Ghengis Khan, in spite of his reputation, led to the silk road, the postal service and modern banking, not to mention kefir grains.
It was also political propaganda. Whenever some ambassador or foreign representative cams a callin’, he’d have assistants continually eating raw meat, so,he’d have a blood-thirsty reputation.
Genghis Khan hadn’t committed his first murder (his half-brother) or mass-murdered his first rival tribe until the Silk Road was more than 1200 years old.
It’s a good thing Marco Polo wrote all about this. /s
I’ve read where some of the more isolated places places along the silk road today are littered with trash from 1000-2000 years ago.