Chapter 472: Tibet's Calamity

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Shazha Wangchukjepo then spoke about the secret fighting between Tibetan factions, and then went on to talk about the harsher problems that Tibet is currently suffering. The Gurkha (Nepalese) Army, which has always had great ambitions for Tibet, has been harassing Tibet for many years, and border disputes have emerged one after another. At the beginning of this year, these evil wolves took advantage of the fact that the Manchurians were exhausted to deal with the Taiping Heavenly ** team and were unable to take care of it, and invaded Tibet in two ways, attacking and occupying Nyalam and Tsongkha, and occupying Nyalam again. It was only because the Gurkha people were forced to ask for peace talks because they saw that we had spared no blood to send more monks and lay officers and soldiers from the former Tibet to the military camp in the Tsedian military camp at Tongla Mountain (southwest of today's Dingri), and that the weather was extremely cold, which was unfavorable to them. Who knows, that bastard's Manchurian assistant in Tibet, Hethe, actually signed a so-called peace treaty with the damned Gurkhas, despite our repeated objections.

According to these terms, Tibet is not only required to pay 10,000 rupees a year to the Gurkhas, but also to prohibit the Gurkha merchants who freely enter and leave Tibet from collecting commercial taxes, road taxes, and other taxes. What is even more hateful is that the treaty includes the need to allow the Gurkha side to send high-ranking officials to Lhasa, and the Gurkha can open shops in Lhasa and sell and buy all kinds of goods at will. However, if there is a dispute between the Gurkha merchants or the Hui people in Kathmandu in Lhasa, the Tibetan officials will not be allowed to interrogate them, and so on, which insults the national prestige and the rights of the Tibetan Kashag government.

Even so, the Gurkhas ostensibly said that they would withdraw their garrisons in Brown, Rongha, and Jilong, Tsongkha, Nyalam, Darjieling, and Latse in accordance with the terms. However, they pay lip service to one thing, and secretly do another.

Since we were resolutely unwilling to be wrapped up in the English and succumb to their demagoguery and engage in the so-called "Great Tibetan Kingdom", the English dogs jumped over the wall in a hurry. At their instigation and instigation, the greedy Gurkha people not only did not withdraw their troops, but instead raised their troops again a few months ago, echoing those Tibetan traitors in Tibetan areas, wantonly encroaching on our Tibetan land and killing our Tibetan descendants.

At the same time, the Samba people (Dougla tribe), who had always obeyed the Yingyi and were once beaten by our Tibetan army in the battle of "Duoyu" because of their invasion of our Ladakh region, tore up the peace agreement between the two sides 14 years ago, and colluded with their puppet Kashmir Maharaja and the Sikh kingdom to enter Ladakh again, and the king of Ladakh was brutally murdered by him......

“…… Ladies and gentlemen, we are no longer in a position to stop the despicable and shameless acts of these hungry tigers and wolves, and if the purpose of the Yingyi is really successful, it will be a catastrophe for Tibet. ”

Writing this, some people may feel disapproving, and will laugh at the author, which is simply impossible. Would the living Buddhas and nobles of Tibet really be willing to dedicate their Tibetan hands to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom government like fools?

Now I would like to tell you that at that time in Tibet, there was no existence of ** forces, and all the Tibetan people, including the political and religious upper echelons including the **, ** and the Tibetan Kashag government, as well as the Tibetan aristocracy, without exception, were all fighters against the so-called "Western civilization", although they were defeated, and they were defeated very badly, and in the end they could not resist the "Western civilization", and the door of Tibet was finally opened by the "Western civilization", but after all, they really did their part.

Poor Tibet, precisely because of the arrival of "Western civilization", in the end, in response to the original idea of people from all walks of life in Tibet, that is, the current fear of Shazha Wangchu Jiebo, Tibet not only fell into the whirlpool of disasters, but also gave birth to "**".

After the Opium War, most of the Manchu ministers and assistant ministers stationed in Tibet were mediocre and incompetent or degraded and frustrated, and not only did they have mediocre political achievements, but some even sold their official positions and extorted money on a large scale, while a small number of virtuous officials were dismissed from their posts because of their resistance to the British, which greatly reduced the prestige of the officials stationed in Tibet among the Tibetans. Moreover, the Qing government's consistent policy of compromise and surrender to the outside world was also dissatisfied with the local political and religious upper echelons in Tibet, and while their relationship with the ministers stationed in Tibet continued to deteriorate, they began to influence the Kashag government through the guò "spring capital" (i.e., popular assembly), while the influence of the ministers in Tibet on Tibetan affairs was gradually weakened.

