The concept of full firepower output and unified salvo is naturally an advanced new battleship design concept in this era. However, the shelf life of this advanced concept is running out, in the old time and space, it was the British in 1907 built a launching suit on the battleship Intrepid, equipped with 10 305 mm guns, the side can concentrate 8 main gun salvos, and installed an integrated fire control system, and the use of steam turbines as power, really applied this concept to practice, thus also creating a new era of battleship technology.

The Dreadnought battleship became a watershed moment in battleship technology, all battleships before the appearance of the Dreadnought were called pre-dreadnoughts, and after the appearance of the Dreadnought, all battleships were called pre-dreadnoughts, simply dreadnoughts.

The Traverser was looking for an opportunity to sell the idea to Germany before the expiration of its shelf life, in order to gain more benefit for itself, otherwise the Dreadnought would be worthless as soon as it came out. Of course, the traverser does not just want to earn the 160,000 pounds in design fees, but to maintain military cooperation with Germany, and now the East China government's own military technology is still very fragile, and needs the support of a military industrial power like Germany. In addition, it is also to enhance Germany's strength, involve the energy of Britain and France, and make the situation in Europe more complicated, so as to reduce the intensity of interference in the Far East and make the East China government have more room for development.

So the design agreement was finally reached, and when the traverser picked up the ship and returned, Germany sent technicians to Shandong with the ship, and before June, it first received the design drawings of the new Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers, and the design drawings of the new German-class battleships, which the traverser promised to deliver to Germany before the end of the year.

At this time, the overhaul and commissioning of the two new warships has been completed, and the ships can be tested again, because at this time, the two warships have actually been completed, and this will be a comprehensive sea trial to test the comprehensive performance of the warships. Moreover, in order to facilitate the work of the ship-receiving working group, the working group and the two shipyards also negotiated and decided that the two warships would enter the sea trial together, so the day before the sea trial, the staff of the Kiel shipyard drove the warship to Hamburg and anchored at the dock of the Blom-Foss shipyard, and after the end of this sea trial, if the warship did not have major breakdowns, it would stay in Hamburg, and the Kiel shipyard would send staff to carry out routine maintenance and commissioning work here.

The day before the sea trial, the working group also formed two batches, officially stayed in the two warships, and on the evening of the same day, they lived on the two warships, and if the two warships did not have to return to the shipyard for overhaul after the sea trials tomorrow, then in the following time, all the personnel, including Zhang Wei, all lived on the warships, and this is also the practice of the navy; as long as the warships did not enter a state of rest, even if they were anchored in the harbor, the officers and men of the whole ship would also live on the warships, and this was a way for the soldiers to cultivate their feelings for the warships.

Although the KPA had not yet officially received the two warships at this time, since the two warships had been officially accommodated, it was natural that the KPA Navy warships should be raised on the warships, and a temporary captain should be designated, and at the same time, the two warships should be named. At that time, the temporary captain was also a long-established candidate for captain, and he could only be formally appointed after returning to Shandong.

The two shipyards have no objection to this, after all, the two military ships were originally intended for the traverser, and the time for delivery is not far away. So in the afternoon of the same day, the receiving team held a small naming ceremony on the dock, as well as the appointment of the temporary captain. The warship built at the Blom-Foss shipyard is the first ship, officially named the Qingzhou ship, and the warship built at the Kiel shipyard is named the Yizhou ship, and according to the Haizao convention, the name of the first ship is the class name of the warship of this class, so this type of warship is also collectively known as the Qingzhou-class protective cruiser.

The temporary captain of the Qingzhou ship was named Xia Ruichen, who was originally the chief navigator of the Sanya ship, and the temporary captain of the Yizhou ship was called Lei Meng, who was originally the chief of the mechanical and electrical captain of the Sanya ship, and the two of them also served as captains of the two ironclad ships Zhenyuan and Zhenwei respectively.

After the naming and appointment, the flags were raised on the two warships, and the East China government still uses the flag before the crossing, but because the two warships have not been officially delivered to the East China government at this time, the German flag and the flags of the two shipyards are still on the warships.

He Xin and Zhao Ping were assigned to the Qingzhou ship, He Xin was in the navigation group, Zhao Ping was in the turbine group, Yang Shicheng was in the naval artillery group, and Guo Qing was in the Guantong group. The personnel of the Qingzhou ship is 500-550 people, and now there are only more than 200 people living in the warship, even if the staff of more than 100 shipyards are added, it is far from the full number, so the accommodation is very relaxed.

