section_path: Military campaigns/Military innovations
section_name: Military innovations
paragraph_text: Military innovations
  
  Akbar's military campaigns consolidated Mughal rule in the Indian subcontinent. Akbar introduced organisational changes to the mansabdari system, establishing a hierarchical scale of military and civil ranks.
  
  Organisational reforms were accompanied by innovations in cannons, fortifications, and the use of elephants. Akbar also took an interest in matchlocks and effectively employed them during various conflicts. He sought the help of the Ottomans, as well as Europeans, especially the Portuguese and Italians, in procuring advanced firearms and artillery. Akbar's vizier Abul Fazl once declared that "with the exception of Turkey, there is perhaps no country in which its guns has more means of securing the Government than." Scholars and historians have used the term " gunpowder empire " to analyse the success of the Mughals in India.