After the Paris Commune of 1871 and the world economic crisis of 1873, capitalism with free competition had reached its zenith and began to make a transition to imperialism. At this time, the Manchu government, after suffering a crushing defeat in a series of contests with Western powers, changed from the initial resistance to foreigners to the fear of foreigners in the heart. As a result, in the wave of Western explorers asking their governments to put pressure on the Chinese government to allow them to "investigate" Tibet, Britain, as the number one world power, was naturally not far behind and further strengthened its activities to penetrate the Tibetan market. Thus, in the Sino-British Treaty of Yantai signed in 1876, the incompetent Qing government gave the British the right to send personnel to Tibet, and in 1885, the British began to organize business delegations to Tibet on this basis.

What the greedy did not expect was that the Tibetans, who had long regarded the Western powers as greedy wolves and devils, had always resolutely refused to buy the accounts of the Manchu government, and even if the foreigners had passports issued by the Qing government's premier Yamen, they were not allowed to enter Tibet at all. As early as 1879, 48 monks and lay organizations in Tibet and "the leaders of the monks and lay localities belonging to the monasteries and laymen in the upper and lower parts of Tibet, the north and the south, Kang and Tibet" jointly submitted a petition to the Qing court that "foreigners will never be allowed to enter Tibet", expressing their opposition to the Manchu government's permission for foreigners to enter Tibet and "issuing road license plates":

In charge of business affairs, through Sian Chay, Hutu Ketu Gong Feng **Lama**Erdeni led the Tibetan people to Hutu Ketu three major monasteries, Khenpo, new and old Buddhas, Taiji, monks and laymen, military and civilian people, etc., and earnestly asked the Minister of the Qin Mission in Tibet to do the work of the Minister Matsudai for the consultation. In the case of the Fucha foreigner's travels in Tibet, the minister stationed in Tibet repeatedly received translations saying that a treaty was made to allow him to enter Tibet, and the document was clearly stated, and there was no change. When the countries arrive, the Han will take care of them as a whole, and do not cause trouble. And face to face repeated earnest advice, so Tibet to the non-foreigners to come, and practice different teachings, fearing that the Buddha land will be hindered. Tibetan monks and laymen took a public oath that they would never be allowed to enter Tibet, and they were willing to tie the knot, but the situation was real, and the public was distressed, and begged the minister in Tibet to consult on their behalf. And Tibet has admired the grace of the Great Emperor for revitalizing the Yellow Religion and protecting the Buddha land. However, if you investigate the nature of foreigners, they are really not kind people, insulting Buddhism, deceiving fools, and they are really ice coals, and they are difficult to get along with. According to the Tibetan monks and laymen, they are not allowed to put it in, and a knot is issued. From now on, regardless of life and death, he will never be allowed to enter the country. If there are those who come, all sides will send troops to block them, and they will be dissuaded with kind words, and they will be safe. If they are stubborn, they will fight desperately with the people of Tangute. Forgive the heavenly gods and Buddhas to protect the Buddha land, and the emperor will protect the Yellow Sect, so that he will not be oppressed by it and suffer misfortune. I would like to discuss the bitter and sad situation of the Tibetan monks and lay officials and the public, and issue a sincere and willing conclusion, and I would like to ask the minister in Tibet to act on behalf of the minister, and sincerely hope that the emperor's grace will be boundless to save the lives of all living beings in Tibet.

Even though it was in the Battle of Longtu Mountain in 1888 (in order to prevent the British invasion, the local Tibetan army set up a checkpoint in Longtu Mountain, but the British imperialists falsely claimed that the Tibetan army crossed the border and set up a checkpoint, provoking a war. In order to safeguard the integrity of China's territory and sovereignty, the Tibetan monks and lay people rose up to resist with one heart and set off a vigorous first anti-British struggle) After the defeat of the war, they still remained confident and did not recognize the so-called peace terms signed between the Manchu government and the British that were detrimental to the interests of the Tibetan areas. If you can listen to the turn back, then you can, otherwise the small Tibetan monks and laymen, even if they have the worries of men and women, but they should resist with revenge, and they will always be blocked, and they will not think about anything else. ”

For all Tibetans, the prohibition of foreigners from entering Tibet is no longer a simple rational decision, but has become an instinct deeply ingrained in their hearts. No matter how much the minister in Tibet tried to persuade him (the imperial court had ordered that if he failed to persuade Tibetans to obstruct the freedom of foreigners in Tibet, the minister in Tibet would be severely punished by the imperial court), it could not change the Tibetans' fear of foreigners and their resolute belief in incompatibility.

