“Be of one mind and one faith, that you may conquer your enemies and lead long and happy lives.”
— genghis khan
Genghis Khan spoke these words to his followers after uniting the Mongol tribes into a single nation around 1206. Recorded by Michael Prawdin in The Mongol Empire: Its Rise and Legacy, 1940. It captures his belief that unity was the foundation of all achievement.
My father was poisoned by rivals when I was nine. My family was abandoned by our clan and left to starve on the steppe. I was captured and enslaved as a teenager, wore a wooden collar, and escaped by hiding in a river. I had nothing. No army, no title, no allies. I built a coalition of outcasts, defeated every tribe on the Mongolian plateau, and united them into a single nation for the first time in history. Then I turned outward. My armies connected trade routes from China to Europe. I created the largest empire the world had ever seen. Not because I was born to it. Because I refused to stay where they put me.