trained and equipped soldiers, or ambush and surprise the enemy before they could even respond and cause them to route. The training that the privileged elite received was far greater in extent compared to that of the common soldier. For example, Cao Cao's son, Cao Pi, started his military education in early childhood. He began training in archery at the age of five, started learning how to ride a horse at the age of six, and could both ride and shoot a target at a hundred paces by the time he was eight. Horse archery was also practiced in Shu Han, which fielded a "Flying Army" of mounted archers. Hereditary troops In contrast to the military hierarchy of the Han dynasty, leadership of a unit in the Three Kingdoms was functionally hereditary as long as the successor was loyal to his liege and proved militarily competent. When the commander died, a male member of his family inherited control of his troops, and when a soldier died one of his male relatives inherited his position in the unit. By the end of the Three Kingdoms, the term buqu (部曲) had come to designate the institution of hereditary military leadership. Both bu and qu, meaning battalions and companies, were originally units of military organization during the Han. Under Cao Cao, a more systematic form of hereditary soldiery was implemented through "military families" (士家 shijia) which later became "hereditary troops" (世兵 shibing). As their name implies, able male members born into military families served for life, and when they could no longer serve because of illness or death, their sons or close family members replaced them. Their families lived at the capital and other major centers where they could be used by the government as hostages to ensure the loyalty of their soldiers. They were also forbidden from marrying into non-military families in order to prevent their offspring from exiting the system, thus creating a closed community of military households. Although commoners could still be called up in times of urgent need, the rise of government mandated military communities under Cao Wei and the demobilization of local levies under the Jin dynasty, had by and large, replaced the universal conscription of the Han. Tuntian Tuntian, often rendered as "[military] agricultural colonies," were self-sustaining farming communities created for the purpose of providing food for the military. Generally consisting of displaced peoples, refugees, and bandits,