Gyantse Dzong, also known as Gyantse Old Castle, is a famous landmark in Gyantse County, Shigatse Prefecture, which looks like a mini Potala Palace. There is an interesting legend says that, in the ancient time, the lord of Gyantse wanted to constructed a “Potala Palace” in Gyantse, so he sent a craftsman to Lhasa to learn the design of the real Potala Palace. The craftsman painted the design of Potala Palace on a radish. After he returned back to Gyantse, the craftsman found the radish had dried up. So the lord of Gyantse had no choice but to build a smaller and fragmentary “Potala Place.
Gyantse Dzong may not be as magnificent as Potala Palace, but it is still very impressive with typical Tibetan palace architecture style which is inherited from Yumbulagang Palace - The First Palace of Tibet. Besides the architecture appreciation, Gyantse Dzong is a great place to learn about a heroic history of Tibet history - rise and decline of Gyantse, fight against the invasion of British armies.
Gyantse is often called the “Hero City” by local people, because of the determined resistance of the Tibetans against far superior forces during the British invasion to Tibet of 1903 and 1904. It was a slow and bloody massacre of hundreds of Tibetan people, who were only equipped with antiquated matchlock guns, swords spears and slingshots at that time. What they faced were Maxim machine guns and 10-pound cannons.
At a night of May 1904, Tibetan ambushed British army and won this little battle, but what came later destroyed this determinate group of people. 6 months later, the backup army from Britain sent cannons here, bombing Gyantse Dzong nearly to the ground. In order not to be captured by British troops, the survivals of Tibetan people all jumped from the fortress.
However, the Gyantse Dzong, experiencing so many destructions, has gradually been restored and still “dominates the town and surrounding plains as it always did”.