A Horde of Kazakhs (or some other steppe folk)

[Luciano]

Had not a Genghis figure ascended to unify Mongolia, could some other people around the same time go in a conquering spree, filling the space the mongols did in our universe? I mean, is there some sort of cultural exceptionalism that made the mongols the mongols or could some other nation have pulled it off?

 

[Shinsu]

Could another group have? Yes. Is it likely? Not really. The only other large nomadic tribes that at the moment were the Cumans that had been pushed back for over a hundred years by the volga's, Bashkirs and The Russian states. You also had Khiti's that were rather dominate in "central Asia" since they also had control (albiet weak control) over the Uyghar Khanate to the east. They didn't have the manpower to really push out in either direction though.