Here he lived for twenty years, until in 1873 he obtained a pardon and went back to Mawkmai, leaving a nephew to govern the Trans-Salween acquisitions. While he was at Mawkmai he was no peaceful neighbour, but made himself feared by the Karennis on his south border and by the Laos on the south and east. So far from being in any way subordinate to the Siamese officials at Chiengmai, he attacked the Siamese district of Mehawnghsawn and drove out the Shan, named Taiktaga San, who had been placed there by the Chiengmai authorities. He bestowed the district on his niece, by name Nang Mya. She was a lady with much force of character, who in England, in the reign of King George V. would have been a militant suffragette, and would have made short work of the ministry by marrying them all out of hand. Nang Mya, probably feeling the need of local knowledge and connections, dismissed her first husband, who bore the not very imposing name of Pu Chang Se, recalled her predecessor, Taiktaga San, from exile, and made him her consort. When the Kolan (nine fathom) Sawbwa returned across the Salween to Mawkmai, she and her new consort transferred their allegiance to the Siamese Governor at Chiengmai, without opposition on the part of the Mawkmai Sawbwa. Mehawnghsawn, it may be explained, is farther from Mawkmai than from Chiengmai, and the Salween flows between. This transaction, however, did not affect the districts of Mehsakun and Möngmau, which remained under Mawkmai territory without question until 1888. When the Red Karen chief, after the old Kolan's death, attacked Mawkmai, Kun Noi, who was governing Mehsakun on his uncle's behalf, behaved disloyally to his cousin, the rightful heir to Kolan, and induced the Karenni to make him master of Mawkmai. How Kun Hmon was restored to his position in Mawkmai by a British force has been told above (Chapter XV, p. 184). He was unable, however, to regain the two Trans-Salween districts, and it was not convenient at the moment to send a party across to reinstate him. Kun Noi, having been ejected from Mawkmai by the British, turned his thoughts to Siam and opened communications with the Chiengmai authorities through his cousin, the lady Nang Mya, who governed at Mehawnghsawn, with the view of placing himself under their protection. This was the origin of the Siamese pretensions to the Trans-Salween districts of Mawkmai. They had no foundation in right. It had been for some time their ambition to advance their frontier to the Salween, but as long as Burma had a remnant of strength, they could not. They thought the time opportune when the Burmese power had gone and the British had not yet made good their hold. On the 6th of March, 1889, a band of men, some of whom were militia from Chiengmai, came and occupied Tahwepon, the chief ferry on the Salween in Mawkmai territory, and hoisted the elephant flag of Siam, claiming the whole of the borderland lying east of the river for the King of Siam.