On April 19, 2014 (March 20, 2014 in the lunar calendar), the China-Wei ship case was claimed against Japan: four-generation relay claims lasted for 77 years. Timeline On April 19, 2014, during a sensitive period in Sino-Japanese relations, the Shanghai Maritime Court detained a cargo ship belonging to the defendant's "Merchant Shipping Mitsui" to force the other party to implement the court's judgment and pay compensation. Four days later, the Japanese company announced that it would fulfill the judgment of the Shanghai Maritime Court and pay 4 billion yen in compensation. Lawyer Ye Ming has been waiting for 26 years from being invited to participate in the China-Wei Ship Claims Lawyers Group to now receiving information on the defendant's compensation. During this period, he grew from an ordinary member of a team of lawyers gathered with authoritative experts to the main trial lawyer in the case. This protracted civil claim case has lasted for a full 77 years from the incident in 1937. During this period, the parties themselves and their second and third generations passed away one after another. It is the third and fourth generations of the parties who are still fighting the lawsuit. Since the Shanghai Maritime Court officially accepted the case in 1988, 26 years ago, two-thirds of the 56 members of the Chinese lawyers and advisory team specially formed for this case have also passed away. Recently, under the arrangement of the China-Wei Ship Claims Lawyers Group, Dr. Ye Ming accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from China Youth Daily to tell the story of this 77-year rights protection story and answer why this complex civil lawsuit took a full 26 years after it entered litigation in mainland China. Where did my ship go? In mid-1937, Chen Shuntong, the owner of Shanghai Zhongwei Shipping Company, discovered that two ocean-going cargo ships owned by him had disappeared. These two ships are the Shunfeng with a load of 6725 tons, and the other is the XinTaiping with a load of 5025 tons. At that time, with four ocean-going cargo ships, he ranked second in China's shipping industry and was called the "Shanghai Ship King." The two lost cargo ships were leased to Japan's Datong Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as "Datong Company") for a period of one year from September and October 1936 respectively. However, on July 7, 1937, when the "Lugou Bridge Incident" broke out, Chen Shuntong lost contact with Datong Company. Although the contract expired later, the two ships under Chen's name were never heard from. The other two ships under his name were also requisitioned by the National Government after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War. They sank in Ningbo Bay and Jiangyin Port one after another to stop the Japanese invasion. Since then, Chen Shuntong has continued to inquire about the whereabouts of the two ships through various channels. Three years later, on September 4, 1940, Japan's Datong Company officially wrote to Zhongwei stating that the two ships had been "captured" by the Japanese Navy on August 22, 1937, and that the Japanese government had obtained the ownership of the two ships "in accordance with the law", and the Japanese Ministry of Communications (i.e. Ministry of Communications-Reporter's Note) handed over the two ships to Datong Company for operation through concluding a charter contract. The main meaning of the letter is that the ship was taken away by the Japanese government, and Datong Company is now paying the ship charter to the Japanese Ministry of Transport, so he suggested that Chen Shuntong negotiate with the Japanese government. However, Datong Company did not tell Chen Shuntong in its letter that as early as October 21, 1938, under the operation of Datong Company, one of the two ships, the "New Taiping", had hit a reef and sank on Izu Oshima in Hokkaido, Japan. The above "suggestion" suddenly led the Chen family into a dead end. When the two countries are at war, how can an individual and private boss of the invaded country dare to "ask for an explanation" from the government of the invading country? But the Chen family never gave up "looking for a boat". In 1946, after Japan surrendered, that is, seven years after the ship was lost, Chen Shuntong submitted an application for financial reimbursement for the wartime robbery to MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces stationed in Japan, through the Kuomintang government delegation to Japan. A month later, the Allied Command replied to inform him that the "Shunfeng" and "New Taiping" ships had been "lost" and suggested that "China and Wei must seek another remedy in addition to in-kind repayment." In 1961, 25 years after the ship was lost, Chen Shuntong's son Chen Qiaqun went to