AHC/PC: Non-Mongol tribe/kingdom conquers Eurasia

With a POD of 1190 or later, what peoples could unite or suddenly burst out and conquer Eurasia, or at least a large chunk of it as did the Mongols, other than the Mongols? I imagine a different steppe people would be the best candidate, but I'm interested to see what you all think. How would said people go about their conquest?
 
European and Chinese cultures are unlikely to do this; the land distances involved are too large for their style of expansion.

After *Mongols, the next most likely are *Turkmen. *Iranians or *Afghans are a remote possibility is you get some really big butterflies flapping their wings.
 
If the Mongols don't get their act together and remain as warring factions I think it's likely the Turks would have eventually swallowed up much more of central Asia.

Turks or some of the more nomadic Turkic peoples are probably the next best candidate.
 
With a POD of 1190 or later, what peoples could unite or suddenly burst out and conquer Eurasia, or at least a large chunk of it as did the Mongols, other than the Mongols? I imagine a different steppe people would be the best candidate, but I'm interested to see what you all think. How would said people go about their conquest?
Oh, that's easy!

You take any people, better a bunch of closely related tribes speaking one language. These tribes better be disunited and fighting each other for a couple of centuries or so - the fieriest war of everybody against everybody - that would make them tougher than coffin nails, and their bursting out from obscurity to the world dominance would be more spectacular.

These tribes better be nomadic for obvious reasons as their nomadic horse-archers kind of warfare is necessary for world-conquering.

The place where these tribes live better be the worst shithole on the Earth - you must freeze your balls off in winter (-50 Celsius) and make your balls fried eggs in summer (+50 Celsius). Droughts, deserts, mountains. Darwin's natural selection and surviving of the fittest for a couple of thousand years would make these people genetically best suited for long campaigns across Eurasia.

Did I forget anything?
Oh, ye, these tribes must have been living in the sphere of influence or very close to some "world empire(s)" for a few hundred years at least - as the art of empire-building is necessary.

And as a final touch -
- you give these tribes a "Great Man" - the best charismatic visionary founding father, politician and general, the type of man which are born into this world once in the history of the humankind.

Voila!
 
Iranized Turks seem the most logical choice for the reasons that have been mentioned above. They have the longest standing tradition of imperialism and several of them sacked lots of places after the given time. Jalal al din comes to mind as a proff of concept; the guy has a pretty impressive track record of his own, invading India, defeating the Mongols in the open, etc.

Iranized or Romanized Cumans could be a possibility. OTL they didn’t amount to much, and there isn’t a urban or imperial tradition in Russia at this point(1190), but they might go south and adopt Roman or Persian customs. The original Persian Empire began that way. The previous inhabitants of the Pontic Steppe, the Gokturks, were quite successful conquerors. There are noble houses that originate from them as far apart as Hungary and Japan. Or, they can go to Russia once an imperial tradition developes.... Cuman Early modern Russia would be interesting.



And as a final touch -
- you give these tribes a "Great Man" - the best charismatic visionary founding father, politician and general, the type of man which are born into this world once in the history of the humankind.

Voila!


You could argue that there is always a high supply of great commanders, but they only have a chance to be so under certain situations (to begin with they must have an army). Your first point would eventually create this situation. Both the Mongol and Arab Hordes had, a couple of years before, faced a period of selection before their expansion. This ensures the better ones were those that survived, and were in positions of power by the end of it. One of the reasons Napoleon was so wanked IOT was that he had a really good officer crops, which was selected by the troublesome years that followed the revolution.
 
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