Talk:Rinchengang

Rinqingang

This article existed on Wiki Rinqingang. The spelling is interesting. DTM (talk) 05:52, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, it looks like somebody made up that spelling. Maybe they even pronounce it that way! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:44, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

There is an absurd number of alternate spellings— Rinchingong as used in the article Sikkim expedition and one of the most elaborate ones Rincheingong, as per one of the sources in the article. DTM (talk) 13:23, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, "gang" and "gong" are easy variants. From Shakabpa, we see the name as "Rechin". So the Tibetan form is probably Re-nChin, with n being left silent. But I have no idea how somebody can get Renchagong!

Incidentally, this source also tells us that the original form of "Yatung" was "Myatong". There goes the theory that it was a Chinese name! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:07, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The Battle of the Longtu Mountain

zh:隆吐山战役 has a nice map that helps one understand the geography. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:51, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

It is probably based on our own Sikkim Expedition, but it has more sources (mostly in English!) and more POV, and also more information. For example, this surprising revelation backed by four sources!

After Shengtai took office, he checked the old files and reported that Longtu Mountain was indeed Sikkim, which was recognized by the Qing court.

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:44, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The Kagyu monastery

Found some quite detailed information about the Kagyu monastery (27.4317895°N 88.9150545°E / 27.4317895; 88.9150545):

It is said that at the beginning of the 18th century, Cangba Ada, a monk from the Shangpa Kagyu sect, came to Yadong Rinchen Hill and asked for a legendary mother of the Golden Sea (Guangming Tomorrow Daughter, the Concubine of Shengle King Kong )

We can clearly see a pathway on the ridge line from Rinchengang to the monastery. Now the highway goes there directly

The write-up also says:

In the original dense forest south of the Kagyu Monastery [between the hilltop and the track], there was originally a Gelug temple named "Pasha Gompa". After the Sino-British Longtu-shan Battle in 1888, Pasha Gompa was abandoned. In 1890, the 13th Dalai Lama (Tuden Gyatso) ordered the transfer of the Dharma-protector temple of Pasha Gompa to the Kagyu Monastery and entrusted the management of the living Buddha Gesang Qumo Gyatso of the Kagyu Monastery.

I would imagine that the troops plundered the Gompa in 1888.

Incidentally, Google Maps shows a "Gajiu monastery" right on the path (27.42801291123724°N 88.91719950414078°E / 27.42801291123724; 88.91719950414078). This must have been the site of the Pasha Gompa. I can see some faint signs of ruins there. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:36, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The wall

The wall across the route is stil there. In fact, there are two walls now. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:32, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

It was not just a "wall" apparently. A "castle" and a "fort", a sketch of which can be found here. This book by Ekai Kawaguchi is like an Amar Chitra Katha. I don't know what to make of it! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 02:26, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

This raises so many questions! As per the picture in Ekai Kawaguchi's book, the wall is seen going uphill... Why is this section of the wall (as marked) still left while the rest was washed away? Did the wall allow the water to flow past it? I just find it difficult to imagine everything else being washed away and we are only left with this. By that logic, this may be washed away soon too.

I assume Nyatong is an alternate spelling for Myatong. DTM (talk) 13:53, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, Kawaguchi is not exactly a geographer, and his account was written for Japanese popular media. So, let us take it with a grain of salt. It looks like there are steps going a little uphill where there is a building. He doesn't say what is in that building or whether he went up the steps himself. His account is quite vague.

I was also disappointed that he, being a Buddhist monk, never took notice of the monastery on the hill top or the abandoned gompa on the track itself. He is just writing the adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with a standard disclaimer saying it was all "Buddha's doing".

