Sino-Nepalese War

First Campaign Against Gurkhas
Fuk'anggan captures Camu from the Nepalese
Date 1788-1789 Location Tibet Result Qing victory, Chinese allow Gurkhas to retreat from Tibet.
Belligerents
Qing Empire	Kingdom of Nepal
Commanders and leaders
Qianlong Emperor Fuk'anggan	Rana Bahadur Shah
Strength
10,000	10,000
Casualties and losses
Unknown	Unknown

Second Campaign Against Gurkhas
Fuk'anggan storms the fortress of Xiebulu
Date 1791 - 1792 Location Tibet, Nepal Result Qing victory, Nepal submits and pays tribute to Qing Empire, Treaty of Betravati
Belligerents
Qing Empire	Kingdom of Nepal
Commanders and leaders
Qianlong Emperor Fuk'anggan	Rana Bahadur Shah Bahadur Shah Damodar Pande
Strength
70,000	20,000 - 30,000
Casualties and losses
Unknown	Unknown

The Sino-Nepalese War (Chinese: 廓爾喀之役; literally: "Campaign of Gurkha"; Nepali: नेपाल-चीन युद्ध) was an invasion of Tibet by Nepal from 1788-1792. The war was initially fought between Nepalese and Tibetan armies over a trade dispute related to a long-standing problem of low-quality coins manufactured by Nepal for Tibet. However, the initial Nepalese success in subduing the Tibetans, who were under the administrative rule of the Qing dynasty, led to the involvement of Qing imperial forces. The Nepalese were eventually driven out and forced to sign a peace treaty.

Tibet had been using Nepalese silver coins since the time of the Malla kings. When Prithvi Narayan Shah of the Gorkha Kingdom launched an economic blockade on the Kathmandu Valley during his unification campaign, Jaya Prakash Malla of Kathmandu faced an economic crisis which he tried to alleviate by minting low quality coins mixed with copper. After Prithvi Narayan Shah successfully conquered the Kathmandu Valley in 1769 and firmly established the rule of the Shah dynasty in Nepal, he reverted to minting pure silver coins. But by then the damage to the confidence of the Nepalese minted coins had already been done. The Tibetans demanded that all the impure coins in circulation be replaced by pure silver ones, a demand that would place a huge financial burden on the newly founded Shah dynasty. Prithvi Narayan Shah was not willing to bear such a huge loss for a matter he was not responsible, but was willing to vouch for the purity of the newly minted coins. Thus two kinds of coins were in circulation in the market. The case remained unresolved due to his untimely demise in 1775, and the problem was inherited by successive rulers of Nepal.

By 1788 Bahadur Shah, the youngest son of Prithivi Narayan Shah, and the uncle and regent of the minor king Rana Bahadur Shah, had inherited an aggravated coinage problem. On the plea of debased coins, Tibet had started to spread rumors that it was in a position to attack Nepal; and the Nepalese merchants in Tibet were likewise harassed. Another sore point in Nepal-Tibet relationship was Nepal’s decision to provide refuge to the 10th Shamarpa Lama, Mipam Chödrup Gyamtso, and his fourteen Tibetan followers. He had fled from Tibet to Nepal on religious and political grounds. Yet another cause for conflict was the low quality of salt being provided by Tibetans to Nepal, since in those days, all the salt in Nepal came from Tibet. A Nepalese delegation was sent to Tibet to resolve these issues, but the demands made by the Nepalese were rejected by the Tibetans. The Nepalese found the quarrel over coinage a good pretext to expand their kingdom and to raid the rich monasteries in Tibet. Thus, Nepal launched multi-directional attacks on Tibet.

...
Wikipedia