Sunrise Empire

In Sunrise Empire, the title of Archduke is just below that of the Emperor and above that of princes and princesses. The Archdukes are considered the very first founding families that first followed the very first emperor of the empire. They are so powerful that they can literally ignore the members of the imperial family except for the Emperor.

And the Empire currently have three families of Archdukes. One of them is the Lionett Household which Garona belongs to, then there's the Everton Household and lastly, the Tudor Household. The three families are called the Empire's Spear, Sword and Shield respectively.

Lionnet Household are called the Shield because they are the one that guards the empire's border against the monsters from Forest of Despair, and on the other hand, the Everton Household and Tudor Household are the swords and spears of the empire towards the surrounding nations.

This is the reason why the three families are so powerful that they control seventy percent of the Empire's military, with the remaining thirty percent in the direct control of the Emperor.

But even with that, entry to the army isn't easy, much less getting a promotion through using your connections. It was because the military has a strict rule towards contributions and meritorious achievements.

What the army only sees are your contributions to the empire, it won't matter even if your father is the emperor himself as you won't receive any backdoor promotions even with that.

This is the reason why the Empire is so powerful that even commoners has the chance to become a general as long as they have performed meritorious achievements like General Ouki.

And at the same time, the generals who were born commoners are the ones who's keeping the balance in the army, as they were the ones who keeps the nobles in check. That's the reason why that even though the three Archdukes families have an almost control over to the entire imperial army, the emperor wasn't even in the least bit worried that they would rebel.

After all, most soldiers who are born commoners in the army occupies the entire ninety five percent of the whole army, while the remaining five percent are of noble birth.

But the nobles make up for it with having the most officers in the army.

This kind of military structure isn't easily implemented, as every arrogant nobles would not be dumb enough to let commoners threaten their positions.

That's the reason why apart from Sunrise Empire in the Eastern Continent, there was also the medium size human Kingdom of Blaize who also had the same military structure like the former in the Western Continent.