Mongol Empire
From 13th to 15th century, emperor Genghis and his descendants established the biggest empire the World has ever seen. Researchers believe that the secret to Mongolian conquest was its wide range of cavalry units and iron discipline of the soldiers. With the “Great Hunt”, Mongolians trained their soldiers and stockpiled on food supply before setting off on a campaign. The hunt continued for a several days, cornering the animals and hunting them after the order was given. It was forbidden to loosen an arrow before the order was given, violation of this law was punishable by death. Emperor Chinggis had a famous tactic, the feigned retreat. Mongolian cavalry soldiers retreated to separate the chasing enemy from its main force. At this point, the enemy had already walked into a trap.
Army of the Great Mongol Empire had a liberty which no other army in the world had. The “Aravt”, platoon of ten soldiers would choose their own leader and the same applied to the “Zuut” or leader of one hundred. Leaders of thousand and ten thousand were appointed by the emperor himself. Leaders of the unit inspected the equipment and weapons of the soldiers before battle, reported how many were killed in action, how many were wounded, distributed the loot evenly among his subordinates and had the duty to have his soldiers ready at all times. This iron discipline was the core of the army. Camps were set up in certain layout, each line acting as a wall of defense and even the interior of each ger was supposed to be the same. All this sophisticated layout and logistics are far different from the general perspective of “barbarians”.
Mongolia was always open to the people who came from the other country. Also, Genghis Khaan allows a people to pray for their own religion. It was almost first time of religious freedom in that time. The empire was governed by a non-democratic parliamentary-style central assembly, called Kuraldai, in which the Mongol Generals met with the Great Khaan to discuss domestic and foreign policies.
After the great king dies in 1227, the struggle for the throne was repeated again and again between the descendants of Genghis khan. Slowly but surely, Empire was falling.