America 1881: They Call Me Legend

Chapter 237 Asset Disposal
"I thought you would warn him." Chen Jianqiu turned around, holding a cigar in his hand, and met Pile's eyes, "according to the procedure."

Pile froze in place. He looked at Leonard's gun that fell on the ground, and then looked up at Chen Jianqiu.

He woke up instantly.

"This is your gun!" Pile asked angrily. "You handed him the gun when you saw me coming, right?!"

"You knew I could shoot, huh?!" he growled hysterically. "The gun you gave him had no bullets in it!"

Chen Jianqiu walked to Leonard's body, picked up the revolver on the ground, and put it back into the holster around his waist.

"I gave him the chance to choose, but he didn't give it to you."

"He made his choice, but leaves you with no choice."

Pile scratched his hair, extremely annoyed:
"Why are you doing this? You know I'm investigating him, and it won't be long before someone sues him and I can send him to jail!"

Chen Jianqiu didn't answer his question, he walked to the back door and opened it.

Camilla came in, followed by Sean, Abiot, Hanif and others, and with them was the dejected Lawyer Messen.

As soon as the lawyer went out, he was controlled. At the same time, there were also those security personnel who had no idea what happened.

They had no idea where these people in front of them came from.

Chen Jianqiu extended his hand to Camilla.

The woman took out a paper bag from her bag and handed it to Chen Jianqiu.

Chen Jianqiu took the paper bag without even looking at it, and handed it directly to the dazed Pile:

"My lawyer has sorted out all of Leonard's criminal materials. The other evidence is upstairs in his own room. If you are interested, go find it yourself."

If Leonard hadn't fired that shot, bankruptcy and a judge's trial awaited him; but he pulled the trigger anyway.

He chose his own destiny.

Chen Jianqiu walked to Paile's side, patted his shoulder, and said:
"You're a good cop."

After finishing speaking, he led everyone out of Leonard's house, leaving only Sergeant Pile standing blankly in the hall of the house.

The next day news of Mr Leonard's death spread throughout Lincolnshire.

The Lincolnshire upstart tried to kill him because of a debt dispute, but was shot dead on the spot by the heroic Sheriff Pile.

There was talk, including of those who owed Mr. Leonard money and Mr. Leonard's creditors.

It was also at this time that they discovered that this greedy businessman had no wife or children.

They are very concerned about what to do with Leonard's debts after his death.On the contrary, no one cared why Sergeant Pile appeared at Leonard's house.

A few days later, Mr. Leonard's lawyer, Mr. McSean, announced that he was bankrupt before his death due to short-term debts.

The debtors rejoiced, but the creditors were anxious.

When a person dies, the debt cannot be canceled.

The chief judge of the Lincolnshire Court had a headache. According to the investigation, Leonard's debt problems were complicated. In addition, the properties under his name were measured according to market prices, and there was a high probability that he was in a state of insolvency.

According to the information provided by Sergeant Pile, it also involved many violations of New Mexico laws.

The county court simply does not have the ability to sort out these things in a short time.

However, those creditors couldn't wait any longer. They began to exert pressure from various channels, including but not limited to gathering at the gate of the court, no longer cooperating with judicial matters, and threatening to dig the judge's ancestral grave and so on.

Because these old fritters have experienced various things in Lincolnshire over the years, and they know the judge's professional ethics.

Basically equal to nothing.

The longer the delay, the less likely they are to get back what they owe.

However, at this time, a Chinese grain merchant who claimed to be Leonard's largest creditor walked into the judge's office.

He proposed a package solution to the judge.

After hearing his plan, the judge hesitated: "I'm afraid that other people in the town will object, so I won't agree."

"You don't need to worry about these." Chen Jianqiu handed him a piece of paper, "You must be familiar with that lawyer Mai Sien."

When the judge saw the piece of paper, his expression changed drastically.

On it were all records of bribes paid to him by Mason's former master, Fred "One Ear".

"Where did you get this?" The judge hesitated, "It's all slander, sir, it's all slander."

However, the piece of paper was pulled out from his hand and returned to Chen Jianqiu's hand.

"That's right, Mr. Judge, these are all slanders." Chen Jianqiu tore the piece of paper into pieces in front of the judge.

He looked at the judge with a smile, which made the judge's back feel cold.

"Then, follow your plan."

The judge turned around, took out the corresponding materials from the cabinet, and stamped Chen Jianqiu's plan.

Two days later, the farmer's exchange at the entrance of the town in Lincolnshire was full of people, and they came to watch the excitement.

And the rows of seats in front were filled with prominent local figures, and many of them were Leonard's creditors.

Today, the court is finally willing to come out to solve these problems.

According to the usual practice, the court should auction off all the assets under Leonard's name, and then give priority to repaying the debt with the income obtained.

To be honest, many of his assets are very attractive, such as several ranches in excellent locations, the mansion, etc.

However, when the bearded man in a black suit and a top hat representing the court came onto the stage and officially announced the auction plan, almost everyone was dumbfounded.

All the assets were packaged up, including the usury he released.

In addition, Leonard's debt was also packaged at the same time.

While taking over the assets, it also bears the corresponding debts.

As we all know, one of the reasons for Leonard's bankruptcy was not a lack of liquidity, but a genuine insolvency.
And some of the high-quality assets that they miss are not even included in this auction. According to the mustache, due to the relationship of the mortgage contract, they have been given priority to automatically belong to the creditor.

The meat was all eaten, leaving a pile of bones.

With this auction method, Leonard's assets are worthless.

"I protest!" An older businessman stood up holding his cane. He was Leonard's biggest creditor besides Chen Jianqiu, and he was also the largest timber merchant in Lincolnshire.

"No one would want this kind of auction method!" He said, "The rights and interests of our creditors are not guaranteed at all!"

"Yeah, isn't this treating us as fools? The rest are bad assets." Another person also stood up and said excitedly.

Mustache stretched out his hand towards the bottom: "Hey, non-performing assets are also assets."

The following scoffed.

Leonard does have a bunch of IOUs in his hands, but just look at the names of the owers on these IOUs, can they get them back?

The auction site was in chaos, and some people were about to leave. From their point of view, there were nine out of ten results that would not come out today; and some of the more irritable ones were already clamoring for an explanation.

However, at this time, there was a sudden sound of horseshoes outside the trading market.

Seven or eight horses appeared at the gate of the market.

　One more, two more later
　　
　
(End of this chapter)