Setting off firecrackers is a traditional custom of the Spring Festival, and people usher in the new year with the sound of crackling firecrackers. Do you know why firecrackers make a noise?
During the Tang Dynasty, during an alchemy process, the alchemy furnace exploded. Alchemists scrutinize the raw materials: sulfur, saltpeter, and aristolochia. Sulfur and saltpeter are both ores, while aristolochia is an herb that burns into charcoal, and inadvertently, the three combine to become gunpowder.
Why did the alchemy furnace explode?
In the Northern Song Dynasty, military experts gradually realized the power of gunpowder and applied gunpowder to the battlefield. Gunpowder was officially named, also during the Song Dynasty. The capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, Fenjing (present-day Kaifeng, Henan Province), also had "gunpowder" specializing in the production of gunpowder, and firearms such as rockets, tribulus (jí) and (lí) played a big role on the battlefield.
In the war between the Southern Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty, a firearm called the iron cannon appeared. This kind of firearm is filled with gunpowder in an iron jar and thrown directly on the battlefield, which is very powerful and loud as thunder when it explodes, so it is also called "earthquake thunder".
In the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court set up an army dedicated to the use of firearms, called the "Divine Machine Battalion". The soldiers of the Shenji Battalion held three-eyed fire hammers (chòng), which can be said to be the special forces of the Ming Dynasty.
Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, a variety of artillery pieces have appeared. In the early Qing Dynasty, there was the "Shenwei Invincible Great General Cannon", which was greatly used in the Battle of Yaksa from 1685 to 1688.
China was the first country to invent gunpowder, and in the early and middle of the 13th century, gunpowder spread to the Arab countries; in the late 13th century, European intellectuals only learned about gunpowder from Arabic books. In the early 14th century, Europeans began to make gunpowder, hundreds of years later than in China.
Gunpowder played an important role in both life production and the military, and at the same time, the invention of gunpowder also greatly promoted the process of historical development.
This issue is excerpted from Our Technology