The military system of the Roman Empire, a regular Roman legion, must have had a paired auxiliary legion.

Most of the soldiers in the auxiliary legions were barbarians from the colonial provinces or slaves from the conquered areas, and the officers were Romans.

They are comparable in size and number to regular legions, but the quality of their equipment is much lower.

However, even in the regular legions of the Roman Empire, many of them are mainly locals, with only a small number coming from mainland Italy or the western provinces.

The proportion of Italians in the Fifth Guards Army was still very high, and the number of people in the western provinces was also very large, and few people from the eastern provinces could be selected into the Guards.

After receiving his reconnaissance scout team, Macrinus made a meritorious service, abandoned his auxiliary legion, and accelerated forward.

Although the auxiliary legion is also a cavalry legion, the quality of the war horses and the quality of the soldiers are far inferior to the Roman legions, and they have not caught up for half a day.

Just when the Roman cavalry, especially the heavy cavalry, was constantly being shot to the ground by the Han cavalry who were catching up with their rifles, the long-awaited Roman horn of Macrinus finally sounded in front.

His auxiliary legions, the Roman light cavalry, mainly Thracian and Pannonian cavalry, finally came up.

The cavalry of these auxiliary legions, which also used bows and crossbows as their main weapons, were armed with only a small number of muskets.

After all, there are a large number of regular Roman legions, and the number of firearms that need to be equipped is too large, with the military production capacity of the Roman Empire, it is not enough to equip regular legions, where is there still room to redress all the auxiliary legions?

Macrinus ordered the light cavalry of the auxiliary regiment to stop the Han cavalry that was chasing him, giving the main army time to escape.

So more than 3,000 Thracian cavalry and Pannonian cavalry rushed to the Han army in hot pursuit, bravely stepped forward to buy time for their main army.

However, the servant cavalry wearing only bronze cuirass or even leather armor was not as protective as the Roman cavalry, and only the shield in the hand could provide some effective protection.

Lacking muskets, they could only desperately rush to a distance of sixty or seventy zhang before they could attack the Han army with their bows and crossbows.

At a distance before that, they could only be beaten passively, and the Han cavalry stopped charging and fired at these Roman servants on the spot.

These auxiliary legions were far less determined than the Romans, and after desperately firing a wave of bows and arrows, they turned around and ran back, allowing the Han army to stop and shoot themselves, which was considered to be the completion of the task of buying time.

And this time was enough for the Romans to run a hundred or twenty miles, and a louder horn sounded in front of them, and Roman flags appeared in front of them.

The two well-groomed Roman infantry legions were approached, with the regular legion in front and its auxiliary legions in the back.

The blood-red military flag, which marched at the front of the legion, accompanied by the rhythmic drumbeat of the legionnaires' neat steps, was the normal march of the Roman legions.

The flag has the eagle emblem on it, and it also has the mascot that represents the legion, which is a scorpion, a black demon scorpion, trying to stretch its tail hook.

This Roman legion was also a veteran Roman legion, known as the Second Augustan Legion, which was adapted by Octavian, the founding emperor of the Roman Empire.

Its commander was the governor of the province of Aliminum, Marcus. Lucius. Canus, let's call him Marcus, the Romans have longer names.

Governor Marcus and Macrinus were both ordered by the Roman Emperor Caracalla to test the true combat power of the Han army, after all, before this, these two world-class empires had not really fought against each other.

Since it was an encounter, it was impossible to lose the face of the empire, so Caracalla sent two Roman legions, which were considered the main legions even among the more than thirty standing legions in Rome, to play the vanguard, and even sent a small number of cavalry legions.

After all, Macrinus was a little young and vigorous, and he believed that he was the emperor's guard, so he acted a little arrogantly, he thought that Marcus's infantry corps was too slow, and he ran ahead with the cavalry corps.

Marcus is much more mature than him, and his own family power is relatively weak, and he can work hard to become the governor of the province, and he is already burning high incense in the ancestral tomb.

So he has long learned to be patient and tolerant, he will not care too much about Macrinus's attitude, even if Macrinus runs ahead, he can only chase closely, lest Macrinus have an accident.

Marcus saw it very thoroughly, the Han Empire must not be so easy to deal with, otherwise it would not be able to extend its power from the far east to West Asia.

Sure enough, not long ago, I received a message for help from the herald of Macrinus, and sure enough, he did not fight the Han army, of course, what Macrinus said was mainly because there were many Han soldiers.

No matter how annoying Macrinus is, he should be rescued or must be rescued, otherwise there will be some mistakes, and it will be difficult to explain to His Majesty the Emperor, Caracalla can not be as wise and generous as his father.

Marcus is also a veteran of the two dynasties, and of course he knows how Caracalla did anything to kill his younger brother Geta in order to ascend the throne, and such an emperor cannot disobey him.

When Macrinus saw Marcus, who had come to his rescue, he finally knew how to thank him, and he was no longer so arrogant.

He told Marcus about the process of the battle just now, thinking that with Marcus's two infantry regiments, his side could fight the Han army head-on, and the number of both sides was about the same, and he saw that there were two cavalry phalanxes of 5,000 people behind the Han army.

As a traditional Roman legion commander, Marcus was still brave and fearless, willing to fight alongside Macrinus to restore some of the declining morale.

They lined up the standard Roman left-center-right formation, with Marcus' 2nd Augusta Regiment in the center and his auxiliaries on the left flank, infantry regiments from Macedonia and Smyrna.

They formed a standard Roman phalanx and slowly moved forward, Marcus's Roman legions had been reloaded with front-loading flintlock rifled guns, and the auxiliary legions were basically mainly cold weapons, with only a small number of grenades.

Marcus's Roman infantry legion was mainly composed of soldiers from the native provinces, so it was significantly taller than the auxiliary legions, and he needed to slow down when marching to ensure that the auxiliary legions could keep up with his pace.

The Roman legions of this era were still relatively elite, all of them received strict recruit training, and the proportion of veterans was very high, and the Romans at that time served for a long time, the longest reaching twenty-five years.