After leaving Shanghai by boat, the receiving team sailed south, through the South China Sea, through the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean, then turned northwest, diagonally across the Indian Ocean, entered the Red Sea, and entered the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal.

The voyage spanned almost half the world, covered more than 15,000 kilometers and took 52 days to reach the port of Hamburg on January 30, 1903.

When the two passenger ships arrived in Hamburg, they were warmly welcomed by the German side, and the port greeted the ship receiving team not only Xu Dingsheng, responsible person of the East China Government's commercial representative in Germany, Rear Admiral Xia Jie, Major Huang Zhe, and other Chinese, but also representatives of the two shipyards responsible for building warships, as well as representatives of the German military and government, totaling nearly 100 people. In addition, there were nearly 200 reporters and more than 50 cameras set up at the port, including reporters from other European countries.

After all, although China was opened by the European powers at this time, it has been more than 60 years, but for the Europeans of this era, this ancient country in the East thousands of miles away is still full of countless mysterious mysteries and fantasies, so as long as it is from China, it will be full of curiosity in Europe, 7 years ago Li Hongzhang visited European countries, and there was a storm of Li Hongzhang in the whole Europe, and everywhere he went, Li Hongzhang was one of the stops in Germany, and was received by the German government at that time, and also visited Bismarck, the retired iron-blooded prime minister at that time, leaving a story of the meeting between Bismarck and the East and the West。

Although the members of the ship receiving team who came to Germany this time could not be compared with Li Hongzhang in terms of identity and status, they were even more legendary, because they were born out of thin air, defeated the Eight-Nation Alliance, and saved the fate of the Qing Dynasty; although they defeated their own side, first, such wars were really commonplace in Europe, and European countries did not have much to lose; second, they also made the legend of overseas Chinese stronger, which naturally attracted the media of European countries to seek after them.

The pamphlets on the origins of overseas Chinese have long been translated into many languages and distributed in Europe, including a German translation. It is also said that there are a lot of treasures preserved on the island where the overseas Chinese originally lived, and whoever can find this sunken island will immediately become rich overnight, and the geographical location of the island is not clear in the pamphlet, which is believed to be the overseas Chinese deliberately concealing the location of the island in order to facilitate their future salvage. As a result, the search for the islands where overseas Chinese originally lived became the most enthusiastic research of European adventurers. And read between the lines in the booklet to judge, analyze, and reason about the location of the sea area where the overseas Chinese originally lived. Now the visit of real overseas Chinese to Germany will naturally arouse the great attention of the entire German society.

The passenger ship stopped and the gangway was lowered, Xu Dingsheng and Xia Jie first went up to meet Zhang Wei, the person in charge of the ship receiving working group, greeted each other, and met with other key personnel one by one, and introduced representatives from the two shipyards. The German side had already arranged a place to live in a hotel for the ship-receiving team, because there were many people this time, and it was impossible to arrange for them all to live in a hotel, but fortunately, the members of the ship-receiving team were basically soldiers, so they were all arranged to live in the naval barracks in Hamburg, and four people shared a room, and at the same time, the German side also arranged for more than 50 horse-drawn carriages to take them to the barracks together.

Zhang Wei, Xu Dingsheng, and Xia Jie shared a carriage, and Xu Dingsheng told Zhang Wei that the German side would hold a grand welcome banquet for the working group tomorrow, and that many important members of the German military, political, and business circles would attend. Admiral Tirpitz will attend, and a press conference will be held before the banquet, and after the welcome banquet is over, Zhang Wei and the main members of the receiving team will rush to Berlin to receive a meeting with Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Zhang Wei couldn't help but be shocked when he heard this, the banquet was held, Heinrich and Tirpitz participated, all of which were expected by Zhang Wei, and only the meeting of the Kaiser was indeed very unexpected. Because even in the time and space before the time and space, except for the princes of the Middle East, the emperor and the king are only symbols of the country, and have no real power, but the monarch personally receives foreign guests, which is generally an extremely important diplomatic relationship, not to mention that the vast majority of monarchs in this era still hold most of the power of the country, so it is extremely courteous to be able to meet with the king of a country in foreign affairs activities.

It's just that from what Zhang Wei knows, Wilhelm II is an arrogant, high-handed, and self-respecting and clever person, and often has a brain-opening whimsy, especially Wilhelm II is still an advocate of the * theory, so why did he give such a high courtesy to the East China government?

