Best Korea: Part 09: 1513-1518: First War for the Mandate

It was to help Ming fall harder.

I had 44k troops to their 46k. They also had 22k with their disloyal vassals.

A much bitter problems were endless swarms of rebels I'd rather not run into, more than both our armies put together.

Unfortunately I couldn't avoid the rebels, and Ming was so far from being a great power Chagatai attacked their horde Kara Del, completely ignoring Ming's protection.

Ming's army was almost inconsequential, and its vassals did nothing except accidentally bumped their ships into my navy. Rebels on the other hand, those were really annoying.

Rebels ignore fort zones of controls as much as AI. Here Qi rebel march through Beijing's fort like it's not there.

Ming got completely obliterated. They lost Nanjing and their whole coastline. Even Chagatai took some provinces. By event Ming fleet established itself on part of Taiwan I didn't control - I made them my tributaries as well.

Unfortunately I got regency and 89k pretender rebels.

In a few years situation stabilized a bit.

Yue, Wu, Kham, and Ryukyu signed an alliance with presumed intention of gaining independence from Ming, but they didn't have balls to trigger it yet. No matter, they'd surely do next time I beat up Ming.

Anyway, that's it for this campaign. From this point on, it would just be waiting for mana and truces, and trivial wars with Ming, Japan, and various Chinese minors.

I don't have Colonialism yet, but my 5th colony in New World is due to finish soon, so that won't be much of a problem.

Rebels probably won't trigger normal defections, but they'll trigger Mingsplosion by special events.

Ming fell to 3rd place as great power, but by income, manpower, and realistic army strength it's really like 20th or so country, like Qara Qoyunlu or Jaunpur, not like the first league. And its collapse is not even halfway done.

Overall, it was a fun little campaign. It turned out to be a lot easier than I expected. I initially thought by 1518 I'd be just about finishing unification of Manchuria and maybe doing some fighting in Indonesia and New World because Japan and Ming would both be too strong for me - and I'd only go after them once I have Malacca money.

Confucianism and Rebels

Big surprise was just how terrible Confucian is while I'm harmonizing. Permanent 0 legitimacy and -3 tolerance of true faith adds up to +9 extra unrest:

• -3 tolerance from harmony
• -1 tolerance from zero legitimacy
• -2 unrest reduction from zero legitimacy
• lack of +2 unrest reduction from full legitimacy
• lack of +1 tolerance from full legitimacy

It also causes -2 diplo rep, so I couldn't annex Yeren in 45 years!

I generally thought that unrest in EU4 is too trivial. I guess I never played Confucians before. Knowing what I do, I'd probably have been better off converting to Shinto by rebels. Maybe even Vajrayana or Tengri (is converting to Tengri by rebels possible?).

Now it's not quite as bad, as -1 yearly legitimacy can be overcome or at least alleviated and RNG resets legitimacy on succession, so penalty would be somewhat smaller, but even at half legitimacy it's still +6 extra unrest. It's really tedious.

Korean Mission Tree review

Korean mission tree feels poorly designed. I liked two disasters (first one finished, second one I only got first event from) in it, with missions that remove them. The rest is bad.

For example the "Expand Homeland" mission for 30 Korean provinces. But Confucian blocks culture conversion due to religious differences, and trade company regions block conversion by colonization. So Korea is the worst country in the world to expand its culture.

The whole Japan subtree is gated by mission to have 30 galleys and 5 heavies. I crushed Japanese and Ming fleets and conquered most of Japan without building a single war ship - just starting ones and captured ones were enough (I built transports and later some lights for trade).

Manchuria mission chain is gated by taking and coring Liaoning state from Ming. Which I even did, but my vassal holds part of it, so I can't finish Manchuria chain even though I held it for half the game.

Korean missions seem OK in isolation, they just fit play pattern very poorly, even if I do what missions ask me to (conquer Manchuria, Japan, and North-West China coast).

