Unconsciously, the warship in the dock was rising at a speed that was imperceptible to the naked eye, until the deck was more than 1 meter above the ground, and the seawater in the dock had been fully filled, and more than a dozen staff members who remained on the ship ran back and forth to check the condition of the hull, in fact, there were more than 10 staff members in the bottom cabin to check the sealing of each compartment.

After more than half an hour of inspection, there was basically no big problem, so after the German engineering award was awarded, the ceremony of launching the warship also reached the most important part, that is, undocking.

Li Ya first ordered the gate to be opened, only to hear a "creak", "creak" and "creak" harsh metal grinding sound, the two gates of the dock slowly opened, and the two tugboats that had been waiting at the dock mouth immediately slowly fell into the dock, and threw the stern cable to the staff on the deck of the warship, and fixed it on the deck. Then the two tugboats started together, dragging the warship, and slowly drove out of the dock.

On the edge of the dock, there was once again warm applause and cheers, the workers were struggling to wave the small colored flags in their hands, many people jumped up excitedly, and the military band also played majestic music, and when the warship was dragged out of the dock, firecrackers were also set off, which also made the whole atmosphere reach the most.

After the warship was completely towed out of the dock by the tugboat, two more tugboats came over, and the four tugboats worked together to push the warship to the outfitting table and fixed it on the shore in preparation for outfitting. After the warship is undocked, the dock gate will be slowly closed, and the drainage will be cleaned in preparation for the construction of the next warship. The German side has already sent back news that the second batch of shipbuilding contracts between the East China Government and Germany has been signed, and the Qingdao shipyard will soon start building two more armored cruisers, and this dock will soon be used again.

And Li Ya has also announced that the launching ceremony of the warship has only ended. Gradually, the workers dispersed, some went to the outfitting table to prepare for new work, and some returned to the slipway of another warship, because the next step was the launching of this warship, but the launching of that warship was not part of the ceremony.

The East China government officials who participated in the launching ceremony also got up one after another, shook hands with the staff one by one, and expressed their congratulations on the successful launching of the warship, and Xia Bohai and Qin Zheng also exchanged a few words with the representatives of the businessmen, welcomed their arrival, and hoped that their examination in Qingdao would go smoothly, and the East China government attached great importance to the development of national industry and commerce, and sincerely welcomed them to invest in Shandong, etc., before leaving the shipyard.

The industrial and commercial group continued to visit the shipyard, and Li Ya first took them to visit the launch of a warship and gave them a detailed introduction to the details of this type of warship. Of course, Li Ya did not hide it, and told him very frankly that this type of warship was designed by the East China government itself, and a total of four warships were built, two of which were built in Germany, and the two ships built in Qingdao were sent by Germany to guide the construction of the Qingdao shipyard, and most of the materials, equipment, and weapons used in building the ships were imported from Germany, so these two warships could not be completely built by themselves, at most they could only be regarded as self-assembled. However, through the construction of these two warships, the shipyard has accumulated experience in building warships, and has trained a group of shipbuilding technical workers, and the East China government is also gradually improving its own industrial system, planning to complete most of the supporting systems of warship manufacturing in 10 years, and achieve complete autonomy in warship construction.

In fact, this mode of purchasing foreign materials and equipment, inviting foreign experts to guide the construction, and assembling and building by oneself, and even the design is purchased from abroad, is also very common in the enterprises founded by the Western-style movement, and even many Westernists have become accustomed to it, so the East China government purchases materials, equipment, and weapons from Germany and builds warships on its own, which is also a very normal thing in the eyes of the businessmen, but no one thought that overseas Chinese would have such a grand goal to achieve complete autonomy in the construction of warships.

Some businessmen, such as Sheng Xuanhuai, know very well that the construction of warships completely autonomously is a rather large system, involving steel, smelting, steam engines, boilers, Weapons and other supporting systems, the need for related factories may be as many as hundreds, this is the original Qing court Western-style officials did not dare to think of building a completely independent construction of warships of the whole system, overseas Chinese boasted that it would take only 10 years to complete this system, if it was someone else, Sheng Xuanhuai would definitely disdain, but overseas Chinese never say suspense, and overseas Chinese have done many impossible things in the past two years, so Sheng Xuanhuai can only half-believe this.

After introducing the situation of the shipbuilding, Li Ya introduced the situation of the shipyard, the management organization, the distribution of powers and responsibilities, the production process, supervision and supervision, etc., and then led the businessmen to visit other warships under construction in the shipyard.

Although the performance of the Qingzhou-class protective cruiser is superior, it is a large protective cruiser after all, and the cost is relatively expensive. Escort, in the current People's Army naval sequence, will not be built in large quantities, so it is necessary to design a type of small tonnage, and the price is cheaper, can be built in large quantities of protective cruisers, both ocean-going and offshore cruising combat capabilities, and Qingzhou-class protective cruisers to form a high and low match, which is also the East China government's shipbuilding plan of the 3500-ton medium-sized protective cruiser.

