Songhai–Mali ConflictsMali / Niger · 1400s–1473“A thread from the great cord of two hundred and fifty. Hold it while I speak.”Empires on the Niger were made by the river's cities, and in the 1400s the cities changed allegiance the way a current changes — slowly, then all at once. Mali, two centuries the gold-lord of the west, was loosening; Gao, downriver, was tightening into Songhai under Sunni Ali, who fought, the chronicles say, without ever losing.