WILLIAM EDMUND AUGHINBAUGH M.D., LL.B., LL.M. 1871, October 12, Washington, D. C. • New York, N. Y., December 17, 1940 President of The Adventurers' Club, ; jS'T , 1919-1925 ■ ■!■ "I Swear by Apollo" TRAVELS OF A CONSULAR OFFICER IN EASTERN TIBET OLIN LIBRARY-CIRCULATION • DATE DUE JAi\ 2 4 JUL ! 4 - "in- - ' LlJUO CAMBRIDGE UNI.^E.H&I'ry 'PRESS "C; F.^CLAY-; M-anager LONDON : FIETt'eR LANE, E.G. 4 w NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO. BOMBAY ■) CALCUTTA I MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. MADRAS j TORONTO : THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TOKYO : MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA ALL RIGHTS TtBSERVED TRAVELS OF A CONSULAR OFFICER IN EASTERN TIBET TOGETHER WITH A HISTORY OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN CHINA, TIBET AND INDIA BY ERIC TEICHMAN, CLE., B.A. (Cantab.) OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S CONSULAR SERVICE IN CHINA AUTHOR OF TRA VELS OF A CONSULAR OFFICER IN N.W. CHINA WITH ORIGINAL MAPS OF EASTERN TIBET AND PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY THE AUTHOR CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 924 089 999 209 CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1922 4_of .stationed in Western China when hostilities broke out between .Chinese and Tibetans on the border in 191 8. The affairs of China being at that time in great disorder, and the authority of the Peking Government not extending as far as the Western frontier province of Szechuan, it devolved upon him, in accordance with Great BHtain's policy of promoting peace between China and Tibet, to offer his services as mediator between the local frontier leaders on both sides, with a view to the restoration of peace on the border pending a final settlement of the boundary question by negotiation with the Central Government of China when the latter should once more be in a position to deal with Tibetan frontier affairs. The long and arduous journeys through remote and largely unknown regions of Eastern Tibet necessitated by these frontier peace negotiations appeared to be of sufficient in- terest to warrant their being recorded in this book. For some people, including the writer, there are few pleasures, sports, or pastimes to compare with the interest and excitement of travelling through and surveying, however inadequately, re- mote regions hitherto unmapped and unexplored. Every un- trodden trail invites the traveller into the unknown, every mountain range demands to be crossed to see what lies on the other side, and every unmapped river asks to be followed up to its unknown source. To the account of these journeys is prefixed an historical introduction, recording briefly the history of the Tibetan question, in other words, the story of the relations of Tibet with India and China, her neighbours on the south and north, from early days down tb the end of the year 1918^. The ^ In case this historical introduction should appear somewhat patchy and disjointed, it should be explained that its various parts were largely compiled on the spot at the time of the events narrated. Thus Part II, dealing with events of 1906-10, including the Dalai Lama's visit to Peking, was originally compiled while the writer was in Peking during those years. The greater vi /'-'''' PREFACE''.;,. questions at issue ^te comparatively simple to state, if they are not easy Qf/sX)lution. --' Tibet seeks', if hot complete iiidependence, autonomy and freedom from) interference in her internal affairs on the part of China, India, op any other Power, arid .would extend her boundaries to embrace all those parts-'of^High Asia inhabited by peoples of Tibetan race. The Tibetans base their claim to manage their own affairg.without Chinese interference on the history of their country as an autonomous State from the earliest days, and further argue that on the disappearance of their nominal overlords, the Manchu Emperors, at the time of the Chinese revolution in 191 1, they became, either en- tirely independent, or equal partners in the new Common- wealth with the Chinese themselves and other constituent elements of the former Manchu Empire. India, having learned by experience that satisfactory rela- tions and friendly intercourse can only be maintained with her northern neighbour by direct dealings with a responsible Tibetan Government, without the intervention of any Chinese Authority, supports the Tibetan demand for internal au- tonomy, while fully recognising the status of Tibet as an integral, though self-governing, portion of the Chinese Com- monwealth of Nations; and, while indifferent to the exact location of the Sino-Tibetan frontier, she seeks to promote a friendly settlement of the boundary dispute, on terms acceptable to both parties, in the interests of her trans- frontier trade and the peace of her long north-eastern border. For hostilities between China and Tibet must inevitably re- sult in turmoil and unrest on the Indian border and in the Native States of Nepal and Bhutan. India has not, and never has had, any designs against the territorial or administrative integrity of Tibet, and the Tibetans have for many years past shown their appreciation of this fact by their openly expressed desire for closer and more friendly relations with their southern neighbour. portion of Parts III and IV, including the story of Chao Erh-feng's campaigns in Eastern Tibet and the collapse of Chinese power in Kam at the time of the Chinese revolution of 191 1, was written from first hand information when the writer (who was in Chengtu at the time of Chao Erh-feng's murder) was stationed in Western China during the years 191 i-iz. Part V, including the account of the resumption of hostilities between China and Tibet in 1 918, was written on the spot immediately after the events narrated. PREFACE vii China, suspicious of India's motives, and ever mindful of the fate of Korea, while recognising in principle the justice of the Tibetan demand for autonomy, seeks as far as possible to assert herself in Tibet, and to restrict the boundaries of the Dalai Lama's dominions by incorporating in China Proper many frontier districts inhabited by peoples of Tibetan race. As a result China is to-day disliked and mis- trusted in Tibet. The Chinese at times profess to resent the interference of India in Tibetan affairs ; but perhaps they overlook the fact that Indian territory marches with Tibet in the south and west as Chinese territory does in the north and east ; and that India cannot therefore be entirely indifferent to the fate of Tibet and to disorders in that country, and must concern herself with the maintenance of satisfactory relations with her northern neighbour. It having been found impossible to reconcile the conflicting boundary claims of China and Tibet at the tripartite con- ference held in India in 19 14, the Tibetan question dragged on unsettled through the years of the Great War, when no one had the leisure to attend to Tibetan affairs. Then, shortly before the termination of the Great War, came the resump- tion of active hostilities on the Sino-Tibetan frontier, and the restoration of peace on the border at the end of 1918. During these years, however, new obstacles to a definite settlement had arisen, namely, the disunited state of China and the lack of control exercised by the Peking Government over the Western Provinces and the Tibetan frontier. Since this book and its historical introduction were com- piled at the end of the year 191 8 down to the time of writing, there have been no material developments in the situation; that is to say, peace has reigned on the border, but, while Tibet has continued to maintain her complete de facto inde- pendence from all Chinese control, a definite settlement of the Tibetan boundary question and of the status of Tibet as an autonomous portion of the Chinese Commonwealth awaits the cessation of internal strife in China. In the meantime, however, while a definite settlement restoring normal rela- tions between China and Tibet continues to be delayed, Tibet drifts further and further from the orbit of her nominal suzerain. viii PREFACE China having recognised the principle of Tibetan autonomy under Chinese suzerainty, it is mainly the question of the boundary between China and autonomous Tibet which has proved so difficult of solution. In the summer of 19 19 the Chinese Government did, indeed, offer to settle the boundary question on apparently equitable terms, which amounted to a reversion to the old historical frontier between China and Tibet as delimited by the Manchu Emperors nearly two centuries ago. Before, however. Great Britain, in her character as middleman, could press the Tibetan Government to accept this settlement, the Chinese withdrew their offer on the ground that, with their country still torn by internal dis- sensions and civil wars, the time was inopportune for finally determining the Tibetan question, which particularly con- cerned the western frontier provinces of Szechuan and Yunnan, then, as now, independent of Central Government control. For some reason or other, whenever the settlement of the Tibetan question comes up for discussion, individuals of a certain class who have presumably their own reasons for de- siring to abuse Great Britain, seize the opportunity to accuse her in the most fantastic terms of aggressive designs in Tibet and of so-called "demands" made on the Chinese Govern- ment in connection with a settlement of the Tibetan question. It was a press campaign of this nature which was largely responsible for the eleventh hour refusal of the Chinese Government to proceed with their offer of a settlement in 1919. What actually passed in the negotiations of that year is recounted in the following statement issued by Reuter's Agency in the press of China on December and, 1919: As the result of the invitation by the British Government to the Chinese Government to settle this long outstanding question, which has remained in a state of suspense during the War, the Chinese Government on May 30 last submitted certain formal proposals for a settlement. These proposals virere based on the unsigned draft convention prepared during the tripartite negotiations in India in 1913 and 1914, which arrangement was at the time accepted in principle by the Chinese Government with the exception of the clause laying down the boundary between China and Tibet. The Chinese offer of May 30 suggested a boundary line which amounted to a reversion to the old historical Sino-Tibetan frontier as laid down by the Manchus in 1727 and which continued for nearly two centuries after- wards. This Chinese offer was duly submitted to the British Government, who i PREFACE ix replied after mature examination that it was acceptable in principle as far as they were concerned. At that moment a settlement of this old question, the only outstanding issue of importance between Great Britain and China, appeared imminent. A few days later, however, in August last, the Chinese Government suddenly expressed the desire to postpone the conclusion of the negotia- tions on the ground that, the proposed settlement having met with popular opposition in the country, it was necessary to enlighten public opinion on the subject before proceeding with a settlement. The British Government has since been waiting for the Chinese Government to resume negotiations on the basis of China's own offer. Since the Chinese left Lhasa as the result of the revolution in China seven or eight years ago Tibet has in fact been independent of her suzerain. The settlement now proposed entails the return of Tibet to the fold of the Five Races of the Republic on the basis of a self-governing Dominion, together with the re-admission of a Chinese Resident and his staff to Lhasa in return for a guarantee of internal autonomy. The British Minister has made no demands on the subject of Tibet as has so repeatedly been alleged in the press. There has been no secret diplomacy regarding the Tibetan question, nor is there anything in the whole long history of the negotiations which could not be published for the information of China's millions. Great Britain's only interest in the matter is to secure a stable settlement of the question in the interests of the peace of her Indian frontier, and the maintenance of good relations between India, China and Tibet. She never had and has not now any intention of interfering in the internal affairs of Tibet, nor in the relations between Chinese and Tibetans beyond endeavouring to make peace be- tween the two parties on equitable terms acceptable to both. She is wiUing and anxious to meet China's wishes in every way, provided that the resulting arrangement is one which the Tibetans can be induced to accept. This book has no official imprimatur of any kind. No secrets are made pubHc, nor, so far as the writer is aware, are there any to divulge. Most of the information contained in the historical introduction has been published at one time or another, in the works of Mr Rockhill, Mr Sandberg, and Sir Francis Younghusband (to whom every acknowledgment is made), in Blue Books, and in the press. All that has been done is to piece the various items of information together to make a consecutive story, which will, it is hoped, do some- thing towards dispelling the fog of suspicion and mis- understanding which is apt to enshroud the Tibetan question. The writer has lived too long in China not to be imbued with regard for the Chinese and admiration of their many outstanding qualities. At the same time he cannot avoid strong feelings of sympathy with the Tibetans in their gallant T.T.T. b X PREFACE struggle for autonomy and regret that the Chinese should in this case have placed themselves so much in the wrong. In accordance with the traditional Chinese, or perhaps rather Manchu, attitude towards the peoples of the De- pendencies of the Manchu Throne, the Chinese are some- what apt to regard the Tibetans as disobedient children requiring to be chastised into good behaviour. But if the Tibetans were formerly children, it must be realised that they have now grown up, and that, while they desire nothing better than to live on good terms with the Chinese and enjoy the benefits of Chinese trade, they insist on managing their own internal affairs without Chinese interference. The history of the past ten years has shown that they are fully capable of doing so ; and it seems indeed paradoxical that the Chinese, who have so signally failed to maintain law and order in their own country, should put forward any claim to have a hand in the administration of peaceful and orderly Tibet. As stated above, however, the Chinese have now recognised the principle of Tibetan autonomy, and it is at present the question of the boundary between China and Tibet which stands in the way of a settlement, the difficulty being the nominal incorporation in China Proper of certain frontier districts which contain a purely Tibetan population, are claimed by the Tibetans as part of Tibet, and are actually being administered by Tibetan officials. It is indeed largely a question of "face," calling for mutual concessions. Once these are made, and the boundary dispute settled within a reasonable space of time, the Tibetans will yet, the writer believes, willingly enter the Chinese Commonwealth of the "FiyeRacesi." Since this book was written three well-known figures in Eastern Tibet have passed from the scene. The Kalon Lama and the ex-Rajah of Chala died in the early summer of the present year, and Dr Shelton was murdered by brigands in February last. The majestic presence of the Kalon Lama, Governor and Commander-in-Chief in Eastern Tibet, over- shadowed all other figures in the drama of the Sino-Tibetan borderland, and will not readily be forgotten by the three or ^ The Chinese RepubUcan Flag is composed of five colours, representing the " Five Races "—Chinese, Manchus, Mongols, Tibetans, and Mahomedans of Turkestan— virho are in theory equal partners in the Chinese Common- wealth. PREFACE xi four foreigners who were privileged to make his acquaint- ance. The Chief of Chala, to whom many European and American visitors to the border town of Tachienlu have been indebted for assistance and small favours, was the first of the semi-independent Rajahs of Kam to be deposed by the Chinese when they began their forward movement on the frontier in 1905, and had since passed a somewhat precarious existence at Tachienlu, hankering vainly after his lost King- dom, sometimes in and sometimes out of favour with the Chinese Authorities. Dr Shelton, of the American Mission at Batang, was ambushed and shot by brigands in Chinese territory a few miles from Batang when returning to |:he latter place from a tour (in circumstances very similar to those attending the attack on the author's caravan as related in Chapter ix). He had earned to a remarkable degree the affection and regard of the Chinese and Tibetan communities of Batang and of the native inhabitants of the wild border region in which he worked, and will long be remembered by foreigners who knew him as a broad-minded, courageous and devoted worker in the cause of Christianity and humanity in these remote back-blocks of China's hinterland. In conclusion the writer desires to express his acknowledg- ments to his forerunners on the Chinese-Tibetan frontier, Messrs Louis King and Oliver Coales of H.B.M. Consular Service, to whom is due the credit of doing much to open up the way for succeeding travellers in Eastern Tibet, E. T. Peking, August 1922. bz CONTENTS HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN CHINA, TIBET AND INDIA FROM EARLY TIMES UP TO THE END OF THE YEAR 1918 PART I RELATIONS BETWEEN CHINA AND TIBET UP TO THE TIME OF THE BRITISH EXPEDITION TO LHASA IN 1904 Early relations between China and Tibet — Manchu suzerainty over Tibet — In- vasion of Tibet by the Dzungarian Mongols, their expulsion by the armies of the Manchu Emperor, and the resulting settlement of Tibetan affairs early in the eighteenth century — List of the Native States of Eastern Tibet — Invasion of Tibet by the Nepalese, their expulsion in turn by the troops of the Manchu Emperor, and further settlement of Tibetan affairs and consolidation of Manchu power in Tibet at the end of the eighteenth century^ — Decline of Chinese power in Tibet on the death of the Manchu Emperor Ch'ien Lung — Disturbances in Eastern Tibet and pacification and annexation of Nyarong by the Lhasa Government in 1865 — Death of the Dalai Lama and accession of the present Pontiff in 1875 — Conclusion of the Sikkim Convention in 1890 between China and Great Britain on the subject of Tibet — Further disturbances in Nyarong in 1894, its pacification by Chinese troops, and restoration to Tibetan control in 1S98 — Chinese intervention in De-ge — The political status of Tibet and adjacent territories at the beginning of the twen- tieth century i PART II THE BRITISH EXPEDITION TO LHASA, THE TREATIES OF 1904 AND 1906 AND TB[EIR RESULTS, AND THE WANDERINGS OF HIS HOLINESS THE THIRTEENTH DALAI LAMA Failure of the Tibetan Government to carry out the provisions of the Sikkim Convention and apparent inability of the Chinese Government to induce them to do so — British Mission sent to Lhasa in 1904 to open direct relations between India and Tibet — Conclusion of Anglo-Tibetan Convention of 1904 and withdrawal of British Mission from Lhasa — Negotiation of Adhesion Agreement between Great Britain and China in 1906 — Conclusion of Anglo-Russian Agreement about Tibet in 1907 — China re-establishes her position in Tibet during the years 1907 to 1910, and reasserts her claim to be the sole medium of communication between India and Tibet — ^Wanderings of the Dalai Lama — Flight from Lhasa to Mongolia on arrival of British Mission in 1904 — ^Visit to, and reception at, Peking in 1908 — Grant of Chinese titles and honours by Imperial Decree — Return to Tibet and XIV CONTENTS flight from Lhasa to India on arrival of Chinese troops in 1910 — Deposition and deprivation of Chinese titles and honours by Imperial Decree — Return to Lhasa on withdrawal of Chinese troops in 1912 — Restoration of Chinese titles and honours by Presidential Mandate 9 PART III THE CHINESE CAMPAIGNS IN EASTERN TIBET DURING THE YEARS 1905 TO 191 1, AND THE CHINESE ADVANCE TO LHASA IN 1910 Inauguration of China's forward policy in 1904 by the appointment of Feng Ch'uan to be Amban in E. Tibet — Revolt of Batang Tibetans and murder of Amban Feng in 1905 — General rising of Tibetans on the Szechuan frontier — Despatch of Chinese punitive expedition under Chao Erh-feng and subjugation of the border country — Renewed revolt in Hsiangch'eng subdued by Chao Erh-feng — ^The Amban Lien Yii proceeds to Lhasa — Chao Erh-feng's reforms at Batang — Chao Erh-feng returns to Szechuan and is appointed Tibetan Frontier Commissioner — Introduction of Chinese administration on the Southern circuit of the frontier — Chao Erh-feng returns to the frontier in 1908 — Introduction of Chinese administration in the Kingdom of De-ge — Tibetan Government memorialise the Manchu Throne against the Chinese advance in E. Tibet — Chinese occupation of Chamdo, Draya, and Markam — Tibetan Government appeal to the Manchu Emperor and to the foreign Powers to stop the Chinese advance — Chinese troops reach and occupy Lhasa — Protest by the British Government against overthrow of Tibetan Government — Chinese activities in S.E. Tibet on the borders of Assam — Subjugation of Kanze and the Hor States — Chao Erh-feng's proposals for the frontier between China and Tibet — Subjugation of Gonjo and Sangen — Chinese military operations in Bomed and Zayiil — Expulsion of Tibetan ofiBcials from Nyarong — Chao Erh-feng appointed Viceroy of Szechuan — Memorial to the Throne proposing the conversion of E. Tibet into a Chinese Province ........ 19 PART IV THE COLLAPSE OF CHINESE POWER IN TIBET IN 1 91 1, THE SUB- SEQUENT CAMPAIGNS IN EASTERN TIBET IN 1912 AND 1913, AND THE TRIPARTITE NEGOTIATIONS IN INDIA IN 1914 Outbreak of the revolution in China and murder of Chao Erh-feng by the revolu- tionaries in Szechuan — Risings on the frontier — Mutiny of Chinese troops in Lhasa and withdrawal of Chinese from Central Tibet — Efforts of the Chinese Government to placate the Tibetans — Despatch of a Szechuanese relief force to E. Tibet and recovery by the Chinese of the frontier districts up to the Mekong — ^Hostilities on the border develop into open war between China and Tibet — ^The position on the frontier in 1914— Great Britain offers to mediate between China and Tibet Chinese, Tibetan, and British Plenipotentiaries meet in India for the purpose of tripartite peace negotiations to settle the status of Tibet — ^Aims and objects of the "Tibetan, Chinese and British Governments on entering the Conference Con- flicting Tibetan and Chinese boundary claims and British proposals for a settlement —The Conference breaks down over the boundary question— Truce between China and Tibet resulting from the tripartite negotiations of 1914 ... 36 CONTENTS XV PART V THE TRUCE BETWEEN CHINA AND TIBET FROM 1914 TO 1917, THE RESUMPTION OF HOSTILITIES AND THE TIBETAN ADVANCE IN 1918, AND THE SUBSEQUENT RESTORATION OF PEACE THROUGH BRITISH MEDIATION BY LOCAL NEGOTIATIONS ON THE FRONTIER Renewed rising in Hsiangch'eng in 1914 — Forward movement in the Kokonor Territory by the Chinese Mahomedans of Kansu — Yuan Shih-k'ai ascends the Throne of China as Emperor at the end of 1915 — Outbreak of anti-monarchical rebellion in S.W. China early in 1916 and resulting domination of Szechuan and the frontier by the Yunnanese — Hostilities between Szechuan and Yunnan break out in 1917 — Neglect of Chinese frontier garrisons owing to continued civil wars in China — Hostilities between Szechuanese and Lhasa Tibetans provoked by the Chinese Commander on the frontier against the orders of his Government — Tibetans capture Draya and lay siege to Chamdo — Fall of Chamdo — ^Tibetans overrun De-ge and threaten Batang and Kanze — Chinese relief force despatched to Kanze to check Tibetan advance — Fighting between Szechuanese and Tibetans at Rongbatsa near Kanze — British mediation and peace negotiations on the frontier — ^Peace restored between China and Tibet at the end of 1918 ... 47 TRAVELS IN EASTERN TIBET CHAPTER I FROM TACHIENLU TO KANZE BY THE MAIN NORTH ROAD Departure from Tachienlu — The first big pass on the road to Tibet — Taining and Gata Gomba — Tea and tsamha — Nadreheka Dzong and the forests of Sun- glink'ou — Silver pheasants and stags — A caravan from Tibet — Dawu — Reforming the caravan — Catholic Mission at Dawu — Racial types of Eastern Tibet — The Horba — Tibetan houses — Catholic settlement at Sharatong — Chinese colonists in Tibet and Mongolia — Hor Drango — Resemblance between Lamaism and Roman Catholicism — Collecting subscriptions for the Buddhist Society of Tachienlu — Hor Driwo — Snow mountains of the Yangtze- Yalung divide — Kanze and its monastery — Rumours of Chinese reverses — Difficulties of proceeding west of Kanze 59 CHAPTER II FROM KANZE THROUGH THE TZACHUKA GRASS COUNTRY TO JYEKUNDO IN THE KOKONOR The plain of Horko — Marching up the Yalung— The Lao Shan of E. Tibet— The Golok country — The Podrang (castles) of E. Tibet — Denchin Gomba and the Bon, or Black, Sect of Lamaism — Nando and Dzogchen Gomba — The various sects of Lamaism — ^A snowstorm, and shelter in a nomad's tent — The Native State of Lintsung — ^A Lhasa caravan — Nojeling Gomba — Dissecting deceased lamas — Dengko and Drolma Hlakang on the Yangtze — ^Plight of Chinese officials in E. Tibet — Merchants from Kansu — The road to Tzachuka — Crossing the Dzi La (16,000 feet) in a snowstorm — ^A camp in the snow— Gazelle and wild asses — Seshu district and the grass country of Tzachuka — Seshu Gomba — ^A Golok raid — Entering the Kokonor Territory — Crossing the Yangtze — ^Jyekundo — The wool trade — Chinese control over the Kokonor Territory — Kansu Mahomedans at Jyekundo 75 xvi CONTENTS CHAPTER III FROM JYEKUNDO, ACROSS THE GRASS-LANDS OF THE UPPER MEKONG BASIN, TO NANGCHEN AND CHAMDO Crossing the Yangtze-Mekong divide by the Shung La (15,800 feet) — The Dze Chu — ^Rashi Gomba and the Rijnhart tragedy of 1898 — Pen picture of a nomad of Eastern Tibet — Kanda on the Dza Chu, the main branch of die upper Mekong — Bare spring pastures and exhausted animals — Ferry across the Dza Chu at Gurde Druka — Traces of the Russian explorer Kozloff — Pilgrims — Tibetan paper — Crossing the Manam La (15,500 feet) — The Native State of Nangchen — Tibetan turnips and a Chinese cook in Eastern Tibet — The Bar Chu — Big game — Meeting with emissaries from Tibetan headquarters — Crossing the frontier from the Kokonor into Tibet Proper — The Dje Chu — Two more big passes — Monkeys — Marching down the Ngom Chu to Chamdo — Chamdo after the Tibetan occupa- tion — ^The Kalon Lama, the Tibetan Commander-in-Chief — The siege of Chamdo — Condition of the wounded — Proposed peace negotiations — ^Tibetan leaders at Chamdo — Departure for Batang ........ 