If Korea wants to colonize instead, which is probably the second most obvious strategy, missions get totally nothing.

Mingsplosion is back

EU4 rebels are a nuisance, and Ming needed a lot of scripting to be able to fall over and die. It's huge improvement over eternally stable Ming from previous patches.

It still feels like fighting for throne of China is not worth it. You need three cities (Beijing, Nanjing, Canton) to not constantly lose legitimacy. If you have them, you probably have whole Chinese coastline at least, plus whatever was your home territory. That means you're probably #1 great power at this point - and nobody in East Asia can possibly oppose you, as your nearest potential threat is Ottomans or maybe by late game Russia.

It's still great news if you're playing a random minor, and want to grab some land in the resulting chaos.

Best Korea: Part 08: 1503-1513: Fall of Kyoto

Ming Crisis disaster triggered, bringing them down to 7 mandate, and spawning rebels everywhere.

Confucian is the worst religion

I had so many rebels it felt like a crisis too. That's a combination of a few issues.

First, Confucianism is just poop tier religion with permanent 0 harmony, permanent −3 tolerance of true faith, and permanent 0 legitimacy no matter what. If you harmonize other religions, you'll have 0 harmony. If you convert, you'll have zero harmony. Buddhist got karma rebalance, so it's by far the worst religion in the game. Unless you don't expand at all, then it's OK I guess.

Once you harmonize every religion, and that takes 10 times 33 years, and you let your country recover a bit, it actually becomes good. But that's 1775 and at this point the campaign is over.

OK, you can probably skip Zoroastrians and Jews, maybe save a few harmonization years due to events, and finish 1700.

Normally if you have unrest issues, you could take religious or humanist.

Unfortunately neither works. Religious gives you huge bonuses to conversions, something you're penalized for doing. Humanist gives you bonuses to tolerance of wrong faiths, but they don't apply to harmonized faiths. Your tolerance of own faith will often be worse than your tolerance of other faiths due to permanent 0 harmony.

Second, if I'm Asian I get bad religion and bad culture in trade company regions, even though I can't make them trade companies. This is really annoying.

You can't even culture convert them with mana - as Confucian you pretty much can't convert anyone due to no missionary strength bonuses, you can't convert at all if you harmonized them, and harmonized religions still don't count as yours for culture conversion, so it's hard blocked.

And third and fourth, I got cruel trait and many events that piss off my estates because why not, let's pile it up.

Still, rebels in EU4 are just mostly harmless annoyance. They force me to keep army upkeep at high during peace time, and make me lose manpower and money reserves, but I'm not terribly hurting for either.

Third War with Japan

One of Ashikaga's OPM daimyos turned into another daimyo tag, without a truce with me. That's really convenient, as Ashikaga's and Ming's truces were really close to each other, so by saving just a few years I can 100% them both much more comfortably.

The war was very easy, I took Kyoto for myself, and a few other provinces for my vassal daimyo. It turns out this breaks their relationship, so now they're allies/tributaries of Ashikaga, but as independent countries. If I knew that maybe I'd have done it sooner. Oh well, it's still two wars to take over the rest of Japan.

Ming Crisis

Ming is covered by rebels and with nearly no mandate. It had to appoint autonomous governors of Yue and Wu in the South, and lose of direct control over Canton costs them another -0.05 mandate a month, on top of penalty for Beijing.

Yue and Wu are technically their vassal, but since they're both completely disloyal I wouldn't worry too much about them.

I could just watch them burn, or I could speed up the process a little.

Mingslosion has begun. Technically it's their land, just as marches.

In practice Ming doesn't have much time left.

Best Korea: Part 07: 1499-1503: Korean Beijing

I have 2 mountain forts protecting West and East pass from Manchuria to Korea, but if Ming moves fast enough, they have enough artillery and good enough generals, and they could take them and be on my capital before my troops come back.

Even worse, they could also get all their navies together and prevent me from ever returning to the mainland. It would be disastrous.

