what army comp for castle age for China?

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Basically I do 2x TC song dynasty rush into zhuge nue with an IO on archery range and just spam zhuge nue non stop trying to slow down my ennemy while I boom with 2x TC song dynasty.

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I often wins by overwhelming my ennemy with zhuge nue and some ram but if the attack fail (mass MAA or Lancer/knight or longbow on stone wall) I stop spamming and I don't know what to do after (what army to go for)

I know gunpowder is strong with china, but handcannon cost too much gold and grenadier are just so far (ming dynasty) and china is a bit "starve" for gold mid-lategame so I try to avoid Handcannon

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so far my "go to" is palace guard (meat shield) nest of bees(army destroyer) couples with a few springald (anti artillery)

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but I often get stomps by knight/lancer that just walk to my nest of bees and shred them

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or

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i get destroyed by mangonels super quickly and have no palace guard left ty defend my artillery

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basically, just want army composition suggestion/recommendation for castle age/early empire that is not too gold dependants (as i don't know how to make gold lategame once everything is nearly mined out and trader gets destroyed non-stop)