EU4 Guide for Ming in 1.29 | Manchu Update

Revisiting my older guide for Ming. The new mandate changes make Ming even stronger and its now a prime candidate for new players if you can navigate the first 100 years or so. Have fun!

Mods used - Graphical Map Improvements, Stellaris UI Font

[Kasperi_A.]

Smh still waiting for the Sarig Yogir and Kara Del guides. Why focus on minors like Ming or Manchu, when you could show us how to play as true world powers?

[francesco]

Does Ming even need a guide?
People say that the Ottomans are op but at least they have some opposition early game against the mamlucks (or poland+lithuania), Ming is a Titan among ants.

[cursedex]

The only heresy i saw in the confucian part of the guide was the parliament for Ming

[haonancai]

as a Chinese player, there is a standard operation if you choose to expand your empire without facing potential rebellions: open humanist idea groups. it is the BEST ideal groups of all since it gives -2 national unrest, -10 separatism year, 25% religious unity and +2 heathen tolerance. usually whenever you come out this idea group all the potential resistance would stop. another idea is administrative, which can save a lot of adm points for core creation.
so, here is my piece of advice for ming players. in this record ming do not even need to expand its land to get rich
for the expansion part:
first, win against oirats and take possible lands to dominate the trade in your regions. next time you can set it as tributary state.
second, expand through Tibet to reach India. soon you will encounter Bengal and later Delhi. usually they will be willing to become your tributary state, but if they are strong enough to refuse your request, take them by force. this is essential for your mandate growth, since both two nations under the ming protection will expand freely in India and soon become the regional power, with about 300~400 even 500 developments. thus this will grants you with even more mandate growth and valuable of all, monarch points. usually by 1520 both two nation will even provide you 24 points yearly. same thing also works in Indochina- take down all Ava state so that all its subjects are now yours. remember to take one lower Burma state, which is essential for later operation.
third, colonizing America and Africa, even Indonesia! take exploration ideas initially so that you can soon find kamchadals, right now a Russian state at the north east of Japan. take them down and create cores. this provide you with enough exploration distance to see Alaska, right now a US state. heir an adviser that improve 20% colonial range or upgrade diplomat tech into 7 will allow you to do so, and even colonize it. this will give you the opportunity for colonialism institution to come out from your country(try many times to compete over western countries). then you can just colonize America and even Mexico later, creating 3 colonial nations (Cascadia, California and Mexico) that can direct their trade back to Asia, providing 3 merchants later. for Africa, based on the initial Burma state, you can explore the Western Indian Ocean. Find an island that is near Madagascar and colonize it. take down Madagascar lands and then fight with kilwa to take all the land in eastern Africa charter to dominate Zanzibar trade. open trade companies, and you can later even attract trade from India given that you will have even 1k trade power in Zanzibar. Colonize whole south Africa later so that western country would never have a chance to steal any trade from Zanzibar. send a merchant here to collect the profits(you don't even need to worry about trade power penalties since you have 100% dominated the area).
for the stability part:
after choosing exploration idea, open humanist idea and improve +3 stability so that there is NO resistance throughout your nation. even if there is some resistance, an adviser with -2 national unrest would be great. for many animist religion places, change them into Confucian. accept several culture so there is no tax penalty. even if you can't manage that, there is a era power "Feudal De Jure Law" that give -5 with in the state. for most of your time the mandate is above 50, so that will not cause much unrest.
after following the previous expansion tactics, I can ensure the monthly mandate growth can reach 0.33 and greater enough for you to finish 5 mandate reforms before 1550. my quickest record for finishing 5 reforms even prevents the ming dynasty disaster to ever come out. another way to avoid that disaster is to have another disaster, like "aristocratic coup", which will cause economic penalties but not increasing national unrest. since I usually finish the 4th reform when the next era began, so there will most likely to have a disaster after the 5th reform. by then I would just trigger another minor disaster in replace of this.
for economics part:
construct more buildings especially manufactories. use monarch points to improve the state development. move the capital from Beijing to Hanzhou and improve development so that renaissance idea would come out. soon you will get rid of tech penalties. hire 5 level advisors to get more monarch points(ming has originally -35% advisor cost and later and more cost reduced if trying innovative idea). as from my last record, I can earn 300 cash per moth by 1530, and by year of 1600, I can earn 200 cash from trade in China and 120 cash from Africa. Combined with taxes and productions, I can reach 1k total monthly income(I only take land from Eastern Africa and south Africa).
for military part:
Ming army really sucks at the beginning, partly because of the emperor with -5% morale. actually there is a decree improving 10% infantry combating strength and one of its idea is 5% discipline. combined with an advisor the army can have 10% discipline. you can choose to unlock many military idea later if you want, but I would prefer choosing economics idea and quality idea so that with combined policy there would be another 10% discipline. also, most of all, ming do not actually need manpower if they are not busy expanding- with great income they can even have their army consisted of all mercenaries to fight. the cost of maintaining mercenaries are even small compared with their monthly income. if you think ming army are just so poor, how about they immediately forming 50k mercenaries and head towards you? ming is just so rich.

[lord]

2:15 if you are rivaling ashikaga, you should be privateering them as well.

[cardenasr.]

My king died heirless, lost Mandate of Heaven and then everything started spiralling down

[maxblanc]

Great Guide ! Really helpful, as always ! Thank you for the accurate info !

[Ramzan]

While having tributaries is fun and may be useful, my real advice is to use them while you build your reforms, after you finish your reforms, you are pretty strong and should eat everyone. Keep one direction as tributaries and conquer everyone in another direction!

[marcustulliuscicero]

And people complain that the HRE is bordergore

[misticue]

Guess i finally need to play in asia now... Got 1400 hours in Eu4 and played nearly All the time with Nations in Europe🙄

[Snwjunke]

can we just appreciate the fact that the AI Timurids not only somehow didn't fall apart, but also expanded really aggressively.

[wisdomball]

This is going to backfire late game. It happened to me in my qing game. First a colonizer like France declares on a tributary but they will be hopelessly outnumbered. Then another declares. Then another. Soon you will be fighting every major colonizer in europe and probably russia as well. The best thing you can do when you have the mandate is to focus on prosperity and stay at 3 stab while having no tributaries. Annex your neighbors instead. The provinces are more useful under your control.

[johnfranklin]

what is funny is that the person in the preface of the video is one king of the Manchu, the opponent of Ming

[tonyzheng]

Humanism is always my first pick for Ming so I can harmonize religions easier

[chinguunerdenebadrakh]

One thing I want to add is that you can demand additional tribute beyond the liberty desire if you plan to attack your tributaries ally and they will join.

[imFruzzy]

I'd love to play Ming, but it's boring chasing 1k troops around over there compared to in Europe because of the travle time, all provinces have like -6 supply limit etc so your manpower is gone in half a week

[llawliet]

I learnt now that you could upgrade your advisors.

[ProPopulo]

one thing that is good to mention is that since you're going to go exploration anyway you might want to go to africa

[nukalegend]

In the event that breaks away Shun from Ming, is there a choice for the player to play them?
Asking because Shun looks like an a very interesting nation to play as, aswell they have a way better color then Ming.

[mitchellcoulombe]

I got a Civil war as Empiror of China as I had a 0 6 6 ruler, I just took the mandate as Manchu and form Qing and had a decent amount of devastation so it wasn't ticking up. I couldn't stop the disaster since I needed 75 mandate. Now I have lots of rebels and 10+ unrest. I need 90 mandate and it is only ticking down. The rebels are creating more devastation and I don't see a way out. Any advice?