There's often huge tactical advantage for the attacker, since they can have troops and fleets in place the moment of attack. It's a good thing AI rarely takes full advantage of it.

Still, I really need to finish war with Japan as soon as possible. Fortunately their armies were really poorly coordinated, and I got that Age of Discovery ability  to let me transfer vassals for half cost, so I got myself 64dev Ogasawara and 32dev Tokugawa as vassals.

That leaves Ashikaga with just 3 OPM daimyos, and since they control Kyoto and Tokyo they could annex them and form Japan.

Ming's military was completely lost. They were unprepared for my quick return from Japan, and their fleets and armies were divided between North and South frontlines. Soon Beijing was sacked, and half the Ming fleet was under water.

It looks impressive, but Ming has so much depth and so many armies pushing for 100% war foolish.

I didn't have paper mana to even core what I took anyway.

Originally I hoped to white peace Ming as soon as possible, but the war unexpectedly went really well.

Ming was far from crushed, and they just reached neutral mandate point of 50. I knew exactly what I needed. Beijing with its whole territory, two nearby forts, war reparations, and 682 gold to be divided between us, with me getting 468.

I could get so much as Ming attacked me with Unify China CB, not Enforce Tributary CB, and that gives 50% warscore cost discount on all lands in China region. It's really their fault for walking into this trap. Any other CB, and there's no way I'd be able to get that much.

I hoped to get Colonialism, as it can spawn for anyone who discovered a single New World province, unfortunately Portugal got it. Portugal already finished one colony in Caribbean and is building 2 more, and I barely started one in Aleuts, so I guess they deserve it.

Eyeballing it, I think we had 3 eligible provinces each, and nobody else had any, so it was a 50% shot that I lost.

I can get Colonialism without dev push if I get a colonial nation, so I guess that's the priority now.

And so ends Age of Discovery. Age of Reformation is upon us, and we're definitely reforming Confucian faith to include other faiths.

Pretty typical timeline elsewhere.

So far everything went really smoothly this campaign.

I got into many fights which were against the odds on paper, but I had some kind of leverage in them all.

Ming waited too long with its attack, and was too indecisive.

If I also got Colonialism, that would just be ridiculous amount of luck.

Great Powers:

• Ming - much weakened due to foolish war, and loss of Beijing is costing it mandate. Due to have Crisis of the Ming Dynasty disaster in March 1507
• Korea - freshly took Beijing, and controlling 1/3 of Japan directly and 1/3 through vassals
• Ottomans - took some border provinces from the Mamluks with a fort. This looks trivial on the map, but AI Mamluks is doomed in their next war
• France - a bit stuck what it's doing
• Muscovy - it needs either Ryazan or Smolensk (held by the Commonwealth) to form Russia, and it foolishly allied Ryazan, so Russia might not form at all
• Castile/Aragon/Naples/Navarra - needs to remove Grenada to form Spain, and Grenada is allied with Morocco, Tunis, and the Ottomans, so best of luck
• Poland/Lithuania - can form Commonwealth as soon as it gets the right tech
• Mamluks - expanded a bit into the dessert, but already started losing to the Ottomans

Other interesting countries:

• Lan Xang - after breaking free from Ming, it got 2 tributaries for itself, and that blocks it from ever becoming Ming's tributary
• Khmer - also broke free from Ming, rival of Lan Xang in spite of their shared alliances with Korea and Pegu. Has has Zhu dynasty as Ming and Korea.
• Ashikaga - has 3 OPM daimyo vassals, could technically form Japan if it annexes its daimyos and I annex my 2 independent daimyos, but I don't plan to let it
• Timurids - expanding into Persia instead of into India. I'd really love to see some Mughals
• Bohemia - new HRE emperor. First reform passed, but reformation already started, so that's how far it's likely to go

Best Korea: Part 06: 1486-1499: Ming attacks

My great relations with Ming didn't last long, and soon after Ming's rival Ashikaga got crushed, Ming decided to rival me and break our alliance.