100 CHAPTER IV FROM CHAMDO TO BATANG BY THE MAIN ROAD VIA DRAYA AND MARKAM GARTOK A Tibetan army on the march — The Ipi La (15,300 feet) — Marmots — ^Ruined villages of Draya — Prayers for rain and fine weather — The Gam La (16,000 feet) — Draya Jyamdun — ^The Lama Ruler of Draya and the Chinese magistrate — Chinese refugees on their way out of Tibet— Encircling tactics of the Tibetans — The Shepu La (15,500 feet) — More refugees — The Gangso La (15,200 feet) — Markam Gartok — ^The Governor of Markam and a Chinese General — Conclusion of a month's truce — Crossing the frontier into Chinese territory — The boundary stone — Descent to the Yangtze and arrival in Batang — Protestant and Catholic Missions — Precarious position of Chinese at Batang — Difficulties of peace-making owing to destruction of telegraph lines — Lapse of month's truce and departure from Batang for peace negotiations at Chamdo ........ 123 CHAPTER V FROM BATANG TO CHAMDO BY THE SHORT ROAD VIA JYASE GOMBA AND THE ONG CHU VALLEY View from Shisongong above the Yangtze — Sangen and its robber tribes — ^Passage of the To La (15,200 feet) and the Dm La (15,100 feet) and descent into the Ong Chu valley — ^Jyase Gomba and Tibetan troops under the Ragashar Dabon — The Hlato plateau in Gonjo — Arrival at Draya — Reception at Chamdo — ^A Tibetan banquet — Chinese "Tibetan interpreters — The Kalon Lama's A.D.C. — ^Tibetan culture — ^Peace negotiations — Chinese prisoners from De-ge — Nevi^ from Kanze Panic amongst the Chinese at Batang— Tibetan theatricals — Conclusion of pro- visional treaty of peace between Chinese and Tibetans — Arrival of Chala Chief from Kanze — I?eparture for Kanze to arrange further truce at Rongbatsa . 141 CONTENTS xvii CHAPTER VI FROM CHAMDO TO DE-GE GONCHEN, AND THENCE THROUGH CENTRAL DE-GE TO RONGBATSA ON THE YALUNG Crossing the Ja-pe La (15,800 feet) — Toba and the grass country of the Yangtze- Mekong divide in summer — The Native State of Hlato — T'ungp'u in De-ge — Release of a Chinese magistrate — The Yangtze — De-ge Gonchen — More Chinese released — The lama of Dordra Gomba — Through Central De-ge via Bagung, Mesho, and Dehlung — Dzenko and the Dzin Chu — Crossing the Yangtze- Yalung divide by the Tsengu La (15,800 feet) — Descent to Rongbatsa on the Yalung — Chinese and Tibetan lines at Rongbatsa — ^A Conference between the two sides — Comparison of the Chinese and Tibetan forces on the Rongbatsa plain — Hardships of life at Rongbatsa — Conclusion of supplementary truce — Withdrawal of Chinese and Tibetan troops from Rongbatsa ........ 154 CHAPTER Vn FROM RONGBATSA ON THE YALUNG THROUGH GONJO TO DRAYA, AND THENCE VIA YEMDO TO CHAMDO Passage of the Yangtze- Yalung divide by the Hon La (15,800 feet) — Down the gorges of the Dzin Chu to Horbo — Gato Gomba — The Mizo La (16,300 feet) — Beyvi Gomba in Southern De-ge — The Lungdri La (15,800 feet) — The bends of the Yangtze at Polo Gomba — ^A mule over the precipice — A salt caravan from the Kokonor — The Nadzong La (16,000 feet), the boundary between De-ge and Gonjo — Mapping the rivers of Gonjo — Gonjo Dzong — Crossing the Yangtze- Mekong divide and the Gonjo-Draya boundary — ^Arrival at Draya Jyamdun — Yemdo and its ruined monastery — Return to Chamdo via the Ipi La — Release of remaining Chinese prisoners at Chamdo — A long lost Chinese exile in Tibet — Departure from Chamdo by tlje Yunnan road ...... 170 CHAPTER Vni FROM CHAMDO, THROUGH TSAWARONG, TO YENCHING ON THE YUNNAN BORDER, AND THENCE BACK TO BATANG Marching down the Mekong — The Riwoche river and Jyedam — Crossing the Mekong-Salween divide on the Bashii plateau — On the headwaters of the Yu Chu- — Tsawa Dzogang — Drayii Gomba — ^Travelling down the Yu Chu through Tsawarong — ^Yunnan tea entering Tibet — ^Tibetan troops at Di — ^The Chamdo- Yunnan road — Back across the Salween-Mekong divide by the Di La (15,000 feet) — Yenching and its salt wells — The Mekong — Moso tribesmen — A Catholic Mission — ^Tbe deeply-eroded country of South-eastern Tibet — Tranquillity in Tibet and disturbed conditions in China — Previous foreign travellers on the borders of S.E. Tibet — Settlement of dispute about the Tsando valley — Through Markam to Batang 1 82 CHAPTER IX THE RETURN JOURNEY FROM BATANG TO TACHIENLU Batang threatened by Hsiangch'eng insurgents — Return of a Chinese exile from Tibet — Precarious position of Batang — Departure from Batang by the South Road — The caravan ambushed by Chagba — Return to Batang and departure by the North Road — Further skirmishes with Chagba — ^A dangerous march through the forest — Arrival in Gaji in De-ge — ^An unexplored route to Nyarong — Beyii, Rongbatsa, and Kanze — ^Return to Tachienlu ...... 196 xviu CONTENTS CHAPTER X GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON EASTERN TIBET Physical description of Kam, the eastern portion of the Tibetan plateau — ^Agri- cultural valleys and elevated grass country — Geological formation — Mountain ranges — Height limit for corn and trees — Climate — Snow line — Big game, stag, gazelle, antelope, wild sheep, serow, takin, wild goat, wild asses, wild yak, marmots, monkeys, bears, wolves, foxes, leopards, lynx — Small game, the common pheasant, the long-tailed pheasant, the silver or eared pheasant, pheasant grouse, wild fowl, snipe, partridges, hares — ^Transport animals, mules, ponies, yak — Packing and picketing methods — Ula, or forced transport — Ethnography and language — Missionaries and lamas on the borders of Eastern Tibet .... 212 ITINERARY AND TABLES OF DISTANCES, HEIGHTS, AND TEMPERATURES 230 INDEX .... 241 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE TO FACE PAGE I Batang, lying in an irrigated plain surrounded by 6 mountains, for two centuries the principal centre of Chinese Tibet II The Chinese border town of Tachienlu, lying at the 7 junction of three streams, hemmed in by precipitous mountains, the administrative centre of the Szechuan Frontier Territory, and formerly the capital of the Native State of Chala View in the valley of the Tachienlu river, showing main road to Tibet III Mountain and forest scenery in Eastern Tibet . . 12 IV Deeply-eroded river gorge in Southern Kam (Mekong 13 below Chamdo) Tents of a Tibetan Chief in Kam V Two views of Chamdo, the principal centre of Eastern 22 Tibet, looking north and showing the junction of the two branches of the Mekong below the town (low- water season) VI Sunrise on the peaks of the Mekong-Salween divide in 23 Southern Kam Tribesmen of Kam in arms VII Caravan arriving at a Chinese rest-house in Eastern 30 Tibet A small monastery in De-ge (Polo Gomba on the Yangtze) VIII Cantilever bridges in Eastern Tibet (main road to Lhasa, 31 near Draya) IX Residence of small local official in Eastern Tibet (at 40 Jyedam in Western Draya) Travelling across the park lands of Markam X Typical scenery in Southern Kam, pine forest and snow 41 mountain Near the summit of the first big pass on the main road from China to Tibet XI Local Tibetan Headmen in Kam (Draya State) . . 54 Tibetan officials from Lhasa in Kam XX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XII Tibetan Headquarters at Chamdo, 1918 . • • 55 Tibetan villagers petitioning an official on the flat roof of a farm-house in Kam XIII The frontier town of Tachienlu, looking down the 60 valley along the main road leading to China The frontier town of Tachienlu, looking up the valley along the main road leading to Tibet XIV Valley leading up from China to the snow range over- 61 looking Tachienlu, the racial boundary between Chinese and Tibetans Valley leading down into Tibetan country on the reverse slope of the same range XV The first of many camps 64 Tibetans of Kam making tea XVI In the She Chu valley, near Drango .... 65 Driwo, castle of the native Chief XVII Joro Gomba, with partly frozen lake below . . 70 View looking west over the Yangtze-Yalung watershed range from the Latse Ka pass near Kanze XVIII Puyulung village, near Kanze 71 Kanze Gomba, one of the largest monasteries in Kam XIX View over the big snow range (Yangtze-Yalung divide) 76 looking south from Kanze Caravan of Dzo (half-bred cattle yak) resting near Kanze XX Tibetans in camp, upper Yalung basin ... 77 XXI Nomad camp on the snow-covered pastures of the 92 Tzachuka grass country, upper Yalung basin Camp of travelling Tibetans, upper Yalung valley XXII Herd of yak in the grass country of Eastern Tibet . 93 Tibetan woman weaving woollen cloth in Kam XXIII Camp on the grass country of the upper Mekong basin 104 Yak caravan travelling across the grass country XXIV Limestone gorges and forested valleys below the level 105 of the grass country in Eastern Tibet XXV View of Chamdo, looking east up the Ngom Chu valley : 114 the town in the foreground, and the ruined monastery on the high ground behind View of Chamdo, showing the junction of the Dza Chu and Ngom Chu below the town (high-water season) LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxi XXVI The " Yunnan Bridge " across the Ngom Chu at Chamdo 115 The " Szechuan Bridge " across the Dza Chu at Chamdo XXVII Tibetan troops in camp 124 Summit of the Gam La (16,100 feet) XXVIII Draya Jyamdun, looking east 125 Draya Jyamdun, looking west XXIX The Yangtze river below Batang, looking up stream . 134 The Yangtze river below Batang, looking down stream : the main road to Yunnan and Tibet on the left bank XXX The boundary stone on the Bum La (Ningching Shan), 135 the historic frontier between China and Tibet Batang, looking north XXXI The Kalon Lama, Tibetan Commander-in-Chief . 138 The Tsangdruba of Draya XXXII The Teji of Markam, and Dr Shelton of the American 139 Mission at Batang XXXIII Halt in the pine forests at Rishisumdo, near the meeting- 144 point of Batang, Markam and Sangen territories A village in Draya XXXIV Official's house at Draya Jyamdun . . . .145 Local Tibetan headmen and the Tsangdruba of Draya XXXV Tibetan theatricals at Chamdo 150 XXXVI Tibetan banqueting tents pitched on the banks of the 151 Mekong at Chamdo TraveUing lamas encamped at Chamdo : tea and butter churn in the foreground XXXVII Camp at Dorka, near Chamdo-De-ge boundary . . 156 Nomads on the grass country of the Mekong- Yangtze divide, main road from Chamdo to De-ge XXXVIII Skin coracles at Gangto Ferry across the Yangtze, main 157 road from Chamdo to De-ge Crossing the Yangtze by coracle at Gangto Ferry XXXIX Castle of the Rajah of De-ge at De-ge Gonchen . . 158 A corner of the monastic printing establishment at De- ge Gonchen : part of the monastery in the background XL Bagung Gomba in De-ge 159 The Chala Chief and the Lama of Dordra Gomba lunch- ing on the road from Chamdo to Rongbatsa xxii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XLI View of the Dzenko basin, showing yak caravan con- 162 veying supphes of barley for the Tibetan troops at Rongbatsa On the summit of the Tsengu La (15,800 feet), the pass across the Yangtze- Yalung divide on the road from Dzenko to Rongbatsa XLII Tibetan General, with attendants and bagpipe-men, on 163 the Rongbatsa plain Tibetan General at Rongbatsa with monks of a monastery in temporary Tibetan occupation XLIII A peculiar type of Tibetan farm-house common in the 170 Dzin Chu valley near Horbo, Southern De-ge A village near Horbo, Dzin Chu valley. Southern De-ge XLIV Gato Gomba, a big monastery in Southern De-ge . 171 Beyu Gomba, another big monastery in Southern De-ge XLV The forested canyon of the Ngii Chu, the river of Beyii 174 Approach to the Lungdri La, a high pass on the Beyii- Gonjo road XLVI Coracle ferry across the Yangtze at Rushi Drango 175 Druka, Beyii-Gonjo road The Yangtze river near Polo Gomba, Beyu-Gonjo road XLVII View from the Ge La, looking south-west across the Me 178 Chu valley and the bare sandstone mountains of Draya Fording the Me Chu below the Ge La, Draya- Yemdo road XLVI II A portion of the ruins of the great Chamdo monastery 179 destroyed by Chinese troops in 1912 Commencement of reconstruction work on the Chamdo monastery after the Tibetan occupation six years later XLIX Gorges of the Mekong below Chamdo on the Yunnan 182 road L Lookingwest across the BashiiplateaufromftieMekong- 183 Salween divide (14,800 feet) on the Chamdo-Yunnan road Headwaters of the Yu Chu river on the Bashii plateau, Chamdo-Yunnan road LI Monastery at Tsawa Dzogang, the capital of Tsawarong 186 Winter scene in the valley of the Yu Chu, the river of Tsawarong, just below the level of the treeless grass country LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii LII An ice bridge across the Yu Chu above Drayii Gomba, 187 Chamdo-Yunnan road Gorges of the Yu Chu, showing cantilever bridge on the Chamdo-Yunnan road LIII On the Do La, a pass near Di on the Chamdo-Yunnan 190 road Local Tibetan levies at Di in lower Tsawarong LIV Looking west over the Mekong- Sal ween divide from 191 near Di in lower Tsawarong Summit of the Di La (15,000 feet) in winter, the pass across the Yu Chu-Mekong divide near Yenching LV Tibetans of Gaji in Southern De-ge .... 204 A Tibetan farm-house on the De-ge-Gonjo border LVI Cropsstackedontheflatroof of afarm-houseinSouthern 205 De-ge Scene in one of the lower agricultural valleys of Southern Kam LVII Crossing the Yalung river by coracle ferry at Beri near 210 Kanze LVIII Yak carrying Chinese tea ascending a pass on the road 211 to Tibet In the She Chu valley near Dawu LIX Midday rest on the grass country of Kam, summer . 214 Midday rest on the grass country of Kam, winter LX Forested river valley in Kam below the level of the 215 grass country Yak caravan with bales of Chinese tea for the Tibetan market LXI Some big game heads from Eastern Tibet, wild sheep, 218 antelope and gazelle Monkey of Eastern Tibet LXII Big riding mule from Gongbo in South-eastern Tibet . 219 Nomad woman of Gonjo and pack pony, illustrating Tibetan pack saddle and skin-covered boxes used for travel in Kam LXIII Costumes, swords and head-dresses of Eastern Tibet . 224 LXIV A rope bridge in South-eastern Tibet . . . 225 LIST OF MAPS 1 Sketch-map of Eastern Asia, showing historical frontiers of Tibet and adjacent territories, and position of Kara, the country in dispute between China and Tibet To face page i 2 Sketch-map showing position of principal Native States of Kam, and the boundary between China and Tibet as delimited in 1727 and existing up to early in the twentieth century 4 3 Sketch-map of Eastern Tibet showing the thirty-three Chinese districts planned by Chao Erh-feng for the new province of , Hsikang 35 4 Sketch-map of Kam illustrating the various boundaries between China and Tibet 46 5 Sketch-map illustrating routes through Eastern Tibet 59 6 Sketch-map illustrating the siege of Chamdo 117 7 Sketch-map illustrating the fighting between Chinese and Tibetans at Rongbatsa near Kanze 164 Large map of Eastern Tibet, showing routes followed In pocket lanchu and not a 'Chinese. Early in the eiglutfeefith" Geptufy^/Tib^et was invaded by the Dzungarian Mongols! Tfee-Ma-tichu Emperor thereupon despatched two armies to the- assistance of the Tibetans. Advancing by the Tachienlu road from Szechuan and the Sining road from Kansu, the Chinese succeeded in reaching and occupying Lhasa and expelled the Mongols. This was the first of three successful Chinese advances into Tibet, each of which assured the dominion of the Manchu Emperors over the country for a short time afterwards. On this occasion a Manchu Resident and a garrison of Chinese soldiers were left in Lhasa, while communications with China were assured by stationing small detachments of troops along the Lhasa- Chamdo-Batang-Tachienlu road. The boundary between China and Tibet was demarcated by a pillar, said to have been erected in the year 1727 (4th year of the reign of the Emperor Yung Cheng), on the Bum La (in Chinese Ning- ching Shan), a small pass two and a half days south-west of Batang. The country to the west of this point was handed over to the rule of the Dalai Lama under the suzerainty of the Manchu Emperor, while the Tibetan Chiefs of the States and tribes to the east of it were given seals as semi-indepen- dent feudatories of China. This arrangement lasted for nearly two centuries, until the Chinese forward movement initiated in 1905 as the result of the British advance on Lhasa in the preceding year. On the following pages is a list of the princi- pal semi-independent Native States and Lama Principalities of Eastern Tibet, under the protection partly of Peking and partly of Lhasa, which were established by the Manchu settle- ment of 1727, and still existed at the beginning of the present century. During the latter part of the eighteenth century Chinese power in Tibet was on the wane until, about 1790, the Nepalese invaded the country and sacked Shigatse. Roused to action the Manchu Emperor Ch'ien Lung despatched an I NATIVE STATES OF EAST TIBET 3 States under Chinese protection Tibetan Name Chinese Name Rank of Chief (in Tibetan) Chala Mingcheng Jyelbo (King) (The most easterly of the States, with its capital at Tachienlu.) De-ge Teko Jyelbo (The largest of the States, in the basin of the Upper Yangtze.) Nangchen Lungch'in Jyelbo (Embraces the headwaters of the Upper Mekong in the Kokonor Territory.) Hlato Nat'o Jyelbo (A small State between Nangchen and De-ge.) Lintsung Lintsung Jyelbo (A small State on the Upper Yalung.) Ba Batang Deba (Hereditary Official) Letang Litang Deba Hor Kangsar Huoerh K'ung-sa Bonbo (Hereditary Official) Hor Beri Huoerh Paili Bonbo Hor Drango Huoerh Changku Bonbo Hor Driwo Huoerh Chuwo Bonbo Hor Mazur Huoerh Mashu Bonbo (The above are the Five Hor States, in Tibetan Horsekanga, situated on the Upper Yalung ; together with De-ge they were placed under the protec- tion of Lhasa in 1865.) Ge-she Keshih Bonbo Tongkor Tungk'o Bonbo Tzalco Tsak'o Bonbo Yuko Yuk'o Bonbo Seta Set'a Bonbo (Small nomad States in the basin of the Upper Yalung.) Nyarong Chantui Bonbo (Comprises the valley of the Yalung below Kanze; ceded to Lhasa in 1865.) Sangen Sangai Bonbo (Comprises the valley of the Yangtze above Batang.) Mili or Muli Mili Lama (A lama State on the borders of Yunnan.) Also: The Gyarong States, a number of petty principalities lying just west of the Chengtu plain in Szechuan. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. States under the protection of Lhasa Tibetan Name Chinese Name Rank of Chief (in Tibetan) Chamdo Chamuto Lama Draya Chaya Lama Riwoche Leiwuch'i Lama (Lama Principalities in the Mekong basin.) Markam Mangk'ang Te-ji (Governor) (A Lhasa province in the Mekong basin below Draya.) Gonjo Kungchueh Deba (A dependency of Markam.) Jyade San-shih-chiu-tsu Bonbo (The Country of the Thirty-nine Tribes, lying in the basin of the Upper Salween, south of the Kokonor border.) Also : Bashu, Tsawarong, Zayul, Bomed, and Gongbo, all Lhasa provinces, in South-eastern Tibet^- army into Tibet, which defeated and expelled the Nepalese and even pursued them into their own country. At this period the power of the Manchus was at its height, and Chinese armies, under Manchu leadership, were able to march thousands of miles from Peking across the plains and mountains of China and the deserts of Tibet to appear on the frontiers of Hindustan. This was the second of the three Chinese advances into Tibet, and again the Manchus decided to consolidate their position and strengthen their hold over the country. By Imperial Decrees 0^1793 two Ambans were appointed, given equal rank with the Dalai and Panshen Lamas, and made responsible for the superintendence of the administration of the country. The Dalai Lama was placed to some extent in the hands of the Ambans by a law providing that he could only communicate with the Throne by means of memorials forwarded through the Ambans. After the death of the great Ch'ien Lung there followed the weak reigns of the Emperors Chia Ch'ing, Tao Kuang, Hsien Feng, T'ung Chih, and Kuang Hsu, and again Chinese power in Tibet waned to the point of extinction. ^ The whole of Eastern Tibet covered by these States is known to the Tibetans as Domed, or Kam, a vague geographical term without definite political significance (of. Amdo, the Tibetan name for the north-eastern portion of the Tibetan plateau on the Kansu border). The word Menya is another name vaguely applied by the local Tibetans to the country south- west of Tachienlu; it means "the lower Yalung valley" (cf. Nyarong, the valley of the Nya, or Yalung). N > c ^ -c (!< cU < _^ d A o- y' C Q^ r^ I CLAIM TO NYARONG AND DE-GE 5 In i860 the Tibetans of Nyarong^, under the leadership of an ambitious and warHke Chief named Gombu Nyamjyel, invaded and conquered the neighbouring States, including De-ge, and the Five Principalities of Hor. The whole of Eastern Tibet vv^as upset by these disturbances, and all traffic between China and Tibet along the main South Road ceased for some years. The Chiefs and peoples of De-ge and of the Hor States appealed to both the Chinese and Tibetan Governments for assistance against the Nyarong invaders. The former, pre- occupied with the T'aip'ing rebellion and their troubles with foreign countries, were unable to take any action towards restoring order in the Tibetan States under their nominal protection ; but the Dalai Lama responded to the appeals of the Chiefs by sending a Tibetan army into Kam in 1863 under the Kalon Pulung, by whom the disturbances were suppressed, Gombu Nyamjyel and his family being burned alive in their castle in Nyarong resisting to the last. The administration of Nyarong was then formally taken over by the Lhasa Government, by whom a High Commissioner named Punrab (known in Tibetan as the Nyarong Chichyab) was appointed to govern the country, and also to superintend the affairs of De-ge and the Five Hor States, which had been freed from the Nyarong invaders and restored to independ- ence under the rule of their own native Rajahs. The Tibetan claim to Nyarong, and to a lesser extent to De-ge and the Hor States, dated from this time (1865). Nyarong appears to have been annexed by the Dalai Lama with the approval of the Manchu Throne. It is said that the Tibetan Government offered at the time to give up the country to the Chinese in return for a sum of money as in- demnity for the cost of their military operations. But the Peking Government were apparently unwilling to accept the responsibility of administering the State and formally handed it over to the rule of the Dalai Lama, in whose hands it remained until forcibly annexed by the Chinese under Chao Erh-feng in 191 1. In 1875 the twelfth Dalai Lama died, and was reincarnated ^ Nyarong (the valley of the Nya, or Yalung river below Kanze) was originally divided up into five independent clans, which were unified in the middle of the nineteenth century under the chieftainship of Gombu Nyamjyel. 6 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. in the present Pontiff, the thirteenth of the long line of Priest Rulers of Tibet. In 1886, the Tibetans raided the Sikkim frontier, and were expelled a year or two later by a small British expedition. As a result of these events the Sikkim Convention was concluded in 1890 between Great Britain and China, and a set of Trade Regulations for the control of commercial relations between India and Tibet was signed three years later. No Tibetan representative took part in the negotiations for the Sikkim Convention, Great Britain dealing with China as the master of Tibet. These events brought Great Britain for the first time on the scene of Sino-Tibetan relations. In 1894 the Tibetans of Nyarong rose again and invaded the State of Chala. China being then internally at peace, the Viceroy of Szechuan, Lu Ch'uan-lin, despatched a Chinese force which occupied Nyarong and suppressed the disorders. Viceroy Lu thereupon proposed, in a Memorial to the Throne, to take over the administration of Nyarong with Chinese officials. In this he was, however, opposed by the Manchu Amban at Lhasa and the Manchu Commander-in-Chief at Chengtu, while the Dalai Lama also sent representatives to Peking via India and the sea route protesting against any Chinese annexation of Tibetan territory. As a result of these representations Viceroy Lu's Memorial proposing the change was rejected by the Throne, and the Tibetan Governor was reinstated in Nyarong. From Nyarong Viceroy Lu's Chinese force penetrated into De-ge, where domestic trouble had broken out in connection with the family affairs of the native Rajah, whose second son, popularly supposed to be the offspring of an influential head- man and the Chief's wife, had been placed at the head of a faction opposed to the Chief and his elder son. The Chinese commander played a trick on the De-ge Rajah and secured control of the State by a ruse similar to that employed by Chao Erh-feng some fourteen years later. He promised the Chief his assistance in expelling the faction of the younger son, and then, having been permitted to march his troops into the country and occupy De-ge Gonchen, the capital, he seized the Chief and his family and despatched them to Chengtu in Szechuan, where the lowland climate soon proved fatal to the old Tibetan Chief and his wife. Viceroy Lu then PLATE I PLATE II THE CHINESE BORDER TOWN OF TACHIENLU, LYING AT THE JUNCTION OF THREE STREAMS, HEMMED IN BY PRECIPITOUS MOUNTAINS: THE AD- MINISTRATIVE CENTRE OF THE SZECHUAN FRONTIER TERRITORY, AND FORMERLY THE CAPITAL OF THE NATIVE STATE OF CHALA VIEW IN THE VALLEY OF THE TACHIENLU RIVER, SHOWING MAIN ROAD TO TIBET I BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 7 memorialised the Throne with a proposal to take over the administration of De-ge as in the case of Nyarong. Owing to the objections of the Amban and the Dalai Lama as above related, the Emperor refused to agree, and the two sons were sent back from Chengtu to De-ge Gonchen, where the elder was installed as Rajah. In 1900, or thereabouts, the elder brother of De-ge, named Dorje Senge, went to Lhasa and was confirmed in his rank as Rajah, or King, by the Dalai Lama. During his absence, however, the faction of the younger brother, named Ngawang Champe Rincha, which consisted mostly of powerful lamas, made an attempt to install the latter as Chief. The dispute was eventually settled by the intervention of the Tibetan Governor of Nyarong, acting in his capacity of representative of the Dalai Lama and superintendent of De-ge affairs. In spite of this settlement the younger brother and his lama supporters raised another rebellion a few years later, and the elder was forced to withdraw for a time to Lhasa. In 1906 he returned with troops provided by the Lhasa Govern- ment, recovered his throne, and captured and imprisoned the Pretender. The latter, however, escaped, and with the assist- ance of the northern nomads, who throughout espoused his cause, started yet another rebellion. It was at this juncture (in 1908) that Chao Erh-feng appeared upon the scene, and expelled both the Chief and his brother, as related in a subsequent chapter^. At the beginning of the present century, before the British expedition to Lhasa in 1904 and the subsequent Chinese forward movement in Kam, that portion of High Asia in- habited by Tibetan-speaking peoples, and labelled Tibet on European maps, consisted of three separate entities, firstly, the Lama Kingdom of Tibet with its provinces and de- pendencies, secondly, the semi-independent Native States of Kam under Chinese protection, and thirdly, the Kokonor Territory under the control of the Chinese Amban residing at Sining in Kansu. The Kingdom of Tibet, ruled by the Dalai Lama from Lhasa with the nominal assistance of the Chinese Amban, and commonly known as the Deha Shung, extended north to the Dang La range separating it from the Kokonor, and east ^ See p. 24. 