Claude decided to accompany his mother in the lawsuit. He believed that his mother had made up her mind to sever ties with him, Angelina and Bloweyk when she sued him, Angelina and Bloweyk in the noble court.
The noble court was in charge of disputes between the nobles of the kingdom and matters such as inheritance.
It was the first time his mother had sued her three children for being unfilial and asked them to repay the huge debt of the family fief.
Generally speaking, the cases heard by the Noble Court of the Kingdom were mostly cases in which the children of the nobles of the kingdom fought over the inheritance of the family property and title after the unexpected death of a certain noble.
However, the case of Marshal Claude's mother suing her children was quite a headache. There had never been such a case before!
The lawsuit was rejected twice, but the mother didn't let it go. She amended it and submitted it once more.
Claude's mother used to be a family with her three children, but the king intervened and conferred Claude's late father the title of viscount. So, Claude's mother separated herself and her eldest son from Claude's household and formed a separate household.
Now, Claude and his siblings were being asked to bear the huge debt of the new fief. No matter how one looked at it, it didn't seem right, but they couldn't put their finger on it.
The third petition only emphasized the three siblings' gratitude for their mother's upbringing and asked them to acknowledge their parents' care and take the initiative to contribute to the fief. That is, they had to bear the debt of a million crowns for the fief.
The reason why Claude and his siblings had to bear the debt was simple: they were rich while the family was poor.
It was a different way of robbing the rich to help the poor. It was the mother forcing her children to bear the responsibility for a debt that didn't belong to them.
The judges of the Kingdom's Court of Nobility were in a heated discussion. They were all ready to reject the lawsuit again and announce that it would never be accepted.
They believed that such an example would create a loophole in the kingdom's laws. The first in line to inherit the family's debt could be spread to their siblings, which would have a negative impact.
But at that moment, the judges were asked to accept the case from the noble court.
After asking around, he found out that many of the kingdom's higher-ups were dissatisfied with Claude's attitude towards the kingdom and wanted to humiliate him in this case.
As for his mother's complaint, it was precisely these high-ranking people who added fuel to the fire behind the scenes that caused the result …
It was a matter that concerned the reputation of the kingdom's upper echelons. It was said that as the kingdom's marshal and the person in charge of the region's military, Claude had foiled the royal court's plans many times.
On the other hand, the autonomous military zone had completely forgotten about the kingdom's Ministry of the Army and the Ministry of the Navy, acting on their own and showing signs of independence.
In terms of strategy, the royal court couldn't do anything to the region, but that didn't stop them from reducing Claude's personal influence over the region.
Soon, he received a summons from the noble court, requesting him to appear in the royal capital in three months for a trial.
The reason it took so long was because his mother wasn't the only one suing him. Anna and Bloweyk were also being sued. The court also had to give them a notice to appear in court, and it took a long time for them to travel to and from the self-governing region.
News spread like wildfire. Most of the councilors, like General Skri, received the news and wrote to Claude to offer their condolences and suggestions.
Speaker Bennett purposely went to Saint Cyprian to meet with Claude. He was originally a legal consultant and could be considered the most knowledgeable person in the autonomous region's laws. His suggestion to Claude was to plead guilty, submit to punishment and pay to settle the case.
Bennett told Claude that the case wasn't a simple one, as it was against the laws of the kingdom.
Not only did the noble court not reject the lawsuit, they even decided to put it on trial. That was very unusual.
If Claude decided to fight the case in court, he would be stuck in the royal capital for the rest of his life.
The kingdom's nobility court could easily ask Claude to appear in court once a month. The longer the case dragged on, the greater the humiliation Claude would suffer and the longer the delay would be.
"What about entrusting someone else to appear in court?" Claude didn't want to go to the royal capital.
"There's only one situation in which someone can be entrusted to appear in court: when the case is about to be judged," Bennett told Claude solemnly.
The procedure of the noble court was that both the plaintiff and the defendant had to be present for their testimony to be valid.
So, Claude had to appear in court if he wanted to fight his mother's case, and that would be a humiliation to him.
Claude couldn't just ignore the case. Even if he thought his mother was being unreasonable, he had to go to the royal capital to confront her and refute her accusations of being unfilial.
If he wasn't willing to appear in court, the case would be decided in his mother's favor. Not only would Claude have to bear the humiliation and the debt of a million crowns, he would also have to accept punishment from the noble court. That would have a huge negative impact on his reputation.
"Perhaps many people hope that you won't appear in court. That way, they can slander you without restraint.
