The Mongol army unit consisting of 1,000 soldiers was the mingghan. The word literally refers to a thousand, and the unit formed the middle level of the Mongols' decimal military and social organization.
Under the system associated with Genghis Khan, ten arbans of 10 men made a jaghun of 100, and ten jaghuns made a mingghan. Ten mingghans could then be combined into a tumen, the largest standard formation, nominally containing 10,000 soldiers or households. This hierarchy gave Mongol commanders a clear chain of authority while keeping units flexible in the field.
A mingghan was more than a battlefield headcount. It could also represent a group of 1,000 households from which troops and labor were drawn. That made the system useful for taxation, administration, and military recruitment. The terms arban, jaghun, mingghan, and tumen are easy to confuse because they belong to the same structure, but mingghan specifically occupies the thousand-level position.