After his return to Tibet, he appears to have been a real as well as a nominal autocrat for his preceptor and Gushi Khan both died, and the new Manchu dynasty had its hands full.  His chief adviser was the Desi[965] or Prime Minister, supposed to be his natural son.  In 1666 the great Emperor K’ang-hsi succeeded to the throne:  and shortly afterwards the restlessness of the Mongol Princes began to inspire the Chinese Court with apprehension.  In 1680 Lo-zang died but his death was a state secret.  It was apparently known in Tibet and an infant successor was selected but the Desi continued to rule in Lo-zang’s name and even the Emperor of China had no certain knowledge of his suspected demise but probably thought that the fiction of his existence was the best means of keeping the Mongols in order.  It was not until 1696 that his death and the accession of a youth named Thsang-yang Gya-thso were made public.

But the young Grand Lama, who owing to the fiction that his predecessor was still alive had probably been brought up less strictly than usual, soon began to inspire alarm at Peking for he showed himself wilful and intelligent.  He wrote love songs which are still popular and his licentious behaviour was quite out of harmony with the traditions of the holy see.  In 1701, under joint pressure from the Chinese and Mongols, he resigned his ecclesiastical rights and handed over the care of the Church to the abbot of Tashilhunpo, while retaining his position as temporal ruler.  But the Chinese still felt uneasy and in 1705 succeeded in inducing him to undertake a journey to Peking.  When he got as far as Mongolia he died of either dropsy or assassination.  The commander of the Oelot garrisons in Tibet was a friend of the Chinese, and at once produced a new Grand Lama called Yeses, a man of about twenty-five, who claimed to be the true reincarnation of the fifth Grand Lama, the pretensions of the dissolute youth who had just died being thus set aside.  It suited the Chinese to deal with an adult, who could be made to understand that he had received and held his office only through their good will, but the Tibetans would have none of this arrangement.  They clung to the memory of the dissolute youth and welcomed with enthusiasm the news that he had reappeared in Li-t’ang as a new-born child, who was ultimately recognized as the seventh Grand Lama named Kalzang.  The Chinese imprisoned the infant with his parents in the monastery of Kumbum in Kansu and gave all their support to Yeses.  For the better control of affairs in Lhasa two Chinese Agents were appointed to reside there with the Manchu title of Amban.[966]