Of all troops in the world these are they which endure the greatest hardship and fatigue, and which cost the least; and they are the best of all for making wide conquests of country.  And this you will perceive from what you have heard and shall hear in this book; and (as a fact) there can be no manner of doubt that now they are the masters of the biggest half of the world.  Their troops are admirably ordered in the manner that I shall now relate.

You see, when a Tartar prince goes forth to war, he takes with him, say, 100,000 horse.  Well, he appoints an officer to every ten men, one to every hundred, one to every thousand, and one to every ten thousand, so that his own orders have to be given to ten persons only, and each of these ten persons has to pass the orders only to other ten, and so on; no one having to give orders to more than ten.  And every one in turn is responsible only to the officer immediately over him; and the discipline and order that comes of this method is marvellous, for they are a people very obedient to their chiefs.  Further, they call the corps of 100,000 men a Tuc; that of 10,000 they call a Toman; the thousand they call...; the hundred Guz; the ten....[NOTE 2] And when the army is on the march they have always 200 horsemen, very well mounted, who are sent a distance of two marches in advance to reconnoitre, and these always keep ahead.  They have a similar party detached in the rear, and on either flank, so that there is a good look-out kept on all sides against a surprise.  When they are going on a distant expedition they take no gear with them except two leather bottles for milk; a little earthenware pot to cook their meat in, and a little tent to shelter them from rain.[NOTE 3] And in case of great urgency they will ride ten days on end without lighting a fire or taking a meal.  On such an occasion they will sustain themselves on the blood of their horses, opening a vein and letting the blood jet into their mouths, drinking till they have had enough, and then staunching it.[NOTE 4]

They also have milk dried into a kind of paste to carry with them; and when they need food they put this in water, and beat it up till it dissolves, and then drink it. [It is prepared in this way; they boil the milk, and when the rich part floats on the top they skim it into another vessel, and of that they make butter; for the milk will not become solid till this is removed.  Then they put the milk in the sun to dry.  And when they go on an expedition, every man takes some ten pounds of this dried milk with him.  And of a morning he will take a half pound of it and put it in his leather bottle, with as much water as he pleases.  So, as he rides along, the milk-paste and the water in the bottle get well churned together into a kind of pap, and that makes his dinner.[NOTE 5]]