Japan for the first time to negotiate with the Japanese government when the situation was slightly better. During the investigation and civil mediation conducted by the Japanese government and the Tokyo Summary Court from 1962 to 1967 regarding the Sino-Wei Company's "Shunfeng" and "New Taiping" ships, the Japanese government claimed whether the "Shunfeng" and "New Taiping" ships had been detained or "captured" by the Japanese Navy."The evidence is unclear and the situation is unclear." In response to the above reply, Chen Qiaqun entrusted a Japanese lawyer to sue the Japanese government in the Tokyo District Court of Japan in April 1970. This lawsuit in Japan lasted for four years. In 1974, a local magistrate in Tokyo, Japan, ruled that the plaintiff lost the case on the grounds of "expiration of the statute of limitations." One of the twists and turns during this period was that Japanese lawyers requested to identify Chen Qiaqun's "litigation subject" identity. Japan believes that this lawsuit started with the charter contracts between Chen Shuntong's Shanghai Zhongwei Shipping Company and Japan's Datong Company. Shanghai Zhongwei Company no longer exists. Chen Qiaqun's identity at that time was the sole owner of Hong Kong Zhongwei Company. He settled in Hong Kong and could not prove his relationship with Chen Shuntong and Shanghai Zhongwei Company. The issuance of this identity certificate wasted more than two years of the Chen family's time. At that time, mainland China was during the "Cultural Revolution" and the situation was complex. However, under the attention of Premier Zhou Enlai and Liao Chengzhi, the Shanghai City Higher People's Court specially issued a certificate for Chen Qiaqun's kinship relationship with Chen Shuntong and others in 1972, making it impossible for the Japanese court to deny Chen Qiaqun's status as the subject of the lawsuit based on the subject relationship. Moving to the mainland, well-known lawyers and experts formed a team of lawyers to go to Japan to sue, spending almost all of the Chen family's savings. In the past seven years, Chen Qiaqun has visited Tokyo 37 times and held more than 40 court sessions in Japan, spending as much as US$600,000. After losing the case, he fell seriously ill. In 1986, the Hong Kong-based "China Legal Services Company" took over the case. After research by several well-known lawyers, including Ren Jisheng (then president of the National Lawyers Association), Zeng Junwei (then executive deputy general manager of Hong Kong China Legal Services Company), and Gao Zongze, the main litigation battlefield in this case was selected in mainland China. Zeng Junwei first contacted Chen Qiaqun. Speaking of the original intention of deciding to take over the case, he, now in his 70s, spat out six words word by word-upholding justice. "I feel that Japan is too bullying. We must safeguard the legitimate interests of China citizens. Looking at the thick stack of yellowed files and evidence on the table, Zeng Junwei felt that this case could not be handled by just one or two lawyers. It involved various obscure and professional clauses in many laws such as international law, maritime law, civil law, etc., and many legal principles and provisions that ordinary lawyers would not be able to understand. He found his boss, Ren Jisheng, then general manager of China Legal Services Company in Hong Kong, and the two discussed and decided to use their "network of friends" to form a team of experts to study the case together. For this reason, they flew from Hong Kong to Beijing and went to find their acquaintances and friends, including Justice Wang Tieya of the International Court of Justice of the Hague and many other "upper-class people" in the legal profession to join the team. Experts finally gathered at a hotel in Shanghai. There, the expert team gave a decision to "go to the Shanghai Maritime Court." Zeng Junwei recalled that it was that expert meeting that laid the foundation for today's victory. Three key points were identified at that meeting. First, according to the latest interpretation of the General Principles of Civil Law at that time, it overturned the previous statement made by Japan that "the statute of limitations has expired"; second, it confirmed the fact that the original Shanghai Zhongwei Company had the right to be subject to legal jurisdiction in Shanghai, where the company is located; Third, after the Japanese Datong Company's legal entity name changed several times, it was confirmed that its corporate debts were also changed to the new company name. To Zeng Junwei's expectations, Japan has never been "dishonest" on the issue of "creditor's rights inheritance". Although Datong Company changed several times, when the Chinese court summons was sent to Japan Shipping Co., Ltd.