system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Mulan] Was Mulan secretly taking her father’s place in the army entirely pointless?

She took his place because her father is too elderly but later we see that Shang tried to kick her out of the army because she was proving to be too weak at the time. Wouldn’t the same thing happen to her father if he went?
gpt
No. Zhou wouldn't have been a green recruit like Ping was, so he wouldn't have stayed behind with Shang for basic training. He'd have gone to the front lines with General Li and been slaughtered by the Huns. And without Mulan, Shang might not have beaten the main force of the Huns, and even if he did he certainly wouldn't have known about the survivors and their plot to sneak into the city and take down the emperor.