[6] Mr. A. Hosie, the British Consul at Chengdu, who visited Batang in September, 1904, reported that there was a small lamasery and the industries consisted of making black leather and a barley beer (chang).

The main products include: rice, maize, barley, wheat, peas, cabbages, turnips, onions, grapes, pomegranates, peaches, apricots, water melons and honey.

He says that in the town of Bathan or Batan, with which he was personally acquainted, there were about 20 people regularly involved in washing for gold in spite of the severe laws against it.

[1] Batang was visited in the 1840s by the French Lazarite priests Évariste Régis Huc and Joseph Gabet and their Monguor convert Samdadchiemb, who were attempting to reopen the Catholic mission in Lhasa.

There was no inscription on the stone, and when unthinkingly I made a movement to look for writing on the Tibetan side, the Chinese officials at once stepped in front of me and barred the road to Tibet.

In Batang there were two chiefs and several "Shelngo" (Chinese: Hsing-ngo, or Pinyin: Xinge) who occupy "the same position as the head of 100 families in the State of Chala."

He was sent in 1905 (though other sources say this occurred in 1908)[19][20] on a punitive expedition and began destroying many monasteries in Kham and Amdo and implementing a process of sinification of the region:[21] Mesny reports in May 1905 that there was a Chinese Dongzhi (Wade–Giles: Tung-chih) 'Prefect', and a Dusi (W-G: Tu-szü) or 'Major' with a local rank of Dongling (W-G: Tung-ling) = 'Commandant' or 'Brigadier General', stationed in the town with authority over the two local chiefs, who were referred to as Yingguan (W–G: Ying-kuan) or 'Regimental Officers'.

[4] In February 1910 Zhao Erfeng invaded Lhasa to begin a process of reforms intended to break the control of the religious hierarchy.

In 1932 the Sichuan warlord, Liu Wenhui (Chinese: 刘文辉; 1895–1976), drove the Tibetans back to the Yangtze River and even threatened to attack Chamdo.

By early 1934 a ceasefire and armistices had been arranged with Liu Wen-hui and Governor Ma of Chinghai in which the Tibetans gave up all territory to the east of the Yangtze (including the region of Batang) but kept control of the Yaklo (Yenchin) district which had previously been a Chinese enclave to the west of the river.