I think the biggest difference between realm forces and those of say, Rome (I'm actually not that familiar with how Chinese forces worked) would be the depiction of glory.
For a realm mortal, glory is not going to be pushing yourself to excellence, it's going to be who best follows the orders of your dragon blooded superiors. The tales of the realm are going to emphasis the bravery of a young hero in inspiring his fellow soldiers to hold against the swarming beast soldiers of an Anathema while the dragon princess who he is in a chaste kind of love with meditates to regain her essence after defeating an enemy champion. The climax of the poem would see him heroically fall to hold the line, just in time for the princess to return and drive back the attack with her fury, with the implication his soul would be reincarnated as her child, a hero for the next generation.
Realm citizens won't regard themselves as uncivilized or blood happy the way the Roman's did, nor will they regard their arrays as proving the individual metal of the participants as part of a mass in the way of the Greeks. Instead it's going to be about discipline and obedience. About the facilitation of dragon blooded heroes. Manhood (or womanhood, perhaps adulthood) will be defined by one's putting aside of a childish desire for individual glory and giving yourself to the orders of your superiors. This will probably also include customs by which when a dragon blooded wins particular glory in battle, she gifts the units under her command with half of her reward, the collective division of booty, and so on.
On the battlefield, the realm will deploy blocks of heavily armoured spear and crossbow troops, castles for the dragon blooded officers to withdraw too at low essence, from which they sally out as individuals or sworn brotherhoods, or occasionally with elite troops or bodyguards to attack the enemy, seeking personal combats with enemy champions, and striking enemy formations with their charms. This might not apply to patrician cavalry, as the dragon blooded don't do cavalry as much, so there's probably some fairly proficient mortal cavalry filling the gap.
Sorry, reference on the former? Especially the thaumaturgy stuff, which is nonsense from a "Realm as Imperial China" thing. Because the Realm should be instead certifying and qualifying thaumaturges based on Imperial examinations and requiring you to sit exams on your knowledge of these practices. Yes, of course they'll ban things like the Art of Demon Summoning, but there's no way that they should be banning the Art of Husbandry or the Art of Weather Working.)
The realm isn't going to look like imperial China on account of the military being in charge. It's a state ruled by a class of hereditary warrior aristocrats. That's very different from China.
I actually think Lookshy, or the Scavenger Lands in general would look a lot more Chinese, despite having a Japanese aesthetic, because they do have a class of scholar gentry, who in many cases probably do undergo official certification. They'd then be the ones in charge of doing stuff with first age technology, because there aren't enough dragon blooded to do it.
My take on the blessed isle is that the Scarlet Empress didn't want to put up with such a class of mortals, because they were one of the primary causes of all the instability of the shogunate. Any dragon blooded who wanted to go against the system could find a ready power base in the grievances of the scholar, technician and essence using or essence armor equipped mortal warriors. The Empress to me seems like someone vastly concerned with her own survival and destiny, so she probably just decided that rather than trying to maintain a huge number of powerful mortals, she wouldn't.
Of course, there would still be imperial thaumaturges, but a likely a lot less, as a percentage, than lookshy.