Even if you stay in the region, they'll still come up with lies for you in the royal capital.
Because your mother's complaint this time is unprecedented in the kingdom. If you don't respond, you'll have a bad reputation for being unfilial. People who don't know the truth will think that you three siblings are really at fault … "
Bennett didn't recommend Claude to go to the royal capital to fight his mother's case either. He believed that it was a ploy against Claude to trap him in the royal capital with the lawsuit. That way, he wouldn't have the time to attend to the development of the region's military.
If the lawsuit was going to take two years, he would have to stay in the royal capital for two years. He wouldn't be able to attend to any changes in the region.
"So, I suggest you plead guilty and entrust someone to go to the royal capital to represent you in court. During the first hearing, you'll accept punishment and pay to end the case.
The good thing about that is that you can suggest severing the ties between the two Ferds. If anything happens to your mother and brother's families, you won't be implicated.
After all, if your mother sues you, it means she's done with you. She'll use money to buy off the three of you who brought you up. "
Speaker Bennett's words made a lot of sense. In order to avoid future disputes, the noble court of the kingdom would sever the kinship between the plaintiff and the defendant to prevent any future involvement.
That was why Claude could also request the royal court to sever ties between the two families. That way, he wouldn't be implicated by his mother and brother's families in the future.
He thought about it for a few days and finally decided to follow Chancellor Bennett's suggestion. So, he wrote letters to Angelina and Bloweyk, describing the whole process of the lawsuit and the measures he was going to take. He then had an ironclad destroyer deliver the two letters to the region.
Fortunately, apart from the troubles caused by the case, the situation in Shiks didn't change much. Everything went according to Claude's plan.
Even when the ten western prefectures were annexed by the three neighboring kingdoms, the grand duke of the Northlands didn't do anything.
According to the plan, Claude led his troops out of Saint Cyprian. The next day, Duke Sunset River's army reclaimed the Shiksan capital and celebrated their victory over the invaders.
By the time they reached Port Patkara, it was late January of Year 606 of the Sacred Light Calendar.
The ironclad destroyer delivered two letters and two letters of entrustment from Angelina and Bloweyk.
In her reply, Anna lamented her mother's stubbornness and obstinacy, and hated her for bringing the three of them to court.
She stated in the letter that she would stand with Claude to rebuild House Han-Ferd and sever ties with House Sang Ferd.
Bloweyk's reply was simple. He said that his mother who loved him had passed away long ago and that he had gone to the registry office to reinstate his surname, Han Ferd. He didn't recognize House Sang Ferd as his relative.
Apart from the replies, there were also two letters of entrustment. Claude would be in charge of the lawsuit and they would bear the consequences of the lawsuit together with Claude. No matter what the outcome was, the three of them would bear the consequences together.
Claude also wrote letters of entrustment and handed them to Bennett. He would represent the three siblings in court and end the case on the first hearing.
That way, while Claude would lose the case and a large sum of money, he would be free from his stubborn mother and his scheming brother. Perhaps it would be easier for him in the future.
On the 25th of the 2nd month, the court of nobles in the royal capital heard the case of House Ferd's mother suing her children. The nobles of the royal capital filled the seats.
Nobody expected Bennett to represent Claude and his siblings. After the judge read out the mother's complaint, Bennett stood up and presented the letters of entrustment from the three siblings. They admitted defeat on behalf of the siblings and agreed to bear the debt of a million crowns.
However, Bennett also stated that Claude's mother had more than three children. She also had her eldest son, Arbeit, who inherited House Sang Ferd. So, the debt of a million crowns should be split among the four children, with each of them having to pay a quarter.
It was a reasonable request and not a single judge objected. Even Claude's mother couldn't disagree. So, the court ruled that the three siblings would have to repay the debt of 750,000 crowns.
Then, Bennett suggested that since the creditor of the debt was the queen, the three siblings should repay the debt to her directly instead of going through her mother. After all, it wasn't safe to pass such a large sum to her. So, he asked for the debt to be settled with the queen's representative in court.
It was a safe suggestion, and so Speaker Bennett took out seventy-five drafts for ten thousand crowns from the Minsheng Bank in court, and settled them with Her Majesty's agent, with a receipt as proof.
In the end, Bennett asked the court to separate House Sang Ferd and House Han Ferd by blood.
His mother vehemently objected to it. She believed that her relationship with the three siblings had to be maintained.
She was their biological mother and that relationship couldn't be severed by the court.
However, the judge believed that since the three siblings had already taken on the debt that didn't belong to them, they had fulfilled their responsibilities as children.
On the contrary, the fact that the three siblings were sued by their mother meant that their family ties were severed. In order to prevent House Sang Ferd from sucking the blood of House Han Ferd, the court decided to sever the blood ties between the two Ferds. From that day onwards, the two Ferds would no longer have anything to do with each other.
Nobody thought that the case would end so quickly. Even the masterminds didn't think that Claude and his siblings would admit defeat so quickly and repay the debt in court, severing the blood ties between the two houses. That also meant that they wouldn't be able to use Claude's mother to make things difficult for him in the future.
The incident happened so suddenly that the high-ranking officials of the kingdom who were involved in this case were caught off guard.
They thought that since it was a debt of a million crowns, Claude and his siblings should have fallen out with their mother and fought for the debt for a few years.
Let alone a million crowns, even a few thousand crowns was enough to turn a father and a son against each other.
There was a saying that a clumsy move turned into a skillful one. With the precedent of a mother suing her son, the nobles of the kingdom who were adept at exploiting loopholes naturally wouldn't let go of such a great opportunity.
In the next few months, there were all sorts of cases of siblings suing their siblings, the main family suing their children, and fathers suing their mothers. All of them wanted their relatives to share the debt and wanted to be punished according to the case of the mother suing her son.
The nobles' court was put in an awkward position by the cases. They didn't want to accept them, but with Claude's mother's case as an example, the already illogical cases were forced to the court by the higher-ups and they ended up in a difficult position.
The subsequent cases weren't as straightforward as Claude and his sister's. For a few hundred crowns, they would go on for two to three years and cause a huge commotion. All the newspapers in the royal capital would publish the cases and complain about the unfairness of the cases.
When people looked into it, they realized that the case of the mother suing her son wasn't logical at all. Even if they wanted to set things right, they wouldn't be able to give Claude an explanation. After all, the three siblings had paid 750,000 crowns and it was difficult to decide who should foot the bill.
But if they didn't set things right, the subsequent cases would have to be judged according to that precedent. That would put a huge question mark on the kingdom's justice system and no judge could bear that responsibility.
The ones who suffered the most were Claude's mother and brother, Arbeit. Even though the three siblings paid off three-quarters of their debt, House Sang Ferd still owed the queen a loan of 250,000 crowns. That still amounted to 12,500 crowns per year at 5% interest.
The income from the viscount's fief didn't even reach 10,000 crowns per year. That meant that they wouldn't be able to make ends meet after the three-year interest-free period. Their fief and fief would still be under the threat of being confiscated by the kingdom.
The kingdom's nobility court split the two houses of Ferd, which meant that they would no longer be able to receive Claude's protection and aid.
Even though someone had instigated them to sue Claude and his siblings in the nobility court, Claude's mother and Arbeit didn't lack the desire to take a bite out of the three siblings.
However, the verdict disappointed them greatly. Even though the three siblings admitted defeat, they didn't receive a single crown and were still owed a quarter of their debt.
For the sake of the case, Mother and Arbeit returned to the royal capital from their fief and stayed in the manor the king gave them.
With the 10,000 crowns Claude provided, Mother and Arbeit started spending lavishly to hire legal counsel and build connections to ensure that they would win the case.
In the end, three months passed and they won the case, but their situation didn't change at all. Instead, they spent almost all of the 10,000 crowns they had.
So, when President Bennett came to them and asked them to pay for the upkeep of House Ferd's manor in Whitestag, as well as the salaries of the servants and housekeepers, Mother and Arbeit avoided the question and weren't willing to fork out the few hundred crowns.
In the end, they sold the manor in Whitestag to President Bennett for more than two thousand crowns.
With the end of the case, the invasion of Shiks came to an end.
What came next was to gradually transport the families of the soldiers gathered at Port Patkara to the region.
Claude sent the list of soldiers who contributed to the conquest of Shiks to the ministry of the army and was quickly notified that he was to head to the royal capital to attend the celebration hosted by the king. Claude would also be promoted to a hereditary marquis during the celebration.
Claude threw the notice into the trash can and had his aide, Fachselin, send a messenger eagle to the ministry of the army saying that Marshal Claude had caught a cold and refused to attend the celebration in the royal capital.
After the news spread, the soldiers of Thundercrash and Tempest under the autonomous military zone all followed suit and refused to go to the Imperial City to attend the celebration …