My backup plan was already in place. In addition to Lan Xang, and Khmer, I also allied Oirats. So if Ming decided to attack me, it will instantly dismantle their tributary zone. Well, assuming my allies join that war, but AI usually joins defensive wars.

I also got Pegu for added protection, since it was ally of my ally, so fairly safe one.

Ming entered Golden Era in June 1493. I hope they don't survive it all.

I took expansion as second idea group. I'll need administrative and maybe humanist next, so my paper mana is going to be extremely pressured.

I started establishing tributaries in Southern Islands, and I got first taste of the Ming conflict, as Ming's tributary Malacca attacked my tributaries Palembang. I first sent my fleets, then even some troops to knock out Sulu out of the war, but it was like 10% participation.

Ming sent some insults my way, but didn't actually attack.

By the time second war with Japan was due, it was nearly unified, with just 5 daimyo under Ashikaga clan.

Order of battle, me:

• 32k inf, 8k cav, 2k art (42k total)
• 6 lights, 10 galleys, 13 transports (29 total)
• I told my vassal Yeren to stay out of it, so not counting their troops

Japan, its 5 daimyos, and Ryukyu:

• 36k inf, 5k cav (41k total)
• 13 lights, 14 galleys, 16 transports (43 total)

With mil tech advantage of 8 to 7.

Unfortunately while I was happily sieging Kyoto, Ming attacked. Oirats betrayed me, but Lan Xang, Khmer, and Pegu joined.

Order of battle, our side:

• 60k inf, 24k cav, 3k art (87k total)
• 4 heavies, 24 ligcht, 22 galleys, 31 transports (81 total)

Ming:

• 56k inf, 15k cav, 13k art (84k total)
• 1 heavy, 7 lights, 15 galleys, 23 transports (46 total)

Ming at 43 mandate suffers minor penalties, and they have tech 8 unlike my allies still at 7.

It's about even in theory, but there's pretty much no way my allies will effectively coordinate it.

I already achieved one objective and removed 323dev of Ming tributaries from their list, leaving them with just 422dev. Unfortunately by this patch, non-tributaries no longer cause mandate loss, but at least Ming will gain mandate more slowly.

Also Ming is currently being ruled by a 1/2/3 empress with petty (-0.05 monthly mandate), as a regent for a 0/0/3 boy. That's seriously miserable.

If I can quickly finish war in Japan and safely move my armies and fleets to Korea, I should be fine. I'd like to use transfer vassal to get remaining daimyos cheaply under me for half price - I don't think I ever used this ability.

I'm fine with a stalemate, or even minor concessions to Ming, next age is just a few years away, and they get some painful disaster chain.

Best case scenario is that Ming somehow fumbles so hard they lose their mandate, and I take Beijing in first war, but I'm not counting on that.

Best Korea: Part 05: 1479-1486: First War with Japan

I started creating network of tributaries with Brunei, which prefered that to our alliance. Unfortunately they patched it so AI will never accept tributary unless you border them directly - it's generally sensible, but I don't see why minor islands and Kamchatka OPMs wouldn't want to be my tributaries, I'm a sea zone away. I'll deal with it eventually.

It was high time to show some Great Power Energy, so I declared war on Japan.

My forces:

• 26inf / 6cav / 2art (34k total)
• 6 light ships
• 8 galleys
• 10 transports
• plus technically 4inf 1cav from Yeren, but no way they'd actually help
• plus technically 2 lights / 2 galleys / 3 transports from Yeren

Enemy forces (participating):

• 37inf / 6cav (43k)
• 17 lights
• 16 galleys
• 20 transports

They're also quite far behind on tech, with most of Japan being on mil tech 5-6 while I'm on mil tech 7. Paying for Renaissance early is totally worth it.

War goal was part of Hokkaido occupied by the Japanese.

I don't actually fight all Japanese daimyos, as some are at war with each other, and that blocks it. Otherwise they'd have something closer to 55k-60k troops.