(the former successor of Datong Company's creditor's rights and debts), the other party accepted it and sent a representative to Shanghai to respond to the lawsuit. "On this point, I think the Japanese still adhere to the rule of law and reason." Zeng Junwei said. The lawyers did not collect money from the Chen family and organized a team of lawyers for the "China-Wei Ship Case". It included a total of 56 well-known lawyers, legal celebrities, and academic experts from Beijing and Shanghai. Ye Ming, the current trial lawyer of the Chen family, was among them. Ye Ming told reporters that about two-thirds of the lawyers and consultants in these two teams have passed away so far, and the parties Chen Qiaqun and Chen Chun have also passed away one after another during the course of the case. "This case has dragged on for too long!" Ye Ming shook his head and sighed. The first trial process continued to be turbulent. On December 20, 1988, after nearly three years of preparation, Chen Qiaqun filed a lawsuit with the Shanghai Maritime Court in the name of Hong Kong Zhongwei Shipping Company. Three years later, on August 15, 1991, the Shanghai Maritime Court held its first hearing of the Sino-Wei ship case. At the beginning of the trial, the defendant Japan Shipping Co., Ltd. gave the plaintiff a "show of strength." The defendant seized on the relationship between Shanghai Zhongwei Shipping Company and Hong Kong Zhongwei Company and questioned Hong Kong Zhongwei Company's status as the subject of the lawsuit. Ye Ming recalled that the defendant seized this "handle" as soon as he came forward, which caught the plaintiff a little unprepared."In fact, Chen Shuntong was an individual ship owner at that time. If his heirs claimed compensation in their own name, this problem would not have occurred." The matter of "increasing natural human litigation subjects" has been done for nearly 10 years. Two more courts were held in January and May 1995 respectively, and the main issues still revolved around the "subject of litigation." After the first court session, Pan Gongbo, another trial lawyer in the legal team, found all relevant property rights and ship registration certificates related to Chen Shuntong's registration in the name of Zhongwei Shipping Company through various channels. When Chen Qiaqun passed away in 1992, he left the right to claim compensation in the form of a will to his two sons, Chen Zhen and Chen Chun. Three years later, in 1995, the plaintiff requested the addition of two natural entities, Chen Zhen and Chen Chun, at the second and third court sessions. After studying this request, the court formally approved it in 2003, which lasted for 8 years. Ye Ming returned to China after receiving a doctorate in law in the United States in early 1995 and formally accepted the case. In May 1996, five years after the first court session, the Shanghai Maritime Court reorganized a "super-large collegial bench" composed of five people (the collegial bench is generally 3-reporter's note). The court session was held for 9 consecutive days. Ye Ming served as the plaintiff's court. The lead defense lawyer for the substantive part of the charter party. He said that these nine days were the "most beautiful nine days." In the past nine days, a fact-finding investigation of the ship case, cross-examination by both parties and court debate were conducted, and the final statements of both parties were heard. Many issues were clarified and the evidence was "connected." Ye Ming said that according to the court's introduction after the trial, it was expected that a first-instance judgment would be issued in September of that year, but who knew that another "case within a case" occurred at a critical time. In the past 26 years, when the final compensation was about to be decided in the first instance, Chen Shuntong's second son Chen suddenly filed a lawsuit with the Shanghai City No. 1 Intermediate People's Court to invalidate Chen Qiaqun's will. This case has been tried since 1996, and Chen Qiaqun won the final judgment in 1997. Ye Ming said that although this uproar only took more than a year, it seriously affected the litigation process of the Sino-Wei ship case in the Shanghai Maritime Court. Coupled with the personnel changes in the court and the acquisition of the defendant by Merchant Shipping Mitsui Company, the first-instance judgment in the Sino-Wei Shipping Case was shelved again. It was not until six years later, on November 25, 2003, that the Shanghai Maritime Court held another hearing on the Sino-Wei ship case. This is the last time the Shanghai Maritime Court has heard the ship case. At the beginning of the year before this hearing, the collegial panel formally confirmed that two natural persons, Chen Zhen and Chen