On June 26th, the coast of Qingdao Port was crowded with people, lively and extraordinary, and the port was a guard of honor, with a red carpet on the floor, and a rostrum and viewing platform were specially set up to welcome the battleships returning from Germany with a grand ceremony.

With the sound of a long whistle, I saw a huge warship, towed by a tugboat, slowly sailing into the harbor, and the officers and men on the ship had already changed into ceremonial clothes, stood in line on the two sides of the warship, the turret, the bridge, and other parts, and waved to the crowd on the shore.

Although after a long journey, the side of the warship has been a little dirty, and there are even a lot of rust stains, but just looking at the total of eight thick gun barrels on the warship, it does not damage the prestige of the battleship. After all, only riveting steamed steel and heavy ship cannons are men's romance.

At this time, salutes were fired on the shore, colorful flags fluttered, and streamers flew to welcome the return of the warship, and there was also a burst of enthusiastic cheers from the shore.

In fact, this battleship is the same type of ship used by the Chitu-class armored cruisers of the People's Army Navy, but the width has increased by about 1 meter, which is also the ideological concept of the East China government warship design.

The main gun arrangement is also the same as that of the Chitu class, with two twin turrets in the front and rear, which are distributed on the central axis of the hull in a knapsack structure, but the caliber of the main gun is 280 mm and 45 radial times. The usual 305 mm caliber of this era was not used, but the battleships of this era were basically 4 main guns, so the firepower output of this type of battleship was still far better than that of the battleships of this era, and the main armor thickness of this type of battleship reached 220 mm, although it was slightly thinner than the main armor thickness of 230-250 battleships of this era, but because it was the best German Krupp armor of this era, the actual defense was not lower than the average at this time.

The construction of this warship in Germany took only 22 months from the laying of the keel to the formal sea trial, which is less than two years, which is a fairly fast construction speed in this era; on the one hand, the time required by the East China government is relatively tight; on the other hand, Germany hopes to build this warship as soon as possible to test its performance and combat power.

It turned out that although Germany adopted the design of the East China government, and responded to the new design concept of integrated fire control system and all-heavy guns on the newly built German-class battleships, it was still a little ahead of the Germans, and the Germans' character was more conservative, so there was not much bottom in mind.

However, the warship built by the East China government in Germany also applied these technologies, but the tonnage was smaller, so a considerable number of Germans thought that it was better to build the warship of the East China government first and see the effect. As a result, the Volken shipyard concentrated manpower and material resources and stepped up construction, while deliberately slowing down the two German battleships built at the shipyard. As a result, the construction of these two types of warships began at about the same time, but when the warships of the East China government were launched for sea trials, the completion rate of the two German battleships was only 40%.

The East China government also understood the intentions of the German side, but it welcomed it, because the East China government had absolute confidence in its own design ideas, and these technologies were the inevitable trend of the development of battleships. In the old time and space, the British dreadnoughts launched in 1907 fully adopted these technologies, and even went one step further, using steam turbines in the power system, and abandoning the universal three-rise reciprocating steam engine for better and more stable power.

In fact, the East China government is also actively preparing for the research and development of steam turbine technology, and cooperates with the Kiel shipyard in Germany to jointly develop steam turbines. However, due to the limited investment of the German side in steam turbines, which are only used as general technologies rather than key technology development, the speed of progress is not fast, and now only some prototypes have been produced and tested on some small warships, but they cannot be used on large warships. Therefore, the warship built by the East China government still uses a three-rise reciprocating steam engine.

The standard displacement of this warship after the completion of the test is 12,517 tons, which is also the normal level of a battleship in this era, and the maximum speed is 20.5 knots, which can reach 22.7 knots in the case of strong pressure and ventilation, which is comparable to that of ordinary cruisers, and the maximum speed of battleships in this era is generally about 18 knots. In fact, the speed of the warships designed by the East China government is about 2 knots faster than that of the same warships of this era, on the one hand, the warships designed by the East China government are optimized, and the structure is reasonable, which can greatly reduce the resistance of water and improve the speed of warships; on the other hand, the small water-tube boiler made in Germany is the best, and the power is higher under the same power conditions.

