How are you intended to deal with bandits?

[Iamnuff]

Dudes will repeatedly try to extort or rob you. The only reasonable option seems to be to kill them.
So you beat them up and take their head, then a coalition of 5 random dudes who have nothing to do with each-other (literally, a bandit, a farmer, two beggers and a wanderer) will show up to murder you while you're out and about.
Or someone with Transcendent-level kung-fu will show up in your house next time you sleep saying "I was hired by your enemies to kill you"

I understand that 'taking heads' is supposed to be a dramatic event that has consequences but i'm not exactly murdering innocent people here. Bandits should be everybody's problem. Nobody except other bandits should be willing to fight for these scum.

Also, given that every other tile I place ends up spawning 2-4 more bandits, if I don't clean them up then eventually the whole map will be full of nothing but bandits.
If "Destroy kungfu" option after a fight actually worked and crippled their ability to ever threaten you again, then it'd make a good alternative, but near as I can tell it does basically nothing?

Like, what am I supposed to do about these hordes of bastards roaming the world? Just ignore them and let them constantly try to steal from me?

[StrongArm]

Nah, only like 5 tiles are bandit tiles

(by the way, the bandits in one of the lava tiles are the only people you can learn sage level climbing & and water jumping from - they are the Liu bandit family, and they are ridiculously hard to find if you dont know where they are)

Just kill em' chief. Then they send goons after you so you kill those too or you die and have to make a new character. This aint an easy game. It turns out those bandits have friends in high places and there are consequences for killin em. But kill em anyway.