English Orientalist Sir Gerard Clauson (1891-1974) defined tümän as immediately borrowed from Tokharian tmān, which according to Edwin G. Pulleyblank might have been etymologically inherited from Old Chinese tman or 萬.
[5] In Genghis Khan's military system, a tumen was recursively built from units of 10 (aravt), 100 (zuut) and 1,000 (mingghan), each with a leader reporting to the next higher level.
Tumens were considered a practical size, neither too small for an effective campaign nor too big for efficient transport and supply.
The military strategy was based on the use of tumens as a useful building block causing reasonable shock and attack.
[7] The commander of a tumen was a tümen-ü noyan, a term sometimes translated "myriarch" (cf.