8 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. I to the Bum La, the frontier pass near Batang. It included the frontier provinces of Markam and Gonjo, and the lama- ruled dependencies of Draya, Chamdo, and Riwoche, and also the outlying province of Nyarong (Chinese Chantui), situated amongst the Native States under Chinese protection. This was the Dalai Lama's realm, in which that Pontiff's temporal power, as apart from his spiritual authority, reigned supreme. The powers of the two Ambans had waned until their positions were little more than nominal. The Native States on the Szechuan border east of the old Sino-Tibetan frontier on the Bum La (Chinese Ningching Shan) sent periodical tribute missions to, and were under the nominal protection of, Chengtu and Peking. Some, such as the great Kingdom of De-ge and the Five Hor States, had fallen under the influence of Lhasa, as related above; while others, such as the State of Chala (Tachienlu), and the territories of Batang and Litang, remained, owing to their situation on the main road, more under Chinese influence. The powers of the small Chinese military officials and com- missariat officers stationed at Tachienlu, Litang, Batang, and other centres on the main South Road, had, however, dwindled to vanishing point, while the soldiers of the frontier garrisons were often unarmed or existed only in the official imagination for pay roll purposes. The Kokonor Territory (in Chinese Ch'ing Hai) comprised the whole of the upper basins of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers and part of the Mekong headwater country. Where it was not an uninhabitable desert waste it was thinly peopled by Mongolian and Tibetan tribes, the former under the Princes of their Banners, and the latter under their own small Chiefs and Headmen, the whole area being nominally under the control of the Sining Amban on the Kansu border. It does not appear that the Lhasa Government ever exercised temporal authority over this vast region of mountain and desert, the inclusion of which in Tibet on European maps has given rise to some confusion in the past. [ 9 ] PART II THE BRITISH EXPEDITION TO LHASA, THE TREATIES OF 1904 AND 1906 AND THEIR RESULTS, AND THE WANDERINGS OF HIS HOLINESS THE THIRTEENTH DALAI LAMA Failure of the Tibetan Government to carry out the provisions of the Sikkim Convention and apparent inability of the Chinese Government to induce them to do so — British Mission sent to Lhasa in 1904 to open direct relations between India and Tibet — Conclusion of Anglo-Tibetan Convention of 1904 and withdrawal of British Mission from Lhasa — Negotiation of Adhesion Agreement between Great Britain and China in 1906 — Conclusion of Anglo- Russian Agreement about Tibet in 1907 — China re-establishes her position in Tibet during the years 1907 to 1910, and reasserts her claim to be the sole medium of communication between India and Tibet — ^Wanderings of the Dalai Lama — Flight from Lhasa to Mongolia on arrival of British Mission in 1904 — Visit to, and reception at, Peking in 1908 — Grant of Chinese titles and honours by Imperial Decree — Return to Tibet and flight from Lhasa to India on arrival of Chinese troops in 1910 — Deposition and de- privation of Chinese titles and honours by Imperial Decree — Return to Lhasa on withdrawal of Chinese troops in 191 2 — Restoration of Chinese titles and honours by Presidential Mandate. The Sikkim Convention concluded between Great Britain and China in 1890 defined the boundary between Sikkim and Tibet, and contained a reciprocal engagement on the part of both contracting parties to prevent acts of aggression across the border. During the years following its conclusion, how- ever, it became more and more apparent that no progress had been made in opening friendly relations between India and Tibet and that little satisfaction was to be expected from this instrument concluded with China over the heads of the Tibetans; for the latter appeared to consider that as they were not directly a party to the Convention there was no need for them to carry out its provisions. All attempts by the Authorities in India to open friendly relations with the Tibetan Government were frustrated, peaceful messengers were maltreated, and letters returned unopened. The Sikkim Convention had been concluded with the Chinese Govern- ment on behalf of the Tibetan Government at the request of the former. But when the Tibetans failed to observe its pro- visions and recourse was had to diplomatic representations 10 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. at Peking, the Chinese Government were found to be ap- parently unable to influence the Tibetans in any way. At length in 1903 the British Government, realising the hope- lessness of continuing to attempt to deal with the Tibetans through the Chinese Government and the absolute necessity of establishing direct relations with the Lhasa Government if trade was ever to be opened between India and Tibet and the peace of the frontier secured by proper treaty relations v^ith the neighbouring State, despatched a Mission to negotiate a commercial agreement with the Tibetan Authorities direct. Whatever the advice tendered to the Tibetans by the Chinese Amban may have been , they refused to receive any communica- tion from the Mission, which met with repulse after repulse, until, having started as a peaceful embassy, it eventually reached Lhasa in August, 1904, as a military expedition 1. The Dalai Lama fled for the north shortly before the British force reached Lhasa. A Convention was, however, concluded with the remainder of the Tibetan Government in the summer of 1904. Under this Agreement Tibet undertook to recognise the Sikkim Convention (which she has faithfully observed ever since), while provision was also made for the ^ It is questionable whether the Tibetans themselves were entirely re- sponsible for the policy of seclusiveness which led to a British Mission proceeding to Lhasa. In his India and Tibet (Chapter xxiv) Sir Francis Younghusband wrote in 1910: " It (the British expedition to Lhasa) has proved in the result that the Tibetans are not really the seclusive people we had believed. By nature they are sociable and hospitable and given to trade. They are jealous about their religion, but as long as that is not touched they are ready enough for political relationship, for social inter- course, and for commercial transactions. The present obstacle to neighbourly inter- course (between India and Tibet) is the suspicion of the Chinese. There is some reason to think that from the first they have instilled into the Tibetans the idea of keeping themselves secluded." It is perhaps but natural that the Tibetan policy of the Chinese in those days should have aimed at the exclusion of all foreign interests from Tibet (as Chinese policy had formerly aimed at their exclusion from China) in order that the commerce of the country, and more especially the valuable trade in tea, might remain a monopoly in Chinese hands. It was indeed easy for the Chinese to foster Tibetan seclusiveness and retain their monopoly in the country as long as they were able to insist on their right to be the sole medium of communication between Tibet and the rest of the world. As Sir Francis Younghusband points out, they forfeited this right by their inability to induce the Tibetans to observe the Sikkim Convention which they had asked the British Government to make with them on behalf of Tibet; they attempted to reassert it for a short time after the conclusion of the Adhesion Agreement of 1906 ; but lost it again on the collapse of Chinese power in Tibet in 1912 after the revolution in China; since when the be- haviour of the Tibetans, freed from Chinese interference, has fuUy endorsed Sir Francis Younghusband's estimate of their character quoted above. II TREATIES OF 1904 AND 1906 11 opening of commercial relations between India and Tibet and for the establishment of Trade Marts at Gyantse and Gartok as well as at Yatung (the latter already opened under the Sikkim Convention). The British troops withdrew from Lhasa immediately after the conclusion of this Agreement, leaving the territorial integrity of Tibet and the independence of the Tibetan Government unimpaired^. Negotiations were soon after opened to secure the adhesion of China, the nominal suzerain of Tibet, to the Anglo- Tibetan Convention of 1904. The Chinese Government at first endeavoured to revive their claion to be the sole medium of communication between the Government of India and the Tibetans and to replace the Anglo-Tibetan Treaty by a new Agreement. Eventually, however, the Lhasa Convention was duly confirmed by an Agreement between Great Britain and China signed at Peking in April, 1906. Under this instru- ment China adhered to and confirmed the Anglo-Tibetan Convention of 1904, while Great Britain undertook not to annex Tibetan territory or to interfere in any way in the internal Tibetan administration of the country. In August, 1907, an Agreement was arrived at between Great Britain and Russia under which both parties undertook to respect the territorial integrity of Tibet and to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of the Tibetan Government. In 1908 a set of Trade Regulations governing Indo- Tibetan trade was signed at Calcutta between British, Chinese, and Tibetan representatives. The object of Great Britain in concluding these various agreements was to assure the territorial integrity of Tibet and to safeguard her existence as a peaceful autonomous buffer State between the three great Asiatic Empires, Russia, India and China, as well as to provide for the opening of friendly relations between the British and Tibetan Authorities in the interests of the peace of the Indian border and of trans-frontier trade. The fact, however, had been overlooked ^ The British expedition to Tibet in 1904 was criticised in England at the time as an act of uncalled for aggression against a peaceful race of hermits who only desired to be left alone. But the result of sending the Mission to Lhasa was to dispel the misunderstandings which had up to that time existed between the Authorities in India and the people and Government of Tibet who have ever since been desirous of increased intercourse and closer rela- tions with their southern neighbours. 12 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. that China had through these very agreements obtained a free hand in re-estabHshing and consolidating her position in Tibet without the possibiUty of foreign interference, and was thus enabled to keep the Tibetans for a few more years in a state of political and economic vassalage. The Chinese were not slow to take advantage of the situa- tion, and turned their attention in the first place to annulling the advantages of direct intercourse between the Authorities of India and Tibet obtained under the Anglo-Tibetan Agree- ment of 1904. Great Britain having intentionally denied her- self the right of keeping in close touch with the Tibetan Government by stationing a British representative at Lhasa, the Chinese were able to carry out their plans without any opposition. The Tibetans were gradually led to beUeve that, though the Peking Government had not had time to send an army to expel the British from Tibet at the time of the 1904 expedition, yet it was fear of Chinese displeasure which had caused the British to withdraw their troops immediately after signing the Treaty; and that China had since compelled Great Britain to sign another Agreement cancelling the Lhasa Convention, acknowledging the right of the Chinese to con- trol Tibet, and prohibiting all intercourse between British and Tibetans except through the medium of the Chinese Authorities. As a result the Chinese were successful in again insinuating themselves between the British and Tibetan officials at the Trade Marts in local affairs and between the British and Tibetan Governments in questions of greater importance. Thus within a few years of the signature of the Lhasa Convention of 1904 most of the advantages of direct intercourse with a responsible Tibetan Government had been lost, and the Authorities in India found themselves once more faced with procrastination and obstruction in all their dealings with Tibet. How all this happened is related in detail in the Tibet Blue Book of 19 10, and in Sir Francis Younghusband's account of the British expedition to Lhasa and subsequent events^. ***** ^ See/ndiaandTtfteibySir Francis Younghusband, i9io;suminingupthe situation at the time the book was published, Sir Francis wrote (Ch. xxni) : "And so the story ends much as it began except that, while formerly it was the Tibetans who were supposed to be the most impenetrable and unsociable, it is now the Chinese who are presenting the real obstacle to any reasonable intercourse between India and Tibet." PLATE III MOUNTAIN AND FOREST SCENERY IN EASTERN TIBET MOUNTAIN AND FOREST SCENERY IN EASTERN TIBET. MEKONG-SALWEEN DIVIDE IN THE BACKGROUND PLATE IV DEEPLY -ERODED RIVER GORGE IN SOUTHERN KAM (MEKONG BELOW CHAMDO) k TENTS OF A TIBETAN CHIEF IN KAM II TRAVELS OF THE DALAI LAMA, 1904-09 13 Before recounting the history of the Chinese forward movement in Eastern Tibet, which began in 1905 immediately after the conclusion of the Anglo-Tibetan Agreement, cul- minated in the raid on Lhasa and the overthrow of the Tibetan Government by Chinese troops in 1910, and col- lapsed a year or two later after the revolution in China, it will be convenient at this point to record briefly the travels and adventures of the Dalai Lama during this period, namely the years 1904 to 1912. Having left Lhasa for Mongolia at the time the British expedition was approaching the Tibetan capital in the summer of 1904, the Dalai Lama arrived in due course at Urga, where he resided for a year. His presence there was somewhat em- barrassing to the Bogdo Khan, the Lama Pontiff of Mongolia 1, and as Tibetan affairs were by this time beginning to settle down after the withdrawal of the British troops, he started on his journey back towards Tibet in the autumn of 1905. In the early part of 1906 he arrived at the great monastery of Kumbum (in Chinese T'a-erh Ssu), on the Kansu Kokonor border near Sining, where he remained for two years. In the spring of the year 1908 he visited the famous Lama monastery of Wut'ai Shan in Shansi Province, whence he moved on shortly afterwards at the invitation of the Chinese Govern- ment to Peking. The Dalai Lama arrived in Peking by train from Honan on September 28, 1908. Like his predecessor, who visited the Manchu Court in the seventeenth century, he was lodged in the Yellow Temple outside one of the Northern Gates. Elaborate arrangements were made for his audience with the Emperor and Empress Dowager; and, though after some argument he was permitted to kneel instead of prostrating himself in the Imperial Presence, care was taken to stress his position as a vassal of the Manchu Throne^. ^ The present Bogdo Khan (a Mongolian title meaning "Holy Prince") is the eighth Pope of Mongolia. During the Manchu Dynasty these Popes were Tibetan Priests, appointed by the Dalai Lama with the approval of Peking. One of the earliest pitched his camp on the banks of the river Tola near the Siberian border. A large monastery and town subsequently sprang up in the neighbourhood, known as Urga to the Russians, Bogdo Kuren to the Mongols, and Ta Kulun to the Chinese, which became second only to Lhasa in im- portance as the Holy City for all the lamaists of High Asia. ^ Rule No. 14 of the Regulations for the Reception of the Dalai Lama read as follows (translated from the Government Gazette) : "The Board of Dependencies will memorialise the Throne asking that a date may 14 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. The question of the manner of the reception of the foreign Ministers at Peking and their Legation Staffs by the Dalai Lama gave rise to much discussion and conjecture in foreign diplomatic circles in Peking. The Chinese Authorities, how- ever, who desired to belittle as much as possible the Lama Pontiff's political importance, settled the question by issuing, through the Wat Wu Pu (Foreign Office), the following notification in English (worded as though it referred to a public exhibition rather than to the reception of the Repre- sentatives of the Great Powers of Europe and America by the Ruler of Tibet and Pope of Lamaism, whose religious authority extended over half Asia) : If any members of the Staffs of the Foreign Legations desire to visit the Dalai Lama, they should proceed to the Yellow Temple on any day of the week except Sunday between the hours of 12 and 3. The Ministers repaired accordingly with their staffs to the Yellow Temple, where they were granted brief and very formal interviews with the Lama in the presence of Chinese officials. On November 3, 1908, the following Imperial Decree was issued conferring new honours and titles on the Dalai Lama, appointing him to be the Emperor's loyal and obedient representative, laying down directions for his conduct on his return to Tibet, and bidding him memorialise the Throne on all matters through the Amban, and respectfully await the Imperial Will. Imperial Decree of November 3, 1908. (Translated from the Government Gazette.) His Holiness the Dalai Lama, having come to Peking for Audience, has to-day invoked blessings upon Us, and has given expression to his irmer- most feelings in a manner which merits Our esteem. An additional Title of Honour is hereby conferred upon him as a mark of exceptional distinction. His Holiness already bears, as a mark of the Imperial favour of former times, the Title of Great Good Self Existent Buddha. We now confer upon him the additional Title of Our Loyal and Submissive Vice-Regent. Let the Boards of Ceremonies and Dependencies consult together as to the manner in which the grant of this Title is to be conferred. Let an be fixed for an Imperial Audience. The Dalai Lama will familiarise himself with the ceremonies beforehand. He will enter the Palace Gate, and the Emperor will receive him standing. The Dalai Lama will respectfully greet the Emperor, and will prostrate himself kowtowing to thank His Majesty for the Imperial gifts. The Emperor will then ask after his health. A low couch will be prepared below the Throne on which the Dalai Lama may sit. After the Emperor has taken his seat, His Majesty will invite the Dalai Lama to be seated, after which refreshments will be taken, and His Majesty and the Dalai Lama wiU discuss Tibetan affairs." II THE DALAI LAMA IN INDIA, 19 10-12 15 annual allowance of ten thousand taels also be granted to him, the same to be paid quarterly from the Szechuan Treasury. Let His Holiness, having received his new Title, return forthwith to Tibet, and let the officials along his route provide escorts and afford him all the requisite travelling faciUties. When His Holiness has returned to Tibet, he must be careful to obey the laws of the Sovereign State, and must promulgate to all the goodwill of the Court of China. He must exhort the Tibetans to be obedient and follow the path of rectitude. He must follow the established custom of memorialising Us, through the Imperial Amban, and respectfully await Our will. May peace be thus for ever preserved on the frontier, and the differences between priest and layman completely effaced. May Our desire to support the Lama Church and preserve the peace on the frontiers of the Empire never be disregarded. Let the Board of Dependencies communicate this Decree to His Holiness. The subsequent ceremonies attending the Dalai Lama's visit were abruptly cut short by the sudden and unexpected deaths of the Emperor and Empress Dowager. He eventually left Peking on December 21, 1908, and travelled through Honan, Shansi, Shensi, and Kansu to Sining, where he arrived in the spring of 1909. From Sining he crossed the Kokonor, and finally arrived back in Lhasa in November, 1909, after an absence of five years. The reception accorded to the Dalai Lama by the Manchu Court during his visit to Peking was scarcely calculated to improve the relations between China and Tibet; and from this time it became apparent that it was the intention of the Chinese Government to assume full control over Tibet, hitherto, as far as its internal affairs were concerned, an autonomous State, and to deprive its Lama King of all temporal authority. This object was attained a few months after the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet at the end of 1909. Early in the following year a column of Chinese troops arrived in Lhasa, the Tibetans having been deceived by a ruse into withdrawing their opposition (as related in the following chapter), and the Dalai Lama only just made good his escape before the vanguard of the Chinese force reached the Tibetan capital. As he had fled north into Chinese territory on the approach of the British force five and a half years before, so he now fled south into British territory on the approach of the Chinese troops. He arrived at Darjeeling on February 24, 1910, where he was accorded the usual hospi- tality granted by the British Government to a political exile, 1 6 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. on the understanding that he refrained during his stay in India from all political activities. The Chinese Government were annoyed at the flight of the Dalai Lama, since they fully realised that the easiest way of subjugating the Tibetans was by controlling the Pontiff and King of Tibet, and special efforts had therefore been made by the advancing Chinese troops to effect His Holiness' arrest. Having failed to secure his person, the Chinese Government now issued an Imperial Decree on February 25, 1910, deposing the Dalai Lama on account of his "pride, extravagance, lewdness, sloth, vice, and perversity," and directing that a new Reincarnation be found to take his place. Imperial Decree of February 25, 1910. (Translated from the Government Gazette ; this Decree was officially communicated to the British Government in a Note of the same date.) The Dalai Lama of Tibet has received abundant favours from the hands of Our Imperial predecessors. He should have devoutly cultivated the precepts of religion in accordance with established precedent in order to propagate the doctrines of the Yellow Church. But, ever since he assumed control of the administration, he has shown himself proud, extravagant, lewd, slothful, vicious, and perverse without parallel, violent and disorderly, disobedient to the Imperial Commands, and oppressive towards the Tibetans. In July, 1904, he fled during the troubles, and was denounced by the Imperial Amban to Us as lacking in reliability. A Decree was then issued depriving him temporarily of his Titles. He proceeded to Urga, whence he returned again to Sining. We, mindful of his distant flight, and hoping that he would repent and reform his evil ways, ordered the local officials to pay him due attention. The year before last he came to Peking, was received in Audience, granted new Titles, and presented with gifts. On his way back to Tibet he loitered and caused trouble; yet every indulgence was shown to him in order to manifest Our compassion. In Our generosity we forgave the past. Szechuan troops have now been sent into Tibet for the special purpose of preserving order and protecting the Trade Marts. There was no reason for the Tibetans to be suspicious of their intentions. But the Dalai Lama spread rumours, became rebellious, defamed the Amban, refused supplies, and would not listen to reason. When the Amban telegraphed that the Dalai Lama had fled during the night of February 12 on the arrival of the Szechuan troops. We commanded that steps be taken to bring him back. At present, however, his where- abouts are unknown. He has been guilty of treachery, and has placed himself beyond the pale of Our Imperial favour. He has shown base in- gratitude towards his superiors, and has failed to carry out his duty towards his inferiors. He is not fit to be a Reincarnation of Buddha. Let him therefore be deprived of his Titles and of his position as Dalai Lama as II THE DALAI LAMA'S RETURN, 19 12 17 a punishment. Henceforth, no matter where he may go, no matter where he may reside, whether in Tibet or elsewhere, let him be treated as an ordinary individual. Let the Imperial Amban at once cause a search to be made for male children bearing the miraculous signs and let him inscribe their names on tablets and place them in the Golden Urn^, so that one may be drawn out as the true Reincarnation of previous Dalai Lamas. Let the matter be reported to Us, so that Our Imperial favour may be bestowed upon the selected child, who will thus continue the propagation of the doctrine and the glorification of the Church. We reward Virtue that Vice may suffer. You, lamas and laymen of Tibet, are Our children. Let all obey the laws and preserve the Peace. Let none disregard Our desire to support the Yellow Church and maintain the tranquillity of Our frontier territories. The Dalai Lama remained in India for more than two years, during which period the rule of the Chinese military officials in Tibet succeeded in uniting all the Tibetan factions in common detestation of everything Chinese. In 19 12, after the collapse of the Chinese power in Tibet as a result of the revolution in China, he was unanimously requested to return. In July, 1912, he crossed the frontier into Tibet, where he received a triumphant welcome, and, after waiting in the neighbourhood of Lhasa until the last of the Chinese troops had been withdrawn, finally entered the capital towards the end of the year, thus peacefully resuming his place at the head of the government of autonomous Tibet after an absence of nearly two years. It is doubtful whether the Imperial Decree of February, 1910, in any way impaired the Dalai Lama's position in Tibet and Mongolia, while it can hardly have failed to give great offence to, and thus prejudice the reputation of the Manchu Emperor amongst, all the lamaist peoples of Asia. In 19 12, after the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet, the Government of China, now nominally a Republic, receded from their pre- vious attitude, and issued the following Presidential Mandate recognising him once more as Pontiff of the Lama Church. Presidential Mandate of October 28, 1912. (Translated from the Government Gazette.) The Dalai Lama has addressed a communication to the Head of the Department of Mongolian and Tibetan affairs in which he states that after his return from Peking to Tibet he did his utmost to arrange the affairs of the country satisfactorily. Later on, having been deprived of his rank, ^ New Dalai Lamas were always chosen by lot in this way; see the Abb6 Hue's description of the ceremony. 