> real life came calling, sorry. the han worship bureaucracy. its bizarre as an outsider to see an ethnic group that places bureaucrats at the center of their value system. most groups romanticize the honorable warrior. you get exceptions to this rule, like the indians who chose priests, but bureaucrats? that is so alien to even other ethnic groups in the region. i guess they could afford to do so because they could outsource warfare to other ethnic groups like the manchu, and could keep said groups in line with an endless horde of untrained rice farmers. even the mongols werent a threat until they united, and it took the mother of all draughts to put the pressure required to force them to do so. every peer the han had, had these massive problems that prevented them from taking advantage of china breaking apart. a few things:  all traditional societies put the priestly class above the warrior class, including medieval and early modern europe, where the clergy were the "first estate." also, "worship" of bureaucrats and bureaucracy is the apotheosis of the development of the state. as states grow stronger and stronger, administrators gain more power and status, becoming the de facto highest class in society. we are seeing it today in the west. europe experienced something like it during the absolute monarchies, where administrators, appointed from among the class of commoners, gained more power than the nobles due to their proximity and loyalty to the king (raised up commoners were more reliable servants of the absolute monarchs than landed nobles ever were).  china had the luxury to develop its state so fully exactly because out of the past 2500 years of chinese history, 80% of it had no foreign enemies or competition. so, in long periods of peace, the state just grew and grew, and its officers usurped most of the power in society. it is in regions where conflict is common, including the indian subcontinent, that warriors hold more power than state bu
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