There was zero coordination between enemy fleets so I scored victory after victory in spite of their numerical superiority. I didn't lose a single ship and I sunk 43 and captured 6 of theirs, including somehow capturing a heavy ship that wasn't there originally.

From Hokkaido my armies marched to East Honshu. This turned out to be a disaster - enemy armies overwhelmed me with numbers.

So another plan - declare two more wars on damiyos who did not originally participate. First take Tsushima (separate tiny war), then Kyushu (half of it in separate war), then Shikoku. All while using my naval superiority to prevent enemy reinforcents.

After that I tried invading Hoshu from Shikoku, and I failed miserably again.

Japan got some reinforcements, as daimyos who originally were blocked from joining the war got unblocked and joined halfway. Then rebels brought Mori back to life, instantly as their daimyo, and with 10k free stack.

Third invasion was more successful - road from Shikoku to Kyoto isn't too far, so first I stack wiped a few tiny armies for warscore. Then I carpet sieged surroundings, and put my stack on Kyoto.

Once I sacked it, that got Ashikaga clan really interested in peace talks. I took Tsushima, Kyushu, Shikoku, their last province in Hokkaido, and two provinces on Honshu cutting it in half, just next to Kyoto.

A lot of my warscore was from ticking warscore on that Hokkaido province, and from naval battles. I never really reached convinging superiority on land, but it was good enough.

That's 97dev of Japanese land, or a bit over a third of it. Next war my naval superiority will be of little use as Japan has only its one island left, island trap strategy got nerfed many patches ago, and there's no obvious easy ticking warscore, but just balance of power should be much more even.

Ming is slowly recovering from low mandate due to first reform.

For second reform I took +2 promoted cultures over -0.05 monthly autonomy change. Empire of China requires weird culture juggling, and if I need less autonomy I can always force it upon peasants.

It's going too well. Machuria is fully controlled, I'm independent from Ming, Japan is defeated, and my colonies start spreading both North and South.

On the downside my unrest is killing me as Confucian monarchies are awful, Ming refuses to collapse, and I don't have any clear next steps after Japan.

Best Korea: Part 04: 1476-1479: New Great Power in Asia

A few weeks after 2nd Ming War for Oirat Tribute began, our troops also crossed the border. It was a race with Ming who gets to their capital first, and Ming won, so I took just 6 provinces for 53% warscore and called it a day.

Ming succeeded at making Oirats pay tribute and taking some Mongol land. Oirats are probably better off this way, as this will protect them from falling prey to other hordes attacking from the West, as happened after their previous war against Ming.

My cousin Ming emperor passed the first reform, and I wasn't really interested in continuing tribute payment to someone so obviously not favoured by the Heavens. He officially withdrew his protection in April 1478, instantly turning us into 3rd great power after Ming and Ottomans.

I strategically prepared for this by alliances with Lan Xang, Khmer, and Brunei. I thought this would lead to confrontation, and initially there was hostility from Beijing court. However, diplomacy won the day. My cousin had no fight in him, we agreed to border in Mongolia, and signed an alliance. Well, that went a lot easier than expected.

This got Ashikaga clan of Japanese shoguns really worried - both Ming and Korea are hostile to it. They have just 14 daimyo vassals, and with each vassal providing 3k army and some boats pretty much regardless of their size, this weakens their power compared with how they started.

Great power situation:

• Ming with very strong South-East Asian tributaries and a pet horde
• Ottomans with Constantinople and Crimea as vassal. They control Moldova which they took by force.
• Korea with Yeren horde as a vassal who wants to start building its tributary network
• France who clearly won the Hundred Years War
• Poland/Lithuania with Danzig vassal, and Teutons completely destroyed
• Castile/Aragon/Naples/Navarra union, which somehow still left Granada as OPM 
• Timurids, who survived in spite of Shah Rukh dying in 1447. This is actually a big downside to Fun and Balance. Vanilla Timurids start over relationship limit, so their vassals' rebellion really wrecks them. Fun and Balance has higher limit, so they get a few allies, and generally win. Could Mughals form this timeline?
• Mamluks who so far avoided big showdown with the Ottomans

Other countries of interest:

• Muscovy just got kicked out of the list by Korea's entrance.
• Lan Xang waited out coalition against itself
• Austria is still the emperor
• Portugal started exploring and settling minor islands in the Atlantic

Overall fairly typical timeline outside Korea.

