Ancient Communication: The Beginning of Information Communication

Animals also communicate with each other, but it cannot be called "communication." Ants touch each other's antennae, wolves make different sounds when they howl, and birds use various calls to express different meanings to their companions. Maybe they have found a good piece of food and want to share it with their companions, or maybe they have discovered the enemy and are notifying their companions to prepare for battle.

Communication is a human instinct, but long-distance communication began in the civilized era. One of the earliest recorded tools used by humans for long-distance communication was the beacon mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. The facility used to "send" the beacon was the "beacon tower."

According to the current classification method, beacon communication is a typical "store-and-forward" mode, half-duplex mode (two adjacent beacon towers can transmit information to each other but not to each other at the same time), broadcast mode (transmitted to all visible places), visual mode (must be within line of sight), wireless mode (no connecting wires), and digital (only two states: "no" and "yes") communication method.

When the troops on the beacon tower closest to the enemy discover the enemy, the guards will light the wolf smoke. The ancients used "wolf smoke rising everywhere" to describe the outbreak of war everywhere, indicating that the country was in crisis and the people were going to suffer! The troops on the beacon towers closer to the troops that discovered the enemy then lit the wolf smoke, which gradually spread to the country. Soon, the central government of the country learned that there was an enemy on the front line, and they either sent troops to reinforce or quickly picked a few beauties like Wang Zhaojun to negotiate peace. King You of Zhou, a famous tyrant in Chinese history, directed the farce of "playing with princes with beacon fires". He took advantage of the sensitivity of the princes to the beacon system, lit the wolf smoke when there was no enemy, and waited for the princes to send troops to rescue him. When the princes rushed to the scene, they found that it was just a joke. King You of Zhou's purpose was just to win Bao Si's smile, but he lost the trust of the princes. When there was really an enemy, no one came to rescue him.

This story gives us some inspiration:

First, the ancient military communication tools were simple but effective, and the transmission medium could make use of all natural forces and the surrounding environment;

Second, no matter how advanced the communication tools are, they still need the right people to use them in order to be effective;

Third, never joke about two things: one is called a war machine, the other is called a communication facility. And King You of Zhou violated both.

Human development has been going on for millions of years through several networks. The earliest was the water network. In the Mesopotamian Valley in West Asia, the Mesopotamian Valley in India, and the Yellow River Basin in China, fresh water nurtured hardworking, brave, and wise humans, and gave birth to a glorious and splendid ancient civilization; then came the road network. The use of post roads, post stations, and contemporary highways, railways, and air routes has made communication between people closer and closer. With the road network, humans created a means of communication in text language, which is what we often call "letters"; in modern times, the development of communication networks such as telephone networks, the Internet, and mobile Internet has allowed humans to enter a new historical stage. Therefore, it can be said that the history of human civilization is the history of the development of the network.

--Excerpt from "Dahua Communication"