From 1727 until 1912, roughly corresponding to the era of Tibet under Qing rule, the Qing Emperor appointed "imperial commissioner-resident of Tibet" (Chinese: 欽差駐藏辦事大臣). The official rank of the imperial resident is amban (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 and Zhao Erfeng, who were stationed in Chamdo, were both murdered, the former in the Batang uprising and the latter in Xinhai Revolution.
List
The ethnicity of several ambans are unknown. By ethnicity, of the 80 ambans, most were Manchu and four were Han: Zhou Ying, Bao Jinzhong, Meng Bao, and Zhao Erfeng. At least fifteen Mongols were known to have served as ambans, perhaps more.[1]
^ abIn 1904, when the British sent the Younghusband 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)