1. MC and ML commit genocide against 2 different ethnic groups, one of which had already joined their country and had established roots and families for 11 years.

The one ethnic group that submitted to the emperor/country (lets call them group A) still ens*aved the country's citizens after being allocated land and silenced any news about it from spreading outside. The other ethnic group (group B) tried to take advantage and collude with group A to attack home country's border military and take over. It's one group's right to attack and annialate as much as the other side's right to defend/attack/annihalate. It's war, do you want them to play nice? Turbulent times. What can you do.

2. To paraphrase: MC is a hypocrite who sympathizes with common people, feeling for the untrained forcefully conscripted farmers, and common folk being taken advantage of by the military, but he has no qualms with wiping out the opposing military full of able-bodied men.

Well the able-bodied men are from the opposing military who actually confront the MC's own military. Those who are actually in the military should be prepared to die unlike the unfortunate forcefully conscripted canon fodder farmers. Losers in the war become prisoners of war. What happens to prisoners of war? Execution and s*avery are common endings. Additionally, who would have time to weed out resentful soldiers from the losing side on a tight schedule under the pressure of turbulent times? If you let them all go without inspecting, at worse you are opening your arms to getting retaliated against.

Also, in ancient China, it's common for entire families and their next 3 generations to suffer the consequences of one person's mistake. Perhaps they all get executed, perhaps they and their decendants live under scrutiny for some crime one relative committed 50 years ago. They weren't strict to just outsiders, they were also strict to their own citizens.

MC and ML commit genocide against 2 different ethnic groups, one of which had already joined their country and had established roots and families for 11 years.

the author did portray them as "treacherous" and "ungrateful", but its no excuse for a genocide against the entire group, including women and children and the elderly/disabled, especially since most of the treasonous actions were from the military. They explicitly state after the massacre that 5 counties are now free from the foreigners and there are no more foreigners in their land-

and all this is very hypocritical of MC, who is known for being the only one to sympathize with the common people in the midst of corruption. There are 2 scenes of him coming face to face with the powerful's apathy towards the weak (discovering that another army was using untrained peasants as human meat shields in war, and another of soldiers plundering and assaulting a woman after a battle) , but he sees no issue with massacring entire groups of people left over after completely wiping out their armies of able bodied men. The ML may have ordered the act, but MC was complicit and even supported it.

when the author goes out of their way to describe how the main characters lure out all able bodied men under false pretenses of war to then frame them of treason, execute them, and then use said "treason" to massacre the families left behind of elderly, disabled, women, and children left behind while very clearly showing the spokesperson as an elderly man who could not fight and could not defend himself against crimes that did not exist and were not committed by the deceased, and THEN have the main characters applaud themselves for taking back the cities and cleansing them of foreigners / mixed blood and have the narratives applaud them, with no push back or moral lesson to learn for the character who is in canon praised to be the only one who cares for the common folk and the only one who has empathy among the officials? So the author is equating his "righteousness" and "empathy" with ethnic cleansing to frame it as a good thing? That isn't the author trying to explore morality or historical accuracy, esp if they gloss over the effects it had on the people left behind as "freeing their land from foreigners" with no moral conflict from the characters committing the crimes. Thats pure xenophobia amd racism, from a nationalist author who believes in ethnic cleansing.

They are in a business relationship and there is no romance budding between them. The older brother caught sight of MC's talent and used his death to bind MC to the family to help them mutually. MC uses his status as the head's wife to increase his strengths, while keeping his promise to protect his friend's family. They respected each other and parted as good friends. Afterwards, MC uses his husband as a shield to decline marriage offers to focus on work, but it made people (ML especially) misunderstand that they were in love.

Whenever the xiongnu (nomads who lived in mongolia) they are treated as lesser than human, not only by the supportig cast but by the main character as well,

for the imperial examination, any person with a disability or sickness is excluded.

First of all, no one asked you to defend genocide, and I understand that context is important, but im pretty sure that the other reviewer was mainly upset with MC. Xenophobia? Genocide? That sh*t was probably more common than the cold in history- but MC is a MODERN man. Born in the 21st century. The fact that HE has no problem with it is out of character AND extremely concerning. Honestly its crazy how wanting ur MC to NOT genocide an entire community means u want a gary stu MC 💀 Like its not even having standards, let alone high standards - Its expecting basic human decency from a character that has been shown to have basic human decency... But I guess wanting an Anti-Genocide MC is too much to ask for💀

And honestly, the fact that the author wrote them as “barbaric” is just lazy imo- Like I dont understand why you would generalize an entire group of people just ur readers don’t sympathize with them once u kill every single one of them off -when u dont even need to kill them all in the first place... But sure, choose the boring and 1 dimensional option instead of fleshing out out some of the other ethnic groups to make ur world a little more immersive...

somewhat black-white righteousness of the MC in the world penned by the author, which stood out quite a bit despite the author trying for a more serious/nuanced story.

The two tribes of the north were both utterly villainized and the extraordinary descriptiveness of how the MC successfully slaughtered / got rid of two ethnic groups. Apparently, those tribes in the north had no women, no children, no culture worth praising despite their incredible horsemanship and beautiful Fergana horses. Those tribes had zero "peasants" worth even a drop of the vast ocean of sympathy the MC had for the other peasants next door.

Sure, the tribes were long-time enemies of the MC's country (and I'll tell you historically, very few things are black-and-white and it would be nearly impossible for tribes in close contact to not intermingle with the MC's own people), but it was a stark contrast of how the MC cared so much for "the masses" yet delineated such a clear separation between "his own people" and the "other race." After destroying one and subjugating the other tribe, he also completely banned their language in order to completely stomp out their culture.

Sure, the story takes place in ancient times. But the story wasn't written by an ancient historical author and the MC "transmigrated" from modern times. The world penned by this modern author reflects the author's views; therein I found it interesting that the author had no awareness about writing the worshipped, compassionate, modern-sensibility MC, casually destroying two peoples and their cultures with zero inner turmoil. Very interesting indeed.

It feels icky idk how to explain it other than that. Like, as I read their tryst in the cave and again in the governors home it makes me cringe and speed read through it. For one, the MC never held any s*xual interest towards him throughout every scene where his body was on display or the author described how sexy and sensual the ML was they would go on to reiterate that the MC was made to feel uncomfortable due to the difference in stature and aura as well as his disinterest in him compared to whatever item he may have been tinkering with. So it’s beyond me how just a few chapters ago he was still just having fun teasing him because of his competitive nature to now talking about being in love and willing to face the consequences of their relationship.

I genuinely don’t understand. Not to mention I think the repeated statements about how in*estuous the relationship would be also in turn makes me even more uncomfortable with them.

I understand that his upbringing was devoid of any real familial connection or bond and I understand that because of that, and the fact that from a young age he was in the military made him more volatile and lacking in basic human understanding.

However, why does that mean he’s unable to control his anger and frustration? Like, he’s supposed to be a general of an army of over 100000 soldiers yet their general throws hissy fits because his crush hurts himself or because he’s trot suppress his desires? Like I know this may not be a huge deal, but it bothers me that this grown ass man goes through bouts of madness where he hears voices because he’s trying to suppress his emotions. I put up with it because I really was hoping they would show the gradual improvement and development of learning how to talk to people and learning how to deal with others who weren’t rough soldiers but nope.