1 8 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION pt. ll he resided for a time at Darjeeling. But, Tibet having remained in a state of unrest ever since the disturbances in Szechuan last winter, he now desires to protect the Buddhist Church and prays that the President of the Republic may take measures to this end. Now that the RepubHc has been firmly established and the Five Races^ united into one family, the Dalai Lama is naturally moved with a feeling of deep attachment to the mother country. Under the circumstances his former errors should be overlooked, and his Title of Loyal and Submissive Vice-Regent, Great, Good, and Self Existent Buddha is hereby restored to him, in the hope that he may prove a support to the Yellow Church and a help to the Republic. * Chinese, Manchus, Mongols, Mahomedans, and Tibetans. [19] PART III THE CHINESE CAMPAIGNS IN EASTERN TIBET DURING THE YEARS 1905 TO 1911, AND THE CHINESE ADVANCE TO LHASA IN 1910 Inauguration of China's forward policy in 1904 by the appointment of Feng Ch'uan to be Amban in E. Tibet — Revolt of Batang Tibetans and murder of Amban Feng in 1905 — General rising of Tibetans on the Szechuan frontier — Despatch of Chinese punitive expedition under Chao Erh-feng and sub- jugation of the border country — Renewed revolt in Hsiangch'eng subdued by Chao Erh-feng — The Amban Lien Yii proceeds to Lhasa — Chao Erh- feng's reforms at Batang — Chao Erh-feng returns to Szechuan and is ap- pointed Tibetan Frontier Commissioner — Introduction of Chinese administra- tion on the Southern circuit of the frontier — Chao Erh-feng returns to the frontier in 1908 — Introduction of Chinese administration in the Kingdom of De-ge — Tibetan Government memorialise the Manchu Throne against the Chinese advance in E. Tibet — Chinese occupation of Chamdo, Draya, and Markam — Tibetan Government appeal to the Manchu Emperor and to the foreign Powers to stop the Chinese advance — Chinese troops reach and occupy Lhasa — Protest by the British Government against overthrow of Tibetan Government^Chinese activities in S.E. Tibet on the borders of Assam — Subjugation of Kanze and the Hor States — Chao Erh-feng's pro- posals for the frontier between China and Tibet— Subjugation of Gonjo and Sangen — Chinese military operations in Bomed and Zayiil — Expulsion of Tibetan officials from Nyarong — Chao Erh-feng appointed Viceroy of Szechuan — Memorial to the Throne proposing the conversion of E. Tibet into a Chinese Province. The immediate results of the British expedition to Lhasa and the opening up of direct relations between India and Tibet by the Anglo-Tibetan Convention of 1904 were to rouse the Chinese to make another attempt to impose their dominion on Tibet, and incidentally to extend the boundaries of China as far west as possible into Eastern Tibet in the event of their being unable to carry out the subjugation of the whole country^. China's new policy in Eastern Tibet was inaugurated in 1904 by the creation of a new post of Imperial Resident at ■^ Each of the three occasions on which China sent armies into Tibet followed on the invasion of that country by a third party (the Dzungarian Mongols in 1720, the Nepalese in 1790, and the British in 1904). As long as Tibet remained isolated and unvisited the Chinese were satisfied with a nominal control ; but the opening up of relations between the Tibetans and their neighbours to the south immediately provoked the Chinese to action. 20 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. Chamdo, to which a Taotai named Feng Ch'uan was ap- pointed, with instructions to curtail gradually the powers of the native rulers and lamas and bring the country under the more direct control of the Chinese Government. At the same time a start in the introduction of the new order of things was made by converting Tachienlu, hitherto the capital of the semi-independent Tibetan State of Chala, into the seat of a Chinese 'magistrate controlling a Chinese district. Feng Ch'uan proceeded to the frontier towards the end of 1904, and travelling via Tachienlu and the main South Road, took up his residence temporarily at Batang. Here his activities in trying to interfere with the authority of the lamas soon caused disaffection and unrest, which were increased by the events occurring at the same time in Central Tibet and the loss of prestige by the Chinese resulting from the presence of the British Mission in Lhasa. In April, 1905, the Tibetans of the neighbourhood and the lamas of the great Batang monastery rose in open revolt and attacked the Chinese. Feng Ch'uan himself, whose troops were quite insufficient to quell the outbreak, escaped through the back door of his yamen by the ingenious expedient of scattering rupees amongst his assailants. He then endeavoured to withdraw down the Litang road, but was killed with nearly all his followers in a narrow gorge just outside Batang, where the spot is still marked by a memorial stone. At the same time a French Catholic priest was killed while attempting to escape across the Yangtze below Batang, while another was murdered at the mission station of Yarragong (Chinese Ya- haikung), three days' march to the south. The killing of these Catholic priests did not signify that the rising had any par- ticular anti-foreign character. But, owing to their position as teachers of a strange religion amongst a population so deeply attached to their own religious beliefs, the Catholics had roused the bitter enmity of the lamas; while the fact that they took advantage of their Treaty right to claim the pro- tection of the Chinese officials in their work resulted in their being to some extent identified with the Chinese in the eyes of the local Tibetans. These events at Batang were the signal for a general rising of all the big monasteries on the borders of South-western Szechuan and North-western Yunnan, isolated Chinese gar- Ill CHAO ERH-FENG'S EARLY CAMPAIGNS 21 risons were everywhere overwhelmed and put to the sword, and two more French Catholic priests were killed near Tsekou on the Mekong. At the beginning of the outbreak the lamas and tribesmen had met with little resistance, but the Szechuanese Authorities now began to prepare a punitive expedition. General Ma Wei-ch'i, Commander-in-Chief of the Szechuan army, left Chengtu with troops in the early summer of 1905, and had little difficulty in reaching Batang and quelling the rebellion in that neighbourhood. The great Batang monastery, one of the largest in Eastern Tibet, was razed to the ground, such of its lamas as failed to escape were killed, the two native Chiefs were beheaded, and the surrounding Tibetans chas- tised with executions and burnings. In the meantime a Taotai, by name Chao Erh-feng, a Chinese Bannerman, was appointed by Hsi Liang, the Viceroy of Szechuan, to under- take the management of the punitive measures and the pacification of the border country. From this time on, up to his execution by the Szechuan revolutionaries at Chengtu in 191 1, Chao Erh-feng remained the central figure in Eastern Tibet. While the Szechuanese under Ma Wei-ch'i and Chao Erh- feng were engaged in chastising the Batang Tibetans, the Yunnanese forces were occupied with the same work in the Atuntze neighbourhood; and it was not long before the trouble appeared to have died down as suddenly as it had started. But the unrelenting severity with which Chao Erh- feng and his subordinates had been proceeding against the rebels, and the harshness of the measures by which he at- tempted to bring the country under the direct rule of Chinese officials, led to a renewed and fiercer revolt towards the end of 1905. Those of the Batang lamas who had managed to escape from the butchery which followed on General Ma's successes fled south to a turbulent district known to the Chinese as Hsiang-ch'eng (in Tibetan Chantreng), where they were joined by the monks who had survived the fighting in North-western Yunnan. Here, behind the massive walls and fortifications of a large monastery, they bid defiance to the Chinese. Chao Erh-feng took up the challenge and laid siege to the monastery with three thousand Chinese troops. The siege of Hsiangch'eng monastery lasted for some 22 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. months, and only came to an jend in the summer of 1906, when the Chinese, who were as exhausted as the besieged, and only kept to their work by Chao's indefatigable spirit, gained entrance by a ruse. The garrison of lamas, fighting to the last, were all put to the sword, the monastery looted and destroyed, and the resistance of the Tibetans of the neigh- bourhood overcome for the time being. But the feud between the Chinese and the people of Hsiangch'eng, which had be- gun long before, was not at an end, and the district was destined for many years to come to be the principal thorn in the side of the Chinese Authorities in Eastern Tibet and their chief obstacle in the subjugation of the border States. With the fall of Hsiangch'eng the main South Road from Tachienlu up to Batang and the adjoining districts were in Chinese hands. Lien Yii, a Manchu, who had been appointed Amban at Lhasa to carry out China's new forward policy in Central Tibet, had been waiting on the frontier for more than a year for Chao Erh-feng to crush the revolt and open the road; he was now able to proceed to his post, and reached Lhasa in the autunon of 1906. He remained in Tibet for six years, eventually escaping with the Chinese troops via India after the revolution in China in 1912. Unlike his junior colleague, the Assistant Amban, Wen Tsung-yao, who was a gentleman of liberal ideas and popular with the Tibetans, Lien Yii made himself intensely disliked, and through his unwise and arrogant behaviour appears to have been largely responsible for the Chinese debacle in Tibet which followed the revolution in China. Chao Erh-feng now resumed his work at Batang. The large province of which this place was the capital had formerly been ruled by two native Chiefs and by the head lama of the monastery, the Chinese officials stationed there being merely charged with the forwarding of mails and supplies between China and Tibet and exercising no authority over the local Tibetan population. Chao Erh-feng abolished the office of native Chief, the last incumbents having been decapitated, appointed a Chinese magistrate in their place, introduced new laws limiting the number of lamas and depriving the monasteries of their temporal authority, and started various schemes for colonising the country with Chinese immigrants. In November, 1906, Chao Erh-feng returned to Chengtu, PLATE V TWO VIEWS OF CHAMDO, THE PRINCIPAL CENTRE OF EASTERN TIBET, LOOKING NORTH AND SHOWING THE JUNCTION OF THE TWO BRANCHES OF THE MEKONG BELOW THE TOWN (LOW WATER SEASON) PLATE VI ^^Ba^^^^** W; ^^B L§M g,,ig,*^ ^B^^SI^/t ^L^^^^^^w^l Ik ^^^j^^^^iSS^^M ^B' ^m SUNRISE ON THE PEAKS OF THE MEKONG-SALWEEN DIVIDE IN SOUTHERN KAM TRIBESMEN OF KAM IN ARMS Ill CHAO ERH-FENG AS FRONTIER COMMISSIONER 23 the capital of Szechuan, where he was received in state as a victorious general, and was subsequently granted the Bataru decoration, the Manchu Order of Merit, by the Emperor. He had shortly before been appointed to the newly created post of Frontier Commissioner {Pien-wu Ta-ch'en), with the rank of Vice-President of a Peking Board, the appointment being announced to be similar in scope to that of the Ambans at Lhasa and Sining. He was thus placed in independent control of a vast tract of country extending from the borders of Kansu and the Kokonor in the north to those of Yunnan, Burma and Assam in the south, and from Tachienlu in the east to the confines of Central Tibet in the west, with the duty of bringing under closer Chinese control the congeries of semi-independent Tibetan States, nomadic tribes, and lama principalities which occupied this region. It would appear, however, that while Chao Erh-feng had definitely deter- mined to introduce the ordinary Chinese provincial adminis- tration in the whole of Kam, thus directly challenging the Priest Rulers of Tibet, the Throne had by no means com- mitted itself to such far-reaching action. The history of the next few years, read in the light of the Imperial Edicts, Memorials to the Throne, and other State papers, shows the Manchu Court somewhat reluctantly acquiescing in the for- ward policy of its powerful Viceroy on the frontier. Chao Erh-feng had intended to proceed to Batang, where a large yamen — still a landmark in the place — had been erected for his use, in the spring of 1907 to resume his work on the frontier. But in March of that year an Imperial Edict ap- peared transferring Hsi Liang, who had been Viceroy of Szechuan since 1903, to Yunnan, and appointing Chao Erh- feng to act pending the arrival of his successor. Chao Erh- feng remained in charge of the provincial government of Szechuan as Acting Viceroy for rather more than a year. By this time what was known as the Southern Circuit (Nan Lu) of the frontier, namely all the districts along the main South Road from China to Tibet as far as the old historical frontier line on the Bum La (Ningching Shan) just west of Batang, had been brought under direct Chinese administration, the native Chiefs of Tachienlu, Litang, and Batang had been deposed, and Chinese magistrates had been appointed to the newly created districts of Tachienlu (Dartsendo), Hok'ou 24 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. (Nyachuka), Litang, Batang, Sanpa (Taso), Taoch'eng, Hsiangch'eng, Tejung and Yenching (Tsakalo)^. All these districts, however, lay in territory which had always been under the influence of Peking rather than of Lhasa, and the more formidable task of subjugating the Lhasa-controlled parts of Eastern Tibet remained still to be accomplished. In March, 1908, two Imperial Edicts appeared, one ap- pointing Chao Erh-feng to be Imperial Commissioner for Tibet, with the rank of President of a Peking Board, and the second appointing his brother, Chao Erh-hsiin, to be Vice- roy of Szechuan. A further Edict appeared a few days later, explaining that the object of these appointments was that the two distinguished brothers should co-operate in their work, the one in Tibet, and the other in Szechuan. The appoint- ments were most successful from the Chinese point of view, and resulted in the complete subjugation of Tibet, for a brief period, to Chinese rule. In the autumn of 1908, Chao Erh-feng left Chengtu with several battalions of new troops, and advanced by the North Road towards De-ge, which for various reasons he had chosen as his first victim amongst the powerful semi-independent Principalities of Kam. The frontiers of De-ge, the largest, wealthiest, and most important of the native States of Eastern Tibet, extended from the neighbourhood of Jyekundo in the north to within a few marches of Batang in the south, and from Chamdo and Draya in the west to Kanze and Nyarong in the east. It had existed as an autonomous State for a thousand years or more, and the family of the Chief were supposed to be able to trace their ancestry back for forty- seven generations. The administration of the country was carried on, under the superintendence of the Chief, by twenty-five hereditary district officials and the head lamas of the big monasteries. As related in a previous chapter 2, Chao Erh-feng appeared upon the scene with his army at a time when the State was torn by internal dissensions, the younger of the two brother claimants to the chieftainship being in armed rebellion against the elder. Following the precedent set by the Chinese General who had deposed the old Chief fourteen years before, ^ See map facing p. 35. * See p. 7. in CHAO ERH-FENG OCCUPIES DE-GE, 1908 25 Chao Erh-feng offered the elder brother the assistance of his troops against the younger. The offer was accepted with the same results as before . The pretender and his followers having been expelled from the State, and Chao Erh-feng's troops having entered and occupied De-ge Gonchen, the capital, the Chief was deposed, Chinese administration introduced, and the State subsequently cut up into the five Chinese districts of Shihch'ii (Seshii) and Dengk'o in the north, Teko, or Tehua, in the centre, Paiyii in the south, and T'ungp'u in the west. The following is a precis translation (from the Peking Government Gazette) of the Chinese text of the Memorial submitted to the Throne by the Reform Council advocating the incorporation of De-ge State in China Proper. It is dated January, 19 10, a year after Chao Erh-feng had already de- posed the Chief. His Excellency the Frontier Commissioner Chao Erh-feng reports that the Chief of De-ge, by name Dorje Senge, is a man of no ability, and that he has repeatedly petitioned to be allowed to surrender his territory to Chinese rule; also that the feud which has existed for the past ten years between him and his brother over the question of the chieftainship has caused great suffering to the people of the State. The Frontier Com- missioner further points out that the territory of De-ge occupies a position of great strategic importance, and that only by controlling the same can the situation in Tibet be rendered secure and the frontiers of Szechuan be protected. When in the past the wild tribes of the border lands submitted to China, native States were created in various provinces and titles and ranks were given to the Chiefs. It is, however, laid down in the Institutes of the Dynasty that when these native rulers misbehave themselves they must be replaced by other Chiefs or their lands must be taken over by Chinese officials. The State of De-ge having been the scene of internal disturbances, troops have had to be sent to pacify the country. Moreover the territory in question is of great strategic importance to Szechuan and Tibet. In view of the above, and of the fact that the Chief and the headmen are all anxious to come under Chinese rule, the Frontier Commissioner's pro- posal to incorporate De-ge in China Proper might advantageously be adopted. As the said Chief of De-ge is willing to surrender his lands to Chinese rule, he should receive, as a mark of Imperial favour, a pension of two or three thousand taels a year, and the right to wear the Button of the Second Rank. The question of whether De-ge ought or ought not to come under direct Chinese rule is hereby submitted for the Imperial decision. The following Imperial Edict on the subject has now been received : — The matter has been noted. 26 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. The elder brother was duly granted a Button of the Second Rank and an annual pension of 3000 taels (which, however, ceased when China became a Republic), and lived for some years as a state prisoner at Batang. In 1917, all being quiet on the frontier, he was permitted to return to De-ge Gonchen (the capital) as a private individual, and was found there when the Lhasa troops expelled the Chinese from De-ge a year later. The younger brother, fleeing from Chao Erh-feng, took refuge amongst the nomads of Seshii in the north of the State. On being pursued by the Chinese he fled still further north to the country of the wild Golok nomads, where even Chao Erh-feng did not dare to follow him_. Thence he found his way to Lhasa, was attached to the Dalai Lama's suite during His Holiness' exile at Darjeeling in India, and eventu- ally received an official appointment in Central Tibet on the Dalai 's return to Lhasa. In the autumn of 1908, the Tibetan Government, who were by this time much alarmed at the rapid advance of the Chinese in Kam, memorialised the Throne through the Amban Lien Yxi claiming that the realm of the Deba Shung^ extended to the borders of the district of Ch'iungchou (near Chengtu in Szechuan), and requesting that the Chinese should revert to the old status quo in Eastern Tibet. Though the Tibetans appeared to be justified, from their point of view, in protesting against the uncalled for Chinese aggression which was- taking place, their territorial claims were somewhat extravagant ; and the only result of the Memorial seems to have been to hasten the Chinese forward movement in Kam. Having secured De-ge, Chao Erh-feng was now in a position to carry out the next step in his plans and advance on Chamdo, the most important centre in Kam and a strategical point at the junction of the main roads from Yunnan, Szechuan and Kansu to Central Tibet. Towards the end of the year 1909 some thousands of Chinese troops were concentrated at Batang and De-ge Gonchen, and soon after first Chamdo, and then Draya and Markam, were occupied without difficulty, the local Tibetan levies, who did not know whether to fight or not, dispersing before the superior forces of the Chinese. Chao Erh-feng's evident intention to advance on Chamdo, an autonomous lama-ruled State in close relations with Tibet ^ The Lhasa Government. Ill ' TIBETAN PROTESTS, 1909 27 Proper, and the news that a fresh army of Chinese Imperial troops had left Chengtu in the late autumn of 1909 with the. avowed intention of marching on Lhasa, created consterna- tion in the minds of the Dalai Lama and his government, who were uncertain whether or not, they should resist the invasion of the Chinese with whom they had so far no quarrel. The local people of the Tibetan frontier States, including Chamdo, Draya and Markam, petitioned the Lhasa Government for permission to oppose the Chinese advance by force of arms. The latter, reluctant to take up arms against their powerful Suzerain, refused, and attempted to stop the advance by negotiation with the Amban. Lien Yii temporised, assured the Tibetans that Chao Erh-feng himself would not advance further, and that if any Chinese troops entered Tibet it would be merely for the purpose of doing police work on the main roads. In desperation the Tibetan Government in December, 1909, sent out the following telegraphic appeals through India to the foreign Powers of Europe and America and to the Chinese Government at Peking. Message from the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government to Great Britain and the foreign Powers. Though the Chinese and Tibetans are of one family, yet the Chinese officer Chao and the Amban Lien are plotting together against us, and have not sent true copies of our protests to the Chinese Emperor, but have altered them to suit their own evil purposes. They are sending troops into Tibet and wish to abolish our religion. Please telegraph to the Chinese Emperor and request him to stop the troops now on their way. We are very anxious and beg the Powers to intervene and cause the withdrawal of the Chinese troops. Message from the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government to the Chinese Government. We, the oppressed Tibetans, send you this message. Though in outward appearance all is well, yet within big worms are eating little worms. We have acted frankly, but yet they steal our hearts. Troops have been sent into Tibet, thus causing great alarm. We have already sent a messenger to Calcutta to telegraph everything in detail. Please recall the Chinese officer and troops who recently arrived in Kam. If you do not do so, there will be trouble^. After the occupation of Chamdo and the expulsion of Tibetan officials and chief lamas, who fled into Central Tibet, the way was clear for the column of Imperial Chinese 1 From the Tibet Blue Book of igio. 28 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. troops to continue their march on Lhasa. This force, con- sisting of a mixed column of infantry, cavalry and light artil- lery, and totalling only some 2000 men, was equipped in the most up-to-date way and commanded by a young General with modern training named Chung Ying, It is said that when the latter reached Chamdo he refused to proceed any further with his young and untried men ; so that in the end Chao Erh-feng had to provide an escort of his own ragged veterans, which accompanied the column to within a few marches of Lhasa. Although the Tibetans were massed in considerable numbers west of Chamdo, they offered little or no resistance to the Chinese advance in consequence of the indecision of the Lhasa Government and the diplomatic per- suasiveness of the Amban. The column finally marched into Lhasa on February 12th, 19 10, the Dalai Lama, effecting his escape across the river down the road to India within sight of the Chinese advance guard, who had special orders to effect his capture. The whole affair took the Tibetans com- pletely by surprise, and eyewitnesses report the amazement, consternation, and confusion in Lhasa when the first Chinese modern drilled troops rode into the capital. Thus, for the third time in the history of the two countries, a Chinese army marched into the sacred city of Tibet. Chung Ying's column had accomplished a remarkable performance in crossing Tibet from east to west in the middle of the winter along one of the highest and most arduous roads in the world, including the passage of a large number of passes from 14,000 to 16,000 feet and more in height. The advance was, however, practically unopposed, and the success of the expedition was due not so much to the military arrangements as to the astute diplomacy of the Amban at Lhasa, who assured the Tibetan Government that less than 1000 Chinese troops were entering Tibet, and that the sole object of their coming was the policing of the main roads and Trade Marts. In the result more than 2000 troops appeared and proceeded to subvert completely the government of the country. It is said that the Assistant Amban, Wen Tsung-yao, resigned on realising the breach of faith towards the Tibetans to which he had been a party. The Chinese Government in Peking had similarly given formal assurances to the British Government that troops Ill CHINESE ADVANCE ON LHASA, 1910 29 were being despatched to Tibet solely for the purpose of preserving order and that under no circumstances would the political situation and status of Tibet created by the Treaties of 1904 and 1906 be altered in any way. It is possible that the Peking Government were not able to exercise proper con- trol over their representatives in Tibet; in any case, after the arrival of the Chinese troops at Lhasa the Dalai Lama was formally deposed, and the administration of the country to all intents and purposes taken over by the Chinese. These events evoked the following Note, addressed by the British Government to the Chinese Government on February 26th, 1910, protesting against China's action in forcibly over- throwing the Tibetan Government and thus upsetting the status quo established under the Treaties concluded between Great Britain, China and Tibet. Great Britain, while disclaiming any desire to interfere in the internal administration of Tibet, cannot be indiflFerent to disturbances of the peace in a country which is her neighbour and on intimate terms with neigh- bouring States on her frontier, and especially with Nepal, whom His Majesty's Government could not prevent from taking such steps to protect her interests as she may think necessary in the circumstances. In view of their Treaty relations with both Xibet and China, His Majesty's Govern- ment had the right to expect that the Chinese Government would at least have tendered friendly explanations before embarking on a policy which, in the absence of such explanations, cannot but appear intended to subvert the political conditions set up by the Anglo-Tibetan Convention of 1904 and confirmed by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906. The Treaty of 1904 was negotiated with the Tibetan Government and confirmed by the Chinese Government, and His Majesty's Government consequently feel that they have a right to expect that an effective Tibetan Government shall be maintained with whom they can, when necessary, treat in the manner provided by the two above-mentioned Conventions'-. The Chinese having by their sudden stroke secured prac- tical control over the Government of Tibet, Chao Erh-feng was left free to carry on his work of bringing Eastern Tibet under direct Chinese rule without any possibility of inter- ference from the side of Lhasa. Some of his troops, who had been waiting on the old Sino-Tibetan frontier at Yenching on the Mekong, south of Batang, now advanced into South- eastern Tibet, occupied and expelled the Tibetan officials from Sangachu Dzong, an important administrative centre in the country west of the Salween, pushed forward still further 1 From the Tibet Blue Book of 1910. 