In ancient times Qiang people lived here, and in the
Han dynasty a kingdom called
Bainang ('White Wolf') became established. It was an integral part of Tibet during the
Tang dynasty. China made some inroads during the
Yuan and
Ming dynasties, and
Mushi, the tribal chief of the Lijang region of Yunnan, was supported by the Ming government in his control of the region between 1568 and 1639. In 1642,
Gushri Khan, the leader of the
Qoshot Mongols was invited by the leaders of Tibet to aid them and he placed this whole region under his control The town was completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1868 or 1869. Mr. Hosie, on the other hand, dates this earthquake to 1871. The region of Batang remained under Tibetan control until 1910. Mr. Hosie, who briefly visited the region in 1904 mentions that 400 Tibetan troops were stationed to the south of the town to protect the frontier. See also the account by the French
Abbé Huc from the middle of the 19th century. The
Qing government sent Feng Quan, an imperial official, to Kham to begin reasserting Qing control soon after the British invasion of Tibet under
Francis Younghusband in 1904, which alarmed the
Manchu Qing rulers in China, but the locals revolted and killed him. The British invasion was one of the triggers for a Qing effort to retake Kham in 1904, when Feng Quan was sent into Tibet. His policies of land reform and reductions to the numbers of monks led to the
Batang uprising which started at a Batang monastery. Christian missionaries had already withdrawn from Batang in 1887. 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: The situation was soon to change, however, as, after the fall of the Qing dynasty in October 1911, Zhao's soldiers mutinied and beheaded him. In February 1910, Qing General Zhong Ying invaded Lhasa in order to directly control Tibet for the first time in Tibet's history. This invasion led to the
13th Dalai Lama's escape to India, then his return to proclaim Tibet's total independence from China in 1913, and the end of their "priest-patron" relationship. The American medical missionary, Dr
Albert Shelton, lived nearly 20 years in Batang but was killed, apparently by a bandit, in 1922 on a high mountain pass near Batang at the age of 46. In 1932 the
Sichuan warlord,
Liu Wenhui (; 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. The bloodless occupation of
Chamdo, the major city of the old Tibetan province of
Kham, by the 40,000 man army of the
People's Republic of China on October 19, 1950, when the whole region fell under Chinese control, served as an important precursor to the eventual defeat of the Lhasa government. Chamdo's governor at the time of the occupation was
Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, who later became an official in the government of the People's Republic of China. The previous governor of Chamdo was
Lhalu Tsewang Dorje. ==Administrative divisions==