However, the disadvantage of this type of warship is that the endurance is not high, in the case of 12 knots, the range is only 3600 nautical miles, and the speed of 10 knots can only reach 4200 nautical miles. The endurance of ordinary battleships is at least 5,000 nautical miles, and some can even reach 8,000 nautical miles. This is mainly due to the fact that this type of warship is equipped with 4 turrets, and the knapsack structure design has increased a lot of weight, in order to achieve a design balance, it can only sacrifice coal storage space and reduce endurance.

However, the People's Army's positioning of this type of warship is to fight in the near sea, and the main opponent is the navies of Japan and Russia, and the farthest is only to fight in the South China Sea, and it is not necessary for it to carry out ocean-going operations, after all, the East China government has no ocean-going interests, so endurance is not a key function, and the impact of this deficiency is not great. After all, there is no such thing as a perfect warship, and the comprehensive purpose of warship design is to make trade-offs among various elements to achieve the goal that best suits one's needs.

In the salute and cheers, the warship slowly docked at the dock, and the command team Han Zhijun, Zhang Wenwang, and Liu Hao, who were responsible for receiving the ship, stepped off the warship, came to the rostrum, and saluted everyone. ”

Shang Jinfeng said: "Thank you for your hard work, thank you for driving the warship back smoothly." The following is the ceremony of naming and entering the ranks of warships. ”

Han Zhijun and the other three stood aside first, and then Xiao Jianjun got up and said: "I announce that this warship is officially named the Cadre, and from now on, it will join the People's Army Navy." ”

According to the naming rules of warships of the East China government, there is no restriction on the naming of the main warship, but the name of the main warship should be selected as a positive and enterprising and embodying the Chinese culture, so it is also appropriate to name the battleship with the name of the ancient famous sword, and another battleship of the same type that is being built by the East China government is named "Mo Xie".

Later, Xiao Jianjun announced that Han Zhijun would be the captain of the Cadre, Zhang Wenwang would be the political commissar, and Liu Hao would be the deputy captain, in fact, this had already been decided, otherwise these three people would not have been allowed to take over the warship, as long as they did not make any major mistakes on the way back, there would be no changes.

This was followed by the awarding of the military flag and the ship's badge, followed by a flag-raising and listing ceremony on the warship, which also marked the official establishment of the warship as a member of the KPA naval sequence. Xia Bohai and Qin Zheng also spoke separately, mainly to encourage all the crew members of the Shogun to train hard and strive to form combat effectiveness at an early date with the victory won by the People's Army and Navy.

Although the Cadre General has been officially listed, it is not yet fully combat-effective, and the KPA Navy will also conduct various tests on the Cadre General, which will be a test of the ship's weapons and train the crews to run in with the warship. The approved crew of the Cadremaster is 660 people, but the personnel who receive the ship are only 400 people, but the navy has organized more than 800 crew members to go on board the ship for training.

Finally, the East China Government expressed the East China Government's gratitude to Germany to the German Consul in Qingdao, and presented a medal and certificate to the German Volkeng Shipyard and the Kiel Shipyard, thanking the German side for building excellent warships for the East China Government, because in the Battle of Tsushima, Germany built and assisted in the construction of several warships for the East China Government had very outstanding performances, and made a lot of military achievements for the victory of the People's Army Navy.

The German Consul in Qingdao, Mr. Carmann, also received the medal and certificate on behalf of the two shipyards, and also spoke on behalf of Germany, saying that Germany has always attached importance to its relations with the East China Government and is willing to further deepen the cooperative relationship with the East China Government, strengthen the friendship between the two governments, and achieve common development.

However, after listening to Kalman's speech, the faces of the British consul Scholes and the French consul Giratino, who were watching from the viewing platform, were not very good-looking. In fact, Kalman's speech was all in response to the scene, and did not have much substantive significance. Moreover, this statement was also agreed by the German government.

Although the contradictions between Germany and Britain intensified, at this time, Germany was also unwilling to take clear sides. In fact, some people in Germany advocated not attending the ceremony to welcome the warship home, or not speaking at the ceremony, so as not to provoke Britain, but Wilhelm II did not do it, does this not mean that Germany is afraid of Britain? Moreover, there is still a lot of cooperation between Germany and the East China government, and the cooperation with the East China government cannot be affected in order not to stimulate Britain, what is this for Germany, and Germany does have its own ideas, so after the German government has consulted, it has decided to attend and speak, but try to use some clichés, which can be regarded as giving the East China government face and leaving room for Britain.

In fact, Scholes and Giratino understood this truth, but at this special time, the attitude of the German government still aroused the vigilance of Britain and France.