He was an expert with the bow and arrow. His physical strength made him the leader of the wrestlers. He had been known to pick up an opponent, hold him high above his head, then break his back as though it were a bamboo reed! He enjoyed wrestling matches only when they rivaled the Roman gladiators, when the bones of the weaker adversaries were broken and crushed. He despised weakness of any kind, for he himself was a match for any man, and he had never been bested at any sport. Born of a race unwashed and illiterate, he raised his tribe of unknown barbarians to a position of world renown. Believing firmly that the Mongols were the natural masters of the world, he also was convinced that he had been chosen by Destiny to lead and control them. Thus impelled, this amazing barbarian, starting with only a tribe of wild nomads, finally conquered everything from Armenia to Korea, and from Tibet to the Volga River. After Genghis Khan had subdued all of China, he settled down and developed into a typical oriental potentate. He lived in splendor on the present site of Peking, a far cry from his earlier primitive tent on the Gobi desert. Just so, in 1949, Mao Tse-tung sprang from the mud caves of Yenan to the palaces of Peking as China’s Number One dictator. Here, in this ancient city, Genghis, as Emperor, surrounded himself with courtiers and officials, as well as with wives, concubines and slaves. He held high court and worked on affairs of state in a high pavilion of white felt, lined with treasured silk. Here also he entertained his friends and kept a silver table on which sat vessels of fermented mare’s milk and bowls of meat and fruit for their pleasure. Dressed in a lavishly embroidered robe and wearing a long and flaming beard, he sat at state functions on a dais at the far end of the pavilion. With him on a low bench sat Bourtai, his favorite wife. She was the real love of his life, and he claimed only the children born by her as his own. The Empress was small and dainty, with beautiful features and long hair braided with jewels and heavy coins. She was the mother of three sons who were destined to rule at a later period a domain larger than Rome’s. Other wives and concubines grouped themselves at his left, on lower platforms. His nobles sat on benches around the walls of the building, wearing long coats, bound around with enormous bright-colored silken girdles, and large, uptilted felt hats. In the center of the pavilion glowed a great fire made of thorns and dung. There was utter silence when Genghis spoke. His word was absolute law. It is said, “Any who disobeyed his word was like a stone dropped into deep water, or as an arrow among the reeds.”