Weighing in on the issue of killing the scrubs.
Everyone of these people is dead. There is no question of their status as corpses, only question is how quickly they die, and death by us is possibly the least painful, fastest option available. And i think Ling Qi knows it, the empire does not strike me as a place that goes for long prison sentences and/or rehabilitation when it comes to bandits attacking settlements.
And even further, we are not strong enough to show mercy here, there is one legit threat in the field, and while i am confident we can take them, this assumes we fight for real and don't try to preserve the lives of our enemies, especially when doing so would be more likely to either distract us in critical juncture, or at the minimum get our allies (you know, the soldiers) dead.
We can have a mental breakdown later, right now, it's killing time.
And speaking of already dead.
If this dude is a Bai (which i doubt), i suspect not only is he dead, his family might also be.
Internal power politicking and backstabbing is all well and good, keeps people sharp and acts as a makeshift qualification exam, but a rebellion this open feels like the time when family tree gets pruned quite heavily.