As a result, the first British invasion of Tibet broke out in 1888, and the British obtained the "Sino-British-Tibet-India Treaty" which was more aggressive and preferential than the "Sino-British Yantai Treaty" from the Manchu Qing ministers in Tibet, and the "Sino-British-Tibet-India Treaty Renewal" for 1**3 years. The Sino-British-Tibet-India Treaty of Renewal, also known as the "Treaty of Commerce, Negotiation, and Nomadism", was an unequal treaty that led to the Qing court's policy of surrender that eventually reduced Tibet to a semi-colony.

With this treaty, the British were given enormous privileges in trade and other economic matters. For example, "all the goods of the merchant shall be protected and harmless", the British have the right to freely cross the border between Guò and Tibet, and enjoy the right to exempt the goods from import and export taxes for five years, even after five years, the "renewal" only stipulates that "import and export taxes may be determined by the two countries at their discretion and paid according to the regulations". The "renewal" also stipulates that "any matter in which British businessmen have disputes with Chinese and Tibetan businessmen within the Tibetan border shall be discussed in person by the Chinese border officer and the chief clerk of Zhe Mengxiong...... If there is any disagreement between the opinions of the officials of the two sides, it shall be handled in accordance with the laws and regulations of the country of Iraq according to the confession of the defendant."

On the contrary, the "renewal of the treaty" stipulates that "all Tibetans who are still nomadic herders in Tsemengxiong should be handled in accordance with the nomadic regulations established by the British in Tsemengxiong at any time", thus depriving the Tibetan people of their traditional right to graze freely in Tsemengxiong. The "renewal" also stipulates that "open up trade and let British merchants of all colors go to trade" in Yadong, and "British merchants trade from Yadong to Yadong from the border to Yadong, and they are free to come and go at will, without hindrance, and can rent inns in Yadong." China should allow all housing estates to be shared."

However, this was far from satisfying the wolf ambitions of the British devil, and in 1903, there was a larger-scale invasion, that is, under the planning of the Indian Governor Curzon, a large armed "mission" carrying machine guns and cannons in the name of the so-called propagator of modern civilization began to advance into Tibet in great strides. Along the way, they crushed the courageous resistance of the Tibetan monks and lay people, who were still armed with "medieval weapons" and "low military qualifications", and finally, at a small price, they entered Lhasa along the way.

Now let's take a look at those "anecdotes" that happened before and after.

After the first invasion of Tibet, the clever British discovered that it was not enough to rely solely on the Qing government, which would sign any agreement, in order to truly "solve" the Tibetan problem. As a result, they began to find ways to establish so-called "mutual trust" with the 13th ** Living Buddha, who actually held the power of Tibet. However, the XIII ** did not give them such an opportunity. Therefore, they pinned their hopes on establishing a communication channel with the 13th ** Lama to communicate with each other. However, the Viceroy of India, Curzon, sent several letters in succession without receiving any reply from **. In 19, Curzon's letter to the 13th Lama was returned to him in its original form six months later, and the Tibetan officials made it clear that in view of the living Buddha's extreme hatred of foreigners, they did not dare to forward anything from foreigners. In desperation, Curzon once entrusted a special person to go to Lhasa to deliver the letter in person, but the ** lama still refused to reply, and did not even open the letter, and when the original letter was returned, the seal on the envelope was still there.

At a time when the mighty and majestic "armed mission" was brutally massacring the soldiers and civilians in the Tibetan area, Edmund Candler, a military correspondent sent by the British "Daily Mail" at that time, defended their "mission" in this way in his later book: The Tibetans were very stubborn and self-confident, and it was not until they had taught them many times that they realized that their armed rabble was too different from the British army. Judging by the events that followed, it is clear that we would not have made any progress if we had not taught them a hard lesson. Geyu's massacre only brought forward the inevitable event. It is the stupidity of the Tibetans that draws us into the vortex of war. In order for them to realize that Britain is a real power, the British army needs to deal with it seriously, and they must kill thousands of them, otherwise there is no hope.

So, in the face of Tibet being trampled by the iron hooves of wild beasts, what is the "Great Qing" doing at this time?

What you can't imagine is that Youtai, the Manchu minister in Tibet at that time, also had very similar ideas to the British. In a telegram to the Qing government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he saw the British invasion and victory as an opportunity to force the Tibetans to obey the Qing Dynasty....... If the people are really defeated, then there will be a turning point in this matter, for example, if the bottom of the kettle is withdrawn, we cannot help but follow my orders, and we must also ...... "Youtai believes that the defeat of Tibet can teach the Tibetans a lesson, and can also prove how correct the surrender and compromise policy of our Qing Dynasty and the minister stationed in Tibet is, because Youtai and his predecessors have repeatedly warned the Tibetan side to avoid provocation, negotiate and compromise with the British, and not resist by force, otherwise once the war begins, the consequences will be disastrous." Since you Tibetans don't listen, refuse to negotiate with the British, and don't let the minister in Tibet mediate, you deserve the bitter consequences. Therefore, when the war was urgent and the Tibetan army was defeated one after another, Youtai watched the fire from the other side with a gloating mentality, and even had the mind to take the Tibetan women bought for him by his subordinates to sing and dance in the willow forest near Lhasa, and walk in style.