Best Korea: Part 03: 1462-1476: Struggles of the Peasantry

Reign of king Yung I Zhu started much less exciting than his predecessor.

For the first government reform I gave nobles more power in exchange for more manpower. I'm not really sure if it's better to do this, or take extra taxes.

First colonists arrived, and given choice between colonizing South or North, I chose Taiwan. Event founded second colony on Taiwan, getting me over colony limit right away. Paying 6 gold for 2 colonies is expensive, but nothing crazy, and they grow faster when they border each other.

I started getting some allies down South - Lan Xang (which has a coalition against itself) and Brunei. Not really sure what I'll do with them, I can't really spare any troops for colonial adventures, but it could change someday.

The Ming-Oirat war ended up with Oirat paying 600 gold plus reparations to Ming. As soon as that ended, Oirats immediately got attacked by Uzbek and Chagatai hordes.

I requested our rightful clay Gaizhou from Ming, but it was denied. What an outrage.

Toki, one of the daimyos, conquered most of East Japan, and so got 2 coalition wars, conquest war, and reconquest war against them simultaneously.

I got annoying Struggles of the Peasantry modifier giving me massive unrest. I was also at permanent 0 legitimacy, as Confucianism and monarchy apparently don't mix. Ming can get away with being Confucian, as it doesn't use legitimacy.

I even got a plutocratic coup ticking on top, caused by game inexplicably recalculating "Controlled Provinces %" for estates without anything actually happening. The most annoying part of estate interface is that the tooltip lies, and whenever I think I figured out all its lies, it turns out there are some more. They'll never fix it, they plan to replace the whole system in next patch.

I took one loan, developed all provinces in Korea to 6dev+, and that let me do the mission and get rid of peasant disaster.

Finally I managed to harmonize with Pagan religions of my Manchu subjects. That gave me -0.5 unrest bonus, as well as finally got religious unity to reasonable level. Coming next is Vajrayana, but that's a much smaller minority.

Both colonies on Taiwan are nearing completion. For now I'll stick to one colony at a time unless I get another by event.

Ming started another war against the Oirats. This could be good time to grab myself a chunk of Mongolia and maybe some gold.

Japan is down to just 14 daimyo vassals. It's reaching the point where attacking them would actually be sensible, but I'd need to invest money I don't really have into a fleet.

Borders didn't really change, but first of two unique Korean disaster chains averted.

Based in income and armies I'd say I'm about 1/3 as strong as Ming, and they currently have a much more stable country.

Best Korea: Part 02: 1453-1462: Legacy of King Sejong Do Yi

Capital of Hanseong got developed to 37dev, making it the richest city in the world, ahead of Constantinople, Nanjing, Paris, Milan, Beijing, Cairo, and Rome.

I adopted Renaissance in 1455, five years after Montferrat. It's slowly spreading to China due to our friendly relations.

It was time to clean up Manchuria a bit. Korchin had no friends. Haixi was allied to my rival Oirat, but Oirat was fighting and losing war to Ming, so they joined war against me, but couldn't afford to send any troops to help Haixi.

The last act of king Sejong Do Yi was sending ships of exploration to the Northern sea.

My king Sejong Do Yi died in 1462, ending the Yi dynasty, after disinheriting three of his heirs as disappointing.

He took Korea from a 135dev minor exposed to risk of Manchu raids into 385dev power and overlord of the still rebelious Manchu tribes. He brought Renaissance to Korea. He diligently sent tribute to Ming China every year.

