The power of the Mongol khan is…

The power of the Mongol khan is greatly weakened by the early seventeenth century, and the pattern of decentralized rule reemerges.

Small tribes within each tumen become petty realms ruled over by individual princes.

Division of inheritances further weakens the overall power structure, and tumen subdivisions (battalions, referred to in later Mongol history as banners, or koshuus in Mongol) are widely dispersed and therefore fragmented.

At the same time that Mongol rule is disintegrating, tsarist Russia in the west and the Manchus in the east are expanding steadily.

The Mongol and the Turkic peoples, traditionally conquerors, can now be conquered themselves not because their warlike proclivities had decreased, but because the art of war has progressed beyond the capacity of essentially nomadic peoples.

Their economic resources will not permit the production or the purchase of muskets and cannon, against which their cavalry cannot stand.