On August 2, 1904, the British "mission" marched in a pool of blood and marched into their destination, Lhasa. The young Lama XIII**, with a pitiful small retinue, was forced into exile in Mongolia. Faced with the glorious golden dome of the Potala Palace towering over Lhasa, the British felt an irrepressible sense of pride and contempt for the Tibetans, "The lamas used all their material and spiritual means to stop us, they relied on medieval weapons and all kinds of miscellaneous modern weapons to compete with us, they performed rituals to turn to heaven, chanted all day long, cursed us in a serious manner, and yet we came." ”

The minister stationed in Tibet, Youtai, not only did not run, but happily took the oxen and pulled the sheep to "reward" these brave British soldiers who occupied Lhasa. Not only that, but as early as when the British army was walking in a pool of blood, he wrote a letter to express his deep condolences to the British for their "long journey", saying that he had argued with the ** Lama that he should not be "rude to this" to the British friends who sent us Western civilization, and that he was "deeply humiliated" by the barbarism and rudeness of the Tibetans.

In Lhasa, Youtai and the adventurer and "strong-willed" imperial commander Younghusband met each other from the very beginning of their meeting, and they shared the belief that "Tibetans are an extremely stubborn people." Once again, Aritai expressed his deep apologies for the "hardship" caused to the British army by the resistance of the Tibetans. In his memoirs, Younghusband wrote: "In the past few years, Yu has had a long and useless meeting with the stubborn and ignorant Tibetans, and it is very gratifying to meet him now." Later, because Youtai's ugly behavior severely damaged the image of the Qing Dynasty, the Qing government removed Youtai from his post and investigated it, and Younghusband was very dissatisfied with this, believing that China should choose such a first-class figure as Youtai when appointing a minister in Tibet.

Under the guns and iron hooves of the British invaders, and under the goodwill protection of the Qing Dynasty, which claimed to be the superior kingdom of the Celestial Empire, the door of Tibet was finally opened to the outside world. Under the glorious light of Western liberal civilization, Tibet's trade volume is increasing at a rate of almost doubling every year.

But what has Tibet really gained from this opening-up?

In the markets of Lhasa, cheap British goods such as woollen wool, mole skins, muslins, coarse white cloth, and enamel utensils imported from Britain and British India were sold. Every year, unsalable British goods worth about 40,000 to 50,000 rupees are shipped to Kangding and Qamdo. In parallel with the dumping, the British also took advantage of open fraud and unequal exchange to begin to plunder Tibet's raw materials on a large scale. They bought Tibetan raw materials at low prices and sold British light industrial and semi-manufactured goods in Tibet at high prices. The price of leather exported from Tibet is about eleven times lower than that of the British, and the price of wool is more than four times lower......

** The President once pointed out that "imperialism is everywhere committed to maintaining and perpetuating the pre-capitalist forms of exploitation (especially in the countryside) that are the basis for the survival of its reactionary allies." ”

The British not only tried to maintain the pre-capitalist form of exploitation of the Tibetan serf owners, but also colluded with the Tibetan serf owners to jointly exploit and oppress the vast number of poor peasants and herdsmen in Tibet and interfere in their economy and politics. They have troops stationed in major cities in Tibet and have built military installations. In Yadong, Gyantse and other places, in the name of protecting merchants, their troops were stationed, and there was a "representative office of protectors".

According to the "Kang-Tibet Expedition", "Gyantse was the base camp of the British invasion of Tibet, with a post office, a telegraph, an army, and a hospital. The post office was purely run by the British, neither with the permission of the Tibetan government, nor under the supervision of the Tibetan government, although the clerks were still mostly Tibetans, and the power was in the hands of outsiders, and the stamps were also directly in the British style, far away from the Japanese post boxes in South Manchuria, and once they crossed the Gyantse, post stations were set up all over the country, and there were also food and lodging for British officials." However, the houses built by the British in Gyantse and Shrimp Moh were not subject to the payment of land taxes or land premiums to the Kashag government in Tibet, and they could be automatically ceded at will. Gyantse built a strong military fortress, set up telegraph lines to Yadong and Gallenburg, and set up electric wires drawn from India to Lhasa.

