The Batang uprising () was an uprising by the Khampas of

Kham Kham (; ) is one of the three traditional Tibet, Tibetan regions, the others being Domey also known as Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The official name of this Tibetan region/province is Dotoe (). The original residents of ...

against the assertion of authority by

Qing China The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty ...

. The uprising began as an opposition to the new policies of land reclamation and limits of the monastic community. The policies were implemented by Feng Quan, Qing's assistant amban to Tibet, stationed in

Chamdo Chamdo, officially Qamdo () and also known in Chinese as Changdu (), is a prefecture-level city in the eastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Its seat is the town of Chengguan in Karuo District. Chamdo is Tibet's third largest c ...

(in western Kham). Feng Quan was murdered in the uprising and four French

Catholic missionaries Missionary work of the Catholic Church has often been undertaken outside the geographically defined parishes and dioceses by religious orders who have people and material resources to spare, and some of which specialized in missions. Eventually, p ...

, perceived as Qing allies, fell victim to mobs led by lamas. One was killed immediately (his remains were never found), another was tortured for twelve days before he was executed, while the other two were pursued for three months and

beheaded Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and all vertebrate animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood by way of severing through the jugular vein and common c ...

upon capture. Ten Catholic churches were burned down and a mass of locals that had converted to Catholicism were killed. Under French pressure to protect missionaries and domestic pressure to stop the threat of the British invading from the west frontier, Feng Quan's successor Zhao Erfeng led a bloody punitive campaign to quell the uprising in 1906. Zhao brought political, economic, and cultural reform to Batang and the rest of Kham. Direct rule of Batang under Qing was established by Zhao. With the 1911 Chinese Revolution, Zhao was murdered in turn and the ''status quo ante'' was reestablished.

Background

Power structure of Batang

Batang was at the frontier of Qing China where authority was shared between local Kham chiefs and

Tibetan Buddhist Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Darjeeling, Sikkim, and Arunachal Prades ...

monasteries. The

lama Lama () is a title bestowed to a realized practitioner of the Dharma in Tibetan Buddhism. Not all monks are lamas, while nuns and female practitioners can be recognized and entitled as lamas. The Tibetan word ''la-ma'' means "high mother", ...

s in the monastery were under the suzerainty of Lhasa, Tibet. While Kham chiefs and Tibet were under Qing rule, Qing authority over Tibet was weak.

The role of the British and the Qing

The

British expedition to Tibet The British expedition to Tibet, also known as the Younghusband expedition, began in December 1903 and lasted until September 1904. The expedition was effectively a temporary invasion by British Indian Army, British Indian Armed Forces under th ...

in 1904 had repercussions in the frontier region between Tibet and China (called "March country" or "Marches"). A Qing intervention within Tibet's frontier east of the Dri River (upper

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

river, also called Jinsha) was triggered in an effort to open up Tibet's frontier roads to Qing forces.

The role of the French missionaries

Tibetan Khampas in the frontier marches are known for their hostility towards outsiders, and for their strong devotion to their monasteries from specific schools of Tibetan Buddhism, and to the Dalai Lamas.Jann Ronis
"An Overview of Kham (Eastern Tibet) Historical Polities"
The University of Virginia Decades before the Batang uprising, around 1852 the French Catholic Marist missions from

Paris Foreign Missions Society The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (, , MEP) is a Catholic Missionary order, missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular clergy, secular priests and Laity, lay persons dedicated to missionary wo ...

, operating under Qing China's protectorate and ushered into Kham's frontier region, were " iven back from the frontier and forced to withdraw to the Western confines of the Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan," where they "vegetated for a century within small Christian communities," until expelled by Communist China in 1952. From 1873 to 1905, there were five attacks on churches (this Batang uprising being the fifth), known as " missionary cases" in historiography. Upon the complaint of the French consul, the Foreign Ministry of Qing settled the cases and gradually got involved into Batang politics.

