DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

富國強兵

简富国强兵 · 繁富國強兵

Mandarin · pinyin fù guó qiáng bīng

lit. rich country, strong army (idiom); slogan of legalist philosophers in pre-Han times
Make the country wealthy and the military powerful, slogan of modernizers in Qing China and Meiji Japan (Japanese pronunciation: Fukoku kyōhei)

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

富: fù · abundant, ample; rich, wealthy
國: Look up this written character
強: qiáng · strong, powerful, energetic
兵: bīng · soldier, troops
国: guó · nation, country, nation-state
强: qiáng · strong, powerful, energetic

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

4–2–2–1 · fu4 guo2 qiang2 bing1

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

5character links

Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗

Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

富國強兵 · find source passages ↗ · 富国强兵 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

(idiomatic) to make the country rich and the military powerful

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack