Although he had passed through Montenegro several times, Lu Ming had never really visited this city.
It has a population of over 500,000, but its area is much larger than Beiguan. There are few high-rise buildings, which are dotted on both sides of the main streets. Most of the residences are extremely densely packed bungalows and shanty towns, which are very similar to the mountain city of the same period in the old photos of the 1940s and 1950s that Lu Ming had seen.
The Heishan City Court is a two-story building with an external arcade. The gray building looks a bit depressing.
Many times, it is a true portrayal of "Don't come in if you don't have money."
Lu Ming and his team stayed at the Montenegro Hotel near the urban court.
The seven-story building stands on this long street. At night, the neon signs flicker, making it one of the landmark buildings in Montenegro.
The so-called team actually consists of Lu Ming, Heitou, Sun Bo and several personal bodyguards, as well as several mine owners' representatives from Xiping District.
There is no doubt that because of the grudge between Hei Laoliu and Chen Qing and the Jackal Gang, and the fact that they were just one step away from being defeated, Hei Laoliu, under the planning of the new county magistrate, wiped out the Jackal Gang.
This caused the Jackal Gang's hatred for Hei Laoliu to shift to hatred for the new county magistrate's economic interests.
During this period, there were naturally people who were instructing the gang, and the Jackal Gang was nothing more than a gun.
For the Hu family, which has gradually monopolized every aspect of Jiangning Province, the appointment of a county magistrate is naturally nothing. Governor Lao Hu Tu has arranged numerous people with nepotism to come to Jiangning to share the cake through various personal connections.
In fact, it was Governor Chakson himself who was afraid that as almost a month had passed, he had already forgotten where his niece was going to get the commission. After all, no one knew how many layers of relationships there were. If he was really an acquaintance of his niece, he would have to be placed in the most important position in the provincial capital. A person sent by a small county magistrate must be a guest that his niece could deal with casually.
To the real heavyweights of the Hu family, although Longgang is the capital of coal mines, in their eyes, it is only about the four major coal mines. The new county magistrate is going to plunder the small coal mines, which has nothing to do with them. There are many people coming here to share the cake, so as long as their interests are not affected, it will be fine.
However, for those who depend on the Hu family for their livelihood, or for those who have been assigned to city and county levels by the Hu family, then these small coal mines in Longgang are also gold nuggets.
Although Longgang appointed a Western county magistrate, in fact there were many Western ruffians, some of whom were "three-no" people in the western states and came to the East to eat and drink for free. They were just the ignorant people, the real eastern dignitaries, and most Westerners were no different from grass in their eyes.
The agent of the Western county magistrate is very ruthless. He starts suppressing bandits as soon as he comes, which is equivalent to destroying their jobs.
However, there are experts among them who have been planning to set up an inspection team, and now it has come into being.
The inspection team sealed off all the coal mines in Xiping District in one go, which was also a kind of firepower reconnaissance and a survey of the new county magistrate's network of relationships.
If a phone call came immediately, or even a scolding came, then the matter would naturally be dropped, and from then on, the new county magistrate would have nothing to do with each other.
The Jackals, it's just their guns.
Sitting in the outer room of the luxurious suite sipping tea, Lu Ming pondered this matter.
From a certain perspective, I came here to defeat the Hu family. According to Christine's expectations, in addition to defeating the Hu family, I must also try not to hurt Uncle Chuckson, at least to keep his title.
It was very idealistic, but Christine felt that she was in such a mess that maybe there was a way.
As for myself, I am walking at my own pace.
This place is very suitable to be the base of his steel empire. Other areas have already been divided up by steel tycoons.
To achieve this goal, they must defeat or destroy the Hu family. This greedy group of foreign relatives has absolutely no basis for cooperation with them. After all, this world originally belonged to them. It is simply impossible for them to snatch it away and cooperate with them without damaging the relationship.
Therefore, from the perspective of defeating the Hu family, his goal coincides with Christine's expectations.
