choice proved unfortunate because it did not satisfy the Tibetans. His own general, Latsan Khan, made himself the executor of public opinion. The Tipa was slain with most of his supporters, and the boy Dalai Lama shared the same fate. These occurrences did not insure the tranquillity of the state, for when another Dalai Lama was found, the selection was not agreeable to Latsan Khan, and his friends had to convey the youth for safety to Sining, in China. It was at this moment that Tse Wang Rabdan determined to interfere in Tibet, and, strangely enough, instead of attempting to make Latsan Khan his friend, he at once resolved to treat him as an enemy, throwing his son, who happened to be at Ili, into prison. He then dispatched an army into Tibet to crush Latsan Khan, and at the same time he sent a force against Sining in the hope of gaining possession of the person of the young Dalai Lama. The Eleuth army quitted the banks of the Ili in 1709, under the command of Zeren Donduk, and having crossed Eastern Turkestan appeared in due course before Lhasa. It met with little or no resistance. Latsan Khan was slain, and the Eleuth army collected an incalculable quantity of spoil, with which it returned to the banks of the Ili. The expedition against Sining failed, and the rapid advance of a Chinese army compelled the retreat of Zeren Donduk without having attained any permanent success. As the Eleuth army had evacuated Tibet there was no object in sending Chinese troops into that state, and Kanghi's generals were instructed to march westward from Hami to Turfan. But their movements were marked by carelessness or over-confidence, and the Eleuths surprised their camp and inflicted such loss upon Kanghi's commanders that they had even to evacuate Hami. But this was only a temporary reverse. A fresh Manchu army soon retrieved it, and Hami again became the bulwark of the Chinese frontier. At the same time Kanghi sent a garrison to Tibet, and appointed resident ambans at Lhasa, which officials China has retained there ever since. The war with Tse Wang Rabdan was not ended by these successes, for he resorted to the hereditary tactics of his family, retiring when the Chinese appeared in force, and then advancing on their retreat. As Kanghi wrote, they are "like wolves who, at the sight of the huntsmen, scatter to their dens, and at the withdrawal of danger assemble again round the prey they have abandoned with regret. Such was the policy of these desert robbers." The last year of Kanghi's reign was illustrated by a more than usually decisive victory over the forces of Tse Wang Rabdan, which a courtier declared to be "equivalent to the conquest of Tibet"; but on the whole the utmost success that can be claimed for Kanghi's policy was that it repelled the chronic danger from the desert chiefs and their turbulent followers to a greater distance from the immediate frontier of the empire than had been the case for many centuries.