Volume 2: Residence in the Capital Chapter 153 Fourteen Ring Key
Zhang Shou looked calm, but he was completely confused. He knew that the correct answer should have been to tell Zhu Ying that she was the prettiest. And he was really fond of the lively and bright Zhu Ying, and he enjoyed the feeling of being with her. But saying such corny words was not his style, so he chose to push the question back.
But Zhu Ying didn't say without hesitation that I am the prettiest and other women should stand aside, but said you are the prettiest...
This style of painting and this way of speaking are really like a young lady!
At this moment, not only Zhang Kang, Lu Sanlang and Zhu Er were dumbfounded, but even the Twelve Rains, who had different personalities, were also quite surprised. But after a moment of stagnation, it was still the girls who reacted the fastest. Qingyu, who had just been very angry at Zhang Shou's song "Song Xiang Xiang Tian Ge", couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"Mr. Zhang is indeed like the bright moon, making the stars like us dim. Miss is so lucky to have a fiancé like Mr. Zhang who is the perfect match for all the talents in the world."
This was a compliment, but it was ridiculed. Weinan Earl Zhang Kang frowned, annoyed that Qingyu ignored his status and didn't know whether to live or die. However, he didn't expect that the one who stood up and slammed the table was not Zhu Ying or Zhang Shou, but Zhu Er, whom he had almost ignored from the beginning.
"Even if my brother-in-law is the bright moon in the night sky, he is still one of the stars in the sky. What do you mean by comparing him with you?" Zhu Er slapped the cups on the table so hard that they jumped up, and his voice suddenly became louder. "Besides, he can be where he is today thanks to my sister's insight. He is so lucky!"
Lu Sanlang was immediately delighted. Zhu Er's words were quite good. He first praised Zhang Shou and then praised Zhu Ying. This was the first time !
Seeing that the other people in the Twelve Rains immediately pulled Qingyu behind them, and then the twelve stunning beauties hurriedly knelt on the ground to apologize, he smiled and said: "The dance is the dance of the devil, and the music is the music of the lilac. It is really good. Keep up the good work and try harder next time."
He didn't say anything about how to work harder next time. Seeing Zhang Kang make a gesture, Wan Yuanbao came up in fear and trepidation and drove out the music band and a dozen beauties. When they came up to explain something, he stood up and drove Wan Yuanbao away. Then he calmly closed the door and turned around to look at Zhang Kang.
"Master, we are old acquaintances. I, Little Fatty Lu, will honestly call you Uncle Zhang. I have already seen Twelve Rain's dance. You asked me to invite the young master here today. If you have anything to say, just say it! If you think that outsiders are in the way, I will take Zhu Er away. Miss Zhu, you can handle it yourself. Is that ok?"
Seeing Lu Sanlang stand up and drag Zhu Er out without saying anything, Zhu Ying hesitated for a moment, but lowered her head and said to Zhang Shou: "I'm outside, call me if you need anything, Shou." After saying this, she followed him out the door.
It was not until the door was closed that Zhang Kang burst out laughing and said, "Dr. Zhang has only been known for a few days, and the three people present here today have already impressed you. You really make countless young talents in the world lag behind. Well, the fat boy from the Lu family is right. If I keep hiding it, it would be too stingy. Let me show you something."
Zhang Shou thought that what Zhang Kang was going to give him was probably some kind of coded letter or something. However, to his surprise, Zhang Kang went to a cabinet in the corner of the room and took out a small box. When he placed the box in front of him, the Earl of Weinan opened the lid and saw a circle of densely packed rotating discs inside.
With just a quick glance, Zhang Shou discovered that the digital locks on the suitcases in his previous life mostly had three rings, or five rings at most, but the turntable lock on this box was truly spectacular, as it had fourteen rings.
However, when Zhang Kang turned one of the rings to show him, he discovered that, compared with the digital lock on a normal password box, there were words on the dial, and as Zhang Kang turned it one square at a time, he discovered that each square contained four words.
Zhang Shou smiled and asked, "Master, you don't want me to help you unlock this lock, do you? I want to ask, has Master asked anyone else to try?"
"Of course." Zhang Kang said seriously, "I have found top locksmiths, but when they learned that the lock core was made by Goryeo craftsmen who came to our dynasty to learn at the beginning of the founding of the country and combined the wisdom of their predecessors, and there is a self-destruct mechanism inside, they dared not use brute force. I also asked people to try many kinds of password combinations day and night, but they all failed. Because they couldn't spell out those known poems."
"Master, it's really not possible to try this crude method of rotating the characters one by one. Although this fourteen-ring lock uses characters instead of numbers from 0 to 9, so the possible key combinations are a little less, but each ring has four possibilities, and a full fourteen rings means a full 268435456 permutations and combinations."
