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There is a kind of person in martial arts novels, whose kung fu may not be high, but can make the entire martial arts avoid it - a sect or master who can make poison and use poison.
For example, "Tang Men" and "Miao Jiang" will appear in many novels.
In addition to Being Good at Dark Weapons, Tang Men is also quite famous for using poison, but Tang Men is a decent person, Miao Jiang is a villain, and Miao Jiang's poison is a crooked and evil way, which is despised by righteous people.
However, whether it was Tang Men's poison or Miao Jiang's poison, there was no hegemony from "Heding Red".
Saying that it is the first poison of the jianghu, no one will object. Seeing blood seal the throat is the poison that everyone in the jianghu talks about.
However, in the folk, the most used is not crane top red, is arsenic, such as Wu Dalang, is killed by Pan Jinlian with arsenic. Most of the ladies and ladies in the palace fight drama also use arsenic.
Not only is arsenic described in the novel, but even in history, many people have died from the poison of arsenic, such as the Guangxu Emperor, such as the "Record of Washed Injustices", which records relevant cases. Even in ancient times, when some ministers went to the court, they hid arsenic in their hairpins, which could be used to commit suicide when necessary to keep the whole body.
So the question is, crane top red and arsenic, who is more powerful?
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This problem needs to start with Hedinghong.
Most people think that the name Crane Top Red is inseparable from the red-crowned crane, but in fact they have nothing to do with each other.
The red-crowned crane is an auspicious bird that has the meaning of longevity and loyalty. In childhood, there are no red protrusions on the top of the head, and only after adulthood will there be red fleshy protrusions on the top of the head, and the red color on the top of the head of the male red-crowned crane will be more vivid than that of the female, in order to attract the opposite sex.
Scientists have also taken the material from the top of their heads to test, and the results have confirmed that the red-crowned crane is not toxic at all.
What exactly is the crane top red? Why is there a high degree of poison?
After testing, it was found that its chemical composition is actually arsenic trioxide, commonly known as trivalent arsenic, which is also present in arsenic.
Therefore, Heding Red and Arsenic Belong to the same lineage of brothers and sisters, and Heding Red is the predecessor of Arsenic.
Because the ancient refining technology was very backward, at the beginning, only red crystals of low purity could be extracted, also known as red alum.
Chinese has a kind of illusory attachment to names, the more terrible things, the more beautiful names, red alum has a nickname "crane top red".
Later, with the improvement of refining technology, the purity became higher and higher, and white alum appeared, and arsenic appeared.
Now we know that the ingredient of Crane Top Red is arsenic trioxide, which is defined by foreigners with chemical composition.
So how was it discovered and used in ancient times?
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In ancient times, the minerals that could be extracted from crane top red were male yellow, female yellow, gravel, arsenic. These are all arsenic-containing minerals, of course, the ancients did not know about arsenic, but knew that they could refine "immortal medicine".
Male yellow has golden yellow, orange red, blood red and other colors, while female yellow is mainly yellow, ore is generally white, arsenic is also known as shinshi, because it is produced in Shinshu and named.
In the Wei and Jin dynasties, the ancients knew that xionghuang and copper silver and other metals smelted a golden yellow alloy, although it was not real gold, but the technology at that time could not detect, so xionghuang was also known as "golden stone".
Xinshi is an arsenic-containing mineral found in Shinju during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, during the Sui Dynasty, and now Shangrao. It is a name that existed in the pre-Qin period, and no record of it has been found.
The name arsenic first appeared in the middle of the Tang Dynasty.
In some of the works of alchemy, "stone" appeared, and later shortened to "arsenic stone". Li Shizhen recorded in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" that "磇, fierce as 貔, hence the name." That is to say, arsenic is such a thing, fierce like a cat, the ancients believed that the cat is a beast, which shows the domineering of the poison of arsenic.
Although the exact time of the appearance of Heding Red and who first refined it are impossible to verify, according to the data, we can guess that it was either discovered during alchemy or discovered by the medicine master.
In short, the wise Chinese invented such a powerful thing.
Speaking of the mysterious alchemy of China, including real smelting metals, such as bronzes. Later, when smelting minerals such as "golden stone", it was found that it had a curative effect, so there was an alchemy vein.
General alchemy refers to the use of fire, in the Dan furnace with high temperature melting minerals to refine the "elixir".
Ancient people had a fanatical attachment to immortality, which was quite popular during the Qin and Han dynasties, and the most obsessed with this way was Emperor Wu of Han, who ate too many "elixirs" and originally wanted to prolong life, but was poisoned and died.
But in the process of alchemy, many useful things were also invented, such as lead, glaze, porcelain, gunpowder, lime, alloy, etc., so that our ancient civilization was hundreds of years ahead of Europe.
The most powerful alchemist in Chinese history was Ge Hong, a Taoist theorist of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, a famous alchemist, and a medical scientist, who called himself Baopuzi. The book "Baopuzi" integrates the ideas of Confucianism and Taoism, proposing that the inner should be based on Taoist health care, the outside should be based on Confucianism, and both inside and outside can be practiced in the world and stand on the ground.
