Any time Genghis Khan comes up I want to mention Qiu Chuji/Changchun, a Taoist monk from Beijing who was said to have discovered the key to immortality so the khan summoned him. Genghis asks for the secret to immortality and the monk says there are ways to act to extend your life but there’s no elixir of immortality, and Genghis likes his honesty so he keeps him around for advice. His advice is always like, ‘stop killing stuff’ or ‘stop eating meat’ and Genghis goes, ‘That’s a good idea. I’ll take like a month off.’ Changchun goes from Beijing to Samarkand to Afghanistan just for this mfer to not take is advice lmao

The written record is quite interesting, Changchun’s aide wrote a journal of their trip