Army
Though by convention, irregular military is understood in contrast to regular armies which grew slowly from personal bodyguards or elite militia.
Regular military can also refer to full-time status (standing army), versus reserve or part-time personnel.
During the Iron Age, the Maurya and Nanda Empires had one of the largest armies in the world, the peak being approximately over 600,000 Infantry, 30,000 Cavalry, 8,000 War-Chariots and 9,000 War Elephants not including tributary state allies.
[7] By the Warring States period, the crossbow had been perfected enough to become a military secret, with bronze bolts that could pierce any armor.
China underwent political consolidation of the states of Han (韓), Wei (魏), Chu (楚), Yan (燕), Zhao (趙) and Qi (齊), until by 221 BCE, Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇帝), the first emperor of the Qin dynasty, attained absolute power.
This first emperor of China could command the creation of a Terracotta Army to guard his tomb in the city of Xi'an (西安).
in addition to a realignment of the Great Wall of China to strengthen his empire against insurrection, invasion and incursion.
In the earliest Middle Ages it was the obligation of every aristocrat to respond to the call to battle with his own equipment, archers, and infantry.
This decentralized system was necessary due to the social order of the time, but could lead to motley forces with variable training, equipment and abilities.
While the nobility did fight upon horseback, they were also supported by lower class citizens – and mercenaries and criminals – whose only purpose was participating in warfare because, most often than not, they held brief employment during their lord's engagement.
England was one of the most centralized states in the Middle Ages, and the armies that fought in the Hundred Years' War were, predominantly, composed of paid professionals.
As the Middle Ages progressed in Italy, Italian cities began to rely mostly on mercenaries to do their fighting rather than the militias that had dominated the early and high medieval period in this region.
Mercenaries tended to be effective soldiers, especially in combination with standing forces, but in Italy they came to dominate the armies of the city states.
The mercenary companies were given a choice of either joining the Royal army as compagnies d'ordonnance on a permanent basis, or being hunted down and destroyed if they refused.
France gained a total standing army of around 6,000 men, which was sent out to gradually eliminate the remaining mercenaries who insisted on operating on their own.
[15] First nation states lacked the funds needed to maintain standing forces, so they tended to hire mercenaries to serve in their armies during wartime.
Such mercenaries typically formed at the ends of periods of conflict, when men-at-arms were no longer needed by their respective governments.
From the late 17th century, states learned how to finance wars through long term low interest loans from national banking institutions.
However, aristocrats continued to monopolize the officer corps of almost all early modern armies, including their high command.
The new armies, because of their vast expense, were also dependent on taxation and the commercial classes who also began to demand a greater role in society.
Prior to the English Civil War in England, the monarch maintained a personal bodyguard of Yeomen of the Guard and the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, or "gentlemen pensioners", and a few locally raised companies to garrison important places such as Berwick on Tweed or Portsmouth (or Calais before it was recaptured by France in 1558).
Noblemen and professional regular soldiers were commissioned by the monarch to supply troops, raising their quotas by indenture from a variety of sources.
Until 1733 the common soldiers of Prussian Army consisted largely of peasantry recruited or impressed from Brandenburg–Prussia, leading many to flee to neighboring countries.
Every youth was required to serve as a soldier in these recruitment districts for three months each year; this met agrarian needs and added extra troops to bolster the regular ranks.
The first Janissary units were formed from prisoners of war and slaves, probably as a result of the sultan taking his traditional one-fifth share of his army's treasure they looted in kind rather than cash.
Conscription allowed the French Republic to form the Grande Armée, what Napoleon Bonaparte called "the nation in arms", which successfully battled European professional armies.
In developed nations, the increasing emphasis on technological firepower and better-trained fighting forces, make mass conscription unlikely in the foreseeable future.
