SHREDS & Leftovers (english)

The Chinese and the Barbarians ( Background)

Outline for a historical adventure movie (2010)

The historical background:

Liqian, a settlement in northwestern China on the edge of the Gobi Desert, more than 300 kilometers from the nearest city, is the origin of one of the most exciting legends between East and West in ancient history.

The town's link with Rome was first suggested by a professor of Chinese history at Oxford in the 1950s. Professor Homer Dubs pulled together stories from the official histories, which said Liqian was founded by soldiers captured in a war between the Chinese and the Huns in 36 BC, and the legend of the missing army of Marcus Crassus, a Roman general.

The difficulty was to locate this outpost, as the name Liqian is not found on modern maps any longer. Dubs claimed to have found it, and identified the location as Zhe lai zhai, not far from Lanzhou. 'Li' sounds in Chinese as the word "legion" and is the name by which the Chinese called Rome.

All started with 'the battle of Carrhae' , 53 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, in the last day of the month of May. Carrhae, an ancient biblical city now known as Harran, is located on Turkey's oriental border.

The commanding officer of this unfortunate expedition was Marcus Licinius Crassus, a 62 years old tribune who had organized that campaign eager to gain glory and wealth, even though he was already one of the most rich and powerful men in Rome.

But he desired what Caesar and Pompey had been able to accomplish, but he had not, throughout his career. Though he hastily planned a conquest that he hoped would surpass even Pompey's campaigns in the East or Caesar's victories in Gaul.

In the end, however, his ambition was to lead him to his doom and to a shameful catastrophe for the Roman army. Seven legions with a strength of 45,000 soldiers were demoralized and wiped out by 10,000 Parthian archers.