Tibet's finances were also manipulated by the British, causing the vast number of peasants and herdsmen to suffer even more severe losses. For example, the original Tibetan currency can be exchanged for 10 silver dollars, but since the Tibetan treasury was manipulated by the British, the Tibetan currency can only be exchanged for 18 copper dollars.

In order to train their loyal servants, the British "generously and kindly" sponsored Tibetan students and held training classes with the British as instructors to train the children of the nobility.

The British not only agreed with the British stationing troops in Tibet, opening a trading port, and enjoying the privileges of duty-free import of goods and not being subject to inspection, but even sent Ula to transport British goods free of charge, and even the firewood and grass burned by the British in Gyantse and the charcoal used in Lhasa were also provided by serfs. In particular, the 1908 "Sino-British Revised Regulations on Tibet-India Trade" also stipulated that Britain had extraterritorial jurisdiction and the right to intervene in Tibet, and allowed the British to "lease land in various commercial ports to build warehouses."

But for the people of China and Tibet, what they have gained is a catastrophe that will continue to spread and will continue to haunt itself a hundred years later. The Western civilization brought by the British greatly weakened the economic ties between Tibet and the hinterland, caused a sharp decline in trade between the hinterland and Tibet, and severely destroyed Tibet's agricultural and animal husbandry production and hit the development of Tibet's handicraft production.

Since the opening of Yadong as a commercial port, nearly one-half of the population of Tibet has abandoned agricultural production and engaged in transportation, hotels, and stacks. Every year, about two or three thousand mules and horses are used for commercial transportation, which makes the strange thing that grass is more expensive than grain in Yadong. In most places, the countryside is barren and there is a shortage of grain, so they have to import grain and daily necessities from abroad. Because many herdsmen and livestock have been taken out to transport foreign goods, agriculture and animal husbandry are not only unable to carry out expanded reproduction, but sometimes even simple reproduction cannot be maintained, and the technology of agricultural and animal husbandry production has long been stuck in primitive farming and grazing methods. However, Tibet's handicraft industry was originally rudimentary in tools and backward in technology, and it was unable to compete with British machine production. Under the impact of the influx of foreign goods into the entire Tibetan market, a large number of handicraft workshops went bankrupt one after another.

Poverty and helplessness have caused the devastated population of Tibet to drop by three-fifths in the more than 100 years before Tibet's democratic reform in 1959. This is the benefit that Western civilization has brought to the Tibetan people.

The civilization brought by the British, the ** of the Qing government, in addition to the beauty and destruction of those reactionary vested interests-the big slave owners, also fed a new elite, that is, compradors who were proud of betraying their ancestors. It is precisely these Tibetan traitors who have eaten foreign bread and drank foreign milk that they have become the savior of Tibet and follow the foreign masters like wagging their tails and devouring the precious blood of their mothers, and under the slogan of Western freedom and civilization, they have turned a dirty diaper into the ideal ** holy flag of the Tibetan traitors. To this day, this diaper is still disgusting to our Chinese nation, which has long been rectified by the "Qing Dynasty" and does not know what beauty and ugliness are.

Note: In September 1842, the local government of Tibet sent three representatives, including Suo Kang and Bai Xiwa, to Leh to hold formal negotiations with representatives from the Kashmiri side, Dewang Haritsen, Wazreden, and Ladakh. After several rounds of maneuvering, the representatives of the three parties finally signed the "Ladakh Treaty" and the "Tibet Treaty", the main contents of which were:

(1) Tibet and Ladakh shake hands and make peace as before, and the two sides shall not harm their friendship in any way in the future;

(2) Sri Maharje recognizes the historical border between Tibet and Ladakh, and from then on both sides of Tibet and Ladakh will guard their own borders and never cause trouble;

(3) The Kashmiri side agreed to allow the queen and two brothers of the former king of Ladakh to return to Leh and make proper arrangements;

(4) Ladakh, as always, still pays annual tribute to the ** lama every year on schedule, and the Kashmiri Maharaja shall not interfere in this;

(5) Trade between Tibet and Ladakh remains the same. The local government of Tibet still routinely provides transportation facilities and accommodation for Ladakhi merchants in Lhasa. Lhasa supplies Ladakh with wool and tea every year;

(6) With regard to the official and commercial travel between the officials and merchants of the Tibetan local government between Ladakh, the horses that should be paid by the Ladakh side and the Ula (i.e., errand service) to be paid by the Tibetan local government when Ladakh pays tribute to the ** lama every year, the two sides shall still handle the matter in accordance with the previous practice.

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