Feng Quan's reforms

Qing China sent Feng Quan as the new Qing's assistant amban, stationing him in

. Qing emperor instructed him to develop, assimilate, and bring the Kham regions under strong Qing central control. Feng Quan began initiating land reforms among traditional autonomous polities of kingdoms governed by warrior chiefs, and initiating a reduction to the number of monks, whose monasteries were among the autonomous polities. Feng Quan recruited Chinese soldiers and

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

farmers to convert idle land in Batang to

cultivable land Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous with bot ...

in the hope of attracting settlers. The Chiefdoms of Batang and Litang and the Tibetan monasteries rose up. 26–27 March 1905 marked the first bloodshed when a handful of Sichuan farmers were killed at the farm. On 6 April, Feng Quan was murdered, which the locals justified by claiming he had "promoted French military uniforms and military marches and therefore could not have been a genuine commissioner sent by the Qing".

Execution of missionaries

Four French missionaries were killed by the locals, including Henri Mussot (牧守仁) on March 30 or 31, Jean-André Soulié (蘇烈) on April 14, and Pierre-Marie Bourdonnec (蒲德元) as well as Jules Dubernard (余伯南) on July 23. Among them, Soulié was tortured for twelve days before execution. Ten Catholic churches were burned down and a mass of locals converted to Catholicism were killed. A compensation was reached between the Sichuan government's foreign affairs office (四川洋務局), the French consul in Chengdu and Bishop Pierre-Philippe Giraudeau (倪德隆). Sichuan compensated 121,500 silver

tael Tael ( ),"Tael" entry
at the

silver sycees, which would be paid from the tea tax revenues of

Dartsedo Kangding ( zh, c=康定), also known as Dartsedo (), is a county-level city and the seat of Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province of Southwest China. Kangding is on the bank of the Dadu River and has been considered the histor ...

town, Sichuan.

Punitive campaign

The Qing Chinese responded to the Batang uprising with a punitive campaign. The Sichuan Army under the command of Chinese General Ma Wei-ch'i was said to launch the first retaliations against the Khampas - Chiefs, Lamas and lay people - at Batang, and against the monastery. The punitive invasion by Han Bannerman General Zhao Erfeng in Kham is well documented, including the German origin of the army's rifles, and he was later called "the Butcher of Kham" for his work. Monks and Khampas were subjected to execution, beheadings, and dousings with fire. The monks at Batang reportedly withstood the invasion until 1906, but afterwards they and the monks from Chatring monastery were all killed, and their monasteries were destroyed. The Prince of Batang was also beheaded for taking part in the uprising. Monasteries continued to be targeted by Zhao's forces, as did all autonomous polities in Kham as the raids spread and Zhao appointed Qing Chinese officials to positions of authority. Zhao's retaliatory invasion in Kham lasted through Qing China's larger invasion of Lhasa in 1910, and on to 1911, when Zhao was killed. Zhao's death was reportedly undertaken by his own men, during the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the rise of Chinese Republican revolutionary forces, around the time of the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC). The revolution was the culmination of a decade ...

. A former Khampa Chushi Gangdruk Tibetan guerrilla named Aten gave his account of the war, where he states the war started in 1903 when the Manchu Qing sent Zhao Erfeng to seize control of Tibetan areas, to control Batang and Litang. Aten recounted Zhao's destruction of Batang, and said Zhao used holy texts as shoeliners for his troops and that " ny Tibetans were executed by decapitation or by another typically Chinese method, mass burial while still alive." Aten also called the Manchus "alien conquerors". Beijing author Tsering Woeser has defended the Tibetans in the Batang uprising, saying that Zhao Erfeng invaded the region to "brutally stop Tibetan protests", while listing the atrocities committed by Zhao. The Qing military invasion at Batang attempted to change the power structure in the region fundamentally. The historical system of autonomous polities was also attacked, and the region was briefly under Chinese military occupation, until 1911.

Notes

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