How to counter early rushes as Japan

Hello everyone,

I've been playing this game for 44 hours now with a friend and I've been spamming the Japanese because I love this civ. However the issue is, contrary to most meta civs, they don't get any powerful age2 fighting unit shipments nor any other interesting perk to pressure early on. So I'm usually getting rushed and have a hard time defending myself against an army of 30 units when I have only 10 or 15 myself. 3 questions:

- How to counter early rushes as Japan's early economy is slow and no powerful fighting unit shipments early on?

- Any early game strategy that I should follow? I usually go consulate (portuguese), spread my houses, build a barrack or two and start producing archers to defend myself.

- Is there any good Japan player on youtube? The content is pretty rare as it is a new game, haven't found a lot of material on that particular civ.

Thanks !