meters in Italy. Naturally, Tesla was unwilling to lag behind Marconi in the progress of radio communication research; he planned to test radio communication over several kilometers this year and apply for a Spanish patent based on it.

What Gao Da was concerned about was Tesla's radio communication experiment. The role of radio goes without saying; it possesses immense strategic value in both civilian and military fields.

Once radio communication equipment gradually matures, Spain could even realize nationwide radio broadcasting.

Radio broadcasting will become a tool for public opinion and propaganda comparable to newspapers. Government policies can be easily conveyed to all Spanish citizens via radio broadcast, allowing them to understand the intent behind a policy issued by the government, rather than having the government's intent misinterpreted due to secondary dissemination.

Gao Da could also announce certain messages on special days through nationwide radio broadcasts.

If radio equipment tends toward maturity, Gao Da plans to conduct a Christmas speech every year, using broadcasting to narrow the distance between the King and the Spanish public.

As the ruler of Spain, Gao Da needs to maintain a distance from the public most of the time. If a king loses his aura of mystery, the public will discover that the king is, after all, just an ordinary person.

After losing the filter of mystery, the king's faults will also be infinitely magnified in the eyes of the public. To maintain one's authority, the best method is to remain mysterious and not let the public know oneself too well.

Likewise, the king cannot be too far from the public. Appropriately maintaining a sense of mystery is a good thing, but if the distance from the public is too great, or if one completely turns away from the public, then a good thing becomes a bad thing.

A Christmas broadcast speech is clearly a very good method, capable of appropriately narrowing the distance between the King and the public. Because it only happens once a year, it will not be overly intimate, thus maintaining a certain sense of mystery.

Come to think of it, Gao Da has been the King of Spain for nearly 30 years. Because he is no longer young, Gao Da still wants to be closer to the Spanish commoner class.

A benevolent monarch is rarely a drawback most of the time, especially at Gao Da's age. The current Spanish Royal Family is already wealthy enough to rival a nation, and Gao Da hopes to use a portion of those assets to help impoverished Spaniards, while also accumulating more prestige for the Royal Family.

As long as the Spanish people are full of love for the Royal Family, even if some accidents occur in the future, the Spanish Royal Family will not have to worry about their throne being abolished.

At most, they would become mascots like the British Royal Family, possessing no real power but able to live a wealthy life.

Even if the king reigns for a relatively long time, even as a mascot, he can become a cohesive force for national unity.

Among the political systems of European countries, the stability of a monarchy is higher than that of a republic.

The reason is also simple: a monarchical country possesses a unified ruler, and all ethnic groups should be loyal to this ruler; this is also the sovereignty and legal basis for national unity.

But if it becomes a republican country, each ethnic group will fight for its own interests. A president cannot force these ethnic groups to be loyal to him; this is completely impossible to achieve.

A president is elected by the people, and naturally, he can also be overthrown by public opinion.

This leads to ethnic groups under a republican system pursuing greater autonomy, or even pursuing independence. Without the king as a common ruler to maintain unity, the fragmentation of a republic is more severe than that of a monarchy.

Why is it that the Spain of later generations, with Catalonia and the Basque region both clamoring for independence, can still maintain a unified country?

The reason is that Spain is a monarchical country. Whether it is Catalonia or the Basque region, the King of Spain is their ruler.

Even if they pursue autonomy, they cannot change the fact that the King of Spain is their ruler.

If the Spain of later generations were a republic, it would be hard to say whether the country could continue to maintain unity. Because the President of Spain clearly cannot control the Catalans and the Basques; the position of president has no legal basis, and the Catalans and Basques clearly would not submit to the president's rule.

A similar example is the United Kingdom of later generations. The reason the UK maintains a monarchy is, first of all, that the British Royal Family truly has no power, and the British Prime Minister does not need to worry about the king splitting his power.

Secondly, the British King is still very important for maintaining the unity of the various regions of the UK. The British King is not just the King of England, but also the King of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

It is precisely because the king possesses so much legal authority that the UK can continue to exist as a unified country.

If the UK were not a monarchy but a republic, I fear that the British mainland would only consist of England, and other regions would all pursue independent status.

As a famous figure at the Royal Academy of Sciences, Tesla's radio communication experiment still attracted the attention of many newspaper media outlets.

Although Marconi in Italy had already conducted radio communication experiments a year ago, Tesla had publicly disclosed the principles of radio communication before that, and Marconi could not claim to be the inventor of radio communication based on that alone.

