Unlike his father, who pursued a Western political course, Lev worked closely with the Mongols, in particular cultivating a close alliance with the Tatar Khan Nogai.
Michael VIII responded by marrying his illegitimate daughter Euphrosyne Palaiologina to Nogai Khan of the Golden Horde, who, as a Byzantine ally, pillaged Bulgaria in 1274.
The Nogai, descended from the peoples of the Golden Horde, take their name and that of their language from the grandson of Genghis Khan, Nogai Khan, who ruled the nomadic people west of the Danube toward the end of the 13th century.
Genghis Khan | Chaka Khan | Shahrukh Khan | Salman Khan | Aamir Khan | Imran Khan | Khan | Aga Khan IV | Aga Khan | Ali Akbar Khan | Khan (title) | Saif Ali Khan | Kublai Khan | Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung II | Aga Khan III | Aga Khan Award for Architecture | Irrfan Khan | Dera Ismail Khan | Ayub Khan | Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan | Hulagu Khan | Prince Aly Khan | Kubla Khan | Kader Khan | Imrat Khan | Güyük Khan | Farah Khan | Dera Ghazi Khan | Ayub Khan (Field Marshal) | Aga Khan University |
From the 1280s until 1299, the White Horde (or Blue Horde) was effectively under the control of two khans, the legitimate khans and Nogai Khan, a warlord and kingmaker, who made an alliance with the Byzantine Empire and invaded countries bordering the Blue Horde, particularly in the Balkans.
In the 13th century, the leader of the Golden Horde, Nogai Khan a direct descendant of Genghis Khan through Jochi, formed an army of the Manghits joined by numerous Turkic tribes.