Although the two warships have not yet been officially received, and they are docked at the shipyard dock, the navy still strictly follows the regulations and arranges personnel on night watch. And Scheer, who stayed with him on the warship, also had a little more admiration, because the Germans have always been known for their rigor, so Scheer also praised the traverser's approach.

The departure time was at 6 o'clock the next morning, and at 5:30 a.m., Zhang Wei got up, and after a simple freshening up, he walked out of his room and met Scheer on the deck, so the two came to the command room together.

At this time, the sky was not yet fully bright, but through the porthole of the command room, you could still see the masts in the harbor, the street lamps of the stars on the coast, and even the crowds of people coming and going on the pier. About 100 meters away, dark gray smoke could be seen coming out of the chimney of the Yizhou ship, which had apparently begun to ignite. Presumably the same is true of the Qingzhou ship. After a while, I saw Hans Cowell, the chief commander of the shipyard on this trial voyage, walking into the command room with Xia Ruichen with his pipe.

Hans Cowell is a 65-year-old man who has served in the German Navy for 7 years as a cruiser captain, retired with the rank of colonel, and 12 years as a merchant captain, and then worked as a trial commander at the Blom-Forss shipyard for 6 years. However, in the era of his service, Germany had not yet built a large navy, so the warships served by Cowell were not large, only 4 or 5 thousand tons, and in the past few years when he served as the commander of the sea trials, it was at a time when Germany was vigorously developing the navy, and there were several warships under his command of the sea trials, and he often sighed that if he could command such a warship back then, he would not have retired before the age of 50.

The first two sea trials of the Qingzhou ship were all conducted by him as the trial commander, so he was full of praise for the performance of this warship, and once told Zhang Wei that this was the best sailing performance he had ever seen. This time it was a trial of two warships together, with Cowell as the commander-in-chief of the trial.

In fact, the two of them got up earlier than Zhang Wei, got up at 5 o'clock, and just now they tested the whole ship together, and then they came to the command headquarters, saw Zhang Wei and Sher, and the four of them greeted each other, Cowell looked at his pocket watch and said: "We are about to set sail in less than 10 minutes, and I hope this trial voyage can be a complete success."

It was the first time for Scheer to board the Qingzhou ship, and he had heard that the Qingzhou ship had good sailing performance, so he was quite eager to try, and said, "I have waited a little bit and is not worried." ”

Cowell smiled while filling his pipe with tobacco: "Young man, you should be a little patient, this is indeed a good warship, and we in Germany are also preparing to build this warship, the order has been signed, we will build two at the Blom-Foss shipyard, so I decided to do it for a few more years, at least to try our German warship first." ”

Then he turned to Zhang Wei and said: "Germany can have such a good warship, thank you." ”

Zhang Wei smiled and said: "There, it is still thanks to Germany's construction ability that we can turn our ideas into reality." ”

And for this old-timer, Scheer also has great respect and said: "I suggest that you work for at least another 10 years, because we will build more powerful warships." ”

Cowell smiled and said, "I am already old, and the future of the German Navy will be handed over to you young people, and I hope you can create a glorious era for the German Navy." ”

Zhang Wei said meaningfully: "I believe that with the efforts of Major Scheer's generation, the German Navy will bring its glory." Of course, Zhang Wei knew the final outcome of the German Navy in this era, although it ended in self-sinking, but in the First World War, it was indeed the most glorious era of the German Navy, because the German Navy was the first army to be able to challenge British maritime supremacy head-on.

At this time, someone came to report to Kewei that the time had come to set sail, and that the boiler of the Qingzhou had reached the standard of sailing, and the Yizhou ship came with a flag to say that they were ready to set sail at any time. In addition, the tugboats in the port are also in place. So Cowell immediately ordered the Qingzhou ship to anchor and set off.

With the sound of two whistles, the two huge warships slowly left the harbor and entered the sea one after the other, pulled by the tugboats, and at this time the sky also flashed a pale red glow.

However, at this time, the warships were still towed by tugboats, because the mouth of Hamburg is a very narrow waterway, which is of course compared with the wide sea, but in fact it is about 10 kilometers wide, the depth is more than 10 meters, and close to the Elbe, so tens of thousands of tons of cargo ships can directly dock in Hamburg, and cargo ships below 10,000 tons can even drive along the river to Berlin, and more than 1,000 trade ships reach or sail from Hamburg through the waterway every day, so a large number of ships must be towed by tugboats.

And taking advantage of this time, sailors and soldiers took turns to go to the dining room for breakfast. After more than an hour, the two warships finally passed through the waterway, the sailors in the bow untied the cables of the tugboats, and the steam engines of the two warships began to operate, relying on their own power, and sailed into the sea.