The day after Prince Heinrich arrived in Qingdao, he was personally received by Xia Bohai, chairman of the East China Government.

On behalf of the East China Government, Xia Bohai first welcomed His Excellency the Prince's visit to Qingdao again, wished the Prince a smooth and pleasant visit to Qingdao, and also expressed his greetings to His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany.

Prince Heinrich expressed his gratitude to President Xia for his greetings and concern, and also conveyed to President Xia the respect of His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and presented a medal of the Order of the Treasure Star to President Xia on behalf of the German Emperor. And Chairman Xia was also very happy to accept this precious gift.

Xia Bohai said that China and Germany are both countries with a long history and culture, and they have both suffered from the oppression and bullying of foreign forces in history, and have experienced suffering, and now Germany has achieved national independence through its own efforts, got rid of the status of oppression and enslavement, and embarked on the road of national prosperity and development; and China is also striving for national independence and getting rid of its semi-feudal and semi-colonial status, while Germany is striving for national independence, prosperity and strength. It is hoped that China and Germany can join hands to establish a good cooperative relationship and play a role in safeguarding regional peace, resisting colonial oppression, opposing imperialism and hegemonism.

Prince Heinrich said that China is a country with a long history, a long culture, and beautiful scenery, and the German government has always supported China's cause of national independence. Although Germany also participated in the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Coalition last year, it was due to a series of diplomatic mistakes and miscommunication, but the German government's attitude did not change, and once again expressed its apologies for the war.

China and Germany should still look forward, because Germany has developed industry and advanced science and technology, while China is rich in resources and has a vast land and resources, so China and Germany should have extensive space for cooperation.

Prince Heinrich very much agreed with Xia Bohai's viewpoint, saying that his visit to Qingdao this time was to hope to carry out extensive cooperation with China, mainly with the East China government.

He welcomed German enterprises to participate in the five-year plan of the East China Government on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, and the East China Government will also provide a good investment environment, entrepreneurial opportunities, and service guarantees for German enterprises investing in China.

After listening to Xia Bohai's introduction, Prince Heinrich was very happy, saying that Germany attaches great importance to the relationship with the East China Government, is satisfied with the cooperation between the two sides, and is very interested in the five-year plan of the East China Government, and he will definitely report to the country, and actively mobilize German enterprises to invest in Qingdao, strive to participate in the East China Government's five-year plan, and try his best to help the East China Government realize modernization and industrialization as soon as possible.

After the talks, Xia Bohai also hosted a special banquet for Prince Heinrich.

After a polite reception, Qin Zheng and Prince Heinrich then began substantive talks, and within three days, the two sides reached a series of agreements on commercial and economic cooperation.

Germany first abolished the consulate in Tianjin and set up a consulate in Qingdao instead, and the first consul was Qin Moman, the former German consul in Tianjin, and the East China government should also choose a commercial representative in Germany as soon as possible, and return to Germany with Prince Heinrich.

The second is that Germany promises to respect the rights of the East China government and to participate extensively in the East China government's five-year plan, and the East China government will provide good conditions for German investment enterprises in China in terms of taxation and subsidies.

In the end, the two sides reached an agreement that in the next five years, the two sides will complete the total trade volume of 50 million German marks, about 150 million taels of silver, and the East China government will export pigs, tung oil, timber, minerals and other commodities to Germany, while Germany will export machinery and equipment, spare parts, high-quality steel and other commodities to the East China government, and each other will be subject to preferential tax rates on imported and exported goods.

It can be said that this series of commercial and economic cooperation agreements is to take what each needs to take, Germany opened up the Chinese market for its own industrial products, and obtained a source of resources, and the East China government has opened a channel to obtain advanced machinery and equipment and technical cooperation partners before it has completed industrialization, and at the same time keeps a part of its own industrial products, which is the market for light industrial products.

Immediately after the talks, Prince Heinrich sent back to China the tentatively negotiated agreement for confirmation by Wilhelm II. Two days later, Prince Heinrich received a reply from China, Wilhelm II and the German government were very satisfied with this agreement, although the trade volume of 50 million German marks in five years, calculated by the total import and export trade, is really nothing for the current scale of the German economy, but it has finally opened the market of China and even the Far East, and it is very important for Germany, which is now increasingly saturated with the domestic market.

