Chapter 72: Chapter 70: The Caravan’s Journey and Personnel Selection (Part 2)
Due to the unknown interstellar trajectory in the Damo Realm, satellite communication is currently unavailable.
Under these circumstances, there are only two ways to achieve signal transmission in a short period:
Establish relay stations or use wireless beacons.
It is well-known.
When using microwaves and ultrashort waves to transmit signals, once the distance between two terminal stations exceeds the line of sight,
the signal will begin to attenuate rapidly, making it impossible to maintain signal quality.
A relay station refers to a station set up between two terminal stations.
The relay station amplifies, shapes, and converts the carrier frequency of the incoming signal from the previous station before forwarding it to the next station.
This extends communication distance and maintains good communication quality.
Considering the trade caravan departs in ten days, the ground relay stations are out of the question.
Thus, only two relay methods are feasible at present:
Drone relay or balloon relay.
Among these two methods, drone relay is the most impractical.
The drone relay operates at a height of 300-2000 meters and is applicable within 200 kilometers—for example, when exploring the camp at Xiaolianzi Mountain, a drone relay was used.
However, when the distance exceeds 1000 kilometers, drone relay becomes somewhat unstable.
After all, not a few people in the Damo Realm can fly.
Foundation Establishment Stage cultivators can reach heights close to 300 meters with full effort, and in the Core Formation Realm, one can reach altitudes of one to five thousand meters.
These cultivators are not interstellar players; their eyesight is exceptionally good.
Who knows if when they see a drone, they’ll send a flying sword and chop it down—though the rabbits aren’t worried about drones being exposed, since technology and cultivation are two completely different civilizations.
According to the natives of the Damo Realm,
when they see a mechanical device like a drone, they might just think it’s some family’s magical artifact.
However, once a drone is captured or blown up, its relay function vanishes completely, rendering signal transmission entirely ineffective.
Balloon relay is similar.
The rabbits’ balloon relay technology isn’t top-tier; for 1000 kilometers, at least 11 relay balloons are needed—the bear next door can manage 7 for the same distance, which is one of the few communication technologies they have better than ours.
So after eliminating the two relay methods, only wireless beacons remain.
Radio beacon communication is quite complex, its propagation characteristics determined by the frequency characteristics used.
Simply put, long waves can cover thousands of kilometers, medium waves hundreds, shortwaves can reach globally through ionospheric reflection, and anything above ultrashort waves can only be transmitted in a straight line.
Sometimes, a mountain being one Pandora unit too high can significantly affect communication signals.
Considering the distances between cities, only two bands are currently feasible:
Long wave or short wave.
Shortwave requires ionospheric reflection, but unfortunately, the camp still knows very little about the ionospheric characteristics of the Damo Realm.
After all, with three suns in the sky, it’s hard to predict what high-energy particles might look like—in an unknown world, the starry sky is not an area that can be easily understood.
So after ruling out all other possibilities, only one remains:
Using long waves for radio transmission.
Again, it is well-known.
Long wave refers to radio waves with a frequency below 300kHz and a wavelength ranging from 1000m to 10000m.
The transmission capability of the long wave band is indisputable, but setting it up presents a particularly challenging problem—
it requires an enormous long-wave antenna array, larger than ten Er Gens... alright, let’s say, a hundred times bigger than ten Yuren Er Gens.
This antenna array is so massive that even the rabbits hesitate to build it recklessly—in our country, long waves are generally used in the maritime industry.
Yes, the maritime industry, big blackfish small flat tops, and the like, we’re not familiar with.
"Ten days... don’t know if that’s enough."
Lin Li pressed his temple with his thumb knuckle; this was another significant event following the Twin-headed Ox.
Considering the caravan’s journey could involve the upcoming battle, and the antenna array is not something the camp can decide on, Lin Li quickly wrote a report, which Lin Ziming personally delivered back to Modu.
Three hours later.
Lin Ziming returned with a new pinhole... no, new instructions:
The core layer will secretly transport a set of 40-meter parabolic reflector antenna arrays from Jiaoao City; since the Damo Realm has no radio interference methods, this array’s maximum communication range can reach 3600 kilometers.
