As for why he wanted Xie Wanzhi to take the blame, it was easy enough to understand. Meng Zhao believed the time was not yet ripe and did not wish to clash directly with Beitang Sheng and the Beitang Imperial Clan, so he needed to borrow Xie Wanzhi's name to do this.
Only then could he extinguish Beitang Sheng's and the Beitang Imperial Clan's intentions. At the very least, openly, they would not nitpick Meng Zhao over this matter or target him at every turn. As for what they did in the shadows, that would depend on whose methods were superior.
Thus, he was a smokescreen Meng Zhao had put forward, existing solely to divert Beitang Sheng's and the Beitang Imperial Clan's attention.
But then again, the Beitang Imperial Clan could threaten Meng Zhao in this way because Meng Zhao was not a lone man. He possessed an enormous power base and a family. At times, he would be swept along by the currents of the age and forced into doing things against his will.
Xie Wanzhi was different. Though he also had descendants and a family, few people knew of that descendant, while his relationship with his family had long since fallen apart.
Calling him a lone man would not be too far off. More importantly, his martial arts were formidable. With the cultivation of a Great Grandmaster, where in the world could he not go?
Never mind the current Great Yong Dynasty, swaying in the wind and leaking from every side, like a grand building on the verge of collapse riddled with holes like a sieve—even in its prime, he would not have cared. Such was the confidence of one of the Divine Land's foremost fighting powers.
It was also an embodiment of how heroes used martial prowess