 The more patient General Macdonald, meanwhile, was subject to a campaign that sought to undermine his authority; Captain O'Connor wrote to Helen Younghusband on 3 July that "He should be removed & another & better man-a fighting general- substituted".The Gyantse Dzong was a massively protected fortress; defended by the best Tibetan troops and the country's only artillery, it commanded a forbidding position high over the valley below.Macdonald engaged in a 'demonstration', a feint directed mainly against the western edges of Gyantse Jong which would draw Tibetan soldiers away from the southern side of the Jong which was to be the main object of the attack to come.