For the rest, you can only walk and see.
"Knock, knock, knock", someone knocked on the door. Heitou went to open the door. The person who came in was Wang Furong, with a man and a woman. The woman was charming and beautiful, she was his concubine Cui, and the man was Cui's younger brother, named Cui Xiaodong, who worked in the only law firm in Heishan.
What is more bizarre is that this law firm is a civil servant and the director of the law firm is appointed by the city government and is a seventh-rank official.
In criminal cases, the law firm sends lawyers to defend the suspects.
In this way, the principle in the Federal Empire law that criminal suspects must have a lawyer to defend them is implemented.
But the lawyers of the firm are all civil servants who earn a fixed salary. It is no exaggeration to say that they are comrades-in-arms with the prosecution.
There is frequent personnel transfer between each other.
Cui Xiaodong studied law. He and his sister were both from poor families. He went to technical secondary school and so on, all because of the support from his sister who became Wang Furong's concubine.
Now, Cui Xiaodong works at the Montenegro Public Law Firm, but he is a temporary employee. He just graduated from a technical secondary school. Wang Furong spent a lot of money to get him in, but it is extremely difficult for him to get a civil service position.
Cui Xiaodong had thick eyebrows and big eyes, and a very upright face. He dressed simply, in blue cloth clothes and black cloth shoes. He looked very much like the urban working youth in the old photos that Lu Ming had seen.
Cui kept complaining, "Don't I give you money? I told you to come to see Boss Lu and buy new clothes and a pair of leather shoes!"
Cui Xiaodong seemed to listen to his sister very much. He lowered his head in embarrassment. "My money was stolen. There was a kid begging in the mall. I gave him a copper coin, and then a group of kids chased me for it. When I went to the mall to choose clothes and pay the bill, I found that my wallet was gone. I thought it was those kids. So many hands held me tightly..."
Cui was so angry that she glared at him: "You, you are so stupid!"
Cui Xiaodong lowered his head and dared not speak.
Watching this scene, Wang Furong thought to himself that if he continued to talk like this, wouldn't Boss Lu look down on your brother even more? He coughed and said, "Boss Lu, Xiaodong's grades in school are still very good. You see, running errands for you should be okay?"
Lu Ming took part in an exam temporarily organized by the Legal Affairs Office of the County Government and obtained a local lawyer certificate, thus becoming qualified to sue in Jiangning Province.
Come to think of it, I originally thought that I could only play a supporting role in the lawsuit here, but when I arrived here, I realized that this is really another world.
A class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of coal mine owners in the Heishan City District Court, accusing the Inspection Brigade of the Longgang Branch of the Mining Bureau of illegally sealing off a total of five coal mines in Xiping District.
In fact, there are more than a dozen coal mines in Xiping District, all of which have been sealed off, but only five, including Lu Ming, have participated in the lawsuit. Moreover, except for Wang Furong who is very aggressive, the other three are just barely making it. The others don't want to get into trouble and stay out of it completely.
When filing a lawsuit in Montenegro, it is naturally better to temporarily hire a local lawyer to cooperate with you.
But no lawyer in the public law firm cared about this.
However, Wang Furong remembered his brother-in-law, and Boss Lu also promised that he would keep his brother-in-law with him in the future. At worst, he could take him to the East China Sea, right
Wang Furong also felt that it would be meaningless if the coal mine continued to operate like this. He had accumulated some wealth over the years. If he lost the lawsuit, the coal mine would be contracted to whoever wanted. He would also move his family to Donghai. It was heard that if you had some spare money, life in Donghai was very comfortable.
Seeing his concubine and brother-in-law embarrassing themselves in front of Boss Lu, he could only smooth things over.
The concubine is beautiful, but she comes from a peasant family after all. She speaks bluntly and sometimes does not think before speaking. It is sometimes embarrassing to bring her out.
Lu Ming found it quite funny to hear that Cui Xiaodong's money was taken away by the little beggars.
