After Ling Kaiyu reported to the Xingcheng Naval Headquarters, he was assigned to the Z11 destroyer of the 4th Destroyer Detachment as a midshipman along with four graduates from the Whampoa Naval Academy. The 4th Destroyer Detachment of the Imperial Indian Ocean Fleet was stationed in Penang Harbor, and their group of 26 men had to travel by train to Penang Harbor.

The Empire's railway network was already well developed, and in fact the major cities of the entire empire were connected by a well-developed system of railways and highways, including the Nanyang Peninsula.

Ling Kaiyu and his entourage boarded the car at Xingcheng Port without changing trains along the way, and arrived at their destination in just two hours, Penang Port, which is located north of the exit of the Straits of Malacca.

The Penang Port Empire is one of the most important ports in the Strait of Malacca, and the 4th Destroyer Detachment is based in Gaang, the northern part of the bay, which is actually some distance from the Penang Port.

After getting off the train at the Penang Port Railway Station, Ling Kaiyu and his entourage, led by a captain officer who came to greet them at the station, took a bus and drove along the coastal road for more than two hours to the naval base on the opposite side of the bay. The base is not large, and there are two destroyers docked on the pier, several old gunboats and torpedo boats, which look deserted.

Look at the sailors who are leisurely and boring on the docks, and you will know what it means to be "idle".

At the Gaang Base Command, Colonel Feng Shuhang, commander of the 4th Destroyer Detachment, welcomed the arrival of Ling Kaiyu and his group of naval cadets, and then made a cliché speech, after which everyone was assigned to various units according to their specialty. Ten were left at the base, while 16 were dispersed and assigned to the destroyers as midshipmen.

Ling Kaiyu was assigned to the destroyer "Champong", and the ship's side number was Z11.

The destroyer is currently undergoing routine maintenance at the shipyard, and Ling Kaiyu and five other newly assigned graduates arrived at the pier at the Penang Port shipyard in a Chery open-top car. The Penang Port Shipyard is not small, having built cruisers, destroyers and submarines during the last European war, and is located next to the historic and well-known German Naval Engineering Academy and the Penang Port Naval Non-commissioned Officer School.

In Ling Kaiyu's imagination, Major Fei Wenqing, the captain of the "Zhancheng", should be a handsome and gentlemanly young man, but when they actually met, he was really surprised - what appeared in front of them was a middle-aged uncle who was about the same age as his father and also had a serious face.

Since the end of the war, the Imperial Navy has not built many capital ships, and more ships are retired each year than are newly commissioned. As the Navy has been shrinking in size over the years, most of the remaining large number of naval officers have remained in their posts and have not been promoted for nearly two decades.

Towards Ling Kaiyu and their batch of "doll" trainee officers, Major Fei Wenqing's performance was lukewarm, and after reading everyone's documents and the letter of introduction issued by the naval personnel department of the Star City Fleet Base Command, he looked at everyone one by one without saying a word.

"Li Guoqiang!"

"Here!"

"You go to the turbine fleet."

"Yes, sir!"

"Yin Nuo!"

"Guns!"

"Ling Kaiyu!"

"Here!"

Ling Kaiyu had a standard upright posture, wanting to leave a good impression on the other party as much as possible. It's a pity that Captain Fei Wenqing didn't react at all, and he still had a cold face.

"You go to the torpedo team!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Jin Lei!"

"Here!"

"You go to the communications and sonar team!"

……

Fei Wenqing put away the letters of introduction of several people with a blank face, and then returned the military ID cards to everyone.

"Alright, guys, welcome to the Cham! Xie Yubo ......" he called over to an orderly, "take a few new officers to their quarters, I have other things to do, so I won't talk to you more." Captain Fei Wenqing said a few words to a non-commissioned officer with a blue chin who had been summoned from outside, and then left.

The officers and men of the "Champong" lived in the temporary dormitory provided by the shipyard next to the wharf; since the warship was being repaired at the shipyard, most of the personnel on board had already taken a vacation and gone to the city to play, leaving only about 30 people on duty at the shipyard. After Ling Kaiyu and the others settled down, they simply ran to the dock of the shipyard and couldn't wait to see the warship they were about to serve.

Ling Kaiyu saw that the "Champong" was parked in a dry dock in the shipyard, there were some officers and soldiers on duty on the deck and maintenance workers of the shipyard walking around, and a temporary walking plank road was built with cables and wooden planks at the port of the boarding ramp to connect to the edge of the dock, and two sailors with rifles in their hands were guarding the plank road entrance.

"What do you guys do?" Seeing Ling Kaiyu and them approaching the warship, one of them asked vigilantly.

"Oh, bro, we're the new trainee officers on the ship." Ling Kaiyu walked over and said to the man, and took out his military ID card to show him, "Can we take a look here?" ”

"Yes, sir!" The soldier returned his military ID card to Ling Kaiyu, and then saluted, "But boarding the ship requires the approval of the captain." ”

"Well, I see, we'll take a look at it." Ling Kaiyu said, looking up at the warship in the dockyard that was bigger than the building they lived in.

The "Champong" is a standard newest "Daocheng-class" destroyer, with a length of 132 meters, a width of 12.6 meters, a draft of 5.1 meters, a standard displacement of 2,560 tons, and a full load displacement of 3,250 tons. Its power system adopts the latest high-temperature and high-pressure boilers and steam turbines, with a total power of 65,000 horsepower and a design speed of 35 knots. It is armed with four twin mm/L45 high-level turrets and two quadruple 530mm torpedo launchers, with a standard crew of 226 people.

The Empire's maritime frontiers were so large that the destroyers built were generally larger in displacement to meet the needs of ocean voyages, and sometimes they could replace light cruisers for maritime patrol missions. This class of destroyers is a first-class large ocean-going destroyer designed and built by the Imperial Navy in order to cope with the newly built large destroyers of the East Francian Navy.

Unlike the bow destroyers, which were popular in European countries at this time, the Imperial Navy still used a flat-deck ship with a raised freeboard, which was slightly more stable than the bow type, but was inferior to the bow ship in terms of cabin layout and living conditions.

This flat-deck warship was more suitable for the standardized mass construction of the shipyard, and the living conditions of the sailors were not at all within the consideration of the bureaucratic lords in the Imperial Admiralty.

During the training, the "Champong" found that the main engine was not running very stably and the vibration was too large when sailing at high speed, so it returned to the shipyard for debugging. The new parts have arrived, but it will take a few days to complete the replacement, and as for the training at sea again, it depends on the training schedule above.

Due to the fact that large capital warships have rarely been built for many years, the Imperial Navy seems to have performed unsatisfactory in the construction of the latest marine UHVT steam turbines, mainly in terms of power output and operational stability. To this end, the Admiralty has set up a special committee of experts in the hope of resolving this issue as soon as possible.

Now, Ling Kaiyu has finally been able to officially join the ranks of the Imperial Navy like his father.

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