Powerful Military and Effective  Bureaucracies

Emperor Wu Di was the main reason for the powerful military and effective bureaucracy in Han China. He was responsible for the expansion of the Han empire into Vietnam and up into Korea. Every male peasant had to join the military at the age of twenty. They were required for service untill they were fifty nine. They were also required to train one month out of the year, not during the harvest, to learn how to be a better soldier. Since every male in the country was serving in the military, the Han empire had a powerful and well manned military. This made them a powerful military force.

The Han Dynasty also had a very effective bureaucracy because of Wu Di and Confucianism. The Han government established a civil service exam to assign qualified personel government positions. This is very different from the way other dynasties used to pick government officials. Earlier governments just assigned friends of the emperor to different positions. Now that qualified officials were in office the government ran much smoother and with less conflict withing the government.