If he wanted to recover the cost of the telegraph machine, he had to rely on the power of the merchants. This was the same method as the cost recovery of the railway. When the railway was built, the cost was extremely high, but with the large number of merchants using it, the cost was quickly recovered.
Among them, more than 90% of the income was obtained from transporting goods for the merchants. The income of the transportation personnel was relatively lower. Most of the people at the bottom took the train. The railway bureau did not have any profit. It was a little benefit given to the ordinary people by the imperial court. Moreover, the people at the bottom did not have much money. If the price was high, they probably could not afford to take the train. In this way, it was too inconvenient for the people to travel.
However, the price of the train ticket could be differentiated according to the quality of the carriage. However, telegrams were the same. The price seemed to be difficult to differentiate, but in fact, it could be differentiated. There was a difference between an urgent telegram and an ordinary telegram.
Although no matter what kind of telegram it was, the cost was the same when it was sent. However, there was a difference when it was sent out and when it was sent out.
In the case of the limited number of telegraph machines, if many people sent the telegram at the same time, the order could be included in the price. If one wanted to send out the contents of their telegram earlier, they could pay more to achieve it.
Similarly, when the contents of the telegram were sent to the destination county, someone needed to send the contents of the telegram to the receiver. A county was not big, but it was not small either. For the letters within the county, it was not difficult to send them on the same day. However, for the letters from remote villages, if there were not enough messengers, it was very likely that it would be delayed for a few days. For example, if the telegram was sent to a few villages today and another few villages tomorrow, the telegram might be delayed for many days. This was a very common phenomenon in many villages in the future.
For ordinary people, it was not a big deal to receive a letter a few days later. However, for many merchants, a delay of half a day would cause them to suffer heavy losses. They valued the timely transmission of news very much. This provided the imperial court with an opportunity to differentiate the grades of telegrams.
At that time, according to the priority order of sending and sending, the telegrams could be divided into ordinary, urgent, and special urgent grades. The corresponding time for each grade was different. The special urgent grade was the fastest, the urgent grade was faster, and the ordinary grade was the slowest. In terms of price, the special urgent grade was naturally the most expensive, the urgent grade was more expensive, and the ordinary grade was the cheapest.
According to such a price arrangement, when ordinary people used the telegraph, they would definitely choose the cheapest ordinary type. When merchants passed on messages, they would usually choose the express type with higher service standards. As for big merchants and urgent situations, they would definitely use the express type. When the imperial court passed on government decrees, they would all use the express type that was free of charge. This was the imperial court's privilege, and ordinary people and merchants could not compare.
After Ang Lee told them about the ordinary, urgent, and special urgent telegrams that he had in mind, the ministers beside him all agreed. The classification of trains could reflect the difference between nobles, merchants, and ordinary people. Similarly, in the field of using telegrams, this difference could also be reflected.
Although merchants were rich and could receive better service than ordinary people, the imperial court and nobles had supreme power. This was something that merchants could not compare to. Regardless of whether a merchant took a first-class ticket or used an urgent telegram, it would cost a lot of money. On the other hand, nobles and officials of the third rank and above could directly take a first-class ticket for free. They did not have to spend a single cent and even had a higher priority than merchants. As for the imperial court, they could obtain the highest priority of using an urgent telegram for free. As long as the imperial court needed to send a report, all merchants' news would have to wait.
"Urgent telegram, urgent telegram, ordinary telegram … Assistant Minister Li's idea is really amazing. How should we determine the price? How much should we charge for an urgent telegram? How much should we charge for an urgent telegram? What about ordinary telegrams? "
One of the ministers asked.
Before Ang Lee could answer, another minister beside him interrupted, "The price can't be too high or too low. If it's too high, merchants won't be able to afford it. If it's too low, ordinary people will come every day to send telegrams, which will take up a lot of resources. Especially at the beginning, when there aren't many telegrams, it's naturally better to have a slightly higher price." "That's right.