Although Tesla's radio communication experiment was later, his experiment covered a greater distance than Marconi's. Marconi's experiment only spanned a few hundred meters, while Tesla's experiment increased this distance tenfold; does this not also prove that Tesla's research in radio communication is more outstanding than Marconi's?

Carrying such questions, newspaper reporters from Spain and all over Europe rushed to the site of Tesla's radio communication experiment.

This experiment, which attracted the attention of many newspapers, would be conducted in Madrid. To support Tesla's experiment, Gao Da specially approved the experiment to be held in the square in front of the Madrid Royal Palace.

Radio communication equipment would be installed here, and another device would be installed at the Madrid University City, several kilometers away.

At this time, radio transmission and reception equipment were both very crude, because people did not know what true radio equipment actually looked like.

Based on the principles of radio reception and transmission, Tesla made a relatively simple model. The antenna for the radio equipment was a huge kerosene drum. Tesla turned this kerosene drum into a large iron plate to serve as the simplest antenna.

Hanging this large iron plate antenna high on a large tree could increase the sensitivity of signal reception. Radio signals in the air could be received through metal filings; for this, Tesla made a metal powder coherer, allowing it to receive radio signals in the air more sensitively.

To increase the power emitted by the radio transmitter, Tesla added a small amount of mixed silver and nickel powder into a glass tube, then evacuated the entire glass tube; after the experiment, he discovered that doing so really could increase the power.

Because the distance between the radio transmission site and the reception site exceeded 3 kilometers, such a test had a high probability of failure.

Tesla, with a nervous heart, carefully checked his experimental equipment. After confirming that there were no problems with the equipment, Tesla began his experiment.

The Madrid University City side would serve as the radio transmission site, while the Royal Palace Square side would be the radio reception site.

Because it had been agreed to conduct the radio transmission at 3: 0 PM, upon seeing that the time on his wristwatch had reached 3: 0 PM, Tesla waited nervously for the arrival of the radio signal.

After about a few dozen seconds, the current in the radio signal receiver suddenly emitted a crisp sound, which also meant that the radio signal had been officially received by the receiver.

After the experiment was a success, Tesla's nervous mood vanished. This experiment not only meant that Tesla's radio theory had no errors, but also meant that the development of radio was about to usher in a climax.

As everyone knows, the first step in any field is the most difficult. Just like Gramme's field of electricity, the first step of exploring the generation and use of electricity consumed the efforts of several generations of European scientists for decades or even hundreds of years.

But after having a clear understanding of the generation and use of electricity, the development of electricity had quite huge breakthroughs within a few years.

It has only been a little over 20 years since the establishment of the power laboratory, and the field of electricity 20 years ago and 20 years later has already changed tremendously.

In the European countries of 20 years ago, most countries did not know what electricity was. But now, streetlights are no longer unfamiliar to European countries, and electricity has entered the factories of European countries, becoming one of the indispensable energy sources for some Europeans.

It can be expected that the future field of radio communication is destined to usher in a period of rapid development. Who is the inventor of radio, Tesla or Marconi, is no longer important; what is important is who can gain the lead in the huge changes in the field of radio communication that follow, and whoever does so will be able to obtain huge benefits.

This is a more convenient communication method than wired telegraphs and wired telephones. When it becomes possible to realize wireless communication over dozens or even hundreds of kilometers in the future, the role of radio communication will be higher than that of wired telegraphs and wired telephones.

The two experiments on radio communication by Marconi and Tesla also caused European countries to attach importance to radio communication.

This technology has already demonstrated a quite important role, and European countries can naturally clearly recognize the huge influence of radio communication in the military field.

With radio communication, the army does not need long telephone lines to maintain contact with the rear. Although wired telephones and telegraphs can also maintain contact with the rear, the laying of telephone lines takes a long time and is also very easy to be intercepted or destroyed by the enemy.

Radio communication is different. Because there are no lines, the process of laying and maintaining lines is saved.

With only one radio transmission device and one reception device in two places, relatively fast contact can be achieved.

This is something that previous wired communication could not do at all; even if it takes several or even more than ten years to realize this technology, the strategic value reflected by radio communication is something European countries cannot ignore.

Gao Da, at the Royal Palace, naturally received the news of the successful experiment at the first opportunity.

