From 1727 until 1912, roughly corresponding to the era ofTibet under Qing rule, theQing Emperor appointed "imperial commissioner-resident of Tibet" (Chinese:欽差駐藏辦事大臣). The official rank of the imperial resident isamban (Tibetan:བོད་བཞུགས་ཨམ་བན,Wylie:bod bzhugs am ban, colloquially "High Commissioner"). With increasing diplomatic contacts between the British and the Qing in from the 1890s, some assistant ambans (Chinese:欽差駐藏幫辦大臣) were just as notable as the senior ambans. Two of them,Feng Quan andZhao Erfeng, who were stationed inChamdo, were both murdered, the former in theBatang uprising and the latter inXinhai Revolution.
The ethnicity of several ambans are unknown. By ethnicity, of the 80 ambans, most wereManchu and four wereHan:Zhou Ying,Bao Jinzhong,Meng Bao, andZhao Erfeng. At least fifteenMongols were known to have served as ambans, perhaps more.[1]
^abIn 1904, when the British sent theYounghusband expedition to Lhasa, it is said that You Tai had not yet arrived, and Yugang continued running the office. Other assistant ambans, Naqin and Gui Lin had not arrived either.[2][3]
Coleman, William M. (2014),Making the State on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier: Chinese Expansion and Local Power in Batang, 1842–1939, Columbia University (PhD thesis)