30 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. into Zayiil in the basin of the Brahmaputra, and appeared at Rima on the borders of Assam. The Chinese were even found to be penetrating into the country of the Mishmis in British territory, with a view to claiming their allegiance for China. Chao Erh-feng passed the summer of 1910 arranging for the substitution of the rule of Chinese magistrates for that of the former Tibetan officials in Chamdo, Draya and Markam, which were turned into the Chinese districts of Ch'angtu (formerly Chamuto), Chaya, and Ningching (formerly Chiangka) respectively. At the same time a small military expedition was sent against Kanze, where the Tibetan rulers had defied him when he passed through on his way to De-ge two years before. Now, with practically the whole of Tibet under his thumb, he had no difficulty in dethroning the reigning family and establishing a Chinese district magis- trate in his place. The submission of all the five Hor States, of which Kanze was the heart and centre, followed as a matter of course^- During the year 19 10 Chao Erh-feng memorialised the Throne, proposing that Giamda (in Chinese Chiangta), be- yond the Salween-Brahmaputra divide and within a few marches of Lhasa, should be the boundary between China and Tibet 2. The Tibetans protested through Lien Yii, the Amban, who had perhaps his own reasons for objecting to such a limitation of his sphere of authority^. The Throne at first refused its consent, but appears to have agreed to the proposal a year later. Towards the end of 19 10, the Chinese garrison at Hsiang- ch'eng mutinied, and the local Tibetans rose again in revolt against Chinese rule. Chao Erh-feng suppressed the rising ^ The five Hor States (in Tibetan Horsekanga, in Chinese Huoerh Wu- chia), consisting of Hor Beri, Hor Kangsar, Hor Mazur, Hor Drango and Hor Driwo, all in the basin of the upper Yalung and its tributaries, bore the same relation to the Lhasa Government as De-ge, that is to say, they had been placed under the protection of the Dalai Lama after the Nyarong rising of 1863 had been suppressed by Tibetan troops. ^ See sketch-map facing p. 4S- ' The jurisdiction of the Lhasa Amban appears to have extended originally to Tachienlu. When the Froritier Commissionership was created in 1906 the Amban's sphere of authority was cut down to correspond with the old limits of Tibet Proper as laid down in the reign of the Emperor Yung Cheng (1733-1736), including, but being limited in the east by, the States of Chamdo, Draya and Markam. Chao Erh-feng's Giamda boundary appears to have been an arbitrary line, probably drawn for strategic purposes, and unsupported by historical claims of any kind. PLATE VII ^m \ •^: CARAVAN ARRIVING AT A CHINESE REST-HOUSE IN EASTERN TIBET ' -■ mime a* r««!!,,ijr*»rt. '■■'timtKs,ilF.*t>TAfi. ^rtg: A SMALL MONASTERY IN DE-GE (POLO GOMBA ON THE YANGTZE) PLATE VIII CANTILEVER BRIDGES IN EASTERN TIBET (main road to LHASA, NEAR DRAYA) Ill OPERATIONS IN BOMED AND ZAYUL, 191 i 31 with his usual severity, leaving the natives of this turbulent district more than ever irreconcilable to Chinese rule. There still remained at this time a district called Sangen (meaning in Tibetan Bad Lands, and transliterated by the Chinese as Sangai), which had not yet been taken over by the Chinese. This region consisted of the almost inaccessible valleys draining into the Yangtze immediately above Batang, and was inhabited by wild robber tribes, who had never recognised any constituted authority and lived by raiding the caravans on the surrounding roads. As a preliminary step to the subjugation of these tribesmen, Chao Erh-feng occupied Gonjo, a small Tibetan province lying between Draya and Sangen. Operating with several columns based on Batang, Draya and De-ge, he closed in on Sangen from five directions, and was as usual successful in overwhelming the tribesmen with little or no fighting. Gonjo and Sangen were thereupon con- verted into Chinese districts as Kungchiieh and Wuch'eng. Early in 191 1, the Chinese forces in Lhasa, under the control of General Chung Ying and the Amban, Lien Yii, were engaged in military operations in Bomed^, which is a difficult country of heavy rains, dense forests, and precipitous snow ranges lying west of Zayiil on the borders of Assam. The Chinese contemplated opening up a road through that region in order to provide a short cut between China and Lhasa via Batang and Zayiil. An expedition was sent into the country from Lhasa via Gongbo under the command of Lo Chang-chi, Lien Yii's chief assistant, but met with serious reverses. Lien Yii was compelled to appeal to Chao Erh-feng for assistance, and the latter despatched troops from Batang and Shuopando, who advanced into Bomed through Zayiil, defeated the Tibetans, burned their villages and executed their headmen. Chinese districts, to be called Pomi Hsien and Tsayii Hsien, were subsequently planned for Bomed and Zayiil, but were never actually established owing to the out- break of the revolution in China^. ^ Boytil, "the land of Incense," divided into Upper and Lower, Bomed and Boto. ^ Some account of these events was given in a Chinese book, containing a collection of papers on frontier affairs, published at Chengtu after the revolution. The following is a translation of an extract from Chao Erh-feng's report to Peking regarding the despatch of troops to Bomed, which occurs amongst these papers : " I have been requested by Lien Yii to send reinforcements to Bomed. Owing to 32 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. In the spring of 191 1 Chao Erh-fengwas appointed to the post of Viceroy of Szechuan, the most important and the most lucrative provincial office in the Empire. Only one task remained for him to accomplish before leaving the frontier to complete the subjugation of the Native States of Eastern Tibet to Chinese rule, and that was the expulsion of the Tibetan officials from Nyarong (in Chinese Chantui), the Tibetan province occupying the basin of the Yalung river from below Kanze to the neighbourhood of Hok'ou. The reason why Nyarong had not been dealt with earlier was not so much due to any unwillingness on the part of Chao Erh- feng to face the opposition of the natives as to difficulties connected with its status, which was not that of a Native State, but of a Tibetan province under the direct rule of the Lhasa Government. This rendered its occupation by the Chinese a direct challenge to the Tibetan Government, a course which it had been impolitic to pursue before the Chinese had made good their position in Lhasa itself. The Manchu Court may also have been reluctant to sanction its occupation and thus break faith with the Dalai Lama, whose claim to rule the country was indisputable. Nyarong seems to have been annexed by the Dalai Lama, with the approval of the Emperor, after the events of 1863, and its cession was later on formally confirmed in 1898^. The Manchu Court, adhering to their engagements with the Tibetan Government, had twice rejected Chao Erh-feng's proposals, made in 1908 and 1909, to take over the adminis- tration of the province. It appears that an offer of a sum of money for the country had been made to the Dalai Lama through the Amban at Lhasa, but on this being refused, no further steps were taken in the matter by the Peking Govern- ment. Eventually Chao Erh-feng, when on his way back to China to take up his post of Viceroy of Szechuan in the summer of 191 1, acted on his own responsibility, entered the country with troops, expelled the Lhasa officials and the great difficulties of the country and in view of the fact that General Chung Ying's Lhasa troops have already been beaten back, it is feared that two battalions will be insufficient for the expedition. I am therefore arranging for a battalion of the Kara force to advance from Shuopando apart from the battalion already despatched. Another battalion from the Chamdo reserves will be sent via Tsawa Dzogang. Feng Shan will proceed to Shuopando to take command. I intend to arrange with the Chantui tribes before returning to Szechuan. Dated Chantui, June, 191 1." ^ See pp. 5 and 6. Ill PROPOSED NEW CHINESE PROVINCE 33 installed a Chinese magistrate in their place. Before the Throne could express their approval or disapproval of his action, the revolution broke out, Chao Erh-feng himself was put to death, and the Manchu Dynasty disappeared. The forcible annexation of Nyarong by the Chinese was always strongly resented and opposed by the local Tibetans, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government. When Chao Erh-feng finally left the frontier in August, 191 1, the work, begun in 1905, was outwardly completed, and there was not a Tibetan ruler left in Eastern Tibet. From Tachienlu up to the Mekong the country was actually being administered by Chinese district magistrates, while west of the Mekong and the Salween several districts had also been planned but not actually established. The Amban Lien Yii and General Chung Ying ruled at Lhasa, the Dalai Lama was an exile in India, and the Tibetan Government had to all intents and purposes ceased to exist. The whole edifice of Chinese control was, however, but a hastily con- structed framework, imposed on an unwilling people taken by surprise, and the greater part of it collapsed completely when put to the test at the time of the revolution in China. Chao Erh-feng's place on the frontier was taken by his chief assistant, General Fu Sung-mu. Amongst the first acts of this officer was the submission of a Memorial to the Throne proposing that Eastern Tibet should be converted into a new Chinese province, to be called Hsikang (Western Kam). The revolution against the Manchu Dynasty broke out in Szechuan shortly after this Memorial reached Chengtu on its way to Peking. The following precis translation of the document is taken from a book on the history of the Tibetan frontier compiled by General Fu Sung-mu and published at Chengtu in 191 2. The Memorial is dated August, 191 1 : The frontier Territory lies between Szechuan in the East and Tibet in the West and is bounded by the Kokonor Territory in the North and Yunnan Province in the South. It was formerly divided up into more than twenty Native States and Tribes, the inhabitants of which, while paying tribute to the Emperor, were not actually Chinese subjects. In the reigns of the Emperors Hsien Feng and T'ung Chih (1851 to 1875) the Chief of Nyarong, by name Gombu, invaded and ravaged the Five Hor States, De-ge, and other neighbouring Principalities, with the result that the Tibetans possessed themselves of his country. In conse- quence of these events the Chiefs and Head Lamas of various States cast off the suzerainty of the Emperor and recognised the overlordship of Tibet alone . T.T.T. 3 34 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. Later on Hsiangch'eng and Draya joined Tibet, troubles broke out at Taining andBatang, where the Imperial Envoy was murdered, and rebellion and unrest became ever3rwhere prevalent. In 1906 His Excellency Chao Erh-feng, having conquered Batang and Litang, was appointed Frontier Commissioner. In 1908 he advanced against the rebels of De-ge, where Chinese administration was introduced ; more than ten district magistracies were thus created. In 1910 Sangachu Dzong, Zayiil and Sangen were subdued; and sub- sequently Chinese administration was also introduced in Chamdo and other districts. On Chao Erh-feng being appointed Viceroy of Szechuan he converted nine more Native States into Chinese districts, while I, his successor, dealt in a similar manner with the few that were left. So that there remain at present scarcely any places where districts have not been established. The time has now come when this whole region should be converted into a regular province, which should be named Hsikang. The frontier regions in question march with Tibet and beyond Tibet lies the territory of a mighty Power. This Power is closely watching Tibet, which it no longer regards as a dependency of China. By converting the frontier regions of Kam into a Chinese province we shall secure ourselves against territorial aggression. As a result of the British expedition to Lhasa in 1904 the Tibetans ceased to regard China as of any importance. When Chao Erh-feng was preparing to send troops into Tibet, the Tibetan Government objected and memorialised the Emperor in the year 1908 claiming that Tibetan territory extended to Ch'iungchou in Szechuan. When, in the winter of 1909-10, Chinese troops advanced into Tibet, the Tibetans would have hampered their march had not adequate preparations been made. This year again, when the rebellion broke out in Bomed, the Chinese troops despatched thither from Lhasa were repulsed and the situation was only saved by the timely arrival of reinforcements from Batang. Only thus was a serious rising in Tibet averted. The Frontier Territory extends from Tachienlu to the Danda Pass be- yond Chamdo and from Yunnan to the Kokonor. There is room in this region for more than eighty district magistracies. Adequate control cannot, however, be exercised over this vast region by the Viceroy of Szechuan, whose seat is too remote. The post of Frontier Commissioner should therefore be altered to that of Governor of Hsikang Province ; the subordinate officers being similarly replaced by provincial officials. The Szechuan Treasury has in the past furnished the necessary funds, to the amount of about one million taels annually, for the expenses of the frontier administration. This payment should continue, as a subsidy to the new province. A list of the Chinese districts planned by Chao Erh-feng for the Province of Hsikang is given on page 35 and their distribution is shown on the map facing that page. Ill CHINESE DISTRICTS IN EAST TIBET 35 Chinese Districts planned by Chao Erh-feng for the province of Hsikang (Tibetan names in brackets). K'ang-ting Hsien, or Tachienlu (Dartsendo). Lu-ting Hsien, or Lu-ting Ch'iao (Jazamka). Chiu-lung Hsien (Jyetserong). Tan-pa Hsien (Romidrango). Lu-ho Hsien, or Chang-Ku (Drango), Tao-fu Hsien (Dawu). Kan-tzu Hsien (Kanze). Chan-hua Hsien, or Chan-tui, or Huai-jou (Nyarong). Ya-chiang Hsien, or Ho-k'ou (Nyachuka). Ting-hsiang Hsien, or Hsiang-ch'eng (Chantreng). Tao-ch'eng Hsien (Taotrin). I-tun Hsien, or San-pa, or Ta-so (Dasho). Te-ko Hsien, or Te-hua, or Keng-ching (De-ge Gonchen). Pai-yii Hsien (Beyii). Teng-ko Hsien (Denko). Shih-ch'ii Hsien (Seshii). T'ung-p'u Hsien (Tangpu or Rangsum). Li-hua Hsien, or Li-tang (Letang). Pa-an Hsien, or Ba-tang (Ba). Yen-ching Hsien (Tsakalo). Te-jung Hsien (Derong). Ning-ching Hsien, or Chiang-ka (Markam Gartok). Wu-ch'eng Hsien, or Sang-ai (Sangen). Kung Hsien, or Kung-chiieh (Gonjo), Cha-ya Hsien (Draya). Ch'ang-tu Hsien, or Cha-mu-to (Chamdo). En-ta Hsien (Ngenda). Shuo-tu Hsien (Shuopando)"^. Ko-mai Hsien, or Sang-ang (Sangachu Dzong)"^. Tsa-yii Hsien (Zayiil)^. Chia-Ii Hsien, or La-li (Lari)^. Po-mi Hsien (Bomed)^. T'ai-chao Hsien, or Chiang-ta (Giamda)'^. ^ Trans-Salween districts planned but never established. [36] PART IV THE COLLAPSE OF CHINESE POWER IN TIBET IN 191 1, THE SUBSEQUENT CAMPAIGNS IN EASTERN TIBET IN 1912 AND 1913, AND THE TRIPARTITE NEGOTIATIONS IN INDIA IN 1914 Outbreak of the revolution in China and murder of Chao Erh-feng by the revolutionaries in Szechuan — Risings on the frontier — Mutiny of Chinese troops in Lhasa and withdrawal of Chinese from Central Tibet — Efforts of the Chinese Government to placate the Tibetans — Despatch of a Szechuanese relief force to E. Tibet and recovery by the Chinese of the frontier districts up to the Mekong — Hostilities on the border develop into open war between China and Tibet — The position on the frontier in 1914 — Great Britain offers to mediate between China and Tibet — Chinese, Tibetan, and British Plenipotentiaries meet in India for the purpose of tripartite peace negotiations to settle the status of Tibet — ^Aims and objects of the Tibetan, Chinese and British Governments on entering the Conference — Conflicting Tibetan and Chinese boundary claims and British proposals for a settlement — The Con- ference breaks down over the boundary question — Truce between China and Tibet resulting from the tripartite negotiations of 19 14. Chao Erh-feng arrived in Chengtu in August, 191 1, to take up his post as Viceroy of Szechuan. The revolution against the Manchu Dynasty, which began with popular ris- ings in Western China, broke out almost immediately after- wards. The old warrior put up a determined resistance, and was besieged in Chengtu for three months. In November, however, the news of the murder of the Imperial Commis- sioner, Tuan Fang, by the revolutionaries and of the military risings at Hankow having reached the provincial capital, he surrendered on terms, and the republic of Szechuan was duly proclaimed. On December 23 he was treacherously beheaded by the revolutionaries. Thus died, tragically and ignominiously at the hands of his own countrymen, one of China's greatest Empire builders, and with him passed away Chinese ascend- ancy over Tibet. Chao Erh-feng differed in many respects from the ordinary high Chinese official. Light and wiry in stature, and sparing in eating and drinking, he was always prepared to imdergo the same hardships incidental to frontier campaigning as his officers and men. Unlike the somewhat effeminate and ease- loving Szechuanese, he disdained the sedan chair, and travelled PT. IV MURDER OF CHAO ERH-FENG, 1911 37 all over Eastern Tibet on horse-back. He was universally successful in all his military operations in Kam, often attaining his ends as much by bluff and astute diplomacy as by force of arms. But, when he had to fight, his campaigns were always well planned and carried out. The key to his successes was the capture of De-ge by a sudden coup, followed by the rapid advance on Chamdo and the raid on Lhasa, the heart and centre of Tibet, after which he was in a position to eat up the rest of the country piecemeal without serious opposition. It must, however, be admitted, injustice to his successors, who were as conspicuous in failure as he was in success, that Chao Erh-feng always received the fullest support from his brother, the Viceroy of Szechuan, and that both had behind them the power and prestige of the Manchu Empire ; whereas after the fall of the Empire and the estab- lishment of the Chinese Republic, there was almost as little cohesion and unity of action amongst the various military leaders in Western China as there had formerly been amongst the Native States of Eastern Tibet. Though he was known amongst the Szechuanese by the nickname of " Butcher Chao" owing to his alleged tendency towards wholesale executions, and though his proceedings were doubtless at times characterised by great severity to- wards the unfortunate Tibetans who objected to submitting to the Chinese yoke, his reputation was nevertheless that of a just man ; and, while he did not hesitate to behead a recalci- trant Tibetan Chief or Headman, he was equally ready to decapitate offenders amongst his own officers and men. A remarkable man, of commanding personality, Chao Erh- feng's justice and fair-dealing are remembered to-day in Eastern Tibet as well as his severity; and his reputation in the former respect has grown of recent years owing to the weak inefficiency and cruelly oppressive rule of his successors. Amongst the lamas, however, his name is universally exe- crated as the arch enemy, the destroyer of monasteries and killer of monks. This anti-lama attitude adopted by Chao Erh-feng, and many of the local Chinese Authorities on the frontier since his time, was a reversal of the traditional policy of the Manchus, who had exercised their authority over Tibet and Mongolia largely through the instrumentality of the lama church. 38 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. The revolution in China was not immediately followed by risings on the frontier (though the new republican authorities in charge of the Szechuan government made an inauspicious start by circulating photographs of Chao's severed head in the border districts to demonstrate their victory and rise to power). Later on, however, as the Tibetan tribesmen began gradually to realise the relaxation of Chinese control, the trouble began, commencing, as was to be expected, in Hsiangch'eng, the centre of perpetual unrest. Revolts of the lamas and tribesmen in Sangen, Gonjo, Draya, Markam, and Chamdo followed. By the summer of 191 2, the Chinese had lost control of most of the frontier districts, their outlying garrisons being withdrawn to Batang and Chamdo, which became the centres of Chinese resistance. Chamdo, especially, was for a time hard pressed and stoutly defended by a Chinese commander named P'eng Jih-sheng; the latter was compelled in self- defence to destroy the huge Chamdo monastery, the largest in Kam, which contained 2000 to 3000 monks, and menaced the Chinese by its commanding position on a bluff immediately behind the town^. But the situation of the Chinese on the frontier at this time, though outwardly a very dangerous one, was in reality much less desperate than their situation at the time of the resumption of hostilities in 191 8. In the first place, the Lhasa Government was not yet formally at war with China, and the issue thus still remained at this time one between the Chinese and the local lamas and tribesmen of Eastern Tibet, who were without cohesion or organisation and practically without arms ; while, secondly, large stocks of rice and ammunition, carefully collected by Chao Erh-feng, were still in existence. As soon as the news of the revolution in China filtered through to Lhasa trouble began in Central Tibet also. Following the example of the troops at Peking, Chengtu and other military centres, the Chinese soldiers mutinied and took to burning and looting. The same thing was happening at this time all over China Proper; but by acting thus in 1 The same General P'eng was besieged in the same place by the Tibetans six years later and was compelled to surrender. The destruction of the Chamdo monastery, one of the most important religious institutions in Tibet outside Lhasa, greatly embittered all classes of Tibetans and was never forgotten or forgiven. IV CHINESE EXPELLED FROM LHASA, 19 12 39 Tibet the Chinese destroyed any chance they may have had of maintaining themselves in the country. The Tibetans de- fended themselves and retaliated, and the situation soon developed into a struggle between them and the Chinese. Outside Lhasa the Chinese garrisons rapidly melted away, some being withdrawn to join General Chung Ying's force inside the capital, others being overwhelmed, and others again, stationed in the Chumbi valley and on the road to India, escaping into British territory. The Chinese force in Bomed, after mutinying against their officers, endeavoured to withdraw in a body, but were cut down almost to a man by the natives while struggling in single file across a big snow pass. Many a similar unrelated tragedy doubtless occurred in other outlying parts. In Lhasa itself Chung Ying's force fortified themselves in the Tengye'Ling^ monastery and held out for some time, fighting and negotiating alternately in the Chinese fashion. Finally they were allowed to withdraw unmolested into India in accordance with the terms of an agreement made with the Tibetans through the mediation of the Nepalese Agent, and were subsequently repatriated by the British Authorities by the sea route to Shanghai. By the end of 1912 Chinese authority had ceased to exist in Tibet, and, the Dalai Lama having returned from his place of exile in India, the country became once more an autonomous State. The new Republican Government of China, in the hope of placating the Tibetans and recovering their position in the country, proceeded to reinstate the Dalai Lama^, who had been deposed by the Manchus only two years before, cashiered the Manchu Amban, Lien Yii, and appointed Chung Ying, a Chinese, as Amban in his place. General Chung clung on in the Chumbi valley for a time; but the Tibetans, intensely exasperated by the excesses committed by the Chinese troops, insisted that he and every Chinese official and soldier should leave the country, and refused to listen to the explanations of the republicans that Lien Yii and the Manchu Dynasty were responsible for all the trouble. Lien Yii, having been made the scapegoat for the mis- ^ One of the four great Lhasa monasteries, the others being Ganden Ling, Sera Ling, and Drepung Ling. It is said that Tengye Ling was subsequently- destroyed by the Tibetans owing to the use made of it by the Chinese. " See pp. 16 and 17. 