Although this only represents the start of radio communication, Gao Da was still quite excited. The happy Gao Da waved his hand and had Butler Luo Lun prepare a large reward for Tesla and the other radio communication experiment personnel.

As the main researcher, Tesla's reward was the most generous. In addition to a check reward with a face value of up to 50, 00 pesetas, there was also a car from the latest production of the Royal Mercedes Car Company, a set of luxury real estate in Madrid, and hundreds of acres of farmland.

Because of the annexation of Morocco, the current Spain is not short of land at all. Gao Da also released news within Spain about localizing Morocco, with the goal of attracting some Spanish nobles to go to Morocco to develop land.

In any case, there is only the Strait of Gibraltar between the Spanish mainland and Morocco, and the two pieces of land are only 14 kilometers apart at their closest point.

This also means that, without the Strait of Gibraltar being blockaded, communication between the Spanish mainland and the land of Morocco will become extremely easy.

If Morocco can truly become part of the Spanish mainland, the land in Morocco is not much different from the land on the current Iberian Peninsula.

Some of the land in Morocco even has higher fertility than Spanish land. Under the premise of being able to exchange Spanish land for several times the amount of Moroccan land, there are still quite a few Spanish nobles willing to make the exchange.

After all, for these old-fashioned nobles who control land, their way of obtaining income is through collecting land rent and trading agricultural products.

The more land, the more rent collected, naturally. Morocco itself possesses a large population, and coupled with the fact that Spain will migrate many immigrants in the next few years, as long as one owns land in Morocco, there is basically no worry about renting it out.

Even if not rented out, one can cultivate and plant agricultural products themselves.

In any case, Spanish colonies possess a large amount of free labor; growing agricultural products themselves and then selling them to Gao Da's grain import and export company can also earn a large sum of money.

If they are those nobles with relatively abundant assets, they can also choose to establish their own agricultural trade companies and transport grain back to the Spanish mainland or European countries for sale.

Gao Da allows these nobles to establish their own grain trade companies. Of course, large-scale grain trade must be registered; doing so is also to more conveniently calculate Spain's grain production and grain import and export situation.

Perhaps the news released by Gao Da had an effect; originally, Spanish nobles were not keen on exchanging for land in Africa, and they were only interested in the most fertile African land.

But after the Spanish side released the news that they would manage Morocco as mainland territory, the intensity of Spanish nobles exchanging land increased.

The first piece of good news from this is that the Spanish government has obtained more and more land. These lands located on the Iberian Peninsula are the foundation of the country for Spain.

Regarding these lands, naturally, there is nothing to say. These are lands that nobles annexed from commoners over a long history, and naturally, they must be returned to the Spanish people.

Of course, the land certainly cannot be distributed to these people for free. These lands cannot be divided among every Spaniard; if distributed for free to a portion of people, for the rest, such a policy would be unfair.

The government still adopted the old method, dividing the land into two parts. The majority of it is sold to all Spaniards at a price slightly lower than the market price.

As long as one possesses Spanish nationality, one can purchase these lands at prices lower than the market price. However, there is an upper limit to the amount of land each person can purchase: each person can purchase at most one acre of low-priced land, and each household can purchase at most three acres of low-priced land.

Doing this is to prevent those wealthy people from buying up large amounts of the government's low-priced land and then reselling it to commoners at a high price.

Gao Da hopes that these low-priced lands can all be sold to ordinary Spanish people, rather than being a wedding dress for those capitalists and land nobles.

In addition to the majority of the land to be sold, the remaining small portion of land will be held by the government and rented out at a lower rent to those commoners who cannot afford to buy land.

Not all citizens can afford to buy land; for those more impoverished citizens, leasing a portion of land is the preferred choice.

Compared to nobles and capitalists renting out land, Gao Da trusts land rented out by the Royal Family and the government more. After all, the Royal Family and the government have integrity; land rent will not only be strictly executed according to the land rent act issued by Spain, but the rent will even be lower.

But if those nobles and capitalists were to rent out land, they would certainly set the land rent to the limit required by the rent act, and would not let go of even the slightest bit of profit.

Doing this, of course, has no problems at all; after all, they did not violate the country's decrees, and it can even be said that they strictly complied with the requirements of the land rental act.

Naturally, Yu Kaluo would not rebuke the capitalists and the nobility for this. All Yu Kaluo could do was to reduce the rent on land held by the government and the royal family as much as possible, allowing the people who leased government and royal land to obtain a little more income for themselves.

(End of chapter)