 Dali-based kingdoms were a power in their own right, at times allying themselves with the Tibetan Empire to their west and at other times with China's Tang and Song dynasties.Indeed, Nanzhao's mounted armies ventured deep into what is today Burma and may have been behind the founding of the medieval city of Pagan and the Pagan Dynasty itself.Between the newly conquered Mongol territory and Pagan were a wide swath of borderlands stretching from present-day Dehong, Baoshan and Lincang prefectures in Yunnan as well as the Wa and Palaung regions (presumably in present-day northern Shan State), which Pagan and Dali had both claimed and exercised overlapping spheres of influence.