40 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. fortunes of the Chinese, was permitted to retire into private Hfe. Arrived at Peking in due course, he in turn proceeded to lay the blame for everything on General Chung Ying. A further attempt to placate the Tibetans was then made, this time by offering up the unfortunate Chung Ying, who was executed in Peking two years later, in the spring of 191 5. The Presidential Mandate announcing his sentence is on record, having been published in the Peking Government Gazette of March 32nd, 191 5: Prdcis Translation of Presidential Mandate pronouncing sentence of death upon general Chung Ying, late Commander-in-Chief and Amban in Tibet. Dated March 19th, 1915. The case of Chung Ying, former Amban in Tibet, having been referred to the High Military Court for examination, the following report has now been received on the subject. According to the depositions of Lien Yu, a former Amban in Tibet, and others. General Chung Ying was in command of the army at Lhasa when the mutiny occurred, but, though invested with supreme miUtary authority, he was unable to suppress the disturbances. He allowed the troops under his command to loot the Tibetans, which provoked the hatred of the latter against the Chinese. He permitted his mutinous soldiery to attack the Sera monastery. The whole of Tibet was thus thrown into confusion. He, being then Amban in Tibet, was ordered by the Government not to leave his post. But he disobeyed orders and left Tibet, thus rendering the situa- tion "past remedy. According to other depositions General Chung Ying, fearing lest Lo Chang-chi would telegraph to the Government exposing the real cause of the disturbances in Tibet, executed him on the false charge of causing troubles 1. Chung Ying being interrogated as to the correctness of the above state- ments could make out no case for his defence. It is to be observed that after the suppression of the troubles in Bomed the whole of Tibet was at peace. But after the mutiny of the troops at Lhasa and the attack on Sera monastery widespread unrest ensued. Chung Ying was the cause of all these troubles. He has thus inflicted great misery on the Tibetans and created alarm on the frontier. Moreover, he murdered a faithful and loyal public servant and burned his remains. Sentence of death is therefore hereby promulgated on General Chung Ying, to be carried out according to law. This Mandate was accompanied by instructions to the Board of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs to notify the Dalai Lama of the circumstances attending the execution of General Chung Ying and to cause proclamations to be issued through- ^ Lo Chang-chi was Lien Yu's Chief Secretary and Commander of the Chinese expedition to Bomed. PLATE IX residence of small local official in eastern tibet (at jyedam in western draya) ^"^^^•^^ travelling across the park lands of marram PLATE X TYPICAL SCENERY IN SOUTHERN KAM, PINE FOREST AND SNOW MOUNTAIN NEAR THE SUMMIT OF THE FIRST BIG PASS ON THE MAIN ROAD FROM CHINA TO TIBET IV CHINESE CAMPAIGNS IN EAST TIBET, 19 13 41 out Tibet explaining the facts of the case. But the Tibetans were not to be cajoled back into the Chinese fold by fair words. It is not unlikely that the new Republican Govern- ment of China had at this time an opportunity of coming to some arrangement with the Dalai Lama by which, in return for the grant of full autonomy to Tibet, the latter might have agreed to join the new Chinese Commonwealth as a junior partner. But the Chinese Government were badly served at this critical juncture in their relations with Tibet, and their frequent pronouncements regarding the equality and unity of the "Five Races" (Chinese, Manchus, Mongols, Ma- homedans, and Tibetans) were unfortunately exemplified during the years following the revolution, as far as the Tibetans of Eastern Tibet were concerned, by the actions of a plundering soldiery and the oppressive and unjust rule of rapacious and inefficient officials, in comparison with which the regime of Chao Erh-feng came to be regarded as a golden age. As a result the Tibetans of autonomous Tibet became more and more determined as the years passed by to have nothing to do with the new China. After the completion of the revolution by the formal abdication of the Manchu Dynasty matters began to settle down for the time being in China, and in the summer of 1912 a relief force, some 5000 strong, left Chengtu for the frontier to retrieve the Chinese position in Eastern Tibet. The expedition was under the command of a young Szechuan- ese General named Yin Ch'ang-heng, who had been the leader of the revolution and the head of the first republican government of the province. Inasmuch as he had been directly responsible for the execution of Chao Erh-feng, there was a certain justice in his being sent to reconstruct the work which had collapsed on Chao's fall. The reason of his going to the frontier was that he had been ousted from the governor- ship of the province by a rival revolutionary leader. Yin Ch'ang-heng's plans were laid in imitation of those adopted by Chao Erh-feng, namely to converge on Chamdo by parallel advances by the North and South Roads. Arrived at Tachienlu, the expeditionary force proceeded to loot the city, burned down the palace of the ex-Chief of Chala, and decapitated his brother, the Chief himself having made good his escape into the inaccessible mountain regions of the 42 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. interior of his former State. Batang and Chamdo were duly reached and reheved, and Draya, Markam, and other frontier districts fell again into Chinese hands. De-ge and Kanze, on the North Road, had never been lost. Lengthy military opera- tions in Hsiangch'eng, accompanied by the usual atrocities, which appeared to grow worse with each rebellion and subse- quent campaign of suppression, resulted in the reduction of that district during 1913. At Dawu (Chinese Taofu), on the North Road between Tachienlu and Kanze, a local re- bellion, which nearly cost a Catholic priest his life, was easily quelled, and by the end of 19 14 Chinese control had been to a great extent re-established in the frontier regions as far as the Mekong. These short-lived rebellions left behind, how- ever, a greater feeling of bitterness on the part of the natives towards the Chinese than any of Chao Erh-feng's campaigns owing to the absence of order and restraint amongst General Yin's ill-disciplined republican soldiery. The Lhasa Government, having regained their autonomy and being determined to retain it, viewed the advance of the Szechuan expeditionary force with some alarm, and the Kalon Lama, the Commander-in-Chief of the Tibetan army, was sent with troops into Kam to stop the Chinese advance wherever he might meet it. As a result the advancing Chinese forces were brought definitely to a halt on the line of the Mekong and the Mekong- Salween divide, where they came into contact with the newly-raised regiments from Central Tibet. From now on the situation on the frontier changed its aspect, and the confused border warfare between the tribesmen and lamas of Kam developed into a war between China and Tibet Proper over the question of the Sino- Tibetan frontier. Towards the end of 1913, Yin Ch'ang-heng left the frontier for Peking, where Yuan Shih-k'ai was then engaged in estab- lishing his control over China with a view to becoming, first, President Dictator, and then Emperor of a new Dynasty. Arrived in Peking, General Yin, instead of receiving honours and high military rank, was immediately arrested, but after languishing for a time in prison, and narrowly escaping execution for the murder of Chao Erh-feng, was released and relapsed into obscurity. The commencement of the year 19 14 found the position IV SITUATION ON THE FRONTIER IN 19 14 43 beginning to stabilise itself. The Chinese front extended along the Mekong river from the Yunnan border northwards to the neighbourhood of Chamdo, whence it ran north-west along the Mekong- Salween divide up to the southern border of the Kokonor Territory (Chinese Ch'ing Hai)^. Batang and Chamdo were as before the principal Chinese military bases, while outlying Chinese garrisons were scattered up and down the frontier watching the Tibetan forces under the Kalon Lama, the latter's troops being centred on Shuopando and Sha-yi Zamka (Chinese Chiayii Ch'iao) in the Salween valley. This line remained the frontier for the next few years, thanks to the truce resulting from the Sino-Tibetan negotia- tions which had in the meantime taken place in India. The country between the Tung river in Szechuan Proper and the Mekong, which remained in Chinese hands, was constituted into a Special Military Territory dependent on Szechuan with its capital at Tachienlu, on the same lines as the ter- ritories of Suiyan and Chahar on the borders of North China and Southern Mongolia, and a Hupei officer named Chang Yi was appointed by Yuan Shih-k'ai as Governor, to reside at Tachienlu, with the title of Commissioner for the Szechuan Frontier Territory (Ch'uan-pien Chen-shou-shih). Two sub- ordinate Generals, Liu Tsan-ting and P'eng Jih-sheng, were placed in charge at Batang and Chamdo respectively. In the summer of 19 14 there was more trouble with the ever-restless natives of Hsiangch'eng. At the same time a serious revolt broke out in Draya. Both risings were duly suppressed, the latter ending in a large body of Tibetans being surrounded in a large Draya monastery called Yemdo (Chinese Yent'ait'ang), where they were exterminated, and the monastery burned. Like Hsiangch'eng, Draya suffered very severely in this frontier warfare, the country-side being still depopulated and the villages and monasteries lying in ruins several years later. W ^ * "Jp ^ Ever since the conclusion of the Lhasa Convention in 1904 and the subsequent withdrawal of the British troops, Great Britain had stood aside watching the ebb and flow of China's attempts to restore her position in Tibet by force of arms. At length, however, after the Chinese had been expelled ^ See map facing p. 45. 44 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. from Lhasa and the situation had developed into open war- fare between China and Tibet, which showed every sign of dragging on for years to the great detriment of Indo-Tibetan trade and the peace of the North-east Frontier, the British Government came forward to assist in settling the dispute. After some preliminary discussions for the purpose of ascer- taining the general Unes which the negotiations were to follow, namely, the establishment of an autonomous Tibet under Chinese suzerainty, Chinese, Tibetan, and British pleni- potentiaries eventually met in India towards the close of 191 3 for the purpose of negotiating a tripartite convention regu- lating the mutual relations of the three countries and establishing the status of Tibet. The position at the time the conference met was briefly as follows: Lhasa-governed Tibet, which had discarded all vestige of Chinese control, extended east, roughly speaking, to the river Mekong, and north to the southern watershed of the Yangtze. In Kam, east of the Mekong, the framework of Chinese control created by Chao Erh-feng had been re- established, while in the north the Kokonor region, which had been unaffected by the events of the past ten years, remained as before under the nominal control of the Amban at Sining in Kansu. The Tibetans entered the conference with the object of securing the recognition of Tibet as a practically independent State, with boundaries enclosing all those regions of High Asia inhabited by persons of Tibetan race. The Chinese entered the conference with the object of recovering as far as possible the position they had held in Tibet at the time of Chao Erh-feng's conquests. The British Government entered the conference with the object of restoring peace between China and Tibet, prefer- ably on the basis of the restoration of the old status of Tibet as an autonomous State under Chinese suzerainty, and of securing the establishment at Lhasa of a stable Tibetan Government, with which friendly relations might be main- tained by both China and Great Britain, and which should be free from all interference in its internal affairs from the side of China, Great Britain, or any other outside party. After discussions lasting some months the three parties came to terms on all the points at issue with the exception IV TRIPARTITE NEGOTIATIONS OF 19 14 45 of the question of the boundaries of Tibet. It was thus agreed by all concerned that Tibet Proper should be an autonomous State under Chinese suzerainty, that the Chinese Amban should return to Lhasa with an escort of Chinese troops suitable to his rank and position, and that both China and Great Britain should abstain from all interference in the administration of the country. When, however, the question of the boundary between China and autonomous Tibet came up for settlement, it became apparent that the Chinese and Tibetan points of view were so widely divergent as to make an agreement almost impossible. The Tibetans claimed all Tibetan-inhabited territory up to Sining in Kansu in the north and Tachienlu in Szechuan in the east, and produced whole libraries of historical evidence from Lhasa in support of their claims. The Chinese, ignoring the old records and the Manchu settlement of 1727, went back no further than the time of Chao Erh-feng's greatest successes, and claimed the neigh- bourhood of Giamda (Chinese Chiangta), within a few marches of Lhasa, as the boundary between China and Tibet. The British representative, in his character as middleman, proposed, as a compromise between the divergent claims of the two sides, that Tibet, that is to say, the country generally marked as such in European atlases, should be divided up into two zones, namely. Inner and Outer Tibet, on the lines of Inner and Outer Mongolia ; Inner Tibet to be under more direct Chinese control, and Outer Tibet to be under the autonomous Government of Lhasa, where a Chinese Amban would be stationed in charge of Chinese interests; the boundary between the two zones should, it was suggested, follow in the main the old historical frontier line laid down by the Manchus in 1727 between the Dalai Lama's realm and the semi-independent States of Eastern Tibet. The Tibetans objected to the proposed settlement as being too favourable to the Chinese, especially with regard to the placing of De-ge, Nyarong, and the former Hor States under Chinese control. The Chinese objected to the proposed settlement as being too favourable to the Tibetans, because it entailed the sur- render to Tibetan rule of certain districts which had been nominally incorporated in China by Chao Erh-feng and of a 46 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. IV portion of the Kokonor Territory which was regarded as a dependency of Kansu Province, and still more so because the Batang-Litang region, which they considered to lie in Szechuan, had been labelled as part of Inner (namely Chinese) Tibet. After much discussion, however, a draft Convention, em- bodying a boundary as proposed by the British representative, was initialled in April, 19 14, by the three Plenipotentiaries preparatory to signature. But the Chinese Government re- fused to proceed further in the matter, and the Conference finally broke up in the summer of 1914 without an agree- ment having been reached. Though no settlement had been arrived at, China formally notified Great Britain as middleman that the only point in the draft convention which she was unable to accept was that affecting the boundary, and gave an assurance that the Chinese troops stationed on the frontier would not advance beyond the positions they then held, provided they were not attacked by the Tibetans, both sides awaiting a final settle- ment by diplomatic means. The frontier truce, which lasted for the next few years, was based on this understanding. The boundary proposals of 1914 appeared on the whole to represent a fair compromise between the widely divergent claims of the two parties to the dispute, and the objections of the Chinese thereto were perhaps largely based on the nomen- clature employed. Thus the Chinese, though they were apparently to exercise a measure of control in Inner, or Chinese, Tibet, objected, as stated above, to the inclusion therein of the Batang-Litang region, which (though inhabited solely by peoples of Tibetan race) had for long past been re- garded by the Chinese as lying, not in Tibet, but in Szechuan Province, and of portions of the Kokonor Territory, which they claimed had never been a part of Tibet. % [47] PART V THE TRUCE BETWEEN CHINA AND TIBET FROM 1914 TO 1917, THE RESUMPTION OF HOSTILITIES AND THE TIBETAN ADVANCE IN 1918, AND THE SUBSEQUENT RESTORATION OF PEACE THROUGH BRITISH MEDIATION BY LOCAL NEGOTIATIONS ON THE FRONTIER Renewed rising in Hsiangch'eng in 1914 — Forward movement in the Kokonor Territory by the Chinese Mahomedans of Kansu — ^Yuan Shih-k'ai ascends the Throne of China as Emperor at the end of 1915 — Outbreak of anti- monarchical rebellion in S.W. China early in 1916 and resulting domination of Szechuan and the frontier by the Yunnanese — Hostilities between Szechuan and Yunnan break out in 1 917— Neglect of Chinese frontier garrisons owing to continued civil wars in China — Hostilities between Szechuanese and Lhasa Tibetans provoked by the Chinese Commander on the frontier against the orders of his Government — Tibetans capture Draya and lay siege to Chamdo — Fall of Chamdo — Tibetans overrun De-ge and threaten Batang and Kanze — Chinese relief force despatched to Kanze to check Tibetan advance — Fighting between Szechuanese and Tibetans at Rongbatsa near Kanze — British mediation and peace negotiations on the frontier — Peace restored between China and Tibet at the end of 1918. During the three years following the close of the conference in India peace reigned on the frontier between China and Tibet, though civil war and political strife in Western China, reacting on border affairs, prevented the Chinese from making any progress in consolidating their position in the Tibetan inhabited districts left in their hands. Towards the end of 1 9 14 trouble broke out again in Hsiangch'eng, where the Chinese garrison joined the natives in rebelling against Chinese authority. The situation soon got out of hand, and by the spring of the following year the rebels, led by a Chinese officer, gained sufficient strength to advance on and capture Tachienlu, whence they emerged on to Szechuan Proper, and eventually dissolved amongst the hordes of brigands preying on that rich province. Tachienlu was then reoccupied and order restored by a Colonel named Ch'en Hsia-ling (who some years later became Frontier Com- missioner). General Chang Yi, who had fled from his post during the Hsiangch'eng rebelUon, was now cashiered by President 48 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. Yuan Shih-k'ai, who appointed a Szechuanese named Liu Jui-heng to be Frontier Commissioner in his place. In the summer of 1915 President Yuan Shih-k'ai, who was then at the height of his power and about to ascend the Throne as Emperor, made certain important aherations in the administrative arrangements of the Kokonor Territory. This vast.expanse of elevated grass country, which, including the whole of the upper basins of the Yangtze and the Yellow river and part of that of the Mekong, covers all the north- eastern quarter of what is usually labelled Tibet on European maps, had hitherto been governed by an old Manchu Amban residing at Sining in Kansu, whose control was purely nominal. This official was now removed by Yuan Shih-k'ai, and the administration of the Kokonor was handed over to the Mahomedan General of Sining. The reasons for this change were connected with the fact that since the revolution of 191 1-12 the Mahomedans had become the dominant power in Kansu Province. Up to this time, the Kokonor Territory had been left in peace under the rule of the native Tibetan Chiefs and Mongol Princes, and had thus escaped the fighting and constant unrest which had disturbed the Szechuan frontier ever since the days of Chao Erh-feng. From now on, however, the Kansu Moslems, a hardy race of horsemen who were much more suited to Tibetan campaigning than the soft Szechuanese, began to interfere more and more in the affairs of the Kokonor region. The following document, a precis translation of a proclamation issued by the Mahomedan General of Sining in the spring of 1916, is of interest as the first sign of a forward policy on the part of the Kansu Mahomedans in the southern part of the Kokonor Territory bordering on Tibet Proper. It is apparently addressed to the people of Jyade (the "Country of the Thirty-nine Tribes," situated in the basin of the upper Salween on the Tibetan side of the frontier), warning them of the intention of the Kansu Mahomedans to assert their authority in Nangchen (the " Country of the Twenty-five Tribes," situated in the basin of the upper Mekong on the Chinese side of the frontier), which had hitherto, though nominally under Sining, enjoyed practical independence : A Proclamation by General Ma, Officer of the Second Class of the Order of the Striped Tiger, Frontier Commissioner of the Kansu Border, General Officer Commanding at Sining and in the Kokonor. V CHINESE IN KOKONOR, 19 15 49 You, people of Jyade, were originally of Chinese stock^, and friendly relations have existed between you and the Chinese Authorities for centuries. During the later days of the Manchu Dynasty ignorant persons on the Szechuan border destroyed your ntionasteries, killed your lamas, and op- pressed the people*. Thus you became enraged, and a feud began which has lasted until to-day. But you have no quarrel with Sining, or with Nangchen, the country of the Twenty-five Tribes. Formerly, when the people of the Szechuan border attempted to seize the country of the Twenty- five Tribes*, the Great President at Peking and the Governor of Kansu sent deputies to Jyekundo, who made a careful investigation, with the result that the country of the Twenty-five Tribes was again placed under the juris- diction of Sining. The Great President gave orders that the Yellow Church should be respected, the lamas protected, and the ula service abolished. The benevolent attitude of the Great President towards the people of the Twenty-five Tribes is known to all. I, the Kansu Frontier Commissioner, have been instructed to protect the Tibetans of the Kokonor. Good people will be rewarded and evil doers punished. The monastery of Kumbum is the birth-place of your great reincarnated Buddha. All must have heard of the manner in which the Authorities of Sining protect this monastery and its monks of the Yellow Church*. You, people of Jyade, come to trade at Sining, and the people of Sining go to trade in your country. Passports have been issued to you, and you have been protected like members of one family. I have often exchanged letters with the Dalai Lama, with whom I am on the friendliest terms. You should therefore follow the Great Lama's example and remain at peace with us. I am responsible for the protection of Nangchen, the country of the Twenty-five Tribes, and I am sending troops to guard those lands. They are under the jurisdiction of the Sining Authorities, and you, people of Jyade, must not interfere with them. No man can serve two masters, and no country can have two kings. You are well acquainted with the contents of the Scriptures, and the rules laid down therein. Repent therefore of your evil ways and follow righteousness. If you respect the Frontier and pursue your affairs in peace, you may be assured of my forgiveness and of favourable treatment. Let all obey. Dated the 26th Day of the 3rd Moon of the ist Year of the Reign of Hung Hsien. ^ The people of Jyade, who are nowadays entirely Tibetans, are supposed to have been originally immigrants from China or Mongolia; whence the name Jyade, or Chinese Lands. ^ This appears to refer to the campaigns of Chao Erh-feng and his successors . ' In 1915 General P'eng Jih-sheng of Chamdo, acting either on his own behalf or for the Szechuan Authorities, attempted to appropriate Nangchen, and some fighting occurred between his men and the Kansu Mahomedans near Jyekundo. * The monastery of Kumbum (Chinese T'a-erh Ssu), near Sining on the Kansu-Kokonor border, was the birth-place of Tsongkaba, the reformer of Tibetan Buddhism, and the founder of the Gelugba sect. The place was