The problem before the Administration of Burma in 1886 was, to use the political slang of to-day, "The peaceful penetration" of the Shan country. The mantle of the Burmese monarch had fallen on the shoulders of the British Government. The Shan chiefs and their people had to be persuaded to make submission to the Queen-Empress and to accept her as their overlord. This persuasion had to be effected if possible without the use of force. A show of force, however, was necessary. During 1886 the despatch of an expedition to the Shan States was impossible. The work on hand in Upper Burma was more than enough. Thus it happened that until 1887 the only attempt to make British influence felt in the Shan States was the deputation of an officer with a small force to Hsumhsai, a small State lying between Mandalay and Hsipaw. To make the measures taken to solve this problem intelligible, a brief account must be given of events in the Shan country immediately preceding and following the deposition of the King of Burma. The grouping of the States for administrative purposes into North and South, which was not inherited from the Burman Government and was not founded on any distinction recognized by the Shans, had its origin in these events. The States, the history of which is of most importance in this connection, are Hsenwi and Hsipaw, to the north of Mandalay; Yawnghwè and Möngnai farther south; and, on the east of the Salween, the large State of Kengtung. Hsipaw lies in the hills on the Mandalay-Lashio road, about one hundred and thirty miles from the capital of Upper Burma. The Sawbwa, by name Hkun Saing, was the first of the Shan chiefs who came in contact with the British Government and the first to submit himself to the suzerainty of the Queen-Empress after the annexation. The circumstances which led to his contact with the British are these. In 1882 Hkun Saing incurred the displeasure of King Thebaw and fled to escape his vengeance. After some wanderings, which extended, it is said, into Siam, he came to Rangoon, and with a wife and servants settled in the Kemmendine suburb. He lived, he said, in fear of assassination by agents of the King, and doubted the fidelity of some of his followers. In 1883 his fears, apparently, overcame him, and he shot down two of his men whom he accused, I believe not without reason, of plotting against his life. He was arrested, tried for murder before the Recorder of Rangoon, and condemned to death.