Nogai Horde
"The Nogai Horde:" The independent Nogais on the lower Volga were happy to support whatever regional power suited their immediate interests. Moscow managed them with a mixture of bribes and threats. From the 1530s, some Nogais would ally with Russia, apparently finding more profit in trading than raiding (In 1555 Ismail sent 20,000 horses to Moscow.). Nogai help or indifference was an important factor in the conquest of Kazan. Ismail assisted Russia in the first Astrakhan campaign. This provoked the hostility of Yosuf on the Yaik. Friends of Ismael murdered Yosuf in 1555 and Ismail declared himself Beg of all the Nogais. Yosuf's sons went after him and reduced him to near poverty. This mutual raiding was made worse by a famine. In 1557 Kazy Mirza broke off and established the Lesser Nogai Horde on the Kuban as a Crimean vassal. In 1600 Russia 'appointed' a Nogai Beg for the first time. The Begship disappears from the English sources in 1618. Around 1630 the Kalmyks migrated from Dzungaria and took over most of the Nogai lands on the lower Volga. The remaining Nogais were then nominally Crimean vassals, either north of the Black Sea, or in the Small Nogai Horde on the Kuban.