He devoted his life to alchemy, and in his book, he recorded the phenomenon of sublimation and direct crystallization after the female and male yellows were heated, which is the recorded method of making crane top red and arsenic.
It can be said that although the Heding Red Sister and Brother were born without verification, they are indeed becoming more and more advanced with the refinement of ancient alchemy.
From the elixir, we naturally think of another thing - five stones.
Wushisan contains dansha, xionghuang, alum, Zeng Qing, and Cishi, which are said to have been invented by Zhang Zhongjing to treat typhoid fever.
From the Wei and Jin dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, many celebrities were keen to take Wushishan, because taking this agent can make the body dry and hot, so it is rare to wear it and do not feel cold, giving people the feeling of immortals fluttering, in order to show their difference.
Compared with how Yan, Ji Kang, Xie An and other celebrities are flocking to it, and taking the five stones and dying of He Yan, Pei Xiu, Northern Wei Xiaowen Emperor Tuoba Hong, etc., it can be seen that the popularity is extensive and the time is long.
As the saying goes, medicine and poison do not divide the family, it is a medicine three points of poison, many things, are also good and evil, but the middle of this degree should be grasped well.
So what other uses did arsenic cream have in history?
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The Qi Min Zhi Shu records the use of male and female yellow to process paper to prevent insects from biting.
In the novel, snakes are often used to drive away snakes, and there is also male yellow wine that can be drunk.
Arsenic cream in traditional Chinese medicine, very early began to enter the medicine, has the effect of cough and asthma, the treatment of hemorrhoids is also very effective. In modern medicine, it is used for syphilis, leukemia, cancer and other diseases.
Compared with the means of poisoning Chinese, foreigners play arsenic into tricks.
In 1851, a Swiss doctor reported that some villagers in Stily Asia, Austria, deliberately ate arsenic in order to whiten, and the villagers said that if they ate about 30 milligrams of arsenic at a time, a few times a week, they could make people look rosy and strong, of course, these people had a very miserable ending.
Just like many people now use some beauty products indiscriminately, holding the psychology of luck and sacrificing their health on the road to becoming beautiful, it is purely suicidal behavior.
In the First World War, the German "madman" used arsenic to develop a "sneeze gas" that could penetrate gas masks, but the concentration of this gas had not yet reached the point of death.
It was the Japanese who carried forward this type of poison gas, who developed the "Red Agent" series, which was used in war, and the fatality rate was very high.
Later, someone in the United States invented "Louis poison gas", which will cause damage to the eyes, lungs, and skin of people without protective equipment, and eventually lead to liver damage and death.
The lethality of the gas led to the adoption of the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) document banning the use of Louis gas.
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Since crane top red and arsenic are the same substance, why did people often use arsenic cream instead of crane top red?
In addition to the strong toxicity of arsenic itself, but also because it is odorless and tasteless when it reaches a lethal amount, arsenic is the size of two sesame seeds.
If the poisoner puts arsenic in the liquor, it can be completely dissolved, and it is colorless and tasteless, and will not change the taste and form of the wine. After the poisoning, there is still enough safe time to leave the scene, and when the poison is launched, it will have long been away.
This is how Pan Jinlian killed Wu Dalang with poisoned wine.
The crane top red is easy to expose because of its own red, because the Chinese is very sensitive to bright colors, so when the arsenic appears, the crane top red slowly disappears.
Liu Hu wrote in "The Journey of the Old Remnant": When I asked him to buy arsenic cream, I only said poisonous rats, so he didn't know. It can be seen that arsenic is a poison that is easy for the public to buy, so it can become the king of poisons that span thousands of years regardless of class, regardless of region.
There is also the cause of death of the Guangxu Emperor.
In 2008, a special team of the Chinese Academy of Atomic Energy examined the guangxu emperor's hair using a special method and found that the content of arsenic in his hair reached 2404 micrograms, and the same arsenic element was detected on his bones and clothes he wore.
This result had to be handled carefully, and after verification by experts from multiple departments, it was finally determined that this emperor, who had the desire to be strong since childhood, but had been a puppet all his life, died of arsenic poisoning.
As an emperor, he had to be tried to eat food first, so why was he poisoned?
Some people say that everyone around them has been bribed, and some people say that it is the order of Empress Dowager Cixi, these are all speculations, not counted.
Ancient people used silver needles to test poison, and this method is recorded in the "Record of Washing Injustice", indicating that it was approved at that time.
Can a silver needle detect the poison of arsenic?
If it is arsenic containing impurities such as sulfur, the silver needle can turn black, and it is because the silver and sulfur have a chemical reaction and become black "silver sulfide"; If the purity of arsenic is very high and does not contain sulfides, then the silver needle will not change color and will not be detected.
Guangxu as the emperor, there will definitely be people who try medicine, so how he was poisoned, this may become an unsolvable mystery.
Whether it is crane top red or arsenic, it can traverse human history and become the top of the poison list, whether it is the fabrication of novels or historical documentaries, they have left their enduring and transcendent "reputation".
But I'd rather there never been anything so terrible in this world, and that evil is evil because human nature has evil.
If everyone has good in their hearts, then evil will surely die out.