Controlling the two north-south passes between Sichuan and Sizhang, and situated to the west of Sichuan, Zhandui was a strategic region where rebellions occurred from time to time during the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns. Particularly unsettling for the Sichuan border region and the Qing dynasty's control of it was the rise of Chief Gonbu Langjie in the Daoguang era, which led to decades of regional turbulence, brought instability to Tibet, and saw roads blocked for a long periods of time. As a result, the Qing court, acting upon suggestions made by Sichuan governor Luo Bingzhang and others, decided to give the whole of Zhandui to the Dala Lama as an imperial gift. However, the fact that Zhandui was controlled by Tibet not only failed to resolve local tensions but it threw the Sichuan border region into further turmoil. Shortly after he became Sichuan governor in the twenty-first year of the Guangxu reign, Lu Chuan-lin had to resort to military action and began advocating the recovery of Zhandui. Vacillating between a hard-line approach and appeasement for fear that any action against Zhandui would affect Tibet, the Qing court did not accept Lu Chuan-lin's proposal. The result was what Lu Chuan-lin and others had predicted: that both local chiefs and the Tibetans became increasingly defiant and did not take the Middle Kingdom seriously, which consequently led to Great Britain's military adventures in Tibet. This study of the history of Zhandui in relation to Tibet and Qing politics will not only help us understand Lu Chuan-lin's motivations and actions taken on the matter of Zhandui, but will also clarify the evolution and exacerbation of the Zhandui problem in the late Qing period.