Chun, would join the litigation subject, and decided to change the defendant subject to the current "Merchant Shipping Mitsui" Company. Since then, the controversy surrounding the "qualification of litigation subjects" has come to fruition. From the first trial in 1991 to the last trial in 2003, this dispute lasted for 12 years. Ye Ming recalled that the trial in 2003 went very smoothly. He told reporters that the focus of the debate in this trial was still on issues such as the qualification of the plaintiff and the limitation of time. In response to the long-standing controversy about "qualification of litigation subjects", Ye Ming made full use of the original ship registration and ship registry certificate previously collected by lawyer Pan Gongbo to prove that Shanghai Zhongwei Shipping Company established a "wholly owned individual enterprise" for Chen Shuntong. The company is not a legal person company established in accordance with the Company Law at the time. Therefore, all property of Zhongwei, including the two ships leased to Datong Company in 1936, are Chen Shuntong's personal property. According to the provisions of our country's laws on personal enterprises, the owner (owner) of a personal enterprise bears unlimited liability for his personal property and has the right to claim the creditor's rights enjoyed by his personal enterprise to his legal heirs through will. The plaintiff in this case, including Chen Zhen and Chen Chun, are mainly based on a will made by Chen Shuntong on August 8, 1949, which passed the right to claim the second round of rights and interests to his son Chen Qiaqun. Before his death in 1992, Chen Qiaqun also left a will passing the right to claim the second round of rights and interests to his sons Chen Zhen and Chen Chun. After the last smooth trial, there was another long wait. Four years later, on December 7, 2007, the Shanghai Maritime Court issued a first-instance judgment and ordered the defendant to compensate the plaintiff for various losses totaling approximately 2.9 billion yen. From the formal prosecution in 1988 to the first-instance judgment, Ye Ming and the lawyers and consulting team behind him waited for nearly 20 years. During this process, some people withdrew because they "couldn't wait" or "were not optimistic", others passed away due to illness, and others heard that "the case was big and the amount was large" and came to investigate, but they usually stopped after a meal. Careful people can easily find that from the first-instance judgment in 2007 to April 23, 2014, when the "Merchant Shipping Mitsui" quickly "fully fulfilled all obligations determined in the effective judgment" when the court forcibly detained its ship. This process took more than six years. Regarding the question raised by the outside world about this incident,"Why does a claim case against a Japanese company take 26 years to be tried?" Ye Ming, who has been in the legal profession for nearly 30 years, said that he should understand that "the Sino-Wei ship case spans a long time, the case is particularly complex, and the subject matter of the lawsuit is huge. These have raised many new questions and challenges to the lawyers and judges on both sides of the case. Ye Ming said that the determination of the defendant's breach of contract and liability for breach of contract involving only substantive issues in this case must refer to relevant theories, practices and international conventions such as International Law, Maritime Law, and the Naval War Regulations in the Law of War. These issues are not a simple and easy task for the court of any country. Taking Ye Ming's own experience when he studied in the United States as an example, he once conducted special research on the word "capture" mentioned by Japan in the Sino-Wei ship case, and conducted special research on the nature and differences of "capture","capture" and "detention". He borrowed a monograph called "The Law of Prize" that he referred to, and once stumped a 60-year-old senior librarian in the library of the oldest law school in the western United States. "He asked me, what does the Prize written in this book mean?" Ye Ming said that the special terms used in special laws are difficult for people in English-speaking countries to understand. It is difficult for judges in China to study relevant legal issues. Ye Ming believes that the Shanghai Maritime Court, as a special people's court established only in 1984, was able to accept such a "particularly complex case" as the China-Wei Ship Case in less than five years after its establishment, and was able to successfully enforce it in 2014. It is not easy."The plaintiff expresses his gratitude for this and feels firsthand the growing strength of the motherland and the pride of being a China."On