8 to 26 September, when the maneuvers concluded and the fleet went into port for annual maintenance. The year 1900 began with the usual routine of individual and divisional exercises. In the second half of March, the squadrons met in Kiel, followed by torpedo and gunnery practice in April and a voyage to the eastern Baltic. From 7 to 26 May, the fleet went on a major training cruise to the northern North Sea, which included stops in Shetland from 12 to 15 May and in Bergen from 18 to 22 May. On 8 July, the ships of I Division were reassigned to II Division, and the role of fleet flagship was transferred to the recently commissioned battleship . Boxer Uprising saw her first major operation in 1900, when I Division was deployed to China during the Boxer Uprising. Chinese nationalists laid siege to the foreign embassies in Peking and murdered the German minister. At the time, the German East Asia Squadron consisted of the protected cruisers , , , the small cruisers , , and the gunboats and , but the Kaiser decided that an expeditionary force was necessary to reinforce the Eight Nation Alliance that had formed to defeat the Boxers. The expeditionary force consisted of and her three sisters, six cruisers, 10 freighters, three torpedo boats, and six regiments of marines, under the command of (Field Marshal) Alfred von Waldersee. served as the flagship of KAdm Richard von Geißler, who took command on 6 July. On 7 July, Geißler reported that his ships were ready for the operation, and they left two days later. The four battleships and the aviso transited the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal and stopped in Wilhelmshaven to rendezvous with the rest of the expeditionary force. On 11 July, the force steamed out of the Jade Bight, bound for China. They stopped to coal at Gibraltar on 17–18 July and they passed through the Suez Canal on 26–27 July. More coal was taken on at Perim in the Red Sea, and on 2 August, the fleet entered the Indian Ocean. On 10 August, the ships reached Colombo, Ceylon, and on 14 August they passed through the Strait of Malacca. They arrived in Singapore on 18 August and departed five days later, reaching Hong Kong on 28 August. Two days later, the expeditionary force stopped in the outer roadstead at Wusong, downriver from Shanghai. From there,