Help with Le Loi, 1st mission

For the first mission in a campaign, this might be the hardest one yet and I've been doing the campaigns in chronological order so done quite a few.

Is it better to ignore my allies and try to gun the towers? Do I help them and is it worth even trying to castle up in their towns? Was planning on going for town closest to me by the water which has a market for gold. Stone seems poorly accessible with one group easy to mine and the rest by blue's towers. I know some people like to seem to blow blue away but is that viable really? How would you start to even do that strategy?

Thanks for any tips and advice you can give.