The price can't be too low. In the early stages, it should be so high that ordinary people won't be willing to use it unless there's an urgent need. Such a price is considered appropriate. This is only for ordinary telegrams. If it's urgent, ordinary merchants will feel that it's expensive. If it's an urgent telegram, even big merchants won't dare to use it casually. When there are more telegrams, we can gradually reduce the price. "
Ang Lee said. After thinking for a while, he continued, "An ordinary telegram costs 200 copper coins per telegram, an urgent telegram costs 500 copper coins, and an urgent telegram costs 100 copper coins. This price is already very expensive. I don't know how many people are willing to use it!"
This price was casually mentioned by Ang Lee. It wasn't calculated by the system, nor did he consider how long it would take to recoup the cost. It was just a very high price to let all the people of the Tang dynasty know that telegrams were very expensive items. The cost of using telegrams was also extremely high.
Of course, Ang Lee had every reason to believe that as long as telegrams were introduced, there would definitely be people who would be the first to eat crabs. For many rich people with millions of copper coins in their pockets, it wasn't a big deal to take out their money to try something new. This could show that they were different from the others and directly stood shoulder to shoulder with the imperial court. As for ordinary people, they would definitely not spend that money in vain. Unless there was an urgent matter and the distance was relatively long, it would be more expensive to send someone directly. In this case, they would choose to use telegrams to send messages.
Later, after the popularization of telegrams, the price of telegrams could be appropriately reduced. Thus, ordinary people, as long as they had a certain need, would choose to use telegrams to send messages. This was especially true for people who were far away and had a need for communication. They needed telegrams to send messages.
Since ancient times, there had been a saying that pigeons were used to send important messages because pigeons were flying in the sky. Their speed was faster than horses, so the speed of sending messages was naturally faster. However, no matter how fast pigeons were, they couldn't be compared with the speed of telegrams. Pigeons and horses had a great advantage in sending messages over short distances. However, once the distance exceeded dozens of miles, the advantage of telegrams was incomparable to these animals.
In addition, although pigeons were relatively fast, they also had a fatal weakness. That was, the distance of transmitting information was very limited. They couldn't achieve long-distance transmission. It was still possible to send messages over dozens of miles, but if it was hundreds or thousands of miles, the pigeons were completely useless.
This was because the principle of pigeons sending messages was to use the pigeons' nature of returning to their nests. It wasn't that the pigeons could send messages by themselves. In other words, before sending the message, the pigeons had to be taken away. When the pigeons needed to send the message, the letter would be tied to the pigeons' legs, and then the pigeons would be released. When the pigeons flew into the sky, they would rely on their own judgment of the environment to find their nests when they left home.
As for how the carrier pigeons located their nests, there were many scientists' opinions. Some said that the carrier pigeons had a magnetic field discrimination function. Some said that the pigeons had better vision. Some said that they had a sense of smell. However, most people thought that it was the effect of the magnetic field because vision and smell couldn't cover dozens of miles! Only the magnetic field could ensure that the carrier pigeons could find their nests dozens of miles away.
In addition, since the carrier pigeons used the pigeons' characteristic of returning to their nests to transmit messages, then this was enough to show that the carrier pigeons' transmission had a unidirectional characteristic. It could only be transmitted from one place to another place, and it couldn't be transmitted back again.
But in fact, there were also some carrier pigeons that could transmit messages in both directions. These pigeons were the result of training since they were young. Their nests were in one place, but their breeding place was in another place. As a result, these carrier pigeons would run back and forth between the two places, so they could transmit messages to humans on the way.
However, this kind of carrier pigeons that could transmit messages in both directions could only achieve short-distance transmission. If the places where they ate and slept were too far away, the pigeons wouldn't be able to handle it. The difficulty of training would also be very high. Therefore, as long as the distance was a little far, the pigeons could only be used to transmit messages unilaterally.
However, the characteristics of the pigeons were fixed, and the intelligence of humans was flexible. Even if the distance was a little far, a solution could be found. That was to build a pigeon nest at the two places that needed to communicate. Then, the pigeons would be brought to each other's nests. In this way, the pigeons could transmit messages back and forth across long distances.
