[1] In 1568, Gurieli supported his nominal royal suzerain, King George III of Imereti, against Levan I Dadiani, who was expelled from Mingrelia.
As Giorgi Dadiani was short of money, he had to surrender to Gurieli Khobi until the due amount of gold was extracted in full from that town.
Giorgi Dadiani's uncle Batulia, the lord of Sajavakho, whom the Mingrelian ruler had earlier humiliated by taking his wife, plotted a revolt.
He had his own nominee to the throne of Imereti, Bagrat IV, whom he installed as king after defeating and expelling Rostom, a Mingrelian protégé, from Kutaisi.
Gurieli left his son Mamia, to protect Bagrat and, with the help of a Turkish force, destroyed the fortress of Sebeka, possessed by the Chijavadze family, in the Imeretian borderlands, on his way back to Guria.
[2] According to the 18th-century historian Prince Vakhushti, Giorgi Gurieli died in 1600, the dating supported also by one contemporary document and generally accepted in modern scholarship.