Why did China invent gunpowder? This stems from the illusory fantasy of emperors and nobles that lasted for thousands of years-immortality. If we pull the time back to about 320 AD, we can see that in order to "guide the cultivation of immortals", Ge Hong went into the mountains to concentrate on alchemy in 3 17, and in 3 19, he accidentally discovered the strange effect of mixing nitrate, sulfur and carbon in the process of alchemy, which is the origin of gunpowder. In the following hundreds of years, gunpowder has been on the track of medicinal use, and the goal refers to the simplest desire of human beings-to cure diseases and preserve health and live forever.
Later, gunpowder became an entertainment tool-fireworks, which was used for court entertainment. In the Tang Dynasty, more complicated fireworks appeared. In the Song Dynasty, the acrobatic performances of various military circuses and fireworks acrobatics in puppet shows all used new gunpowder products such as "blasting array" and "fire breathing" to create a mysterious atmosphere. At the same time, the Song people also performed magic tricks with gunpowder, such as spraying fireworks and clouds to avoid people and things, so as to achieve the effect of magic confusion.
Of course, China people also discovered the military role of gunpowder. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, gunpowder had been used in the military. Before the invention of gunpowder, fire attack was a common attack method for military strategists. At that time, a weapon called a rocket was used in the fire attack. It tied some flammable substances such as grease, rosin and sulfur to an arrow, lit it and shot it out with a bow, burning the enemy's position. After the invention of gunpowder, the army used gunpowder instead of ordinary flammable materials, and the effect was much better. In the Song Dynasty, the demand for firearms increased day by day because of the constant war. Song Shenzong established the Military Equipment Supervision Bureau, which is responsible for the management of military equipment manufacturing throughout the country. The Military Equipment Supervision Bureau employs more than 40,000 workers and is divided into ten workshops. Each workshop produces gunpowder and gunpowder weapons, which occupies a very important position and promotes the development of gunpowder and gunpowder weapons. By the Song Dynasty, the military application of gunpowder in China was quite mature, so China was far ahead of the world in science and technology.
/kloc-in the 3rd century, gunpowder was introduced to Arab countries by merchants through India, and the Greeks learned about gunpowder by translating Arabic books. Gunpowder weapons spread to Arab countries through Genghis Khan's Western Expedition. In A.D. 1260, Yuan Shizu's army was defeated in the Syrian war, and Arabs seized gunpowder weapons such as rockets, poison cupping, artillery, thunder and lightning, thus mastering the manufacture and use of gunpowder weapons. After that, gunpowder spread to Greece, Europe and even the whole world. By the16th century, China people had begun to accept the firearms manufacturing technology returned from Europe, but they did not surpass it technically, but stagnated or even declined. It is gunpowder and firearms that have changed the course of the whole world while changing the battlefield in Europe. They began to invade and conquer the whole world with firearms with increasingly perfect eyes. The locked door of the Qing Dynasty was blasted by foreigners' guns. Since then, everyone is familiar with the modern history, so I won't go into details.
Nowadays, in an era of crowing, China people are playing with fire again. The most famous is the contemporary artist Cai Guoqiang. From/kloc-0 to the mid-1980s, he used gunpowder invented by China to create works. Later, he lived abroad for a long time and was famous in the international visual art world for his gunpowder explosion performance. In the night sky of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games last year, those 29 jaw-dropping footprints were his masterpieces.