Great Wei's Capital.
Prince Huaining sucked in a breath of cold air.
He truly had never imagined that Xu Qingxiao would be so mad.
Executing surrendered troops?
This was unprecedented.
Unless it was a true Northern Expedition, executing surrendered troops should have been out of the question.
These Foreign-Race Kingdoms had merely shown Great Wei disrespect. A lesson would have sufficed. Since they had surrendered, Great Wei ought to have accepted, then punished them gradually through reparations, compensation for the bereaved, and so forth.
Even bleeding the Fan Kingdom dry would have been acceptable.
But executing surrendered troops was a grave taboo.
Especially in warfare. Once you killed those who surrendered, no one would surrender to you again. If death awaited them either way, why not die with honor?
Of course, there was an advantage too: enemies would not dare fight you and would surrender in advance, perhaps escaping disaster that way.
"This Xu Qingxiao really is ruthless."
Prince Huaining drew a deep breath, unable to calm himself.
The repercussions of this matter were far too great.
Xu Qingxiao's execution of surrendered troops could have enormous consequences, earning him the curses of the entire world.
Great Wei had never done such a thing since Emperor Taizu executed surrendered troops. Moreover, Great Wei had produced a Sage who had expounded upon the Military School's teachings.
His general message had been that surrendered troops must not be killed, lest heaven mete out punishment.
Thus, scholars everywhere opposed executing surrendered troops.
Their reasoning was simple: although two nations had gone to war, once one surrendered, the victor had to show some gentlemanly conduct. The soldiers were innocent, and so were the common people.
They needed only to arrest those chiefly responsible and punish them without mercy.
Executing surrendered troops meant causing innocent deaths.