The LOST Legion and the Han Dynasty: Roman Soldiers in China (Part 2)

After the defeat of our troops by the Parthians we had tried to escape the slaughter, but after spending the night walking, the Parthians had caught up with us, and had taken us prisoners. We were forced to march thousands of kilometers to battle their foes thank you, they forced us to walk and walk towards the east always towards the east where the sun rose every morning. If you haven't heard my previous story, click on the link you'll see at the top of the screen. After weeks of marching they gathered us all huddled together surrounded by guards. I thought it would be the end I decided to die with my head held high with pride, showing those men of the desert that a Roman knows how to die with dignity. After nearly an hour under the sun standing what was surely an officer appeared, and he gave us two options. The first would be to go to the mines or to any other place where forced labor occurs, and end our lives breaking our backs to enrich their empire. The other option would be for them to return our weapons, provide us with shelter and food, and even a small pay in exchange for us serving the Parthian empire and defending the eastern border from the attack of the steppes men. Only 500 men opted for forced labor. The rest of us decided to do the only thing we know how to do, fight. Those who had chosen to work were taken in another direction, while the rest of us were taken further east. I don't know how many days we were walking, perhaps weeks, perhaps months, always under the same relentless sun. Although I must admit that from the moment we decided to fight for the Parthians they treated us better. We received more food and water and they allowed us to make some stops throughout the day to rest. We finally arrived at our destination. They pointed out an area where we were supposed to camp, away from the border barracks heading towards the adjacent territory. I didn't know what or who we were going to face and that uncertainty was eating me up inside. We were forbidden to leave the area assigned to us unless it was to repel an attack, so the days passed slowly, very slowly. We were also forbidden to build palisades. We could only dig pits and place stakes in the east direction. Finally, after perhaps three or four months there, maybe more, maybe less, we saw a dust cloud in the distance. Enemies? We didn't know. A Parthian messenger arrived at the stroke and told us in poor Latin that they were nomads making a raid on the border. It was our moment. I ordered the alarm to be sounded and within minutes we left the camp and formed a wall, scarlet. Facing those riders we began to be attacked with arrows but they couldn't break through our lines. After half an hour of combat they retreated. Looking back, we saw horse archers had been lodged to support us explaining the Parthians' retreat. Weeks later, under the cover of night, a man with slanted eyes came and told us that his leader, Cixi Changyu from the Xiongnu nomads, wanted us. His army offered us a land to live in with total freedom, with the promise of defending their territory from the attack of men belonging to the Western Han dynasty. The names of these people make me dizzy, impossible for me and my legionaries to pronounce, let alone for the narrator who voices me. But it didn't matter, I preferred to serve those men rather than the Parthians, sworn enemies of my beloved republic to which I was already sure I would never return. During the next new moon we left the camp and marched towards where these lords lived, our new lords. We headed north and entered the territory you now know as Kazakhstan. There we built a fortified camp as the gods command, with its palisades, its watchtowers, its moats, its thistles and its stakes. We lived in an illusion but we acted like true Romans. Every day we trained our formations and our combat skills. We marched for miles and at dusk we would disperse to take shelter behind our defenses. Over the years we expanded the perimeter of the camp and allowed some women to settle in it. Some of us, myself included, paired up with women with slanted eyes and had our first children. It was a quiet frontier until it wasn't. The Han dynasty had declared war on the nomads we were defending and one fine day in the year 36 before Christ we saw in the distance an enemy imperial army slowly approaching. We were back in combat. We sounded the alarm and all the legionaries armed ourselves and went to the gates to prevent the enemy from entering. We formed a testudo at the gates and held out, the first salvos of projectiles that the Han launched at us. Then they charged against our shields and we took advantage of the cessation of the projectile attack to change our formation to a shield wall. The Han came running and the thistles fell without understanding what was hurting their feet. Finally they collided with our shields. In combat, hand-to-hand in formation, we had no rival. For the first time in many years we were fighting again in the way we were best at. We were stabbing the stomachs of those men without mercy. Dead and more dead piled up at our doors but they were too many. The sheer fact of their numbers forced us to slowly retreat in formation. For every Roman who died four fell. Enemies but still we were losing men, they had too many. It was a giant army. Suddenly some trumpets sounded and they moved away from us. An officer named Chung Tang came out from the enemy ranks and praising our skill with weapons, our courage, our valor. He proposed to spare our lives and accept us as full-fledged citizens of his empire. We surrendered our weapons. We were allowed to live in a border town called Lichen, which is what these men called our Roman Republic. Marco, thank you for your story. It's time for me to step in and shed some light on this hypothesis. This story is a hypothesis. The Parthians captured many prisoners following the battle of Cary and that many years later, when the Roman Empire asked for the return of these prisoners, the Parthians did not know what had become of them or so they said. This coupled with the fact that western DNA has been found in the city of Lichen, it's the perfect recipe for an adventure story about Romans who reached China, where Rome was referred to as Lichen by the Chinese. Therefore the fact that western remains were found in this city supports the idea of legionnaires in China. Homer Dabbs, an English archaeologist and professor at Oxford, is the father of this hypothesis which he put forward in 1957. Another piece of evidence supporting this theory is that Chinese sources explain how General Chung Tan, who remember, was the leader of the Chinese expedition against Chongnu. He had to face soldiers who fought in an anomalous way. They recount that these soldiers fought in perfect order and with impeccable discipline. It also has a formation resembling fish scales. Regarding the numbers, I must say that I have let myself go a bit. Dabbs says there would be about 100 or 140 Roman legionnaires defending the city, along with more native troops. Well I have said here that over 1500 men escape from the start. Okay most likely, if it really happened it was around 100 far from the 1500 that I have said. But well, after all it is something close to fantasy. So let's pit some good Roman courts against Chinese troops. I'm going to recommend some books about this story now in my opinion. Very very good. I'll leave the link to these books in the description, in case anyone is interested in reading them. I really enjoyed them a lot. The first one is from my favorite author, Santiago Postiglio with The Lost Legion which is the conclusion of the Trajan Trilogy. The second book is not exactly about this legion, although it is referred to. Basically it talks about Romans who among other things lived an adventure. I'll stop here to avoid spoiling the story for you. Anyway I'm rambling. The author is another one of my favorite authors Valerio Massimo Manfredi with the book The Empire of the Dragons. Also highly recommended. And now we have indeed finished. I hope you enjoyed the story. Like the video if you did and subscribe so you don't miss any videos.