Due to extensive intermarriage with Zhu dynasty ruling China, a 3/4/3 King Yung I Zhu took the throne, cousin of the Ming emperor.

The new king already started talking that he's the rightful ruler of China, not his cousin, but only when there were no Chinese to hear that.

The Ming-Oirat war has been ongoing since 1453, completely exhausting Ming, Oirat, and Oirat's vassal Mongolia. 240k Chinese and 50k Oirats died, and Ming has been on the offensive, but they can't capture the wargoal that is Oirat capital.

Ming can only hire 30k mercenaries, and it has long ran out of manpower, with barely 20k of its troops left. Oirats and Mongols have nearly 30k between them - not enough to invade Ming, but sufficient to fight for stalemate.

Ming is still holding a lot better than the Oirats, and their war will probably end with Oirats just paying some monetary reparations, with each dead Chinese peasant being worth very little.

Ruling Ashikaga clan of Japan still has 19 daimyos under it out of 30 it started with, with civil war raging between the daimyos but nobody yet strong enough to challenge Ashikaga.

The goal for next decade is consolidate Korean rule over the Manchus, and start colonizing. Oirats, Ming, and Japan are all too strong to challenge directly.

Best Korea: Part 01: 1444-1453: Peace in Manchuria

It's been a while since I last played EU4, and also this blog has been fairly inactive since Google Plus died.

I've been looking for countries with decent content, and Korea looks like one. It has 7th biggest mission tree, Emperorship of China got major rebalance, and Mingsplosions being a possibility again is going to make this part of the world a much more interesting place than it was in previous patches.

The rough outline of my plan is:

• stay Confucian and Korea
• rush unify Manchuria region by force, deal with coalitions by eliminating any potential coalition members
• colonize my way to Malacca node and get Pacific coast of the New World, turning Pacific into Great Korean Sea
• conquer Japan
• if Ming refuses to explode, push them a bit
• challenge Ming for emperorship of China
• dev push for institutions if necessary

Some difficulties:

• I only border Ming and Jiangzhou, but I have truce with Jiangzhou until 1450
• Korea gets a lot of custom disasters
• There's a lot of missions, but they very poorly fit any sensible strategy

First order of business was war with Donghai and Korchin. Korchin is inland, so I couldn't take any land from them, so I took all their money and humiliated them. Donghai got fully annexed.

Next quick war was attack on Udege, which got divided between me and Solon. Their ally Korchin tried to help, but got attacked by Ming.

Then war with Jiangzhou, in which I took most of it while vassalizing Yeren. I couldn't take 100% without going through overextension.

Then a war with Nivikh, Solon, and Ainu to feed my Yeren vassal. I annexed Nivikh for my vassal, Ainu for myself, and Solon unfortunately had to be left with a province as numbers didn't add up.

Unfortunately Haixi which up to this point was a good ally broke our alliance.

This is close to solving my Aggressive Expansion issues. Korchin, Haixi, Jiangzhou, and Solon are the only countries left in the region. Oirat, Ming, and Japan don't care due to cultural and religious differences.

I'm 82% towards developing Renaissance in my capital. It should have been easier, but I got a lot of bad events making burghers disloyal and increasing development cost. This all cost me a lot of points, but my starting monarch is a 6/5/5, so this early push is worth it. Unfortunately I had to give two of my heirs swimming lessons. Hopefully I get someone decent.

My vassal Yeren horde is feeling disloyal, but I have time to deal with it.

I'll clean up Manchuria, but I'm definitely safe from the hordes for now. Oirat and Ming are fighting, for now I'm OK paying Ming for protection.

Next goal is exploration for establishing peaceful trade relations with good people of Southern islands of the Great Korean Sea.

Japan is right now very difficult to deal with thanks to their crazy vassal swarm, but they'll only get weaker as daimyos conquer each other.

I've check some youtube guides, and a lot of them are "Wait for your truce with Jiangzhou to run out in 1450". How about not doing that?