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Kongming defeats Meng Huo, the king of the Man peoples, before Meng Huo agrees to yield. Why doesn't Kongming execute him and be done with it?

I think he felt that he also needed to get the support (at least passive) of the Mans people in order to battle against the Wei and/or the Wu. I guess that he would have released Meng Huo until he was entirely sure that the Mans would be on his side, regardless how many times it would require. Too clever, Zhuge Liang...

I agree, or put another way, he couldn't afford to occupy the Mans, so he needed them to ultimately decide to accept Chinese hegemony so he would be free to battle the Northern Kingdom.

I agree he needed the people on his side to keep the Kingdom peaceful