stylistic:style_transfer
Military

The Liao army was originally just 2,000 men picked from various tribes as Abaoji 's personal retinue. To these 2,000 men were added captives taken from Balhae and the prefecture of Jingzhou. By the time it became an orda, the emperor's private army, it contained 15,000 households, and could field up to 6,000 horsemen. The Liao nobles each had their own orda which the Liao government "borrowed" for campaign. According to the History of Liao, the Liao nobles treated the state as if it was their family. They provided private armies to assist the government during times of war. The larger ordas comprised up to a thousand or more horsemen while smaller ones several hundred horsemen. By the end of the dynasty, the ordas together constituted 81,000 Khitan households and 124,000 Balhae and Chinese households, which together could field up to 101,000 horsemen.

The Khitan were originally divided into 8 tribes (部) each led by a commander (大人) replaced once every three years. Abaoji then declared himself king to prevent the other clans from replacing him. The tribes convened for discussions for mobilisations or warfare; the Khitan custom of assemblies had military origins.

Khitan tribal manpower was still available for service both in China and in the steppe, but tribal chieftains, now living in towns became more detached from the tribal structure. The Khitan forces therefore enjoyed both the grain supply and weapon manufacturing facilities of sedentary society and the horse and livestock supply to maintain mobility and meat rations in the field. The Khitans therefore had an edge over the Turkic tribes on the steppe.

The Liao Army was composed of 3 sections: the Ordu, who were the elite personal cavalry of the Emperor, the tribal cavalry of Khitans and an auxiliary force of non-Khitan tribes, and militia infantry of Han Chinese and other sedentary peoples, who also provided the foot archers and catapult crews. Appanage territories were often granted to commanders. The core of the Liao army was composed of heavy armoured cavalry. In battle they arrayed light cavalry in the front and two layers of armoured cavalry in the back. Even foragers were armoured. Units of Khitan heavy cavalry were organized in groups of 500 to 700 men. Unlike some other empires originating from nomadic tribes, the Khitans preferred to fight in dense heavy cavalry formations rather than the wide formations of horse archers.