The paper aims to consider the strength gradient force as the dynamic of astrophysical jets, explaining the movement phenomena of astrophysical jets. J. C. Maxwell applied the quaternion analysis to describe the electromagnetic theory. This encourages others to adopt the complex quaternion and octonion to depict the electromagnetic and gravitational theories. In the complex octonion space, it is capable of deducing the field potential, field strength, field source, angular momentum, torque, force and so forth. As one component of the force, the strength gradient force relates to the gradient of the norm of field strength only, and is independent of not only the direction of field strength but also the mass and electric charge for the test particle. When the strength gradient force is considered as the thrust of the astrophysical jets, one can deduce some movement features of astrophysical jets, including the bipolarity, matter ingredient, precession, symmetric distribution, emitting, collimation, stability, continuing acceleration and so forth. The above results reveal that the strength gradient force is able to be applied to explain the main mechanical features of astrophysical jets, and is the competitive candidate of the dynamic of astrophysical jets.