April 19, 2014 (March 20, 2014 in the lunar calendar), the China-Wei ship case was claimed against Japan: four-generation relay claims lasted for 77 years. Timeline On April 19, 2014, during a sensitive period in Sino-Japanese relations, the Shanghai Maritime Court detained a cargo ship belonging to the defendant's "Merchant Shipping Mitsui" to force the other party to implement the court's judgment and pay compensation. Four days later, the Japanese company announced that it would fulfill the judgment of the Shanghai Maritime Court and pay 4 billion yen in compensation. Lawyer Ye Ming has been waiting for 26 years from being invited to participate in the China-Wei Ship Claims Lawyers Group to now receiving information on the defendant's compensation. During this period, he grew from an ordinary member of a team of lawyers gathered with authoritative experts to the main trial lawyer in the case. This protracted civil claim case has lasted for a full 77 years from the incident in 1937. During this period, the parties themselves and their second and third generations passed away one after another. It is the third and fourth generations of the parties who are still fighting the lawsuit. Since the Shanghai Maritime Court officially accepted the case in 1988, 26 years ago, two-thirds of the 56 members of the Chinese lawyers and advisory team specially formed for this case have also passed away. Recently, under the arrangement of the China-Wei Ship Claims Lawyers Group, Dr. Ye Ming accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from China Youth Daily to tell the story of this 77-year rights protection story and answer why this complex civil lawsuit took a full 26 years after it entered litigation in mainland China. Where did my ship go? In mid-1937, Chen Shuntong, the owner of Shanghai Zhongwei Shipping Company, discovered that two ocean-going cargo ships owned by him had disappeared. These two ships are the Shunfeng with a load of 6725 tons, and the other is the XinTaiping with a load of 5025 tons. At that time, with four ocean-going cargo ships, he ranked second in China's shipping industry and was called the "Shanghai Ship King." The two lost cargo ships were leased to Japan's Datong Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as "Datong Company") for a period of one year from September and October 1936 respectively. However, on July 7, 1937, when the "Lugou Bridge Incident" broke out, Chen Shuntong lost contact with Datong Company. Although the contract expired later, the two ships under Chen's name were never heard from. The other two ships under his name were also requisitioned by the National Government after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War. They sank in Ningbo Bay and Jiangyin Port one after another to stop the Japanese invasion. Since then, Chen Shuntong has continued to inquire about the whereabouts of the two ships through various channels. Three years later, on September 4, 1940, Japan's Datong Company officially wrote to Zhongwei stating that the two ships had been "captured" by the Japanese Navy on August 22, 1937, and that the Japanese government had obtained the ownership of the two ships "in accordance with the law", and the Japanese Ministry of Communications (i.e. Ministry of Communications-Reporter's Note) handed over the two ships to Datong Company for operation through concluding a charter contract. The main meaning of the letter is that the ship was taken away by the Japanese government, and Datong Company is now paying the ship charter to the Japanese Ministry of Transport, so he suggested that Chen Shuntong negotiate with the Japanese government. However, Datong Company did not tell Chen Shuntong in its letter that as early as October 21, 1938, under the operation of Datong Company, one of the two ships, the "New Taiping", had hit a reef and sank on Izu Oshima in Hokkaido, Japan. The above "suggestion" suddenly led the Chen family into a dead end. When the two countries are at war, how can an individual and private boss of the invaded country dare to "ask for an explanation" from the government of the invading country? But the Chen family never gave up "looking for a boat". In 1946, after Japan surrendered, that is, seven years after the ship was lost, Chen Shuntong submitted an application for financial reimbursement for the wartime robbery to MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces stationed in Japan, through the Kuomintang government delegation to Japan. A month later, the Allied Command replied to inform him that the "Shunfeng" and "New Taiping" ships had been "lost" and suggested that "China and Wei must seek another remedy in addition to in-kind repayment." In 1961, 25 years after the ship was lost, Chen Shuntong's son Chen Qiaqun went to Japan for the first time to negotiate with the Japanese government when the situation was slightly better. During the investigation and civil mediation conducted by the Japanese government and the Tokyo Summary Court from 1962 to 1967 regarding the Sino-Wei Company's "Shunfeng" and "New Taiping" ships, the Japanese government claimed whether the "Shunfeng" and "New Taiping" ships had been detained or "captured" by the Japanese Navy."The evidence is unclear and the situation is unclear." In response to the above reply, Chen Qiaqun entrusted a Japanese lawyer to sue the Japanese government in the Tokyo District Court of Japan in April 1970. This lawsuit in Japan lasted for four years. In 1974, a local magistrate in Tokyo, Japan, ruled that the plaintiff lost the case on the grounds of "expiration of the statute of limitations." One of the twists and turns during this period was that Japanese lawyers requested to identify Chen Qiaqun's "litigation subject" identity. Japan believes that this lawsuit started with the charter contracts between Chen Shuntong's Shanghai Zhongwei Shipping Company and Japan's Datong Company. Shanghai Zhongwei Company no longer exists. Chen Qiaqun's identity at that time was the sole owner of Hong Kong Zhongwei Company. He settled in Hong Kong and could not prove his relationship with Chen Shuntong and Shanghai Zhongwei Company. The issuance of this identity certificate wasted more than two years of the Chen family's time. At that time, mainland China was during the "Cultural Revolution" and the situation was complex. However, under the attention of Premier Zhou Enlai and Liao Chengzhi, the Shanghai City Higher People's Court specially issued a certificate for Chen Qiaqun's kinship relationship with Chen Shuntong and others in 1972, making it impossible for the Japanese court to deny Chen Qiaqun's status as the subject of the lawsuit based on the subject relationship. Moving to the mainland, well-known lawyers and experts formed a team of lawyers to go to Japan to sue, spending almost all of the Chen family's savings. In the past seven years, Chen Qiaqun has visited Tokyo 37 times and held more than 40 court sessions in Japan, spending as much as US$600,000. After losing the case, he fell seriously ill. In 1986, the Hong Kong-based "China Legal Services Company" took over the case. After research by several well-known lawyers, including Ren Jisheng (then president of the National Lawyers Association), Zeng Junwei (then executive deputy general manager of Hong Kong China Legal Services Company), and Gao Zongze, the main litigation battlefield in this case was selected in mainland China. Zeng Junwei first contacted Chen Qiaqun. Speaking of the original intention of deciding to take over the case, he, now in his 70s, spat out six words word by word-upholding justice. "I feel that Japan is too bullying. We must safeguard the legitimate interests of China citizens. Looking at the thick stack of yellowed files and evidence on the table, Zeng Junwei felt that this case could not be handled by just one or two lawyers. It involved various obscure and professional clauses in many laws such as international law, maritime law, civil law, etc., and many legal principles and provisions that ordinary lawyers would not be able to understand. He found his boss, Ren Jisheng, then general manager of China Legal Services Company in Hong Kong, and the two discussed and decided to use their "network of friends" to form a team of experts to study the case together. For this reason, they flew from Hong Kong to Beijing and went to find their acquaintances and friends, including Justice Wang Tieya of the International Court of Justice of the Hague and many other "upper-class people" in the legal profession to join the team. Experts finally gathered at a hotel in Shanghai. There, the expert team gave a decision to "go to the Shanghai Maritime Court." Zeng Junwei recalled that it was that expert meeting that laid the foundation for today's victory. Three key points were identified at that meeting. First, according to the latest interpretation of the General Principles of Civil Law at that time, it overturned the previous statement made by Japan that "the statute of limitations has expired"; second, it confirmed the fact that the original Shanghai Zhongwei Company had the right to be subject to legal jurisdiction in Shanghai, where the company is located; Third, after the Japanese Datong Company's legal entity name changed several times, it was confirmed that its corporate debts were also changed to the new company name. To Zeng Junwei's expectations, Japan has never been "dishonest" on the issue of "creditor's rights inheritance". Although Datong Company changed several times, when the Chinese court summons was sent to Japan Shipping Co., Ltd.