For a short time after Major Adamson left with the expeditionary force there were no disturbances. But signs and rumours of Po Saw's activity were frequent. The attempts to stop the column on its way from Mogaung to Mohnyin were organized or instigated by him. In the latter half of April the rumours began to take shape, and the Kachins were said to be on the warpath. In the third week of April the headman of a group of villages in the rice plain south of Mogaung reported to the Assistant Commissioner that Bo Ti and three chiefs of the Ithi Kachin tribe had ordered him to join a party which they were organizing for an assault on Mogaung. If he refused, they threatened to destroy the village of Taungbaw in which he lived. They required him to meet them at a given place to settle details. At this time Mr. Twomey, owing to an accidental wound, had taken leave, and Lieutenant L. E. Eliott, a young soldier who had been appointed to the Commission, held his place. The headman proposed that a strong party should be sent from Mogaung to ambush Bo Ti and his friends when they came to the trysting-place. This proposal seemed to Lieutenant Eliott to be treacherous dealing which a British officer ought not to countenance, and he refused to join in it; a piece of high-minded chivalry somewhat misplaced under the circumstances. The headman having been advised by Lieutenant Eliott not to keep the appointment with Bo Ti lest treachery should be intended, left the fort.
Early next morning he ran in to report that before dawn Bo Ti, with some hundreds of men, had come to Taungbaw and were stockading themselves in the village. Taungbaw is four or five miles from Mogaung. Captain O'Donnell and Lieutenant Eliott, taking the mounted men and a company of Gurkhas, started at once for the scene of action, ordering reinforcements to follow. They met fugitives who confirmed the headman's report, and said that Bo Ti was in strong force and was fortifying his position. Taungbaw is on a small hill rising abruptly from the plain, detached and about 400 yards distant from the main ridge, and about the same distance from a village called Zédi, which was occupied by friendlies, Burmese and Shan peasants, from the plain. Bo Ti had been too busy in strengthening his position to pay attention to the movements of these people.