The pomp and circumstance of Li Hongzhang's visit this time was, of course, bigger than Zhang Peilun's, and the Shanghai Steamship China Merchants Bureau sent two ships, the Ping'an and the Tai'an, to send Li Hongzhang and his entourage to Tianjin, of which the Ping'an was Li Hongzhang's ship, as well as Li Hongzhang, Zhang Peilun, Li Jingfang, and eight servants, while the Tai'an carried the members of the observation group and reporters. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The observation group is composed of six countries, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, the United States and Russia, a total of 20 people, headed by the British McCleary, the British sent the largest number of people, a total of five, in addition to the regiment commander McCleary, there are two officers, respectively, the deputy captain of the battleship Centurion, Colonel Martinez, the artillery captain Lieutenant Colonel Brown, the other two are one of McClearley's assistants, one is a painter, although there is a camera in this era, but the size of the camera is huge, and the transportation is inconvenient, so it is mainly hand-painted by the painter; They all sent four officers, two diplomats, two officers, and three from Russia and Russia, but Russia did not send officers, not because Russia did not want to send officers, but because there were no officers in the Russian consulate in Shanghai, so they really could not send anyone.

Only Germany sent only one person to the observation mission symbolically. It turned out that the envoy sent by Kaiser Wilhelm II had already arrived in Guangzhou, China, and could rush to Tianjin within ten days to negotiate with overseas Chinese, so there was no need to send more people in the observation group.

The escort warships sent by the Beiyang Naval Division are Haiqi and Hairong, and the main leader of the team is Sa Zhenbing, who is also the pipe band of Haiqi.

Sa Zhenbing is a veteran of the Beiyang Naval Division, and has studied abroad with Ye Zuqi, Liu Buyun, Fang Boqian, Yan Fu and others as the first batch of students from Fujian Shipbuilding to learn driving at the Royal Naval College Greenwich, England. During the First Sino-Japanese War, Sa Zhenbing did not participate in the Battle of Dadonggou, but in the Battle of Weihaiwei, he was stationed on Ridao and fought fiercely with the Japanese army for 11 days, and finally received an order from Admiral Ding Ruchang before withdrawing to Liugong Island.

After the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing court rebuilt the navy, reinstated the dismissal of the former Beiyang Navy generals Ye Zuqi and Sa Zhenbing, and awarded Ye Zuqi the commander of the sailors, the commander of the Sa Zhenbing gang and the Haiqi pipe belt.

The Haiqi and the Haitian are of the same class, belonging to the dome cruiser, built by the British Armstrong Company, and is an improved version of the Yoshino, the main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet in the Battle of Daidonggou, at a cost of 328242 pounds. The ship is 120.7 meters long, 14.22 meters wide, 5.11 meters draft, 4,300 tons of displacement, 950 tons of coal, and has 12 coal-fired boilers, 2 3-expansion reciprocating steam engines, 17,000 horsepower, 24 knots, and 445 personnel. The main armament is: 2 203mm guns, 10 120mm rapid-fire guns, 12 47mm cannons, 4 37mm cannons, 6 7mm machine guns, and 5 torpedo tubes.

The Hairong is the same class of ships as the Haichou and Haichen, and it is also a dome cruiser, which was built by the German Volkeng shipyard at a cost of 163,000 pounds. It is 99.97 meters long, 12.42 meters wide, 5.79 meters draft, 2680 tons of displacement, and can carry 580 tons of coal. Main armament: 3 150mm rapid-fire guns, 8 105mm rapid-fire guns, 6 37mm machine guns, 6 8mm machine guns, 3 torpedo tubes.

Unlike the two main ships of the Beiyang Naval Division, Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, which focused on thick armor and large-caliber artillery, these two types of warships are more focused on high speed and long endurance, while their firepower is dominated by small- and medium-caliber rapid-fire artillery. Because after the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing court compensated Japan with 230 million taels of silver. As a result, the Qing court's finances were tight, and it could not afford to purchase heavy ships and huge guns, so it had to buy relatively cheap dome cruisers. Japan, which received a huge amount of reparations for the First Sino-Japanese War, embarked on the road of heavy ships and huge artillery in the construction of its navy, and completed the plan of the 66th Fleet in the 10 years after the First Sino-Japanese War. That is, a standing fleet of 6 battleships and 6 large armored cruisers.

The flotilla of four ships departed from Shanghai and arrived in Qingdao at dusk after a day. That night, the fleet anchored in Qingdao Bay. At this time, the three large ironclad ships, the Saxony, Byrne, and Baden, were still stranded on the beach, and the hull was scarred, and one can imagine what a fierce battle it had been. The other two armored cruisers Count Bismarck and the battleship Electoral Emperor, which were sunk in Qingdao Bay, also had a small part of the superstructure exposed.

These three stranded large ironclad ships were the prototypes of the Dingyuan and Zhenyuan ships of the Beiyang Naval Division, so they also made Li Hongzhang and Sa Zhenbing sigh. Representatives of observer missions from other countries also sighed when they saw this scene.

Wang Shenghe, who stayed in Qingdao, also came to the ship, visited Li Hongzhang, and asked Li Hongzhang to go ashore to rest, but Li Hongzhang politely declined.