I originally thought that the boy had personality and that he felt comfortable wearing this kind of clothes, so he refused to change his clothes even when his sister asked him to.
If this is really the case, I don't necessarily agree with him. After all, the way you dress is sometimes a sign of respect for others and shows how seriously you take a matter.
When you reach a high level, maybe whatever you wear is justified, otherwise, you still have to abide by some conventional social rules.
But it’s quite interesting that even after his money was taken away, he still told the truth honestly and was not afraid of being embarrassed.
Looking at the young man, Lu Ming said, "Xiaodong, look for a way to help me find out if there have been any cases in Heishan where individuals have sued law enforcement agencies. If there are any, please find them out so I can take a look and use them as a reference."
Cui Xiaodong immediately said, "There will definitely be no such cases in the past 20 years, but I read about it in the library when I was in school. More than 30 years ago, there was a governor who came and advocated the rule of law. There was a lawsuit between a private person and the government, but within two years, the governor resigned and everything returned to the way it was before."
"Boss Lu, shall I go to the library and look for those materials?"
Lu Ming nodded in his heart. Although he was attending a technical secondary school, and that was a school in Montenegro called Montenegro Mining School, it offered a law major, so he could imagine the quality of its teaching.
But this Cui Xiaodong was a little beyond his expectations.
"Well, go ahead!" Lu Ming smiled, "You're a good guy."
Cui Xiaodong bowed slightly, greeted his sister and brother-in-law, turned around and left quickly.
Cui over there breathed a sigh of relief.
Although Lao Wang looked down on Boss Lu behind the scenes, saying that he was just a lackey who ran errands for the county magistrate and a money-grubber, and that he might not actually be as wealthy as his family, it seemed that Boss Lu knew many lawyer friends in Donghai. If Lao Wang could get his younger brother a job in Donghai through Boss Lu, then his biggest concern would be solved.
"Boss Lu, which famous lawyer in Donghai did County Magistrate Gong contact to handle this lawsuit?" Wang Furong asked curiously, although he certainly had never heard of the name mentioned.
Lu Ming coughed and said, "We'll see when the time comes!"
We can’t say we’re going to fight now, otherwise those companies that were coerced into coming here will have to back off.
It would be almost done once the court agreed to hear the case. The complaint had been accepted, and those who wanted to withdraw would also be labeled as "suing officials." They would die anyway, so they might as well give it a try.
Moreover, for this lawsuit, the court applied for a secret trial, which is a special trial method in Jiangning Province.
Not to mention attending the trial, any news coverage is impossible. Even the court records will not be posted. It is almost the same as a secret trial. It is strictly confidential to the outside world, and the final files are also sealed secretly.
I will not use Lu Qianxing's name to hype this case up, as that will only backfire.
On the contrary, only by holding a secret trial can one have a hope of winning.
In fact, according to imperial law, Xiping District is the place where the dispute occurred, and you can file a lawsuit in the Xiping District Court.
But he still chose the Montenegro City Court.
Because the Longgang Branch and the Inspection Brigade are dispatched agencies of the Heishan Mining Bureau, the Heishan City Court also has jurisdiction.
If I fight this lawsuit in Xiping District, even if I win, it will not mean much. I guess the Provincial High Court will definitely dismiss it and ask the Xiping District Court to re-examine the case. In the end, it may just become a dead end and be left as an unsolved case.
If we can win in Montenegro, the meaning will be completely different.
The Chief Judge of the Montenegrin Court is called Sharif. He has been the Chief Judge of Montenegro for more than 20 years and is a money-grubber.
In the five provinces south of the Yangtze River, the chief judges of the urban courts were usually Westerners. No Western judges were willing to serve in the local courts in counties and towns. Over time, this became a common practice.
But no matter where the judges come from, after working in the five provinces of Jiangnan for a long time, they are all more or less the same.
It seems like Sharif is simply enjoying his life here and doesn't want to go back to the southern region.
This person needs to be studied carefully.