The acting director beamed, and they listened for several minutes to a lecture on how the Dzungar Mongols, last survivors of the great Mongol khans, had invaded Tibet in 1717. The Dalai Lama had requested aid from the Qing Empire and the Kangxi Emperor had generously sent a force of regular infantry and his special Green Standard Army troops to subdue the bloodthirsty Dzungars. The Green Standard Army, a unit used to placate civil unrest and to impose order on conquered peoples, had stayed, establishing garrisons in several Tibetan towns and stabilizing the land for the Chinese ambans who had served as direct representatives of the Emperor. “The unity of China and Tibet has been unbroken ever since,” the young archaeologist exclaimed.

Shan and Pike exchanged a pointed glance. The theory of such unity ignored the violent years-long invasion by China in the mid-twentieth century. A million Tibetans had died disputing that theory, and China had been forced to maintain massive garrisons of occupying troops, who had never left. Shan knew enough history to know that the ambans were little more than ambassadors, and their office had only survived a few decades. Gangfen probably knew those same facts but if his goal had been to find a way for the government to sponsor a project so close to Lhasa, he had been astute in choosing his subject. Had Gangfen indeed been playing to the propaganda machine for some hidden motive? Archaeology was one of the most political of Chinese sciences. Excavation sites in Xinjiang Province to the north had often been shut down because they had found images on ancient murals and coffins with blue eyes, even mummies with red hair. Archaeological excavation of old monasteries had been blocked for fear they would reveal more signs of an independent Tibetan culture. The independent-minded senior professor who maintained an anonymous operating base in Jamalinka had kowtowed to Party bosses by designing a dig that would bolster Beijing’s political paradigm of a long-standing, expansive Chinese motherland. The government had been so excited, and so confident of the outcome, that they had even cleared an American to join Gangfen.

Pike asked in a grim tone whether their guide knew where the accident had occurred, and the junior professor spent several minutes drawing a meticulous map and emphasizing the dangers of traveling on mountain roads. “Half an hour from here. I don’t know what they were doing on those roads,” he said, then added with a shrug, “the professor was always watchful for any signs of old ruins and sometimes went up on higher ground for perspective when drawing the maps which would accompany his reports. My theory is that he was trying to pinpoint the most likely route for the eighteenth-century army when it was escorting the amban to his glorious role in Lhasa. Dedicated to the very end.”