(the former successor of Datong Company's creditor's rights and debts), the other party accepted it and sent a representative to Shanghai to respond to the lawsuit. "On this point, I think the Japanese still adhere to the rule of law and reason." Zeng Junwei said. The lawyers did not collect money from the Chen family and organized a team of lawyers for the "China-Wei Ship Case". It included a total of 56 well-known lawyers, legal celebrities, and academic experts from Beijing and Shanghai. Ye Ming, the current trial lawyer of the Chen family, was among them. Ye Ming told reporters that about two-thirds of the lawyers and consultants in these two teams have passed away so far, and the parties Chen Qiaqun and Chen Chun have also passed away one after another during the course of the case. "This case has dragged on for too long!" Ye Ming shook his head and sighed. The first trial process continued to be turbulent. On December 20, 1988, after nearly three years of preparation, Chen Qiaqun filed a lawsuit with the Shanghai Maritime Court in the name of Hong Kong Zhongwei Shipping Company. Three years later, on August 15, 1991, the Shanghai Maritime Court held its first hearing of the Sino-Wei ship case. At the beginning of the trial, the defendant Japan Shipping Co., Ltd. gave the plaintiff a "show of strength." The defendant seized on the relationship between Shanghai Zhongwei Shipping Company and Hong Kong Zhongwei Company and questioned Hong Kong Zhongwei Company's status as the subject of the lawsuit. Ye Ming recalled that the defendant seized this "handle" as soon as he came forward, which caught the plaintiff a little unprepared."In fact, Chen Shuntong was an individual ship owner at that time. If his heirs claimed compensation in their own name, this problem would not have occurred." The matter of "increasing natural human litigation subjects" has been done for nearly 10 years. Two more courts were held in January and May 1995 respectively, and the main issues still revolved around the "subject of litigation." After the first court session, Pan Gongbo, another trial lawyer in the legal team, found all relevant property rights and ship registration certificates related to Chen Shuntong's registration in the name of Zhongwei Shipping Company through various channels. When Chen Qiaqun passed away in 1992, he left the right to claim compensation in the form of a will to his two sons, Chen Zhen and Chen Chun. Three years later, in 1995, the plaintiff requested the addition of two natural entities, Chen Zhen and Chen Chun, at the second and third court sessions. After studying this request, the court formally approved it in 2003, which lasted for 8 years. Ye Ming returned to China after receiving a doctorate in law in the United States in early 1995 and formally accepted the case. In May 1996, five years after the first court session, the Shanghai Maritime Court reorganized a "super-large collegial bench" composed of five people (the collegial bench is generally 3-reporter's note). The court session was held for 9 consecutive days. Ye Ming served as the plaintiff's court. The lead defense lawyer for the substantive part of the charter party. He said that these nine days were the "most beautiful nine days." In the past nine days, a fact-finding investigation of the ship case, cross-examination by both parties and court debate were conducted, and the final statements of both parties were heard. Many issues were clarified and the evidence was "connected." Ye Ming said that according to the court's introduction after the trial, it was expected that a first-instance judgment would be issued in September of that year, but who knew that another "case within a case" occurred at a critical time. In the past 26 years, when the final compensation was about to be decided in the first instance, Chen Shuntong's second son Chen suddenly filed a lawsuit with the Shanghai City No. 1 Intermediate People's Court to invalidate Chen Qiaqun's will. This case has been tried since 1996, and Chen Qiaqun won the final judgment in 1997. Ye Ming said that although this uproar only took more than a year, it seriously affected the litigation process of the Sino-Wei ship case in the Shanghai Maritime Court. Coupled with the personnel changes in the court and the acquisition of the defendant by Merchant Shipping Mitsui Company, the first-instance judgment in the Sino-Wei Shipping Case was shelved again. It was not until six years later, on November 25, 2003, that the Shanghai Maritime Court held another hearing on the Sino-Wei ship case. This is the last time the Shanghai Maritime Court has heard the ship case. At the beginning of the year before this hearing, the collegial panel formally confirmed that two natural persons, Chen Zhen and Chen