The design of this type of warship was finalized in November 1902, and the dimensions of the hull were: 95 meters long, 12 meters wide, 4.8 meters, and a displacement of about 3,500 tons; the ship's armament was: one twin 155 mm main gun in the front and rear, two twin 100 mm guns in the secondary guns, four twin 75 mm guns, and four twin 50 mm rapid-fire guns; armor was 100 mm thick in the lower part of the dome, 60 mm thick at the top of the arc, 150 mm in the main gun armor, 100 mm in the secondary gun, and 180 mm in the headquarters armor; and the power was: two 5,000 horsepower reciprocating triple steam engines and 12 boilers, with an estimated speed of 22-23 knots. The cost is expected to be around 80-900,000 silver.

Compared with the Qingzhou-class protective cruiser, the displacement of this type of warship is only about 6 percent, the shipboard weapons are reduced to 4 percent, and the armor has also canceled the side armor, only the dome armor is retained, and the speed has also dropped by about three knots, but the cost is considerable, and a Qingzhou-class protective cruiser can build about 2.5 warships of this type. In addition, although the firepower, defense, and speed have been greatly reduced, it is still possible to carry out the task of breaking diplomatic relations and escorting the enemy, after all, it does not require very strong combat effectiveness to complete these tasks.

This type of warship was built in January 1903, because at this time the steel mill was able to produce the keel steel of this small and medium-sized warship, as well as homogeneous steel plates, so the self-production of materials has been greatly improved, it can be said that in addition to the armor steel plate, other hull steel can basically be produced by the East China government, which can be said to be a major progress in the self-production of ships.

And after having the experience of building the Qingzhou-class protective cruiser, the traverser also began to try to build this type of warship independently, all the workers were employees of the Qingdao shipyard, and all the German technicians did not do it themselves, but only provided consultants and technical guidance when necessary.

In addition to this medium-sized protective cruiser, the traverser also designed two types of destroyers, also according to the height of the configuration, the high-end type 1 tonnage between 1500-1600, the length of the ship is 90 meters, the width of 10 meters, the draft of 3.5 meters, equipped with weapons for the front and rear each of the twin 125 mm diameter of the main gun, two twin 75 mm diameter secondary guns, four twin 50 mm rapid-fire guns, triple 530 mm * two launch tubes, speed of 24-25 knots. The main task of this type of destroyer is to be able to cooperate with the main warship in ocean-going operations.

The low-end type 1 has a tonnage of about 1,000 tons, a length of 86 meters, a width of 9 meters, a draft of 3.2 meters, and is equipped with weapons for each front and rear a single 125 mm diameter main gun, two single 75 mm diameter secondary guns, four twin 50 mm rapid-fire guns, two twin 530 mm * launch tubes, and a speed of 21-22 knots. The main tasks of this type of destroyer are coastal patrols, escort ships, fishing protection, maritime security, and operations in inland waterways.

Since the technical level of the construction of these two types of destroyers is relatively low, and the requirements for hull materials are not high, the general steel is enough, and the shipboard weapons can also be produced by the Qingdao Arsenal, only steam engines, boilers, A small number of construction equipment such as motors need to be imported from Germany, so the self-production rate has also been further improved, and the construction began in November 1902, and now it has been basically formed, and it is expected to be launched within a month, but because these two types of destroyers are too inconspicuous, and the destroyer belongs to the role of cannon fodder in the naval sequence of this era, the traverser has not carried out much hype.

After taking a turn in the Qingdao shipyard, the businessmen of the industrial and commercial delegation were quite touched that although this shipyard had the original German low, two years after the overseas Chinese took over, they were able to achieve the current state and technical ability, which is quite rare when measured by the standards and efficiency of the Qing court in the past. Businessmen in Shanghai have heard that overseas Chinese attach importance to industry and commerce, similar to European countries, but after all, they have not seen it with their own eyes, and none of these businessmen have ever been abroad, so they do not have an intuitive feeling, and in the minds of businessmen, it is probably similar to the factories and enterprises such as Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and Tianjin Machinery Bureau established by the Westernization Movement, of course, it should be slightly better.

However, after visiting the Qingdao shipyard, the businessmen realized that they had all thought wrongly, and that the factories established by overseas Chinese and the factories founded by the Westernization Movement were fundamentally different in terms of organizational structure, management, and operation. In this way, there will probably be more surprises in the next inspection in Qingdao.

Because it is Sheng Xuanhuai, because almost all of the Western-style factories founded by Li Hongzhang have his participation, and most of them are led by Sheng Xuanhuai, which can't help but bring huge wealth and prestige to Sheng Xuanhuai, and at the same time, Sheng Xuanhuai has entered politics from business, and now he is also hanging from the second grade of the imperial court, so Sheng Xuanhuai is sometimes quite complacent, thinking that he has established a lot of achievements in his life, but compared with the factories built by overseas Chinese, Sheng Xuanhuai found that although he originally founded many enterprises, it is not worth talking about at all.

In fact, not only Sheng Xuanhuai, Yuan Shikai and Li Jingfang are also eye-opening, it turns out that factories and enterprises can be founded in this way, and I feel that this visit to Qingdao is indeed worthwhile.

By this time, Yuan Shikai and Li Jingfang's work in Qingdao had also been completed, so the two also bid farewell to the East China government and returned to Beijing to hand over the order.