War against a large and powerful Chinese Empire?

[silver 2039]

In my India game on a world map, me and China have been resident regional powers competing for dominance over Asia, China has expanded into South East Asia, and I've expanded into Burma, and Malaya, and Indonesia, and they took Boreno. They're pretty powerful they have a bigger military than me, the military you see in the screenshot is just a fraction of what they have each of their large cities has a similar stack. I have a much smaller one of 2 Knights, 2 War Elephants, 2 Pikemen, and 2 Macemen, 1 Crossbowmen, and an assortment of Longbowmen for city defense clearly I need to build my military up a good deal, but my main concern is how to attack China.

Spoiler :

-I need to strip them of their South East Asian territory Guangzhou I can take to cut off South East Asia from the rest of China but it will leave me vulnerable to attack by the forces in Xian. Also the city of Saxon is massive and has a large stack and is extremely well defended and will be extremely bloody to take. Chengdu is useless to me but I could take it but I would have to contend with the Xian Army.

Also note that the terrain in this area is mostly, hills, mountains, jungle, and river rough terrrain with little infastructure built and easy to defend so the Chinese have an advantage. A big problem for me to send reinforcemens I could use my navy to reinforce my troops but I need to recall my fleet from Indonesia and Australia then and transfer my Western fleet to the Bay of Bengal which would hurt my colonization campagain and let Japan colonize the area.

-Neither Genghis nor Tokoguwa are willing to go to war against China, Xerexes is but I'm not sure how useful he'll be.

If the war goes badly, and I lose Shillolling my plan is to hold China in this city which is quite well defended:

Spoiler :

At any rate its clear this war will be bloody and fun....

So yes I need suggestions how do I contend with a nation of this size and power?

 

[Sjaramei]

Make some big stacks with loads of Elephants and siege. (don't be afraid to use the whip a lot, time matters, you don't want to hit muskets with catapults)
If you have engineering make a stack with 5-6 Elephants and at least 7-8 siege (Trebs pref, they can be in smaller number than cats) 1-2 Pikemen and maybe a Mace would be a good attack force. Knights with shock can be used instead of maces, just have enough of elephants/knights/pikes so that the siege doesn't defend. (most likely the AI won't dare to attack )

Whip an elephant in each of the border cities since China will send horse archers to pillage. Promote them with shock so you can kill maces and stuff too (elephants are awesome defenders )

And hit china where it hurts, see where strategic cities are. (iron/horse/ivory etc) Also look for huge commerce centers to screw up their tech. Just keep sending siege to the front and hit them in the cities and it will usually work out okay

 

[Melchizedek]

I would hit Xian first with a force similar to that described by Sjaramei, making sure to have strong defenses in Pataliputra and Shilloling. After capturing/razing that city, you can probably take Guangzhou at leisure. After that, you can either make peace with a chastened China or press home the assault, depending on your longterm strategy for this game.

If you have good relations with Cyrus, I would suggest moving longbowmen from your western cities to help with the attack. They're good for protecting your siege units, can garrison captured cities, and get a good bonus in hilly terrain (especially if you promote them appropriately).