Chapter 1126 - Taibai Observatory
"I'm going to Jeju. Prepare a ship. Within a week."
"Yes, Official."
At that very moment, some distance from Lingao, in a place called "Hutou Village" in western Chengmai County, electric lights shone in the darkness.
Though Chengmai had been "blue territory" since victory in the Second Anti-Encirclement Campaign and was the first place to establish a preliminary county-level government, Committee institutions remained sparse there. Most were concentrated around the county seat. In the vast countryside, grassroots governance was only just beginning.
In this sea of darkness, Hutou Village's lights stood out starkly. The site was surrounded by water on three sides, connected to land only on the east. When the Lingao-Chengmai highway was built, a branch road connecting to this place was specially constructed. However, the branch road stopped abruptly before reaching Hutou Village—a trench had been dug at the land connection, separating it from the mainland to form an "island," connected only by a drawbridge.
As if the trench were not barrier enough, a high earthen embankment stood behind it, topped with barbed wire and guard towers. Electric lights cast a grim glow on the embankment's sole entrance—a tightly closed wooden gate. A wooden sign hung on the gate, bearing two large ink characters: "Restricted Area."
On this small "island's" coastline, dense reefs served as natural fortifications. Watchtowers monitored all threats from the sea. Weather permitting, Coast Guard patrol boats maintained twenty-four-hour surveillance of the surrounding waters—unauthorized vessels were not permitted to approach.
Sentries changed every hour. Dog-led patrol teams walked the shore, alert to any suspicious signs. They did not know what they were guarding so vigilantly. Most soldiers never entered the core area during their entire tour of duty: the compound on the hillside of this tiny island.
The compound was large, its walls built from local stone—high and thick. From outside, only the rooftops and towers protruding above the walls were visible.
The compound was equally heavily guarded. Apart from boxes being brought in by land or sea every few days, and other boxes being sent out, the gates almost never opened. But soldiers would sometimes hear sonorous bell tones from within the compound.
Some speculated it housed an "Australian Temple." But the bells did not ring as regularly as temple bells, nor did anyone resembling monks ever appear.
"Don't listen, don't look, don't ask, don't spread"—this eight-character maxim was whitewashed on the walls, adding to the location's mystique.
This was Hutou Village Observatory—the Committee's timekeeping center.
In an era without satellite navigation and positioning, timekeeping was critically important technology for a regional maritime power as dependent on shipping as the Committee. Ships navigating at sea needed accurate position fixes and course calculations based on latitude and longitude.
Latitude was easy to determine, being defined by natural law—the equator was zero degrees latitude, the poles ninety degrees, the same everywhere. Astronomical observations—whether using a sextant referenced to solar altitude or a star-board observing stellar positions—could quite accurately determine a ship's latitude. But longitude was different. The Earth kept rotating. There was no natural way to determine the zero-longitude position; it could only be artificially defined. Similarly, no celestial body could intuitively display longitude differences.
So people had long begun experimenting with using time to measure longitude. It was already known that the Earth rotated 360 degrees every twenty-four hours—each hour corresponding to fifteen degrees of longitude. If you knew the time difference between two places, you could determine the longitude difference. If noon at one place was 10 AM in London, that place was thirty degrees east of London. Thus, the longitude problem transformed into an equivalent question: how to measure time difference between two places.
In 1530, Dutch mathematician Gemma Frisius proposed using clocks to measure time differences and infer longitude. In his conception, a clock would constantly maintain one location's time (say, London), then be carried to a new location. By using solar altitude to measure local time and comparing it with the London clock, one could determine the longitude difference.
This concept was impossible to realize at the time due to clockmaking technology limitations, but it had preliminarily proposed the epoch-making concept of the marine chronometer.
Before satellite positioning systems came into use, it was precisely this concept that enabled seafaring vessels to break free from millennia of sailors' dependence on coastlines and island chains, sailing freely to any point on the ocean.
The Committee had no satellites. Equipping the fleet and merchant ships with marine chronometers had become an urgent priority.
Every ship that crossed over on D-Day carried multiple marine chronometers, but the expanding fleet and precision timing needs of various industries all created strong demand for timepieces. Currently, the Planning Committee's warehouses stored many clocks, watches, and components. Some Committee members had also brought large quantities of private watches. But relying on reserves was no long-term solution.
When the Science and Technology Department was established, the Executive Committee gave Zhong Lishi two primary tasks: precision timekeeping and radio technology. As Science and Technology People's Commissar, Zhong Lishi decided to personally tackle this problem.
For precision timekeeping, one first needed an accurate timekeeping institution—which required an observatory.
The Committee had once planned to establish an observatory at Gaoshan Ridge, but Zhong Lishi considered that location unsuitable. After comparing maps and conducting field surveys, he selected the 110-degree east longitude meridian as the meridian for determining local time.
The most suitable land-based observation point on this meridian was precisely this place called "Hutou Village." This observatory at fifteen meters elevation could not claim to be a proper observatory—merely a timekeeping facility. Nor was it an ideal site—too low in altitude, and the typhoon-prone, rainy climate gave Zhong Lishi headaches.
According to his submitted development plan, this site would only serve as a timekeeping station during the "First Five-Year Plan." After the second Five-Year Plan, another suitable location would be selected—ideally, conquering Greenwich would be best.
"If I were given an invincible fleet, the country I'd most want to attack would be Britain, and the place I'd most want to occupy would be Greenwich Village."
—Timekeeping and Longitude
By Imperial Academy of Sciences Academician Dr. Zhong Lishi Taibai University Press, First Edition 1645, Second Edition 178th Printing 1655
Without Greenwich as an observatory, Hutou Village served well enough. Sea and land transport were convenient here, close to Lingao, in the heartland of their rule, easy to guard—the observatory would house much "black technology" brought from the old timeline, making security work paramount.
After Hutou Village Observatory broke ground, a certain literary-minded Committee member felt "Hutou" was an idiotic, rustic name. Using the coincidence of this location in western Chengmai, he associated it with the legendary Western Divine Beast, the White Tiger, changing "Hutou" to "Taibai"—giving "Hutou Observatory" a name that nearly made Dr. Zhong wet himself: "Taibai Observatory."
Taibai Observatory was equipped with transit instruments, astronomical clocks, shortwave time-signal radio stations, and much other equipment. Radio time signaling was black technology only the Lingao Navy flagship was authorized to use. Radio technology solved the marine chronometer's accuracy problem from another angle.
This was also where the Science and Technology Department's clock workshop was located. The compound contained four test towers for testing weight-driven clock mechanisms, with lightning rods installed on each. Zhong Lishi's home, "Taibai Mansion," was also here. Later, Taibai University developed around the observatory.
"Father, Father." A delicate hand gently pushed Dr. Zhong's shoulder.
"Mmm… can't eat any more…" Dr. Zhong mumbled as his coat slipped to the floor.
"Father…" the voice carried some exasperation. The owner of the delicate hand crouched down, picked up the coat, and draped it over him again. "The Executive Committee is holding an expanded meeting!"
"Hm?!" Dr. Zhong's body stiffened. His eyes snapped open. "Tell them to wait—I'm coming right away!"
(End of Chapter)