had a beam of and had an average draft of . Tokiwa displaced at normal load and at deep load. The ship had a metacentric height of . Her crew consisted of 676 officers and enlisted men. Tokiwa had two 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a single propeller shaft. Steam for the engines was provided by a dozen cylindrical boilers and the engines were rated at a total of . The ship had a designed speed of and reached during her sea trials from . She carried up to of coal and could steam for at a speed of . The main armament for all of the "Six-Six Fleet" armored cruisers was four eight-inch guns in twin-gun turrets fore and aft of the superstructure. The secondary armament consisted of 14 Elswick Ordnance Company "Pattern Z" quick-firing (QF), guns. Only four of these guns were not mounted in armored casemates on the main and upper decks and their mounts on the upper deck were protected by gun shields. Tokiwa was also equipped with a dozen QF 12-pounder 12-cwt guns and eight QF 2.5-pounder Yamauchi guns as close-range defense against torpedo boats. The ship was equipped with five torpedo tubes, one above water in the bow and four submerged tubes, two on each broadside. All of the "Six-Six Fleet" armored cruisers used the same armor scheme with some minor differences, of which the most important was that the two Asama-class ships used less tough Harvey armor. The waterline belt ran the full length of the ship and its thickness varied from amidships to at the bow and stern. It had a height of , of which was normally underwater. The upper strake of belt armor was thick and extended from the upper edge of the waterline belt to the main deck. It extended from the forward to the rear barbette. The Asama class had oblique 127 mm armored bulkheads that closed off the ends of the central armored citadel. The barbettes, gun turrets and the front of the casemates were all 152 millimeters thick while the sides and rear of the casemates were protected by of armor. The deck was also 51 millimeters thick and the armor protecting the conning tower was in thickness. Construction and career The contract for Tokiwa was signed on 6 July 1897 with Armstrong Whitworth. The ship had already been laid down at their shipyard in