industrial lord

Chapter 527 They Can Sue the Nobles
This year's spring came earlier than in previous years, and shipping on the rivers of the Principality of Wessen suddenly became busy. Export goods accumulated over the winter were transported to various locations at the fastest speed.

Baron Turgot was about to return to his country, and many of his fellow villagers in the Iris community asked him to bring back letters and gifts.

Among them, Davranche bought the most things. He bought a white lace blouse for each of his two nieces, a bicycle for his nephew, a pocket watch for his eldest brother, and a hand-cranked noodle machine for his eldest sister-in-law. He put the dough in and turned the handle to press out noodles.

Baron Turgot's help was not in vain. When he left, he took a boat chartered by Davranche, and everyone separated in the city of Amstel.

There was another passenger on the ship, also a fellow from the Kingdom of Gaul, Guillaume, who had met Baron Turgot.

Guillaume was introduced by another fellow villager to ride on d'Avranche's boat. When he had nothing to do, d'Avranche asked him, "What business are you in?"

Guillaume replied: "I am a student, not a businessman."

"Oh..." Davranche nodded. "There are many students going to Weissenburg to study. Which schools did you go to?"

Guillaume shook his head slightly and said, "I'm not traveling to study. I'm looking for some people who work in the Principality of Wessen."

"For many years, outstanding students at the University of Paris have received scholarships from His Majesty Louis, but the scholarships for students from other places and local nobles have been embezzled by people in the school."

Davranche shook his head and said, "Alas... those masters are not good people... uh..."

He suddenly remembered that Baron Turgot was drinking tea nearby, and he said immediately: "My lord, I am not talking about you, I am talking about those in Paris."

Dafranche could curse the nobles in the distant city of Paris, since they were too far away to matter to him, but Baron Turgot was a local noble in his hometown, and he had many ways to kill him.

Baron Turgot said nonchalantly, "It's okay. I was also robbed of money by them before."

Dafranche breathed a sigh of relief.

Guillaume continued, "We went to court to sue, but the judges said that we needed many people to sign our names to sue the nobles, so we looked for alumni whose scholarships had been withheld in the past and asked them to help us."

Davranche understood and was about to say something, but then he remembered that Baron Turgot was beside him, so he just said, "It's troublesome to sue a nobleman."

"Just wait. Even though you are trying to gather numbers, the judges in the court will definitely find other excuses, such as asking you to pay a lot of money."

At this time, Baron Turgot said: "Not only that, they will use all kinds of excuses to delay time. I heard that there was a case that dragged on for decades, and the plaintiff and the defendant died of old age."

He was also one of the plaintiffs in the scholarship embezzlement case, but he was well aware of the bureaucratic tactics used.

It is difficult to get those bureaucrats to do something well, but they are all very good at doing bad things.

Baron Turgot was not optimistic about the lawsuit in his heart. He just hoped that it could create some momentum so that the rats guarding the granary would not steal so much food.

At this time, Dafranche sighed, "Alas, the Duchy of Wessen is still good. Commoners can win lawsuits against nobles and get compensation."

Guillaume asked curiously what had happened, and d'Avranche told him about it.

Old Franz is the oldest nobleman in the Duchy of Wessen, holding the title of baron. He is also the governor of the state of Putz and the chairman of the Football Association.

Nowadays, it is popular among young people in the Principality of Wessen to ride motorcycles. Last autumn, he tried it out of curiosity and ended up knocking a farmer who was carrying a load of vegetables to the city and returning into a ditch.

The farmer who was hit didn't think it was a big deal, just a little painful. Seeing that the other party was a big boss, he didn't dare to pursue it, so he went home. But he actually had internal bleeding, and he died soon after returning home. When he was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment, he first underwent surgery to expose the affected area and then used treatment to save the ruptured spleen.

The victim could not afford the high medical expenses. When the victim's son went to find old Franz, he was beaten out by the housekeeper. So he sued old Franz in court in anger.

This lawsuit attracted widespread attention due to the special status of old Franz. The court quickly made a ruling that he was fully responsible for driving without a license and was ordered to pay a large sum of money. His housekeeper and household guards were sentenced to six months to two years in prison and ordered to pay compensation for beating the defendant.

The Duchy of Wessen had a precedent of trying nobles for commoners. More than ten years ago, a distant relative of the Grand Duke of Bavaria was publicly tried and hanged. Not long ago, the son of the Grand Duke of Franconia was also tried and hanged. Many people regarded these two events as political events.

But it was the first time that a domestic noble was publicly tried, and in the end, the domestic noble lost the case and a commoner won.

It was shortly after the World Expo ended. Foreigners had never seen such a scene before, and friendly countries were amazed for a while.

Baron Turgot remained silent on the matter; from a simple sense of justice he supported the verdict, but from a noble point of view he was speechless.

"And then there's the other thing," Davranche continued. "I heard that in the Canton of France, some businessmen sued the municipal administration because the people in that administration charged much higher sanitation fees than the law required. And they won the case."

"Also, not long ago, some noble kid in Cologne had nothing better to do and formed a gang of dozens of people. They were collecting protection money at the stadium farm east of Weissenburg. Guess what happened?"

Guillaume shook his head.

Dafranche said mysteriously, "The gangster was captured by a group of Sardinian gangsters wearing black gloves, their legs were broken, and then they were dumped in front of the police station."

Guillaume thought he knew what was going on, and said, "They have taken over the territory of the black gloves."

"No." Dafranche shook his head. "There was a Sardinian family who had a farm over there growing cabbages. The gangsters came to him for protection money, and the Sardinian family refused to give in and was beaten."

"The family found Miss Katie, the eldest daughter of the Black Hand Gang, the largest mafia gang in the Kingdom of Sardinia. Later, the Black Hand Gang beat those people up."

Guillaume was a little confused: "Isn't that just a fight for territory? That Sardinian family would also pay protection fees, right?"

"Hehe..." Dafranche laughed, "I know a small leader of the Black Hand Gang. He often comes to me to buy oysters. I have talked to him several times."

"The Black Hand Gang doesn't care about the protection fee. It's not even close to the money earned from selling canned oranges."

"You don't know that now from the north of the Inland Sea to the northernmost Green Island, all the canned oranges in all countries are the business of the Black Hand Gang."

“So now the Sardinians in the Principality of Wessen are very united. When they encounter problems, they will ask the Black Hand Gang to help them out. If their own people are unreasonable, they will reason with them. If their own people are reasonable, they will reason with the other side. If they can’t make sense, they will help them to sue.”

Guillaume was amazed and asked, "What about us Gauls?"

Davranche shrugged his shoulders, said nothing, and said everything.

He added: "It's nothing, actually. We do business in the Principality of Wessen and pay taxes to it, which means we have signed a contract with it and are protected by it."

Guillaume felt that there was a lot of meaning behind this statement, but Davranche only knew a few things from chatting with other bosses, and he couldn't explain those profound principles.

(End of this chapter)