By the way, nobody said anything about any washing away. This Yatung was good only till the Younghusband Expedition. After that the route shifted to the Nathu La pass going to the New Yatung. So Rinchengang was bypassed. The guardhouses on this route might have gotten demolished or whithered away. Maybe these wall-like structures are actually dams, constructed in modern times, for water supply and/or flood control. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:37, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Found a stock photo of the same. DTM (talk) 07:17, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Excellent! If we can find out where it was published, we should be able to use it here because the copyright expired. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:58, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I think this semicircular bend between the two sets of walls is where the village of Old Yatung was. Anywhere else in the valley is too narrow for a village to fit. Apparently the Chinese customs officer (who was usually British) lived here, and other people too according to Kawaguchi. During the British occupation of the Chumbi Valley, the customs officer was named Henderson. Alastair Lamb has this little tidbit to offer regarding him [1] (archive.org). -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

And, Lamb seems to have no awareness that there were two Yatungs. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:40, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Campbell's report itself can be found here. This Internet has become something of a marvel! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:00, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Shasima naming issue

Campbell's report, dated 8 October 1906, has the following names occurring:

• "Old Chumbi" referring to Chumbi, so indicating that the name "New Chumbi" was still in use.
• "Shasima" for Yatung (Shasima) also called New Chumbi.
• "Yatung" for Old Yatung.

So, it looks like Shasima was the first name given to the town, some time between 1904 and 1906. The reallocation of "Yatung" for the new town was a later invention. So, John Easton was right. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:39, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

To round off this discussion, I have now come to the conclusion that there was no "town" at the new Yatung site till the 1950s. There was an official house built by Younghusband during the expedition, and a few other houses popped up around it over time for housing other officials or potential traders. And there was an empty ground to hold markets. That was about it.

It was still a cold and dreary place though not as bad as the Old Yatung. But the Younghusband house, later the "Trade Agent's house" seems to have been well-maintained and well-decorated.

In 1950, I expect that the Chinese stationed troops here. And the Indian trade agent too resided. Throughout the 1950s, trade through the Chumbi Valley boomed. That is when I suppose a town started growing slowly. It eventually encompassed the old villages like Eusaka/Yusa and Bakcham, which were on the river front. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:54, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Stark difference in description

Laurence Waddell's description of Yatung as compared to Rinchengang is hell and heaven. Yatung— "Descending further, the sunshine became less chilly, and we reached in a clearing in the forest the much discussed and forlorn “trade-mart” of Yatung. It lies landlocked in the chill bottom of this narrow gorge, shut in by high hills, an impossible site for a trade-mart and, as we have seen, it was used by the Chinese to check trade from entering Tibet, instead of encouraging it ; and they employed as Tibetan representative an outlaw and notorious criminal from Darjeeling named Dargye". And Richengang as quoted in the article. DTM (talk) 07:22, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Nice, I don't know how I missed that. Please put that into the Old Yatung page. He is right that it is a narrow valley and entirely unsuitable for a "trade mart". But it was apparently good enough for Annie R. Taylor to earn a living. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:53, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Another similar comparison of Yatung and Rinchengang from 1939 by Audery Harris!

At last round a corner straggled the somewhat dour village of Yatung. Unlike Rinchengang, with its white houses of two or three stories, it was grey and grovelling. Hovel shops it had in plenty for it is an important place, with the British Trade Agent’s bungalow at the far end near the barracks of the small garrison of Indian troops, but it was slatternly like its people.

This does agree with you in relation to A Taylor, grey and grovelling but important. DTM (talk) 14:09, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

No, this is about the new Yatung. I am sure the British management did not provide the same kind of profit-making opportunities as the Tibetan. But by 1950, she reports that it was more prosperous than Beijing! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:25, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

A full description of Yatung is given by White here. (These are part of the documents circulated to the House of Commons, organized into two booklets "Papers Relating to Tibet" - 1904, and "Further Papers Relating to Tibet" - 1920). Calling this a "village" is an insult to the term "village". One interesting thing that comes out from White's reports is that the Tibetans not only obstructed "British subjects" but also the Sikkimese, who used to have a reasonably free access earlier.

And we have some fun descriptions from a Daily Mail reporter called Edmund Candler: p.8-9 p.30-31. And his elucidation of the "Yatung castle" is here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:00, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Incidentally, he also has some things to say about the British of course. The "Shata Shape" mentioned on page 8 is none other than Lonchen Shatra, the hero of the Simla Convention. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:06, 2 April 2021 (UTC)