Red Horse
The challenge is to wank Mongolia as far as possible. Bonus if it becomes a major power by the 21st century.
Considering that Mongolia only has around 500,000 people at the beginning of the 20th century, it's going to be really hard unless Mongolia expands. Only plausible scenario is if the Chinese civil war went a LOT messier and Mongolia managed to gain Inner Mongolia (industry and a large population). That would make it a semi-power at best, unless China is Balkanized.
I'm sure AH.com's resident supervillian (besides Woodrow Wilson) Roman von Ungern-Sternberg and a messier Chinese and Russian Civil war could get something like this done.
Maybe have Mongolia become a Soviet satellite as OTL, but prevent the republicans from overthrowing the Qing dynasty (or at least delay it significantly).
I'm sure AH.com's resident supervillian (besides Woodrow Wilson) Roman von Ungern-Sternberg and a messier Chinese and Russian Civil war could get something like this done.
Not gonna happen, the only reason why (Outer) Mongolia is still even an independent nation to this day is because when the Whites took over Outer Mongolia, the Soviets figured if the Chinese where not going to do anything they had to. If Roman von Sternberg doesn't conquer Outer Mongolia, the Russian's won't care if China takes it back. Outer Mongolia did break away from China but that was during the upheaval of the 1911 revolution, after the Qing revoked their tax privileges on the Mongol nobility.