Telegraphs and Codes

News of the Mexico uprising didn't reach Europe for about a month, and then it didn't cause much of a stir there. After all, Mexico was simply too far away for most Europe. Only the Spain ambassador to France submitted a weak protest to the France Europe, demanding that France curb heretical activities within their borders and control the flow of weapons.

"Juan, you know, the principle of religious freedom is stipulated in our Code." Talleyrand calmly accepted the protest handed to him by the Spain ambassador and casually placed it in his desk drawer. "Although I myself, and anyone with even a little knowledge of religion, know that this so-called 'Revolutionary Theology' is heresy, it's legal in our country. Damn it, unless they do something extraordinary, we can't legally restrain them, but heresy itself, and proselytizing itself, are beyond our control. At least in France, and within its territory, it's legal. You may not know, but right now in France alone, there are five or six bastards claiming to be the living Jesus. You see, we haven't sent them all to prison, because it's a matter of religious freedom and freedom of speech."

"As far as I know," Ambassador Juan said, "Mr. Minister, there are five of these 'living Jesus,' four of whom you have locked up in a mental hospital."

"That's because their family applied to the hospital and received a diagnosis from the hospital and a qualified doctor. This is a medical matter, a medical matter, how can it be considered locking them up?"

"But isn't there another 'living Jesus' that you've sent to prison?"

"Oh, which one is in prison, but he's not in prison for religious reasons. I'm sure he wasn't arrested for religion. Well, we in France are a free and democratic republic, and the France people have the complete freedom to believe in any religion or not believe in any religion, or to believe in one religion and then not believe in another, or even to believe in all religions at the same time. In our country, no one is imprisoned for religious reasons. As for the other one you mentioned, he's in prison for causing death through unlicensed medical practice—this guy said he touched..." "Touch the patient, blow on them, and shout 'I am Jesus, I command you, may the disease be removed from this person,' and you'll be cured. But this delayed treatment and caused the patient's death—you see, if that patient hadn't died, we certainly wouldn't have arrested him. In short, our government has no right to issue bans on matters of religious belief." Talleyrand spread his hands, looking helpless. "However, this heretical theory is so absurd that if your country strengthens theoretical education and raises the people's knowledge level, you should be able to quickly refute their erroneous views and thus solve this problem."

Well, Ambassador Juan knew that on this issue, he was unlikely to get any help from the France, who were essentially devout Catholics. If we're talking about heresy, is there any greater heresy than the France Church these days? Even Lutheranism, even Protestantism as a whole, at least the Holy See dares to call them heretics. Unlike the France, who are clearly heretics, yet the Holy See doesn't dare to say so.

"And what about weapons control?" Ambassador Juan asked.

"Ah, that's not a big problem," Foreign Minister Talleyrand agreed with unusual ease. "Our two countries are allies, and we will not provide assistance to each other's enemies. You can rest assured that we will not sell them weapons. Well, I think I can tell you with certainty that we have not sold any weapons to Mexico."

"However, as far as we know, the Mexico rebels are armed with France weapons," Ambassador Juan said.

"This must be smuggling," Foreign Minister Talleyrand said without changing his expression. "You know, the Americas are a vast, sparsely populated place, especially Louisiana. Most places practically have no laws. The only truly effective law protecting a person's personal safety and property is the gun in your hand. There's a saying: 'The New World of Freedom, gunfights every day.'"

So unlike in Europe, weapons there can be freely sold. And technically, they are very difficult to control. For example, a group of new immigrants might be planning to go further north to farm, but that area is infested with Native Americans and United States bandits. In order to peacefully purchase Native American furs—I'm talking about furs sold by Native Americans, and to prevent them from becoming boots in the hands of United States —we must ensure they have enough weapons to protect themselves.

So in Louisiana, not only could all kinds of guns be freely traded, but even cannons, including the latest rifled cannons, could be legally purchased—as long as the buyer was France. This was because, to the north, the Britain, United States, and even Native Americans were already known to be dragging cannons out to rob people. We couldn't just stand by and watch them use cannons to bully our immigrants.

Mr. Ambassador, I can assure you that if a Mexico crosses the border into Louisiana and tries to buy weapons at a gun shop, they won't be sold even a small paring knife unless they have legal status—and if any gun shop violates this rule, we'll fine them so badly they won't cry. But if they wait outside a gun shop, grab a France about to go in, shove a dollar into his hand, and try to buy him a few guns, that's something we really can't control. It's not that we don't want to—you know, we have a significant shortage of law enforcement personnel on the New World side—it's just that we genuinely can't control it.

Of course, we will strengthen border patrols and intercept smugglers as much as possible. Your country should also strengthen border patrols to prevent arms smuggling."

At this point, Talleyrand suddenly smiled and said, "However, Ambassador Juan, as you know, the border between Louisiana and Mexico is too long. Completely sealing off such a long border is not easy, it's even impossible. Therefore, completely cutting off the rebels' weapons supply is not easy. Alternatively, there's another solution: why not have your country directly purchase more and better weapons from us? After all, your country's financial and human resources far surpass those of the rebels. With the addition of our advanced weaponry, I believe your country will definitely be able to successfully quell the Mexico rebellion."

Looking at Talleyrand's sincere, radiant smile, Juan almost couldn't resist throwing his white glove at his face. However, he restrained himself and said to Talleyrand, "Mr. Minister, our two countries are allies, and our country has always upheld the alliance and cherished our friendship. I hope that at this time, we can sincerely help each other, so that the ship of our friendship can withstand the storms."

After saying this, Ambassador Juan took his leave. He then rushed back to the embassy, wrote a report on his dealings with the France that day, and then transcribed it into a secret code, which he sent back to his country via a wired telegram from Paris to Madrid.

By this time, commercial telegraph lines already existed between France and Madrid. However, these lines were operated by France companies, so important, confidential messages had to be sent using code words. Even so, this was still insecure. The telegraph company would record these messages, and with enough archives and corroboration with current events, deciphering these code words was not difficult. Furthermore, considering that cryptography had not yet emerged in this era, the so-called "code words" were extremely rudimentary, at best resembling simple phrases like "Heavenly King covers the Earth, Pagoda suppresses the River Demon," or "The earth shakes the high hill, a landscape of eternal beauty; the gate faces the sea, three rivers converge and flow for ten thousand years."

However, on the France side, there was a time traveler named Joseph. Although he only knew the name of cryptography, he had some knowledge of permutations and combinations, and knew the general direction. In this era, knowing these things, and possessing conditions that others simply didn't have (the ability to automatically obtain all the telegrams sent by others), coupled with the fact that the people of this era had virtually no sense of secrecy, each one like the KMT of later generations, using the same code for many years without ever changing it, meant that later, when the White Eagle wanted to send false information to Japan, one of their common methods was to first pass the false information to the KMT.

In contrast, although the Chinese coding skills were equally terrible back then, the Locust Army always thought that they could decipher the Chinese code in two months at most. However, this never happened until the Locust Army surrendered - because the Chinese changed their codebook once or twice a month.

Therefore, the coded messages used by the Spain government were virtually indistinguishable from plain text in the eyes of the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Police. The France already knew what Ambassador Juan had said the moment his message was relayed. And when the instructions from Spain came back, Lucien learned of these things even earlier than Ambassador Juan. After all, Ambassador Juan had to wait for the telegraph company to deliver the telegram and then translate the text himself (for secrecy, these coded messages were not to be known by others), while Lucien could directly obtain the translated content over the telephone.

"Hmm, very good, the Spain are decisive... What? How could the Spain do this? They, they are too..." Lucien, who received the report, was also startled by the Spain's decision.