This antenna array covers about 2560 square meters, and assembling and debugging it within ten days is completely feasible. (I spent an hour checking all publicly released array data nationwide, this unit in Jiaoao was retired a year ago and stored, there’s no risk of dismantling it being discovered, its assembly took 400 people 17 days, and debugging took 33 hours, doubling the manpower in the Damo Realm should reduce the time to ten days reasonably)
Meanwhile, the core layer also requested the camp to promptly list the personnel for this mission.
After delivering the instructions, Lin Ziming stayed directly in the command center and discussed the selection of personnel with the many leaders still in the camp.
"My view is to send several personnel to accompany the Wei Mansion’s caravan,"
Deputy Team Leader Zeng Gu Cheng first spoke up; he had been busy assisting military experts in fine-tuning trajectories recently:
"This time, our trade volume is not small, and there’s a lot of spirit stones. If we only send a few people, is there a possibility... well, though everyone who came to the Damo Realm are committed warriors, I don’t think there’s a need to deliberately create an environment to challenge people’s desires."
"Agreed!"
Ma Ning raised his hand in agreement:
"I suggest that the Ministry of Commerce take the lead on trade personnel, four to five people, and we should also arrange a few leaders from the camp to follow, and ideally dispatch an elite team to accompany them along the way."
Hua Jun, due to the potential purchase of talismans, was also brought into the meeting and asked:
"Gentlemen, I have two questions.
First, if the trade volume is large, how is all that material transported along the way?
The various parts of more than two thousand demon beasts likely weigh at least five tons conservatively, right?
The second question is...
If we are to trade, why must we follow the Wei Mansion’s people rather than independently sending a group for transactions?"
Lin Li and Zeng Gu Cheng exchanged a glance, and then he slowly said:
"Academician Hua, the first question involves a secret of the Wei Mansion, and since everyone is present and with sufficient clearance, I’ll be straightforward:
The Wei Mansion has a spatial bag that can store around five hundred cubic meters of materials—similar to a 10x10x6 specification, something left by Comrade Wei Siming as a family heirloom."
Noting everyone’s astonished expressions, Lin Li pointed at Zeng Gu Cheng and said:
"Old Zeng and the others once examined this spatial bag; unfortunately, they couldn’t decipher any principle—not even any.
Therefore, we have never publicly mentioned this matter.
Additionally, given its critical importance to the Wei Mansion, we returned it to them after a rough study.
This time, the core layer agreed to our trade plan during a time of near-full transportation for two reasons: to prepare for the battle and to possibly purchase a spatial bag of our own."
After Lin Li finished, Zeng Gu Cheng sighed softly:
"Space technology, space technology..."
For a while, the command room was engulfed in silence.
Space technology.
These four words need no explanation; any intellectually normal person on Earth can understand its significance.
After a while, Lin Li continued:
"As for Academician Hua’s second question, I also discussed it with Director Shi while awaiting the main camp’s response.
He told me that caravans like the Wei Mansion’s usually have their own unique resources and connections, and they can reach many merchants we can’t access—this is the ’qualifications’ we currently lack."
Furthermore, the highest cultivation in our camp at present is Comrade Cao Yi, who is at the peak of First-Layer Qi Cultivation.
Think about it.....
A group of mortals carrying tens of thousands of spirit stones going shopping, what would happen?
Even though we have firearms that can temporarily compensate for cultivation gaps, those cultivators are not aware of these concepts.
While everything might be fine when reaching that city, what if we reveal our wealth? Do we have to fight our way back?"
Hua Jun pondered for a moment, then nodded slowly:
"Then I have no more questions."
Then Lin Li looked around and said:
"In that case, let’s decide on the personnel for this mission. I suggest that the trade personnel be composed of officers from the Ministry of Commerce, four or five people, and then our camp can also arrange for several officials to accompany them, preferably along with a team of elites for the journey."
Hua Jun, also involved in the meeting for possible purchases of talismans, spoke up:
"Gentlemen, I have two questions.
First, if the trade volume is large, how will we carry all the supplies along the way?
More than two thousand demon beasts in various parts must be about five tons, conservatively, right?
The second question is...
If we want to trade, why do we have to follow the Wei Mansion people instead of arranging our own team to trade?
Again, Lin Li looked around the room and said:
"In that case, let’s decide that the trade personnel will consist of officers from the Ministry of Commerce, and the accompanying team will be led by Colonel Lin Ziming, with Staff Officer Gu Junming from the Armored Regiment bringing an elite team along."