Batang was visited in the 1840s by the French
Lazarite priests
Évariste Régis Huc and
Joseph Gabet and their
Monguor convert Samdadchiemb, who were attempting to reopen the Catholic mission in
Lhasa. They described it as a large, very populous and wealthy town. Batang marked the farthest point of Tibetan rule on the route to
Chengdu: :"The temporal power of the Supreme Lama ends at Bathang. The frontiers of Tibet, properly so called, were fixed in 1726, on the termination of a great war between the Tibetans and the Chinese. Two days before you arrive at Bathang, you pass, on the top of a mountain, a stone monument, showing what was arranged at that time between the government of Lha-Ssa and that of Peking, on the subject of boundaries. At present, the countries situate east of Bathang are independent of Lha-Ssa in temporal matters. They are governed by a sort of feudal princes, originally appointed by the Chinese Emperor, and still acknowledging his paramount authority. These petty sovereigns are bound to go every third year to Peking, to offer their tribute to the Emperor." Mr. A. Hosie, the British Consul at Chengdu, made a quick trip from Batang to the Tibetan border escorted by Chinese authorities, in September 1904, on the promise that he would not even put a foot over the border into Tibet. He describes the border marker as being a 3½ day journey (about ) to the south and slightly west of Batang. It was a "well-worn, four-sided pillar of sandstone, about 3 feet in height, each side measuring some 18 inches. There was no inscription on the stone, and when unthinkingly I made a movement to look for writing on the Tibetan side, the Chinese officials at once stepped in front of me and barred the road to Tibet. Looking into Tibet the eye met a sea of grass-covered treeless hills. and from the valley at the foot of the Ningching Shan [which separate the valleys of the upper
Mekong from that of the
Jinsha or upper Yangtze] rose smoke from the camp fires of 400 Tibetan troops charged with the protection of the frontier. There was no time to make any prolonged inspection, for the Chinese authorities were anxious for me to leave as soon as possible." The town was completely destroyed by an
earthquake in 1868 or 1869. The
Qing government sent an imperial official to the region to begin reasserting Qing control soon after the invasion of Tibet under
Francis Younghusband in 1904, which alarmed the
Manchu Qing rulers in China, but the locals revolted and killed him. The Qing government in
Beijing then appointed
Zhao Erfeng, the Governor of
Xining, "Army Commander of Tibet" to reintegrate Tibet into China. He was sent in 1905 (though other sources say this occurred in 1908) on a
punitive expedition and began destroying many monasteries in
Kham and
Amdo and implementing a process of sinification of the region: :"He abolished the powers of the Tibetan local leaders and appointed Chinese magistrates in their places. He introduced new laws that limited the number of lamas and deprived monasteries of their temporal power and inaugurated schemes for having the land cultivated by Chinese immigrants. :Zhao's methods in eastern Tibet uncannily prefigured the Communist policies nearly half a century later. They were aimed at the extermination of the Tibetan clergy, the assimilation of territory and repopulation of the Tibetan plateaus with poor peasants from
Sichuan. Like the later Chinese conquerors, Zhao's men looted and destroyed Tibetan monasteries, melted down religious images and tore up sacred texts to use to line the soles of their boots and, as the Communists were also to do later, Zhao Erfeng worked out a comprehensive scheme for the redevelopment of Tibet that covered military training reclamation work, secular education, trade and administration." Mesny reports in May 1905 that there was a Chinese Dongzhi (
Wade–Giles: Tung-chih) 'Prefect', and a Dusi (W-G: Tu-szü) or 'Major' with a local rank of Dongling (W-G: Tung-ling) = 'Commandant' or 'Brigadier General', stationed in the town with authority over the two local chiefs, who were referred to as Yingguan (W–G: Ying-kuan) or 'Regimental Officers'. The main chief had at least 200 mounted and 600-foot soldiers. The British explorer
George Pereira died in the town on 20 October 1923. In 1932 the
Sichuan warlord,
Liu Wenhui (Chinese: 刘文辉; 1895–1976), drove the Tibetans back to the
Yangtze River and even threatened to attack
Chamdo. At Batang, Kesang Tsering, a half-Tibetan, claiming to be acting on behalf of
Chiang Kai-shek (
Pinyin: Jiang Jieshi. 1887–1975), managed to evict Liu Wen-hui's governor from the town with the support of some local tribes. A powerful "freebooter Lama" from the region gained support from the Tibetan forces and occupied Batang, but later had to withdraw. By August 1932 the Tibetan government had lost so much territory the Dalai Lama telegraphed the Government of India asking for diplomatic assistance. By early 1934 a ceasefire and armistices had been arranged with Liu Wen-hui and Governor Ma of Chinghai in which the Tibetans gave up all territory to the east of the Yangtze (including the region of Batang) but kept control of the
Yaklo (
Yenchin) district which had previously been a Chinese enclave to the west of the river. ==Notable persons from Batang==