formerly known as Tsongka, hence the reformer's name. He was bom in the middle of the fourteenth century. T.T.T. 4 50 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. At the end of 19 15 Yuan Shih-k'ai ascended the Throne under the new dynastic title of Hung Hsien, and almost immediately the anti-monarchical rebellion, which was to overthrow him and drive him broken-hearted to a premature grave, broke out in distant Yunnan. One of the results of the success of this rebellion in South-western China was the domination of Szechuan by the Yunnanese ; and in October, 1916, a Yunnanese Frontier Commissioner, named Yin Ch'eng-hsien, accompanied by Yunnanese troops, arrived at Tachienlu to take over charge of the frontier. Yin Ch'eng-hsien was one of the band of able young Japanese trained officers with whose assistance General Tsai Ao was successful in overthrowing the great Yuan Shih-k'ai. He had had previous experience on the frontier, having com- manded the Yunnanese column which had operated in the neighbourhood of Atuntze in the campaigns of 1913; and, backed as he was by a Yunnanese Government in control of the rich resources of Szechuan, he might perhaps have been able to restore the Chinese position in Eastern Tibet, which had become yearly more precarious since the revolution of 191 1 owing to the neglect of the frontier garrisons by the Szechuanese Authorities. Unfortunately for the Chinese, hostilities broke out be- tween the provinces of Yunnan and Szechuan soon after, and the early summer of 19 17 saw the Yunnanese armies retreating from the burning ruins of Chengtu, the capital of Szechuan. The position of General Yin and his Yunnanese troops at Tachienlu, cut off from their base in Yunnan and surrounded by their enemies, the Szechuanese, soon became desperate, and he eventually withdrew with great difficulty across the mountains via Mili to Lichiang in Yunnan. His place as Frontier Commissioner was taken by a Hunanese officer. General Ch'en Hsia-ling, who had been on the border since the days of Chao Erh-feng, and who was not at that time implicated in the dispute between Szechuan and Yunnan. In the meantime, owing to the fact that both the provincial government of Szechuan and the central government at Peking were too preoccupied with the internal civil wars in China to pay any attention to the Tibetan border, the un- fortunate Chinese garrisons on the frontier were completely neglected and left, without supplies of rice, silver, clothing, V POSITION OF CHINESE GARRISONS, 19 17 51 or ammunition, to shift for themselves and to Uve on the country as best they could. As a result they had degenerated into little better than brigands, helping themselves to food and money by plundering the natives of the localities where they chanced to be stationed. Nor was it to be expected that respectable Chinese officials would consent to remain in the country under such circumstances; and the administration of the frontier districts thus lapsed into the hands of a number of ex-brigands and military adventurers, who mis- governed and oppressed the natives until rebellion was rife from end to end of the border. Autonomous Tibet, on the other hand, freed from Chinese rule, had been enjoying years of internal peace and prosperity, and had reorganised and strengthened her frontier army. By the year 19 17 the Tibetan Commander-in-Chief, the Kalon Lama, who had faced the Chinese four years previously with untrained and ill-equipped levies, had at his disposal several regiments of comparatively efficient troops, who were as superior to the worn-out Chinese frontier forces as Chao Erh-feng's men had been to the tribesmen and lamas of Kam ten years before. *M^ Jt, J£. lib w "Tt- "ir TT The Tibetans could scarcely fail to realise that the Chinese were utterly demoralised, that the frontier was open to them, and that their compatriots across the border, suffering under the oppressive yoke of the Chinese military, were but waiting for them to advance, to rise and join them in arms. But they were bound by the understanding of "19 14 not to attack un- less the truce were first broken by the Chinese < and they could be relied on to keep their word. The local Chinese on the frontier, however, acting on their own authority, and without the sanction of the Chinese Government, deliberately provoked a resumption of hostilities, and paid for doing so with overwhelming defeat. The Chinese frontier forces were at this time divided into three independent bodies, under the commands of the local generals at Chamdo and Batang and the Frontier Commis- sioner at Tachienlu respectively, each of whom controlled civil and military affairs in his own sphere, and regarded one another, and the various provincial authorities of Western China, with mutual distrust and suspicion. 4—2 52 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. The Chinese general commanding at Chamdo, named P'eng Jih-sheng, had been on the frontier since the beginning of Chao Erh-feng's campaigns, and for the past few years had been absolute autocrat of the northern districts of the border under his control, appointing and dismissing civil and military officials, and collecting and disposing of the revenues of the country. He was notorious for his intolerant attitude towards the Tibetans, who in turn held him re- sponsible for the destruction of the great monasteries of Chamdo, Draya, and Yemdo in previous campaigns, and who therefore regarded him as the arch-enemy after the dis- appearance of Chao Erh-feng. Towards the end of 1917 General P'eng, chafing under the continued neglect of himself and his troops by the Chinese Government and the Authorities of Szechuan, which had in- deed reduced his command to the direst straits, apparently conceived the idea of breaking the truce and advancing on Lhasa on his own responsibility, with the two-fold object of securing loot and supplies, and of obtaining the post of Frontier Commissioner, or of Resident in Tibet, by bringing off a striking victory against the Tibetans. Imbued, perhaps, with the recollection of Chao Erh-feng's easy victories against the ill-armed lamas and tribesmen of Kam and Chung Ying's unopposed march to Lhasa, he and his advisers played directly into the hands of the Tibetans, and gave them the opportunity they wanted to recover some of the country of which they had been deprived by Chao Erh-feng. A pretext for resuming hostilities was easily found in an incident which occurred between the opposing Chinese and Tibetan outposts beyond Riwoche, a few marches north-west of Chamdo. A trivial dispute arose over the cutting of grass for fodder on the mountain which served as a boundary be- tween the two sides, and the Chinese seized a subordinate Tibetan officer and carried him off to Chamdo. The Tibetans attempted a rescue and some skirmishing took place. The Chinese thereupon claimed that the truce was at an end, and prepared to advance. It appears that the Kalon Lama, commanding the Tibetan frontier army, did all he could in reason to avoid a resumption of hostilities, and that he wrote to General P'eng on several occasions, demanding the surrender of the Tibetan officer V OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES, 191 8 53 and reminding the Chinese that both sides had agreed in 1 9 14 to keep the peace pending a final settlement by diplo- matic means with the mediation of Great Britain. His first communication was left unanswered ; the reply to his second was a letter filled with dung ; and he was finally informed in answer to his third appeal that the Chinese were advancing on Lhasa. The following is a translation of a letter addressed to the Kalon Lama by General P'eng on this occasion ; it was apparently dated early in January, 19 18: I have received your letters. You must be aware that Tibet, which was formerly subject to the Emperor of China, is now subject to the President of the Chinese Republic. You Tibetans have rebelled, as servants revolting against their masters. Evil thoughts have entered your hearts and your lips have uttered falsehoods. The Chinese Emperor can protect his own domin- ions and has no need of British mediation. The Chinese soldiers who have advanced from Riwoche are travelling in their own country and can go where they please. The Chinese forces are now about to advance on Lhasa, and you are ordered to make all the necessary preparations for their march. At the same time the Chinese troops did actually advance from Riwoche, and killed a high Tibetan officer in the result- ing fight. The Kalon Lama thereupon declared the truce at an end and called his men to arms. General P'eng's plans appear to have been to advance in three columns, one by the North Road from Riwoche, one by the main road from Enda, and one by a road from Draya leading across the Mekong into the Tibetan district of Bashii. All three columns duly advanced, and the first two were driven back, fighting stubbornly, on Chamdo. The Draya column crossed the Mekong, met the enemy, and fled pre- cipitately in such confusion that the Tibetans followed on their heels and captured Draya, together with two mountain guns and several hundreds of Chinese soldiers with their rifles, within a short time of the opening of hostilities. The fall of Draya cut the main road in General P'eng's rear, and the two big passes on the De-ge road being seized by the Tibetans immediately afterwards, Chamdo was com- pletely invested. South of Draya the Tibetans advanced into Markam, captured or dispersed all the Chinese troops stationed in that neighbourhood, and reached and occupied the old historical frontier line on the Bum La (Chinese Ning- ching Shan). General P'eng managed to get messages out from Chamdo 54 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. by the North Road and summoned an outlying battalion garrisoning Kanze, the only one of his battalions still intact, to his aid. These troops advanced rapidly to the neighbour- hood of Toba, two marches short of Chamdo, where they were surrounded by the Tibetans in a monastery and sur- rendered after a short fight. Another small relief force, bringing up supplies and ammunition from the direction of Tachienlu, only reached De-ge Gonchen, where they learned of the Tibetan victories and whence they fled precipitately back to Kanze. Chamdo was now completely cut off. The Chinese garrison inside, however, about a thousand strong, put up a strong resistance, unlike the other battalions of the frontier force, which had in each case been surrounded and had surrendered with scarcely a fight. At length, after a siege lasting several months, in the course of which more than half of the garrison were killed or died of disease. General P'eng capitulated towards the end of April, 1918. The following is a precis translation of a Chinese account of the events which led to a resumption of hostilities between China and Tibet towards the end of 191 7, of the surrender of the Chinese relief force at Toba, and of the siege and fall of Chamdo. It was written by the Commandant of the battalion of General P'eng's Frontier Force which surrendered at Toba, and was printed and published at Batang in the summer of 1 9 1 8 . A full translation , from which this summary is taken, was published in the North China Herald of Shanghai. During the autumn of 1917 an officer of the artillery stationed at Riwoche took some soldiers to cut grass on the mountain side, where he happened to meet two Tibetan soldiers, whom he caused to be seized and taken back to Riwoche. When the Kalon Lama heard of this he wrote to General P'eng requesting that the aifair be settled by negotiation. General P'eng, however, ordered the two Tibetans to be sent to Chamdo. The Tibetans then placed men in ambush and fired on our troops, who withdrew to Riwoche. But T'ien, the Commandant of the Riwoche battalion, sent reinforcements which drove off the Tibetans. General P'eng thereupon ordered Chang, Commandant of the 7th battahon, to advance from Chamdo to Riwoche. At that time I strongly advised the General to proceed with caution in this matter, and to enter into negotiations with the Kalon Lama before sending reinforcements. But he would not agree, and ordered me to pro- ceed with my battalion also to Riwoche. There we held a conference, myself and Commandants Chang and T'ien, as a result of which we wrote PLATE XI LOCAL TIBETAN HEADMEN IN KAM (DRAYA STATE) TIBETAN OFFICIALS FROM LHASA IN KAM PLATE XII TIBETAN HEADQUARTERS AT CHAMDO, I918 TIBETAN VILLAGERS PETITIONING AN OFFICIAL ON THE FLAT ROOF OF A FARM-HOUSE IN KAM V SIEGE AND FALL OF CHAMDO, 191 8 55 to the Kalon Lama proposing negotiations, and suggesting that each party should keep to their own boundaries and punish their own offenders. But Commandant Chang, unknown to the others, secretly wrote a private letter, and wrecked the whole affair. Again I suggested to General P'eng that the matter be settled by negotia- tion, since the Tibetans had agreed to that course and to both sides keeping to their own boundaries and punishing their own offenders. Subsequently I received orders to return to Chamdo, where I informed the General of Chang's secret designs. The very next day a despatch was received from Commandant T'ien to the effect that Chang had advanced during the night with his battalion, had been surrounded, and was in great danger. The General then or dered me to advance on Riwoche with two companies . Again I made representations, entreating him to refer to the Governor of Szechuan for instructions before taking further hostile action against the Tibetans. But he insisted on fighting, and I had to proceed towards Riwoche. Later on I received orders to leave the front in order to arrange certain matters on the North Road. When about to depart I repeatedly warned the General not to fight the Tibetans, and advised him to instruct Com- mandant Chang not to advance without orders. But he only replied that he was not afraid of the enemy. I accordingly left Chamdo for Tachienlu, whence I wrote to the General telling him of civil war raging in China and of the impossibility of securing the requisite supplies of arms and ammunition, and advising him to negotiate peace with the Tibetans. At the end of the year I was appointed with my battalion tp Kanze. No sooner had I taken over the seals of office there than I received an urgent despatch from General P'eng ordering me to proceed with all haste with my troops to aid in the defence of Chamdo, and to raise local militia levies everywhere for the same purpose. I wrote to the General from De-ge Gonchen, telling him that the rehef force I was bringing was too small to be of any use. Advancing further to T'ungp'u I received another message from the General urging me to hasten on, and directing me to advance to Toba and fight my way through to Chamdo on a certain day on which he would send troops to fight their way out to meet me. I thereupon determined to attack Toba and Reya. Again a further special courier reached me from the General with a message to the effect that a concerted effort was to be made on a fixed day to effect a junction of our forces and overcome the enemy. Accordingly I started in due course from Chorzhung for Beri monastery. On arrival there I found the enemy in force ahead, and so decided to hold the monastery. The battle then began, the Tibetans pressing closely on the building, climbing through the windows and on to the roof. Just as I was considering the advisability of ordering a retreat, my revolver was seized and I was made a prisoner. Some of the soldiers were killed, others were wounded, and the rest surrendered. General P'eng had agreed to make a sortie on that day, but had failed to do so. Shortly afterwards I was sent to Olo Ch'iao as a prisoner, and was subsequently removed to Chamdo. All the others were sent into Tibet. The following are the details of the siege and fall of Chamdo. Before the Szechuan bridge and the hills overlooking the town were 56 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. captured the Kalon Lama wrote on several occasions urging that the matter be settled by negotiation. But in reply General P'eng filled his letters with dung, reviled the Kalon Lama, and challenged him to fight. The Tibetans captured the hills behind the town. The Szechuan bridge was hard pressed and then captured. Thereupon the General surrendered. Two guns and over 1,400 rifles were given up. Commandant Chang committed suicide by jumping into the river. General P'eng placed his private treasure, over 40,000 rupees, in a coifin and buried it; but the Tibetans were informed by spies, and dug it up. This naturally led to their digging up all the graves of the soldiers honour- ably killed in action. General P'eng's actions were throughout influenced by a letter he had received holding out hopes that he might secure the post of Frontier Com- missioner. During the siege General Nieh, second-in-command, suggested the ad- visability of arranging a truce. He was accused of being in communication with the Tibetans, and General P'eng caused him to be suuMnarily shot. His secretary was decapitated. After the surrender the captured soldiers were sent off into Tibet. The wounded men, when about to start, vainly begged General P'eng for a few rupees. Whereupon the Kalon Lama, hearing of this, gave to each man some rice and eight rupees. Then the Kalon Lama came himself to Chamdo, and General P'eng gave him presents, and petitioned for a post under the Lhasa Government. But the Kalon summoned the General to his presence, and asked him whether he represented the Central Government of China, or the Governor General of Szechuan Province, or the Frontier Commissioner; why had he killed the Tibetan messengers ; why had he replied with letters filled with dung ; why had he refused to negotiate a peaceful settlement; what were his present intentions? General P'eng replied laying all the blame on his sub- ordinate officers, who, he explained, had insisted on fighting. The Kalon remarked that he, General P'eng, had executed his second-in-command; why had he not also dealt in like manner with his disobedient subordinates. The General then begged for mercy. With the fall of Chamdo the greater part of the old Szechuan Frontier Force {Pien Chun), which had garrisoned the border since the days of Chao Erh-feng, had ceased to exist. Two or three thousand Chinese prisoners of war were marched off to Lhasa, where they were well treated, judging by oriental standards, and whence they were subsequently repatriated to West China as in 19 12 with the assistance of the British Authorities, via India, Burma, and Yunnan. The Chinese troops, still left to defend the frontier against the advancing Tibetans, consisted of a few worn-out and demoralised battalions, the remnants of the Frontier Force, at Batang and other stations on the South Road, and the Frontier Commissioner's own brigade at Tachienlu. No V FURTHER TIBETAN SUCCESSES, 191 8 57 move was made by either of these commands to save General P'eng and his troops in Chamdo. The troops at Batang were in any case incapable of making an offensive movement owing to lack of arms, ammunition and supplies, while General Ch'en Hsia-ling, the Frontier Commissioner, apart from his probable reluctance to assist a dangerous rival who had brought on his own destruction by his own acts, was at that time engaged (after the fashion of the various semi-independ- ent military leaders in Western China) in a private campaign against another Szechuanese general, named Chang Wu-lan, in the Chiench'ang valley south-east of Tachienlu. When, however, having defeated and put to death Chang Wu-lan, and possessed himself of the latter's stores of ammunition, silver and opium, it became apparent that the Tibetan advance would, unless promptly checked, reach Tachienlu itself, General Ch'en Hsia-ling found himself compelled to turn his attention to the frontier, and hurriedly despatched two to three thousand troops along the North Road to Kanze with orders to meet and check the Tibetan advance. In the meantime, however, the Tibetans, assisted by the entire native populations of the newly-recovered territories, had overrun Chamdo, Draya, Markam, Gonjo and De-ge, and were approaching Kanze and Nyarong (Chantui) in one direction, and Batang in another. By the middle of the summer of 19 18 the Tibetans, advancing on Nyarong and Kanze from De-ge, had reached the village of Rongbatsa, a long day's march west of Kanze, which was held by the main body of the Frontier Commis- sioner's troops. Heavy fighting at Rongbatsa ensued, with the result that the Chinese, while holding their entrenched positions in the village, found their communications with their base at Kanze in danger of being cut by the more mobile Tibetan forces, who were also working round into Nyarong, and thus threatening to cut off the entire Chinese army from Tachienlu. At the same time a large Tibetan force was massed on the old Bum La frontier line for an advance on Batang ; while another Tibetan column, marching south from De-ge, had surrounded a battalion of the Batang command thrown forward to meet them at a place called Gaji. Another month or two would possibly have seen several thousand more Chinese prisoners in Tibetan hands, and 58 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION PT. V the Lhasa forces in possession of all the country up to Tachienlu. At this juncture, however, the local Chinese leaders on the frontier invoked the mediation of the British Consular Agent stationed in Western China, whose duty it was to watch events on the border with a view to keeping the peace be- tween the two parties pending a final settlement of the dispute by diplomatic means, and, the Tibetan leaders having been persuaded to stay their advance, the fighting ceased. The truce, however, was only just effected in time ; for the further the Tibetans advanced towards Tachienlu, into regions like Batang, Litang, Kanze, Nyarong, and Chala, the more difficult a settlement became ; since it would have been equally difficult to induce the Tibetans to withdraw from regions they had once occupied as to persuade the Chinese to sur- render their claim to districts which they had long regarded as part of Szechuan province. Peace negotiations followed between the various Chinese and Tibetan frontier authorities, the British representative acting as middleman, and arrangements were eventually con- cluded providing for a general cessation of hostilities, and the mutual withdrawal of the troops of both sides out of touch with one another. The provisional boundary between Szechuan and Tibet resulting from these frontier negotiations chanced to coincide to a considerable extent with the old seventeenth century line of the Manchus, the Chinese re- maining in control of Batang, Litang, Nyarong, Kanze and the country to the east of those States, while the Tibetans retained Chamdo, Draya, Markam and De-ge, and the country further west. By the end of 19 18 the frontier regions had settled down after the conclusion of the truce, the trade routes had been reopened, and peaceful relations generally had once more been resumed between China and Tibet^. ' The journeys described in the following chapters were made in connec- tion with these peace negotiations. <; TRAVELS IN EASTERN TIBET CHAPTER I FROM TACHIENLU TO KANZE BY THE MAIN NORTH ROAD Departure from Tachienlu — The first big pass on the road to Tibet — Taining and Gata Gomba — Tea and tsamba — Nadreheka Dzong and the forests of Sunghnk'ou — Silver pheasants and stags — A caravan from Tibet — Dawu — Reforming the caravan — Catholic Mission at Dawu — Racial types of Eastern Tibet — The Horba — Tibetan houses — Catholic settlement at Shara- tong — Chinese colonists in Tibet and Mongolia — Hor Drango — Resemblance between Lamaism and Roman Catholicism — Collecting subscriptions for the Buddhist Society of Tachienlu — Hor Driwo — Snow mountains of the Yangtze-Yalung divide — Kanze and its monastery — Rumours of Chinese reverses — Difficulties of proceeding west of Kanze. March 6. At Tachienlu^. All our preparations are now complete and we leave for Tibet to-morrow. Our party will be a very mixed one, con- sisting of myself, three Pekinese servants, four Tibetans, a Chinese Mahomedan, a local Chinese-Tibetan half-caste (who acts as interpreter in the various dialects of Eastern Tibet and superintends the caravan), and also three Tibetan retainers of the ex-Rajah of Chala, who are accompanying us part of the way on business of the latter. The caravan consists of twenty odd animals, ponies for ourselves, and mules for the baggage and tents. ^ The little border town of Tachienlu (a Chinese transliteration of the Tibetan name Dartsendo) lies in a narrow cleft in the snow-capped range which in this neighbourhood forms the racial boundary between Chinese and Tibetans. Coming from Szechuan, the traveller will up to this point see scarcely any signs of a Tibetan population; but proceeding west and crossing the big range, he will find himself, though a long way from the political frontier of Tibet Proper, in purely Tibetan country, without any signs of a Chinese population. In Tachienlu itself, which is nowadays a Chinese town, the two races meet and mingle. Kalgan, which lies north of Peking just on the Chinese side of the Mongolian plateau, and Sining, which lies west of Lanchow in Kansu just on the Chinese side of the Kokonor grass-lands, are border cities of the same type. Two main roads lead from Tachienlu into Tibet, the South Road via Litang and Batang, and the North Road via Kanze. The former used to be better known, as it was the route usually taken by Chinese and foreign travellers. At present, however, it has fallen into disuse owing to the disturbances which have prevailed of recent years on that part of the frontier, and the North Road presents for the time being the best way into Tibet. Tachienlu, now the seat of a Chinese magistrate, was formerly the capital of the semi-independent Native State of Chala. 