Chun, would join the litigation subject, and decided to change the defendant subject to the current "Merchant Shipping Mitsui" Company. Since then, the controversy surrounding the "qualification of litigation subjects" has come to fruition. From the first trial in 1991 to the last trial in 2003, this dispute lasted for 12 years. Ye Ming recalled that the trial in 2003 went very smoothly. He told reporters that the focus of the debate in this trial was still on issues such as the qualification of the plaintiff and the limitation of time. In response to the long-standing controversy about "qualification of litigation subjects", Ye Ming made full use of the original ship registration and ship registry certificate previously collected by lawyer Pan Gongbo to prove that Shanghai Zhongwei Shipping Company established a "wholly owned individual enterprise" for Chen Shuntong. The company is not a legal person company established in accordance with the Company Law at the time. Therefore, all property of Zhongwei, including the two ships leased to Datong Company in 1936, are Chen Shuntong's personal property. According to the provisions of our country's laws on personal enterprises, the owner (owner) of a personal enterprise bears unlimited liability for his personal property and has the right to claim the creditor's rights enjoyed by his personal enterprise to his legal heirs through will. The plaintiff in this case, including Chen Zhen and Chen Chun, are mainly based on a will made by Chen Shuntong on August 8, 1949, which passed the right to claim the second round of rights and interests to his son Chen Qiaqun. Before his death in 1992, Chen Qiaqun also left a will passing the right to claim the second round of rights and interests to his sons Chen Zhen and Chen Chun. After the last smooth trial, there was another long wait. Four years later, on December 7, 2007, the Shanghai Maritime Court issued a first-instance judgment and ordered the defendant to compensate the plaintiff for various losses totaling approximately 2.9 billion yen. From the formal prosecution in 1988 to the first-instance judgment, Ye Ming and the lawyers and consulting team behind him waited for nearly 20 years. During this process, some people withdrew because they "couldn't wait" or "were not optimistic", others passed away due to illness, and others heard that "the case was big and the amount was large" and came to investigate, but they usually stopped after a meal. Careful people can easily find that from the first-instance judgment in 2007 to April 23, 2014, when the "Merchant Shipping Mitsui" quickly "fully fulfilled all obligations determined in the effective judgment" when the court forcibly detained its ship. This process took more than six years. Regarding the question raised by the outside world about this incident,"Why does a claim case against a Japanese company take 26 years to be tried?" Ye Ming, who has been in the legal profession for nearly 30 years, said that he should understand that "the Sino-Wei ship case spans a long time, the case is particularly complex, and the subject matter of the lawsuit is huge. These have raised many new questions and challenges to the lawyers and judges on both sides of the case. Ye Ming said that the determination of the defendant's breach of contract and liability for breach of contract involving only substantive issues in this case must refer to relevant theories, practices and international conventions such as International Law, Maritime Law, and the Naval War Regulations in the Law of War. These issues are not a simple and easy task for the court of any country. Taking Ye Ming's own experience when he studied in the United States as an example, he once conducted special research on the word "capture" mentioned by Japan in the Sino-Wei ship case, and conducted special research on the nature and differences of "capture","capture" and "detention". He borrowed a monograph called "The Law of Prize" that he referred to, and once stumped a 60-year-old senior librarian in the library of the oldest law school in the western United States. "He asked me, what does the Prize written in this book mean?" Ye Ming said that the special terms used in special laws are difficult for people in English-speaking countries to understand. It is difficult for judges in China to study relevant legal issues. Ye Ming believes that the Shanghai Maritime Court, as a special people's court established only in 1984, was able to accept such a "particularly complex case" as the China-Wei Ship Case in less than five years after its establishment, and was able to successfully enforce it in 2014. It is not easy."The plaintiff expresses his gratitude for this and feels firsthand the growing strength of the motherland and the pride of being a China."