It was the commanding officers personal responsibility to thoroughly inspect them before battle. (de Hartog 37). With Khan promoting and enforcing such laws, his veterans, mostly friends, were able to set prime examples of the proper discipline that was required to be ruled under Genghis. If not the Mongols would have lived in a world of constant chaos and confusion. As well, all men were expected, except for rare cases, to join the army. (Lamb 202). Possible repercussions were: un-rewarded work for the empire, with possible chances of slavery. Khan ruled in a dictatorship type fashion, by presenting the young Mongolian men with an ultimatum he promoted himself and the way he chose to govern. With these rules that were strictly enforced and highly regarded, Khan was able to discipline offenders accordingly, if they were to initially be broken at all.
Genghis Khan had a constant desire to expand his empire, which brought about conflict on a regular basis. (Hart 7). However, the Mongols triumphed over everything that stood in their way. These constant Mongolian victories were due to an overwhelming superiority of numbers. "Quantity rather than quality" (Woodman 197), in essence, was the secret of their amazingly rapid sequence of successes. (Hart 7):.
In our understanding of the Mongols we have advanced sufficiently far beyond the ideas of Matthew Paris and the medieval monks to be certain that the horde of Genghis Khan was not, like the Huns, a migratory mass, but a disciplined army of invasion. (Lamb 207).
Genghis Khan has been attributed with the largest assembled military force by any Mongol leader in the history of the Mongolian tribesmen and Khans (two hundred and thirty thousand to be precise), ensuring that " merit and not seniority was the key to advancement." (Hart 8). Although a percentage of his veterans were colleagues and close friends, they had to earn their ranks in the military forces of Khan.