In fact, Germany is a rather pragmatic nation, and there is a necessary reason for attaching such importance to the East China government. The construction of the two warships built by Germany for the East China government was going very smoothly, and by this time it had come to an end, and the two warships were not only launched, but also carried out two sea trials at the shipyard, and in the second sea trial, the two warships ran at a high speed of 22.1 knots and 22.3 knots respectively.

Although in this era, a warship running out of 22 knots is nothing, but this is only the second sea trial, and the power of the engine is less than 7 percent, that is quite not simple, the engineer responsible for building the warship estimates that if the power reaches more than 9 percent, then the speed will be able to reach about 25 knots. In the era when reciprocating steam engines were used as power, this was indeed a god-speed speed.

Since the German state had already purchased the design of this type of warship, it was natural that it had also sent officers to participate in these two sea trials, and was very satisfied with the sailing performance of the warship, mainly its speed, and was now waiting for the traversers to complete the design modification according to their opinions, and then start building it on its own.

The military cooperation between the two sides did not stop there, the lead ship of the Braunschweig-class battleship modified by the traverser had been launched, and after two sea trials at the shipyard, it was expected to enter service in 1904, and the German navy was very satisfied with all the powerful firepower of this type of battleship with a displacement of more than 14,000 tons and the addition of four secondary guns.

Even Britain on the other side of the Channel was shocked when they learned about this type of warship built by Germany, because the concept of the second-class main gun had just appeared in Britain, and the first type of Edward VII-class battleship built by Britain with a second-class main gun had just begun construction, and it would not be put into service until at least 1905, which meant that after the German Brunswick-class battleships were put into service, and for about 1 year or so before the Edward-class battleships were put into service, the single combat effectiveness of all British battleships was inferior to the Braunschweig-class battleships。

Although this gap is less than a year, and Britain still has an absolute advantage in the absolute number of battleships, and the experience, tactics, traditions, etc., of the navy are not comparable to Germany, in the past 200 years, Britain has been ahead of the world in naval technology, at least 5-10 years ahead of the main opponents, this is the first time that the crown of the strongest warship has been ceded.

Although the combat effectiveness of a warship cannot be measured purely by firepower, the quality of Germany's Krupp armor is above the British Vickers armor, and now the firepower has caught up, the only thing that reassures the British is that the main gun of the Braunschweig-class battleship is 280 mm, which is smaller than the 305 mm caliber of the British battleship, but the British also found out that Germany will use 305 mm main guns in the next type of battleship, the German-class battleship, so it cannot help but make the British nervous.

As a result, British newspapers also used what "Germany has built a more powerful battleship than Britain", "The British Empire has handed over the crown of the strongest battleship", "The crisis is coming-the German Brunswick-class battleship is launched", "Will the British Royal Navy be weakened from now on"? and other sensational headlines reported the news, which also greatly satisfied the vanity of Wilhelm II, and at the same time understood that if you want to develop the German navy and create a fleet that can compete with the British Royal Fleet, you must cooperate with overseas Chinese, because only overseas Chinese can design better warships than Britain, and let the advantages of Germany's strong manufacturing capacity be brought into play. In addition, the cooperation between the two sides in the field of steam turbines and integrated fire control systems is also progressing steadily.

And the military cooperation between the two sides is not only limited to the navy, the German Army is also full of praise for the mortar designed by the traverser, believing that the value of this weapon is by no means under the Maxim switch-off, with the mortar, it can greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the German army, and the French M1896 75mm field gun is not in danger, so the army also hopes to cooperate with the traverser again to see if it can find any good things from the traverser.

In addition to military cooperation, the economic cooperation between Germany and the East China government is also extremely tight, in 1902, the trade volume between the two sides exceeded 35 million German marks, ranking 9th in countries or regions outside Europe, Germany exports mainly machinery, instruments, munitions, high-quality iron and steel to the East China government, and imports are mainly minerals, raw materials, grain, and this is only in the first year of the formal establishment of the East China government, with the development of the East China government, the trade between the two sides has room for further expansion.

In addition, with the springboard of the East China government, Germany's industrial products can also be sold to China in large quantities, and the economic benefits to China are much higher than when Qingdao was occupied before, although many Germans still fantasize about retaking Qingdao, but even people like Wilhelm II, who often have their brains open, understand that Qingdao will basically never come back.

In this environment, strengthening cooperation with the East China government has become the main consensus of the German military and business circles, so the German government decided to give a high-standard courtesy to the ship receiving team, although Wilhelm II looked down on China in his heart, he must also make a friendly appearance with the East China government.