Xie Yan had been a strategist for years. He used to work at the military, but because of several reasons, his former master, namely some General, did not like his style so he got fired. That was why he ended up working for Zhou Huailing instead.
Back at the military training, he had learned a great deal, like gathering forces.
Despite his position right now, Lord Huai was the King's son and had the biggest possibility of taking the throne. So he needed to gather forces too, before he was able to get the throne.
And since he took responsibility for the refugees, it would be the best channel for him to gather forces among the civilians.
Lord Ling was arrogant, and he was not willing to lower his own dignity to help those people. Xie Yan was aware of that point, so he stopped trying to persuade him, but…
The situation was that the refugees were all forces gathered by Lord Huai and Gu Chaoyan… that made him have to mention something.