This seems a clumsy way to do it but the emperor's right. She got involved, overthought it before, and is still coming back to deal with it personally.
It's fine to get mad but just getting pissy and whipping the guy is unnecessary. What's that going to do for the kids? They're not the only ones suffering like this. She should just kill the guy outright, fix the immediate situation , pick somebody she deems trustworthy to take over, and move on. She's got way too much to do to waste time on small fry like this.
She'll probably put him in jail where he would just cut the guy's throat. Maybe that's the difference the author's trying to portray.