I think the earlyish timing does get improved quite a bit with the rework of the landmarks. I think it's around the six or seven maybe like 8ish minute mark depending on when you get your age up. Right around that time you're going to be getting the big first burst of the resources from the Meditation Gardens.

When the Keshik have the same number as the spears, the rule of thumb is two spearmen per one knight. Against Keshik, it's more like one and a half spearmen per Keshik.

A Zhu spear push strategy is his best. Don't go docks; if you go docks, Mongols are going to have a party on your corpse.

As Zhu Xi, do not gather more gold at all. Tax your way into the Feudal Age and then Meditation Garden drop both the golds.

With the Khan's Hunter, they will outrange the Zhuge Nu by a decent margin, able to even kite them quite well, especially using the signal arrow once he has access to it.