Only 29 hours after the appraisal report was sent back to Germany, Qingdao received a reply from the German government, which expressed great interest in the comprehensive cooperation plan proposed by the traverser, and planned to send a special envoy to Qingdao to discuss cooperation matters with the traverser in detail, and at the same time, it would also send naval experts to conduct a detailed evaluation of the drawings provided by the traverser.

However, the German envoy's visit to the island will be carried out in secret, so it is hoped that the traveler will keep it secret, and the German government has also given assurances that Germany will not participate in any actions against China until the two sides negotiate.

It was not surprising that the German government agreed to negotiate with the travelers, but it was unexpected that the reply would be so fast. Because the traverser still underestimated the desire of the Germans for these three types of warships.

At present, Germany is bent on developing its own ocean-going navy with the British Navy as its goal, hoping to build a high seas fleet that can compete with the British Grand Fleet, so as to strive for greater overseas interests. After the reunification of Germany, the economy developed rapidly and its national strength became stronger and stronger, and now it is the world's largest industrial power and second largest economic power.

On the other hand, Germany's scientific and technological strength is also second to none, the Knooper armor produced by the Knoober company, and the British Harvey armor, the United States Vickers armor and known as the world's best three warships use the surface hardened carburized armor, and the Knoober armor is recognized as slightly better than the other two types of armor, and the German Zeiss company is also the world's best optical instrument and equipment company, can produce the best optical sight in this era, so whether it is financial or technology, it has not become a shackle for Germany to build a strong navy。

However, Germany now lacks the most experience and concept in the design of warships, such as the three major elements of a type of warship, firepower, protection, and speed, whether to use high freeboard or bottom freeboard, how to match weapons, how to distribute armor, etc., as a traditional continental country, Germany's accumulation in these aspects is basically a blank. To put it simply, the current Germany is not able to integrate various advanced technologies together to build a powerful warship, so it can only rely on its own slow exploration. Therefore, Germany successively built several types of warships, such as the Brandenburg-class battleship in the German fleet and the armored cruiser Count Bismarck, all of which were unsuccessful designs.

The Majesty-class battleships, the Old Man class battleships, and the Cressey-class armored cruisers are all the main ship types of the British Navy at present.

The Majestic-class battleships were designed by Sir William White, a famous British naval designer. The use of Harvey steel armor plates allows for adequate protection with less weight, and the armor-covered hull is curved under the armor belt to meet the lower edge of the plates, thus improving internal protection. At the same time, a new 305 mm main gun was used, and armor-piercing shells were fired with smokeless gunpowder, which greatly improved the penetration ability and greatly reduced the weight.

A total of 9 battleships of this class were built, which was the most equipped type of battleship in the British Navy since 1860, and it was also the standard model of battleships in this era.

The main technical parameters of the Majesty-class battleships are: length 128.32 m, width 22.86 m, draft 8.38 m, standard displacement of 14,900 tons, full load displacement of 16,317 tons, maximum speed: 17.5 knots, armament of 2 305mm twin guns, 12 152mm guns, 16 76mm guns, 12 47mm rapid-fire guns, 5 457mm torpedo tubes, the first ship Majestic (Majestic) was commissioned in December 1895, and the last ship Lllustrious was commissioned in April 1898.

The Old Man Star Battleship was designed to be deployed in the Far East to counter and contain the rapidly expanding Japanese Navy and the expanding Russian Pacific Fleet. The Old Man's Battleship is equipped with the same armament as the Majesty class, but with reduced armor thickness, making it lighter and faster. Moreover, the Old Man Star Battleship was the first type of battleship to use a water-tube boiler, which could provide higher power and greater economy, and the Old Man Star Battleship consumed only ten tons of coal per hour at full speed, which was more necessary for ships that were stationed overseas for a long time and lacked supply points.

The main technical parameters of the old man-rated battleship are: length 131.1 m, width 22.6 m, draft 7.9 m, standard displacement of 12,950 tons, full load displacement of 14,320 tons, maximum speed: 18.3 knots. Three ships have been built, the first ship Canopus commissioned in December 1899, the second ship Goliath in March 1900, the third Ocean, commissioned in February 1900, and the British Navy plans to build three more.

It turned out that the British task of the cruiser was to escort, reconnoitre, report and show force, which were all low-intensity tasks, rather than fighting at sea and competing for sea supremacy, so the British cruisers of the same era were lagging behind the armored cruisers of other countries in terms of protection and firepower.