In addition, a good carrier pigeon wouldn't stay in an unfamiliar place for market price. After they were released, they would return to their nests at the fastest speed, so that they could send important messages to humans in time.
Of course, the premise of carrier pigeons delivering messages was that they must undergo a certain degree of training. If they weren't trained, the reliability of carrier pigeons would be greatly reduced. Only trained carrier pigeons could deliver messages more reliably to the designated destination.
In normal times, the role of carrier pigeons didn't seem to be so important, but once a devastating disaster occurred, carrier pigeons, the most primitive form of communication, were often the fastest and most effective way.
This was because once a dangerous situation occurred, the roads were likely to be blocked. Regardless of whether it was a person or a horse, it would be difficult to pass through the blockade, and they wouldn't be able to deliver important messages. Carrier pigeons could fly, and they were relatively small, so they wouldn't be so easily discovered. Thus, they could cleverly avoid the blockade and deliver urgent messages.
In order to ensure that there were no mistakes, people who used carrier pigeons to deliver messages would often prepare a large number of carrier pigeons. If the situation was extremely dangerous, they would even release multiple carrier pigeons consecutively. This way, as long as one carrier pigeon could arrive safely, the message would be delivered. This was to prevent any accidents from happening to the carrier pigeon halfway.
When Ang Lee proposed the astronomical price of the telegraph machine for commercial use, the few ministers beside him were all shocked. Then, they nodded in agreement. After all, the cost of developing and manufacturing the telegraph machine was too high. It was normal to raise the price a little in advance. Moreover, this wasn't coercive. Those who were willing to use it shouldn't complain about the high price.
Chen Xilie blinked and felt that something wasn't quite right. He said, "Assistant Minister Li, it's not enough to just divide the telegram into ordinary, urgent, and special. It has to be divided into word counts! If a telegram is only three to five words long, it will be sent quickly. If it's tens of thousands of words long, wouldn't it take a long time? How can the price be the same? "
"Yes, yes, Minister Zuo is right. There has to be a limit to the word count of the telegram. If there are too many words, the cost of time will be too high. Naturally, the price has to be increased."
"Assistant Minister Li, Minister Zuo is right. Even telegrams have to consider the word count!"
Chen Xilie's words immediately gained the approval of many ministers. Even Ang Lee agreed with Chen Xilie's words.
"Haha, Minister Zuo is right. Indeed, we should consider the word count. The more words there are, the higher the price."
Ang Lee said with a smile.
Charging fees according to the number of words had always been the rule in the later generations. Therefore, most of the time, people who sent telegrams would try their best to reduce the number of words. This way, they could save a lot of money. Some people even sent one word, two words, or three words to save money. It was very common. Telegrams that were more than ten words were very rare. Only when the imperial court sent a telegram would they send a long and tedious message. This was to prevent the message from not being conveyed properly and making the person who received the message unable to understand it.
The reason why the price had to be based on the word count was because telegrams were sent word by word. Each word would take up a word's worth of time. The more words sent, the more time it would take. Because there weren't many telegrams, many people had this demand. Therefore, if one person wasted too much time, the use of the telegram would be limited. Moreover, the more content sent, the more work the telegram operator would have to do. The harder it would be, the higher the price would naturally be.
In addition, other than the word count, there was also a difference between expedited telegrams and normal telegrams. However, the later generations mainly considered the word count. Expedited telegrams didn't increase the price by much. Only the word count was the main cost.
According to the price that Ang Lee had just given, if it was two hundred copper coins per word, it seemed a little too expensive. Moreover, if it was always a telegram of one or two words, it wouldn't allow the recipient to understand the content and meaning of the telegram accurately.
Therefore, Ang Lee felt that there should be a word count range. For example, telegrams of less than ten words would be the base price. Then, every additional word would cost a lot of money. This way, telegrams with too many words could be avoided and greatly increased the efficiency of telegrams.
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