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Mongols battled against the most powerful armies and warriors in Eurasia.{{citation needed|date=February 2013}} The beating of the kettle and smoke signals were signals for the start of battle. One battle formation that they used consisted of five squadrons or units. The typical squadrons were divided by ranks. The first two ranks were in the front. These warriors had the heaviest armor and weapons. The back three ranks broke out between the front ranks and attacked first with their arrows.<ref>Per Inge Oestmoen. [http://www.coldsiberia.org/monmight.htm "The Mongo Military Might."] ''Cold Siberia''. N.p., 18 Jan. 2002. Retrieved on 12 November 2012</ref> The forces kept their distance from the enemy and killed them with arrow fire, during which time "archers did not aim at a specific target, but shot their arrows at a high path into a set 'killing zone' or target area."<ref>{{Cite web |url= http://www.thepicaproject.org/?page_id=522 |title=Matthew Barnes. "The Mongol War Machine: How Were the Mongols Able to Forge the Largest Contiguous Land Empire in History? |p=522 |agency= The Pica A Global Research Organization''. Pica, 14 November 2012 |access-date=2012-11-14 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130612184909/http://www.thepicaproject.org/?page_id=522 |archive-date=2013-06-12 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Mongolics also acquired engineers from the defeated armies. They made engineers a permanent part of their army, so that their weapons and machinery were complex and efficient.<ref>Jack Weatherford , ''Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.'' (New York: Crown, 2004.), 94.</ref>
== Kinship and family life ==
{{See also|Society of the Mongol Empire}}
[[File:Across Mongolian plains; a naturalist's account of China's "great northwest", by Roy Chapman Andrews photographs by Yvette Borup Andrews (1921) (16769576222).jpg|thumb|350px|Mongols grazing livestock, by Roy Chapman Andrews photographs in 1921]]
The traditional Mongol family was patriarchal, patrilineal and patrilocal. Wives were brought for each of the sons, while daughters were married off to other clans. Wife-taking clans stood in a relation of inferiority to wife-giving clans. Thus wife-giving clans were considered "elder" or "bigger" in relation to wife-taking clans, who were considered "younger" or "smaller".<ref>Vreeland 1962:160</ref><ref>Aberle 1953:23–24</ref> This distinction, symbolized in terms of "elder" and "younger" or "bigger" and "smaller", was carried into the clan and family as well, and all members of a lineage were terminologically distinguished by generation and age, with senior superior to junior.
In the traditional Mongolian family, each son received a part of the family herd as he married, with the elder son receiving more than the younger son. The youngest son would remain in the parental tent caring for his parents, and after their death he would inherit the parental tent in addition to his own part of the herd. This inheritance system was mandated by law codes such as the [[Yassa]], created by [[Genghis Khan]].<ref>[http://www.mypolice.ca/research_and_publications/MongolianLawCodeYasa.htm THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT CODE “YASA” ON THE MONGOLIAN EMPIRE] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20130615073730/http://www.mypolice.ca/research_and_publications/MongolianLawCodeYasa.htm |date=2013-06-15 }}</ref> Likewise, each son inherited a part of the family's camping lands and pastures, with the elder son receiving more than the younger son. The eldest son inherited the farthest camping lands and pastures, and each son in turn inherited camping lands and pastures closer to the family tent until the youngest son inherited the camping lands and pastures immediately surrounding the family tent. Family units would often remain near each other and in close cooperation, though extended families would inevitably break up after a few generations. It is probable that the Yasa simply put into written law the principles of customary law.
{{quotation|It is apparent that in many cases, for example in family instructions, the yasa tacitly accepted the principles of customary law and avoided any interference with them. For example, Riasanovsky said that killing the man or the woman in case of adultery is a good illustration. Yasa permitted the institutions of polygamy and concubinage so characteristic of southerly nomadic peoples. Children born of concubines were legitimate. Seniority of children derived their status from their mother. Eldest son received more than the youngest after the death of father. But the latter inherited the household of the father. Children of concubines also received a share in the inheritance, in accordance with the instructions of their father (or with custom.)|Nilgün Dalkesen|Gender roles and women's status in Central Asia and Anatolia between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries<ref>http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12608663/index.pdf</ref>}}
After the family, the next largest social units were the subclan and clan. These units were derived from groups claiming patrilineal descent from a common ancestor, ranked in order of seniority (the "conical clan"). By the [[Chingissid]] era this ranking was symbolically expressed at formal feasts, in which tribal chieftains were seated and received particular portions of the slaughtered animal according to their status.<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/?id=qcSsoJ0IXawC&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=%22Mongols%22+%22seniority%22+%22conical+clan%22#v=onepage&q=%22Mongols%22%20%22seniority%22%20%22conical%20clan%22&f=false | title=Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical History| isbn=9781566398329| last1=Adas| first1=Michael| year=2001}}</ref> The lineage structure of [[Central Asia]] had three different modes. It was organized on the basis of genealogical distance, or the proximity of individuals to one another on a graph of kinship; generational distance, or the rank of generation in relation to a common ancestor, and birth order, the rank of brothers in relation to each another.<ref>Cuisenier (1975:67)</ref> The paternal descent lines were collaterally ranked according to the birth of their founders, and were thus considered senior and junior to each other. Of the various collateral patrilines, the senior in order of descent from the founding ancestor, the line of eldest sons, was the most noble. In the steppe, no one had his exact equal; everyone found his place in a system of collaterally ranked lines of descent from a common ancestor.<ref>Krader (1963:322, 269)</ref> It was according to this idiom of superiority and inferiority of lineages derived from birth order that legal claims to superior rank were couched.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 178975|title = Kinship Structure and Political Authority: The Middle East and Central Asia|journal = Comparative Studies in Society and History|volume = 28|issue = 2|pages = 334–355|last1 = Lindholm|first1 = Charles|year = 1986|doi = 10.1017/S001041750001389X|hdl = 2144/3845|hdl-access = free}}</ref>
The Mongol kinship is one of a particular patrilineal type classed as [[Omaha kinship|Omaha]], in which relatives are grouped together under separate terms that crosscut generations, age, and even sexual difference. Thus, oe uses different terms for a man's father's sister's children, his sister's children, and his daughter's children. A further attribute is strict terminological differentiation of siblings according to seniority.
The division of Mongolian society into senior elite lineages and subordinate junior lineages was waning by the twentieth century. During the 1920s, the [[Communist]] regime was established. The remnants of the Mongolian aristocracy fought alongside the [[Japan]]ese and against [[China|Chinese]], [[Soviets]] and Communist Mongols during [[World War II]], but were defeated.
The anthropologist Herbert Harold Vreeland visited three Mongol communities in 1920 and published a highly detailed book with the results of his fieldwork, ''Mongol community and kinship structure''.<ref>[http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015008324819;view=1up;seq=1 Mongol community and kinship structure. Vreeland, Herbert Harold, 1920]</ref>
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