However, cruisers generally have the characteristics of good navigation performance and large endurance, and armored cruisers also have a certain degree of protection and relatively strong armament, so some countries often use armored cruisers as a battle to break diplomatic relations, and even cooperate with battleships to fight. And in the face of the challenge of armored cruisers of various countries, British cruisers will not be able to escort shipping. As a result, Britain also correspondingly built armored cruisers that were comparable to similar ships in various countries in terms of firepower, protection and speed, and even required victory, in order not to fall behind in the defense of shipping.

The Crecy-class armored cruisers were the product of this line of thought. Its main technical parameters are: length 121.84m, width 19.81m, draft 7.32m, standard displacement of 12,000 tons, the first ship Cressy (Cressy): commissioned in 1900, the British plan to build a total of 5 ships of this type.

However, the reputation of this type of warship in the old time and space is not good, in the Battle of the Ostend Strait in World War I, a German U9 submarine sank three Cressy-class armored cruisers in this battle, creating a brilliant record of submarine warfare, which is recorded by history, but for the Cressie-class armored cruisers, it is a shameful record.

But in any case, the manufacturing process and design level of these three types of warships are undoubtedly the highest among the warships of this era, and if Germany can get the drawings of these three warships, it will undoubtedly raise the design level of Germany's warships to a higher level. Because the level of craftsmanship and manufacturing in Germany is higher than that of Britain, the warships built with the same drawings are of course stronger than those in Britain. Therefore, after receiving the report of the appraisal team, Emperor Wilhelm II immediately summoned his ministers for consultation, and everyone agreed that they should negotiate with overseas Chinese and strive to obtain the drawings of these three types of warships.

Of course, the decision to negotiate with the traverser was not only due to the urgent need for the drawings of the three types of warships, but also because there was another important factor, which was that the situation in China had changed dramatically.

Just as the German Consul General in Tianjin, Qin Moman, arrived in Qingdao, the consuls of Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Russia, Italy, Austria and other countries in Shanghai also held a meeting in Shanghai to formally discuss and negotiate the British proposal to form a multinational coalition to expand the scale of China's fighting. However, this meeting deviated from the original theme from the beginning, and instead became the beginning of the division of the Eight-Nation Alliance.

And the cause of the split lies with Russia.

After Britain put forward the proposal of forming a multinational coalition to expand the scale of China's battle, Russia was one of the first countries to respond, and also from the Far Eastern Fleet stationed in Vladivostok, eight warships, including the battleship Navarin, the armored cruisers Rurik and Grombowie, the large protective cruisers Varyag and Zhuangshi, the destroyer Razbernik, the shallow gunboats Manchurian and the Urals, were stationed in Port Arthur to fight against overseas Chinese and defend the Russian colony.

The traverser also intended to annihilate the Russian fleet after it entered the Bohai Bay. After bypassing the Tsushima Strait, the Nachi Russian fleet sailed into the port of Incheon in South Korea on the pretext of anchoring and refueling. At first, no one cared, because this kind of thing was normal, and after the Russian fleet entered the port of Incheon, it stopped and did not leave, and 3 or 400 soldiers were transferred from the ship to the shore and stationed in the Russian embassy.

At this time, Japan immediately became nervous, because according to the provisions of the two [Japan-Russia Agreements] signed by Japan and Russia, the power of the two countries in South Korea was equal, and the Russian fleet stationed in the port of Incheon did not leave, which meant that the balance of power between Japan and Russia in South Korea was broken.

The Japanese have not forgotten that the incident of the relocation of the Russian Embassy on the Korean Peninsula four years ago was that the Russian Legation in the DPRK transferred 150 soldiers and one cannon from the Russian warship anchored in Inchon to Seoul (present-day Seoul), the capital of Korea at that time, under the pretext of "strengthening the defense of the Legation." In response to the escape of the Korean King Yi Hee from the Japanese-controlled Gyeongbokgung Palace, and hid in the Russian Legation in the DPRK under the protection of Russia. As a result, Japan was completely passive in Korea and was unable to make great concessions to Russia, thus changing the situation in which Japan became the dominant force in Korea after the First Sino-Japanese War.

Now that the Russians are doing such a thing, how can they not make Japan nervous? If there is another incident similar to the relocation of the Russian Pavilion in South Korea, Japan will probably be completely squeezed out of the Korean Peninsula by Russia. On the one hand, he sent people to lodge a strong protest with Russia, accusing Russia of violating the [Japan-Russia Agreement] and unilaterally changing the status quo on the Korean Peninsula, and on the other hand, he urgently dispatched a fleet to South Korea to offset the imbalance caused by the Russian fleet.