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.