Early the next morning, the fleet set out from Qingdao and rounded the sharp corners of the Shandong Peninsula at ten o'clock in the morning, but did not stop when passing Weihaiwei. On the other ship, Colonel Martinez told his three companions with a sigh that just a few months ago, he had been stationed in Weihaiwei Harbor with the battleship Centurion, and that he could not imagine that it had changed hands now.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, the fleet sailed into Bohai Bay, and the sailors of the Ping'an reported to Li Hongzhang that the Haiqi, which was leading the way in front, issued a flag and found two warships sailing in the direction of the fleet.

When Li Hongzhang heard this, he immediately took Zhang Peilun and Li Jingfang to the bow of the ship to watch, the weather on the sea today was good, clear and fog-free, and sure enough, he saw that at the junction of the sea and the sky in front of the fleet, there were two silver-white military ships sailing side by side.

And Zhang Peilun, who was next to Li Hongzhang, immediately told Li Hongzhang that this was the warship of overseas Chinese, and it seemed that he should have come to greet Li Hongzhang and his party. Zhang Peilun has been to Tianjin twice, and there is a considerable gap between the warship of the traverser and this era, so Zhang Peilun can recognize it at a glance. At this moment, the Haiqi sent a flag again, and it turned out that the other party had already played a welcome banner.

Li Hongzhang's heart is also quite gratified, it seems that this group of overseas Chinese is still very thoughtful in terms of etiquette. At this time, on the Tai'an, observers from various countries also came to the deck, and many people watched with monoculars.

Because the two sides were driving opposite each other, after more than ten minutes, the distance between the two sides had been stretched to several hundred meters, and the two warships of the other side were separated from each other, and Li Hongzhang also saw the appearance of the two warships clearly.

The two warships appeared to be of the same type, slender and slender, smooth and smooth, with a sharpened bow that divided the waves like a herringbone, and a superstructure that was unusually simple, with no towering masts, no thick and tall chimneys, and no messy ropes as dense as cobwebs, which looked like delicate works of art, except that the stern was square and left on a large platform, and I don't know what it was for. Moreover, the whole ship is only equipped with a single-mounted gun in the bow, and the maximum caliber is 100 mm.

Li Hongzhang had heard Zhang Peilun say that the warships of overseas Chinese were very different from those of other countries, with slender ships and very few guns. Although Li Hongzhang slandered in his heart, such a warship is so beautiful that it only has a small cannon, so how can it fight a war? However, it seems that there must be another reason for the victory of overseas Chinese in the naval battles of Dagukou and the Bohai Sea with such warships.

In fact, not only Li Hongzhang, but even the officers and men of the Beiyang Naval Division on the Haiqi and Hairong, and the members of the observation group on the Tai'an were all puzzled and discussed the structure, style, and weapons of the two warships. There were also several painters accompanying the observation group, and at this time they also took out their drawing boards and paper to draw the appearance of the two warships.

Colonel Martinez frowned and said, "Is this really a warship of overseas Chinese? It doesn't look very strong." ”

Lieutenant Colonel Brown fiddled with the measuring instrument in his hand and said, "If it wasn't very strong, how would the overseas Chinese defeat the German fleet?" ”

Martinez glanced at him and said, "Have you measured the size of this type of warship?"

"The length of the ship is about 130-140 meters, and the width is between 15-18 meters. ”

Martinez frowned and said, "The size of this type of warship is not small, it is longer than our Majestic-class battleships. ”

Brown put away his measuring instrument and said: "But the width is much smaller, the aspect ratio should be about 1:8, so this should be a cruiser and not a battleship, of course, if it is a battleship, it will definitely not have only one main gun, of course, it is not an armored cruiser, it should be a protective cruiser? But even if it is a protective cruiser, this tonnage should be about 10,000 tons, because it is much larger than our Blake class." ”

Martinez said: "Even a protective cruiser would not be equipped with only one main gun, and if it weren't for the type of ship and the cargo hold, I would have thought it was an armed merchant ship." He held up the monocular again, and muttered to himself as he looked at it: "This ship is so strange, there are so many things that I can't understand, there seem to be many covers on the square platform behind the main gun, I don't know what it is used for, is it the place where the shells are placed? And what is it that there are so many spherical things in the upper part of the ship?" What are the two squares on the top of the mast that are still spinning for, what are the two rectangular boxes in the middle of the hull that lie diagonally, are they torpedoes, and what is the use of leaving a platform in the stern. ”

Brown smiled bitterly and said, "Colonel, I can't answer any of your questions. However, I think that if we get to the bottom of these questions, we should be able to understand what the strength of overseas Chinese really is. ”

Martinez put down the binoculars, nodded, and said, "Lieutenant Colonel, I agree with you. He turned his head and asked the sketcher on the side, "Have you finished drawing?" ”

The sketcher said: "The general shape has been drawn, but there are some details, and I will slowly modify the fine drawing. ”

Martinez looked at it, and drew a few things he didn't understand just now, so he nodded and said, "Very good, you can hand it over to the technical department when you go back, and let them go to divide it." Then he looked at the warship that was almost parallel to the Tai'an, and said, "Who are these overseas Chinese?"