A remote village in central China is home to people who claim to be descendants of Romans, with many having Western facial features such as blue eyes and fair hair. The story of these villagers who believe in their Roman ancestry is fascinating, with some believing that they are descendants of Roman soldiers captured during the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC.

The Romans suffered a brutal defeat against the Persians, with 20,000 soldiers losing their lives and 10,000 being captured. According to some accounts, 10,000 of these captured soldiers were relocated to the eastern border of the Parthian Empire, which makes sense as the Parthians would have wanted to force them to fight for them.

It is believed that they were sent to what is now modern-day Afghanistan to fight against the Eastern Barbarian tribes. Fast forward 17 years, in 36 BC, and the Battle of Gigi was fought between the Chinese and the Xiongnu, with Chinese annals recording mercenaries fighting on the side of the Xiongnu, who used a fish scale formation. The formation impressed the Chinese, who extended an invitation for the strange surviving soldiers to travel with them to China.

Proponents of the theory believe that these strange soldiers using the fish scale formation were actually the surviving legionaries of the Battle of Carrhae who had switched sides from the Parthians to the Xiongnu. If true, the fish scale formation would then have been nothing else than the testudo formation of the Romans.