At this point, Zhang Shou couldn't help but sigh. If the three-ring digital lock represents 10×10×10, a total of one thousand combinations, then this fourteen-ring text combination lock means that the number of combinations has reached four to the fourteenth power. Although it is slightly stronger than the fourteen-digit combination lock, which has ten to the fourteenth power, a full one hundred trillion possibilities, it is still enough to make people collapse.
Simply put, if you want to solve it using the stupid method of moving them one by one, assuming you can try 60 times per minute, with so many combinations, it will take more than 3,000 days, nearly ten years, to try 24 hours a day.
It's obvious that trying to do it at a constant speed of 60 times per minute is just a pipe dream! It's better to hope for good luck!
Zhang Kang was amazed by the long number Zhang Shou casually reported. Although Zhang Shou's words were similar to those of others, all of them expressed that there was no way out, Zhang Shou at least used a clear number to convince him. After a moment of silence, he whispered, "In the box is a blueprint kept in the Military Equipment Bureau, which is said to have come from Emperor Taizu."
Seeing Zhang Shou's surprised expression, he whispered, "During the turmoil in the early years of Emperor Ruizong's reign, the key to open the box was lost. Since then, the box has been shelved until today. Although every generation has tried, everyone has bad luck and can't open it no matter what. Master Ge and others also tried, but they all failed."
"Actually, I brought something to you today. No one knows about it, and it's not the emperor's order. It's just a whim of mine, so you don't need to think too much about it. I just hope you can think about it and see if there's any chance of solving it."
Seeing that Zhang Shou still didn't say anything, Zhang Kang sighed and said, "In fact, if it weren't for the news that you, Dr. Zhang, had cracked the secret letter and spread, I would have accidentally pondered the words on the turntable and found that they all came from the Thousand Character Classic. I wouldn't have thought of asking you for help."
It was not until he heard the three words of the Thousand Character Classic that Zhang Shou asked thoughtfully, "Besides the fact that all fourteen words come from the Thousand Character Classic, are there any other clues?"
"Others..." Zhang Kang was slightly stunned, and then he said thoughtfully, "It is said that the secret code of the box was set by Emperor Taizu himself."
Zhang Shou's first reaction was the supposedly hollow plaque inscribed by Taizu in the Jiuzhang Hall of the Imperial College. It wasn't that there were any secret edicts or even secret box codes hidden in it, but he discovered that Taizu, who was a man of great talent and strategy but also quite sentimental and even willful in some places, really liked to play these little tricks.
He pondered for a moment, then said frankly: "To be honest, based on what you said, I feel that there is little hope. I know you will not hand over the box to me, so please give me a copy of the four words on each ring."
Seeing Zhang Kang immediately agree with a smile, Zhang Shou thought to himself that he had become a cryptographer and mathematician without realizing it, and he couldn't help but feel a little funny. And taking this opportunity, he also put forward his own request.
"But I have a condition." Without waiting for Zhang Kang to say yes or no, he said casually, "I want to see a map. Not a map of the Ming Dynasty, but a map of the world. I heard from Eunuch Chu and Yingying Lu Sanlang that our fleet has been to the far west, so there must be corresponding maps or sea charts. I want to see how big the world is."
Zhang Kang thought Zhang Shou would propose some harsh exchange conditions, but when he heard this, he was stunned. After a long while, he said carefully: "I can lend you the map of the dynasty, but the map of the world is not so easy..."
Zhang Shou interrupted with a smile: "I just want to take a look at it myself and fulfill a wish. I don't need to borrow it to study it at home."
Faced with such a simple request, Zhang Kang hesitated for a moment and finally nodded.
"Okay, the Arms Bureau has always kept various maps of our dynasty. If you want to see them, I can take you to see them tomorrow."
The kind-hearted Zhang Shou only proposed such simple conditions. It would be very unkind of him to bargain further!
"Thank you very much for your help, sir. I will try my best. If I have no idea, I will reply to you as soon as possible!"
Zhang Shou laughed. He was a little interested in decryption, but he was not sure. He had thought of this condition a long time ago. You know, ever since Chu Kuan and Ge Yong told him something, he had a big doubt.
Large ships have been sailing around the world for some time. It seems that the Ming fleet even reached Europe, where people thought that there were all small and arrogant countries. However, the Ottoman Empire should have existed by then, and it was considered a great hegemon, so much so that later Europeans had to take a detour to the west to come to China, and they accidentally discovered America.
So, why did the Ming fleet think that the Ottoman Empire was a small country?
