Zhuge Nu turn into horse shredders when you have no armor.

You really need a big mass of Horsemen against Zhuge Nu. You need at least half the number of horsemen that your opponent has in terms of Zhuge Nu – like you need 16 Horsemen to beat this.

When China goes to TC it's very, very costly for them overall to keep up with the food. You invest so much food into the villagers, you've got to go for an early farming transition which is very expensive. Meanwhile Abbasid throughout the time that they've got multiple TCs up, they pay a lot less food for their villagers, and also their farms are cheaper with the Economy Wing. They have a very easy time in that regard.

Zhuge Nu are very effective at taking down villagers. Archers don't do bonus damage to villagers, but Zhuge Nu just always have that high base damage against unarmored units.

Zhuge Nu: if you get Ghulam or Camel Riders, you don't actually need blacksmith tech; they take the minimum amount of damage.