According to Germany's domestic assessment, if Germany continues to occupy Qingdao, it will take at least 20 years to complete this plan, which is not that Germany's execution ability is insufficient, but that Germany only occupies Qingdao, while the traveler occupies the entire Shandong Province, so the force that the traveler can mobilize is far stronger than the German power in China, so only in terms of Sino-German trade volume, it has far exceeded the German occupation of Qingdao.

After the completion of the five-year plan of the East China government, both the level of industrialization and the scale of the economy will be raised to a large level, so the trade volume between Germany and the East China government can be further developed.

Of course, Germany also knows that once the level of industrialization of the East China government increases, it will inevitably become a powerful political entity in the Far East, and will even replace it with a Qing state, which is by no means good news for Britain, France, Russia, the United States, and Japan, which have huge interests in the Far East, because they have huge interests in China, but it will have no impact on Germany, because Germany has almost no influence in the Far East. On the contrary, it can add a little bit of congestion to other countries.

Next, the East China government arranged for Prince Heinrich to visit the Qingdao shipyard, just in time for the construction of the shipyard's second large dock, and Qin Zheng and Prince Heinrich shoveled the first shovel of soil together. However, the excavator used by the traverser left a very deep impression on Prince Heinrich, the efficiency of excavation is too high, if Germany also has such a machine, it will greatly improve the efficiency of the project, knowing that there are not many such machines for overseas Chinese, it is obviously unintentional to transfer.

At lunchtime, Qin Zheng said to Prince Heinrich: "Your Excellency, I want to tell you that we are looking for a partner to build four 6,000-ton large protective cruisers and two 7,000-ton medium armored cruisers in the next two years. ”

After hearing this, Prince Heinrich's eyes suddenly lit up, because the profit of building warships is huge, and it can also drive the development of a large number of related supporting industries, so he said: "Mr. Speaker, I don't know how you plan to cooperate? ”

Qin Zheng smiled and said: "There are these two ways of cooperation, we provide the design drawings and performance parameters of the warship, of course, the specific construction details of the design, you can negotiate, first in the partner to build two large protective cruisers, and the other two large protective cruisers will be built in Qingdao, the partner should arrange shipbuilding engineering and technical personnel to guide, and the required materials, equipment, accessories, etc., are imported from the partner, but on the premise of not affecting the performance of the warship, the materials that can be found in China, Equipment should be purchased in China. ”

"After the construction of the two large protective cruisers is completed, if we are satisfied with the cooperation in the early stage, then we can cooperate in the construction of two more medium armored cruisers, and the cooperation method is the same as the construction of two large protective cruisers, we provide drawings, one is built in the partner, one is built in Qingdao, and the partner provides technical guidance. I wonder if Germany is interested in participating in this project. ”

After Prince Heinrich heard this, he immediately began to make urgent calculations in his heart, he was very clear about the world market price of warships in this era, two 6,000-ton large protective cruisers, a 7,000-ton medium armored cruiser, the market price was about 3 million German marks, and although the other three warships were built in Qingdao, most of the materials, Spare parts will definitely be imported from partners, so these three warships can get at least half the price of the order, so the total value of this transaction is about 450 German marks, such a big business, of course, Germany will not let go.

So Prince Heinrich immediately said: "Mr. Speaker, the answer is naturally yes, we Germany have the best shipyards in the world, the best engineers and workers, and you have excellent warship design capabilities, so our cooperation will be the best combination, so I hope that the East China government can consider cooperating with Germany, and ensure that the German Congress will provide the best service to the East China government." ”

Qin Zheng said with a smile: "Personally, of course, I hope to be able to cooperate with Germany, but we also have our system, such a large project, must be carried out in the form of public bidding, of course, I also believe in the strength of German shipyards, will not be afraid of competing with shipyards in other countries." ”

Prince Heinrich immediately said: "That's of course, our German shipyards are the best, and of course they will not be afraid of competition." ”

Qin Zheng took out a roll of drawings and said, "This is the preliminary design drawings and performance data of the warship, the tender announcement, and it will be officially sent to His Excellency the Prince in a few days." ”