6o TACHIENLU TO KANZE CH. March 12. At Taining. We left Tachienlu on the 7th and marched for three days up the northern branch of the Tachienlu river to a camp near the foot of the pass. There is some beautiful scenery in this valley, which consists of forest, cultivated fields, and park-like grass-lands. Numerous farms and hamlets and good camping grounds are passed, and one can make the stages as long or as short as one pleases. It is all good country for pheasants, both the ordinary Tachienlu variety and the beautiful long-tailed bird^. On the loth of March we crossed the big pass, the Zhara La (in Chinese Haitzu Shan, i.e. Lake Mountain, about 14,000 feet high). On the summit of the pass, which is flat, there is a small lake, now a sheet of ice. Immediately over- looking the pass on the left hand is a peak of ice and snow, probably 20,000 feet or more in height, which is a prominent land-mark and a useful map bearing for a long way round. The descent is at first by easy gradients, past another small lake, and then by a steep drop into a flat well-timbered valley where we camped. Our camping ground here was a delightful spot, a small grassy clearing in the forest of pines, junipers and rhodo- dendrons, by the side of a clear streamlet, lying underneath the glaciers of the great Haitzu Shan, whose northern face presents a huge wall of ice. The only drawback was the fact that the locality was notorious for Chagba^ and horse thieves, as is usually the case in forested country in these parts. During the night some horsemen were heard approaching along the main trail a hundred yards or so away; whether they were brigands or not we never knew . Our watch dog, a fine Tibetan mastiff called Domna (" Black Bear," a most appro- priate name), woke everyone up, and our men proceeded to discharge their rifles into the air, which, as in China, is the recognised and usually effective method of scaring off' robbers . On the next day we marched to Taining, down the wooded valley to a point where the stream bends east, then up a ^ For particulars of these pheasants see pp. 219 and 220. ^ Mounted brigands are called Chagba all over Tibet, from Ladak to Tachienlu. It is very difficult to hunt them down, as, with small bags of tsamha attached to their saddles for food, they are independent of commis- sariat and supplies and can move rapidly from place to place through the most inaccessible mountains. PLATE XIII THE FRONTIER TOWN OF TACHIENLU, LOOKING DOWN THE VALLEY ALONG THE MAIN ROAD LEADING TO CHINA THE FRONTIER TOWN OF TACHIENLU, LOOKING UP THE VALLEY ALONG THE MAIN ROAD LEADING TO TIBET PLATE XIV VALLEY LEADING UP FROM CHINA TO THE SNOW RANGE OVERLOOKING TACHIENLU, THE RACIAL BOUNDARY BETWEEN CHINESE AND TIBETANS VALLEY LEADING DOWN INTO TIBETAN COUNTRY ON THE REVERSE SLOPE OF THE SAME RANGE I AT TAINING: A TIBETAN TEA PARTY 6 1 narrow ravine through more pine forests, and finally over a small pass and down the other side into an open valley. Taining consists of a large monastery and a small village lying in the middle of a treeless valley plain, probably an old lake basin. In winter the scene much resembles the western hills at Peking, a bleak, dusty and windswept landscape. The monastery (Gelugba sect, three or four hundred lamas) is called Gata Gomba. In the central temple are statues of two former Dalai Lamas. One was a native of the locality; the other was deposed by the Chinese and interned in this neigh- bourhood. When we called, the lamas were making ready for some religious ceremony by preparing intricate patterns of coloured sand, the usual wheels and other devices, on the floor of the temple, the sand being poured out of hollow tubes in a very ingenious way. Taining .used to be a gold-washing centre, but the neigh- bourhood is now worked out. The abandoned workings, in the shape of pits in the gravelly soil by the streams, are every- where to be seen. The weather has so far been very fine, hot sun and cloud- less skies during the day, and mild frosts at night. But we are warned that the snowy season is approaching, and that we must expect a bad time on the big passes during the next month or two. In view of the long distances ahead we are travelling very easily. Starting every morning at day-break we march ten or twelve miles and then camp, usually before midday, so as to give the animals the whole of the afternoon to graze. This is the usual method of travel followed by the Tibetans. As I write these lines the Tibetan members of our party are preparing their evening meal in full view. First a fire is quickly lit between three stones with the help of the Tibetan bellows, an indispensable adjunct to travel in these parts. It consists simply of a metal pipe attached to a skin bag. Every Tibetan can operate this contrivance, which is useless to a Chinese or European unless he has discovered the peculiar knack of working it. A handful of pressed leaves and twigs is broken off the brick of Yachou tea and boiled in a copper bowl over the fire, and the tea is then poured through a strainer into a churn, a pat of butter (usually rancid) and some salt are added, and the whole churned up until it 62 TACHIENLU TO KANZE CH. resembles cafe au lait in appearance. This concoction in no way resembles the European idea of tea ; but it is not so bad if one is cold, hungry and thirsty, and regards it as a kind of gruel. The Tibetans at any rate cannot do without it, perhaps because they so seldom eat vegetables. Indian tea, which does not stew well, is not suitable for making a brew of this kind. When the tea is ready it is mixed by means of one's fingers with tsamba (the flour of roasted barley) in a small bowl which every Tibetan carries in the folds of his gown, and is eaten in the form of damp lumps of dough. Chinese who are unaccustomed to it say ch'ih pu pao ("impossible to satisfy one's hunger on it"), and that would probably be the verdict of most foreigners too. March 17. At Dawu. Leaving the Taining valley, the road runs north-west across a series of grassy ridges and ravines on the side of the range which serves as the watershed between the Yalung and the Tung rivers. On the left-hand side is a deep valley, beyond which rise the grassy mountains of Nyarong. Twelve miles out the trail descends into this valley near the hamlet of Jyesodrong (Chinese Chiehsechung), where the main road via the Ji La (Chinese Cheto Shan) is joined. Following up the wooded valley, the junction of two streams is reached, where an old Tibetan fort, called Nadreheka Dzong by the Tibetans, and Kuan Chai^ by the Chinese, lies on a grassy bluff between the two ravines. It was built by the Rajah of Chala at the time of the war between Chala and Nyarong in the early nineties, and is now used by the Chinese as a rest-house. From here the trail ascends very gradually over a flat plateau of grass-land for a few miles to reach the pass (eleva- tion 13,500 feet), the top of which is so flat as to be imper- ceptible from this side. One only realises that the summit has been reached when the trail drops abruptly over the edge of the plateau into a wooded gorge. In the forest below the pass there is a camping ground and a ruined rest-house, lying at the confluence of two streams, called Mejesumdo^. De- ^ The words Dzong in Tibetan, and Kuan Chat in Chinese, mean an ofBcial fort. ^ The Tibetan name termination do means the confluence of two streams, as in Dartsendo, Jyekundo, Chamdo, and hundreds of other place names in Kam: a variation is sumdo, i.e. "three stream confluence." I THROUGH SUNGLINK'OU TO DAWU 63 scending through the forest, one finally emerges on to an open valley with farms and cultivated fields called Chyapa. The wooded gorge leading down from the pass is called by the Chinese Sunglink'ou ("Pine Forest Valley"), and the neighbourhood is greatly feared as a haunt of Chagba, who ambush travellers from amongst the pine trees. The passage of time seems to make but little difference to con- ditions in Eastern Tibet. In 1882, the Indian explorer^, A. K., wrote, with reference to this gorge : " The route passes through heavy forest, and the robbers from the Nyarong district generally plunder travellers in the neighbourhood of the pass." Between Nadreheka Dzong and the pass a trail leads off to the left over another pass to a valley called Muru, an out- lying district of Chala on the borders of Nyarong, in which the Chala Chief took refuge in a small monastery called Hoti Gomba, during the troubles of 191 2, when the Chinese burnt his palace in Tachienlu and executed his brother. The Chinese either did not know where he was, or did not dare pursue him and his bodyguard of faithful retainers into such a difficult country of narrow forested valleys and high snow mountains. Later on he made his peace with the Chinese, and has since rendered them much assistance from time to time when they are in difficulties with the natives in their administration of the country. Muru appears to lie in or near the valley of the She Chu, probably near the latter's junction with the Yalung, and can also be reached by following the valley down from Dawu. Although this main road is well known, the country on either side is all entirely unexplored. Sitting on the flat roof of the headman's house at Chyapa in the evening I watched a large flock of big silver pheasants^ emerge one by one out of the forest on to the ploughed fields. They are always to be seen in the morning and evening feeding in the cornfields on the edges of the forests. But immediately anyone approaches them they run up hill amongst the pine trees. The only way to shoot them is to descend on them from above. ^ The Indian explorer Krishna was sent out by the Government of India in 1879, and returned in 1882, having performed a journey through the length and breadth of Tibet which will always remain one of the greatest feats of exploration ever accomplished. ^ See p. 230. 64 TACHIENLU TO KANZE CH. These forests round Chyapa harbour also a fine stag, a sort of sambar^, with heavy three-tined antlers. The Tibetans say they are easily shot with the help of dogs. From Chyapa to Dawu is a march of twelve miles down the valley by a good road. On the way we met one of the large Tibetan caravans, consisting of hundreds of mules, carrying wool, hides, deers' horns, musk, medicines and other Tibetan produce, to Tachienlu. At this time of the year we ought to be meeting these caravans daily, and their absence is a sign of the disturbed conditions prevailing in the interior owing to the resumption of hostilities between Szechuan and Tibet. Dawu (in Chinese Taofu Hsien) is the seat of a Chinese magistrate established here by Chao Erh-feng. It lies in a small cultivated plain sloping down towards the river at an elevation of about 10,000 feet. The soil of the valley appears to be a kind of loess, of much the same nature as the famous yellow earth of Shensi and Kansu. Earthquakes are a special feature of the place. The river is called the She Chu. It takes its rise somewhere on the unknown grass country of the north, and here turns west through a gorge in the mountains to join the Yalung at some spot unknown. In view of the long distances ahead we are resting here a couple of days to refresh and reform the caravan. Three of our mules have to be replaced by new purchases; in each case they were too young, so that their backs were not hardened to the load. One learns by experience, and we already know considerably more about Tibetan mules than when we started. They should be of the thickset, short- legged type, and preferably too old than too young; incipient sores on the back, under the girth, and under the root of the tail must be constantly watched for. If a swelling appears on the back of a young animal, the only cure is to let him run free for two or three weeks; otherwise the swelling bursts, and a large festering sore results which will take months to cure. Yesterday we shot some duck on the river, and also a goose. The Tibetans of Dawu belonged formerly to the Chiefs of Chala, Drango, Ge-she, and Mazur. The boundaries of these ^ See p. 217. PLATE XV THE FIRST OF MANY CAMPS ¥ i 1, smJm ^:t^ '■Sk>^i^ l^^ A >^-^ TIBETANS OF KAM MAKING TEA PLATE XVI IN THE SHE CHU VALLEY, NEAR DRANGO »r>j5. '■'^':-bf-' -J^'' t V-, DRIWO, CASTLE OF THE NATIVE CHIEF I AT DAWU ' 65 old States were most intricate, the jurisdictions of the Chiefs being over families rather than fixed territories. The repre- sentative of the family of the former Mazur Rajah lives in a village close by. Dawu consists of a large Gelugba monastery with many hundreds of monks and a Tibetan village. We called on the monastery to-day, and saw some fine but odoriferous base reliefs of butter made in honour of the New Year festivities. There is a Catholic Mission at Dawu, one of the stations of the Mission du Tibet, and for a short time the Protestant China Inland Mission had a branch here too. The Catholics established themselves here in Chao Erh-feng's time, shortly before the revolutionary troubles of 191 1. In 191 2, at the time of the widespread risings against the Chinese in Eastern Tibet, there was serious trouble at Dawu, and the Catholics, who on this frontier are compelled by force of circumstances to identify themselves with the Chinese, though their Mission is supposed to be a purely Tibetan one, suffered very severely. The language spoken at Dawu (perhaps akin to that used in the Gyarong States further east) is a very corrupt form of Tibetan, if indeed it is Tibetan dialect at all. There is a curious mixture of racial types amongst the Tibetans of these borderlands, including the flat-faced Mongolian type, the tall thin-faced Aryan type, and a curly-haired and almost negroid type. The man I bought two mules off here had a strong beard, and a Turkish cast of countenance. In this connection it may be mentioned that the word Hor (referring to the Five Hor States, Horsekanga in Tibetan, which lie in this neigh- bourhood a little further north) means, according to Sarat Chandra Dass' Tibetan Dictionary, a Dzungarian Mongol of Turkestan. It is possible that these Horba} represent the remnants of the hordes of Dzungarian Mongols who over- ran Tibet and occupied Lhasa some two centuries ago. March 22. At Drango. On the 1 8th we marched up the She Chu valley, partly through gorges and partly through cultivated fields, to some farms called Tromne in Tibetan, and Tachai in Chinese. A few miles out a trail branches off north to the Erhkai gold ' The tennination ba or v>a, means native of, e.g. Boba, a Tibetan, Horba, a man of Hor, Nyarongwa, a man of Nyarong. 66 * TACHIENLU TO KANZE CH. mines, which, together with some in Nyarong (Chantui), are said to be the most productive on the frontier at the present time ; further on another path leads up a branch valley north- wards to Yuko, the seat of a small Chief deposed by Chao Erh-feng. There are no inns in Eastern Tibet, and the traveller must either camp or quarter himself on the villagers. The houses of the wealthier inhabitants are very good, and offer much better accommodation than the homes of similar villagers in China. They are all of the same style of architecture, square built, with mud or stone exteriors, and are usually lined with clean wood inside. On the ground floor are the stables and cowsheds; on the first floor the living rooms; and on the second floor the granaries. The doors and windows, the latter generally of solid wood, slide horizontally in and out; and communication from floor to floor is usually by means of a notched pole. Tibetan houses have nothing in common with Chinese buildings ; and in this, as in so many other respects, one passes from one civilisation to the other with startling abruptness on this border^. On March 19, a cold raw day with faUing snow, we con- tinued up the She Chu valley to a hamlet called Gara (in Chinese the locality is known as Jentakou). About half-way a tributary stream is crossed by a bridge, called by the Chinese Chiangchiin Ch'iao (" The General's Bridge"), pre- sumably in commemoration of some incident in the old Manchu campaigns. Here the river bends west, and the road crosses a col 1000 feet high to rejoin the valley at Gara. There is a skin coracle^ at Gara, and a trail leading west up a gorge and across the mountains to Nyarong (Chantui in Chinese) in the valley of the Yalung river, about two and a half marches distant. From Gara we marched up the open valley to Sharatong (Chinese Chiachilung). The Catholics {Mission du Tibet) ^ In the tribal country immediately west of the lowlands of Szechuan, the inhabitants, who are not of pure Tibetan race, construct peculiar towers, always of the same type, in their villages, apparently for purposes of defence. These towers, which are characteristic of die Gyarong States (lying just west of the Chengtuplain in Szechuan) are never seen in real Tibetan countryfurtherwest. ^ The skin coracle is in universal use on the rivers of Eastern Tibet, where boats are never seen. The Tibetan coracle is usually circular and is made of yak hides stretched over a frame-work of wood. It will hold three to five men in the water and is at the same time so light that it can be carried on a man's back. See Plates Nos. XXXVIII, XL VI and LVII. I CHINESE SETTLERS 67 have an establishment here, their most advanced post on the North Road, but, as elsewhere on this border, their work lies mainly amongst the Chinese. They have here founded an agricultural colony where Chinese settlers are engaged in ploughing up the grass prairie of the She Chu valley. The general appearance of the place reminds one of the agricultural colonies on the Mongolian grass-lands north of Chihli and Shansi provinces in China. All previous attempts, made by Chinese officials, to settle Chinese on the land in Eastern Tibet have failed, and the apparent success of this Catholic colony is therefore of interest. The explanation appears to be that the settlers are for the most part semi-tribesmen from the border country, and not pure Chinese. Generally speaking, the Chinese, and especially the Szechuanese, seem incapable of settling on the bleak uplands of Kam, perhaps because they cannot stand the climate. The position on this frontier is in this respect quite different to that on the north China-Mongolian border, where the sturdy natives of Chihli, Shansi, and Shantung are constantly pushing the Mongol further back and ploughing up his pastures^. For one thing the Mongol lets himself be pushed back, whereas the Tibetan does not. Then again the Tibetan is just as much an agri- culturalist where elevation permits as he is herdsman ; where- as the Mongol lives exclusively by his flocks and herds and never takes to agriculture. An interesting point in connection with the expansion of Chinese into Tibet and Mongolia is the fact that whereas in Mongolia the second generation of the Chinese immigrant's half-caste family is usually to all intents and purposes Chinese, in Tibet the half-caste children of Chinese are to all intents and purposes Tibetan. The North Road from Tachienlu to Jyekundo fringes most of the way the grass-lands of the independent nomads of the north, Yeh Fan (Wild Barbarians) as the Chinese call them. Sharatong suffers from the raids of a tribe of these nomads called Seta, over whom neither the Chinese officials nor any- one else has any control . Chao Erh-feng was about to take these particular nomads in hand when he left the frontier in 191 1. ^ I am inclined to think that many parts of Eastern Tibet are practically- full up, that is to say, that most of the land which can be cultivated has already been ploughed up by the Tibetans, while the grass-lands too high for cultivation already support as many flocks and herds as they are capable of feeding. Many parts of Mongolia, on the other hand, are far more empty. 68 TACHIENLU TO KANZE CH. Round about Sharatong we shot a good many duck, in- cluding some of the large orange-coloured sheldrake (yellow body with white and green-black wings and tail) ; these are quite edible if well stewed. On March 21 we marched the remaining ten miles to Drango. The road follows up the valley for a mile or two, crosses the river by a cantilever bridge built by the Catholics, and then ascends the side of a mountain spur past a Tibetan village, crosses the ridge, and descends gently across grassy downs to the village and monastery of Drango. The Tibetan name for this place is Hor Drango, corrupted by the Chinese into Huoerh Changku (a Tibetan dr or tr always becomes ch in Chinese). The new Chinese name for it is Luho Hsien, from the name of the old military colony Luho Tun, founded at the time of Viceroy Lu Ch'uan-lin's forward move in Eastern Tibet in 1894, at which period the family of the native Rajah became extinct. The place consists of a Tibetan village clustering round the old castle of the former Chief (now the Chinese magistrate's yamen), and is built, at an elevation of about 11,300 feet, on the hillside a few hundred feet above the river. The great Drango mon- astery lies higher up. Below is a small cultivated plain formed by the junction of a stream called the Ni Chu (Chinese Nipa Kou), with the She Chu; the former flows down from the Seta country in the north. All around are grassy mountains with here and there a patch of pine forest. There is said to be much gold up the Ni Chu^ valley, but the neighbourhood is considered dangerous owing to the proximity of the Seta nomads. To-day we called on the monastery, a large Gelugba estab- lishment with more than a thousand lamas. The main court- yard was crowded with wild-looking nomads from the north, who had come in for some special occasion. In the central temple a service was going on before a congregation of some ^ This river gave rise to a curious mixing up of names by that very reliable observer Mr W. W. Rockhill {Land of the Lamas) : he writes : " The Nya Chu flows out of the mountains to the North of Chango, a broad river, quite as wide and swifter than the Za Chu above Kanze." In a footnote he wonders why Nyarong, the valley of the Nya, is the name given to the valley of the Yalung, or Za Chu. The explanation is that the Yalung is called Tza Chu at and above Kanze, and Nya Chu in Nyarong ; the Driwo Drango river is the She Chu, joined at Drango by the Ni Chu. I DRANGO AND ITS MONASTERY 69 hundreds of lamas presided over by a Ge-she^ sitting up in a pulpit. The intoning of the monks, and the general appear- ance of the dim interior of the vast hall lit up by rows of little butter lamps, combined to make up an impressive scene, wonderfully reminiscent of a Catholic service. It is a well- known fact that there are many remarkable points of similarity between the ritual of Tibetan Buddhism and Roman Catholi- cism, concerning which there has been much speculation. I have been re-reading The Cloister and the Hearth, and have been much struck by the resemblance between the European monasteries, monks, and monastic life generally of those days as depicted therein, and the lamas and lamaseries of Tibet as I see them to-day. Both in Europe in those days and in Tibet at present the monasteries are the centres of wealth, power and learning, and all educated laymen, including my admirable half-caste Tibetan secretary, are monastery bred^. The two lamas attached to the suite of the Chala Chief, who have accompanied us so far, and have done us many small services, leave us here. They are engaged in the peculiar and somewhat delicate mission of collecting a sum of one rupee per head from each monk in every monastery on behalf of the Fo Chiao Hut (Buddhist Society) recently started by the Chinese Frontier Authorities of Tachienlu. The scheme is but one of the many shifts invented by the Chinese officials for raising money from the Tibetans, and can naturally only be enforced on the monasteries lying on and near the main road which are well under the Chinese thumb. The Chinese Authorities at Tachienlu are probably not really greatly con- cerned with Tibetan Buddhism. The ex-Rajah of Chala and a noted monk, called the Draga Lama, have, owing to their prestige and influence amongst the local Tibetans, been honoured by the Chinese officials with the appointments of President and Vice-President respectively of the Buddhist Society. The Draga Lama has to be held a prisoner at Tachienlu to keep him at his post. He is well known through- ^ A ge-she is a monk who has graduated from the clerical colleges of Lhasa with the highest degree, the various ranks of monastic graduates being from ■ the lowest up, draba, genyen, getsiil, gelong, ge-she; only the higher graduates are really lamas. ^ Perhaps the early Buddhists of Tibet came into contact with Armenian or Nestorian Christians. 70 TACHIENLU TO KANZE CH. out Tibet as a monk of profound learning, and until a year or two ago used to live in a small nunnery near Drango^. March 24. At Driwo. From Drango we descended gradually to the She Chu, leaving a trail to Nyarong up a side ravine on the left-hand side (followed by the French traveller Bacot), and then marched up the open valley to a group of farms called Dangka lying on a spur some hundreds of feet above the river. After spending the night here, we crossed the top of the spur, and, rejoining the She Chu, marched up its valley for the rest of the way to Driwo. Two villages are passed, Chalang and Shochiling (Chinese Sungchiling) ; near the latter gold washing was being carried on in the gravelly cliffs of the river below the level of the valley floor. On the way we shot some silver pheasants, by making a long detour and getting above them and between them and the depths of the pine forest, on the edges of which they are always found. These remarkable birds are just like white turkeys ; nature evidently intended them to simulate patches of snow on the hillside, which they exactly resemble in the distance. Driwo, in Chinese Chuwo, consists of a Tibetan hamlet clustering round the castle of the former Rajah of Hor Driwo, one of the Five Hor States. The buildings lie on the hillside beyond the river, which is here spanned by a good cantilever bridge. The ex-Chief still resides in his castle, part of which, however, is used by the Chinese as a rest-house. There are no signs of spring yet, and not a vestige of green is to be seen on the mountains. Eastern Tibet, like North China, is a country of two seasons, winter and summer. March 28, At Kanze. Near Driwo the road leaves the She Chu, which comes down from the unknown grass country in the north (and more immediately from a district called Tongkor, where there is an important monastery), and turns up a gully to the west. Passing a village, where the drying of cowpats {chowa, the universal fuel where wood is unobtainable) by ^ Returning along this road a year later we found Chinese proclamations posted calling upon the Tibetans to arrest the Draga Lama, who had escaped from Tachienlu and had fled to the country of the Golok nomads in the north, where he was safe from Chinese interference. PLATE XVII JORO GOMBA, WITH PARTLY FROZEN LAKE BELOW i