and trade returned under the civil government. The end of the Chinese Civil War closed Yunnan's border and brought the jade trade with China to a halt. Consequently, the jade produced in the Kachin state was now transported by rail to Rangoon where it was then exported by sea to Hong Kong. This trade continued until the 1962 military coup in Burma, which nationalized the economy and declared all gemological resources to be the property of the Myanmar state; private transactions involving such resources were declared illegal, virtually halting the trade. Small-scale smuggling continued, and the Kachin ethnic minority operated surreptitiously, making the area unstable. Jade traders fleeing across the border to Thailand as a result of nationalization began to create networks to facilitate the trade of Burmese jade through Thailand, originally through the border crossing at the town Mae Sai, Mae Sot, and Mae Hong Song. The transport of jade to the border often required the services of caravan companies that carried the jade by pack animal from the Mandalay onward to border towns where jade could be smuggled into Thailand. In 1966 the first jade trading company, The Qiujia Company, was founded in Thailand, which used connections to both border militias and the Thai government to facilitate transport of Burmese jade from the border to buyers in Hong Kong. Trading companies often served the role of providing capital services and risk insurance for jade sellers in the event of lost or stolen products. Often these companies would have preferential relationships with clients that had a reputation for skillfully identifying valuable jade stones for sale. Smuggling also took placer at the Ruili border crossing to China and Lwejel. New trading companies opened operations at different Burmese-Thai border towns, resulting in the flow of jade through many sections of the border, notably the town of Chiang Mai where Yunnanese refugees could obtain temporary permits to cross the border into Thailand. The jade companies were usually aligned with a particular Burmese border militia which oversaw the flow of trade on the Burmese side of the border. Two notable militias were the KMT lead for a time by Mi Li and the army led by Khun Sa. Both armies often violently competed for control of black market trade of opium and other black market goods as well as jade for their respective trading companies. Additionally, expansion of Burmese government authority over the