First record of a saltpetre, sulphur and carbon mixture flaring up
The Taoist alchemical book Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe lists thirty-five elixir recipes that its author considers mistaken or dangerous. One of them says that some people heated sulphur, realgar and saltpetre together with honey; smoke and flames resulted, their hands and faces were burnt, and the house where they worked burned down. Alchemists are warned plainly not to do this.
This is the earliest known record that a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur and a carbonaceous substance (here honey) flares up by itself. The date is not settled: Needham places the passage around 850. This record therefore stands not only for itself but for the whole Chinese tradition of the gunpowder mixture, which it is the first to document.
Gunpowder was found by people looking for an elixir of immortality, and they first took it for a danger rather than a discovery. The military later valued exactly what the alchemists warned against.
Why this date
disputed. The book is ascribed to a 3rd-century author but was mostly written under the Tang. Needham adopts c. 850 for the passage and himself writes 'perhaps'; another scholar placed the book in the middle of the Five Dynasties period, around 930, which Needham considers too late.
What grew out of it
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The first printed gunpowder formulae (Wujing Zongyao)
prerequisite for · Confidence: high
The mixture found by alchemists around 850 is the same mixture whose formulae were first printed in a military encyclopaedia in 1044.
Link sources
- Needham J., Ho Ping-Yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, Wang Ling. «Science and Civilisation in China», vol. 5, pt. 7: «Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic», Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 7 (1986), 7
Without doubt it was in the previous century, around +850, that the early alchemical experiments on the constituents of gunpowder
- Needham J., Ho Ping-Yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, Wang Ling. «Science and Civilisation in China», vol. 5, pt. 7: «Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic», Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 8 (1986), 8
once the alchemists started mixing them in all possible combinations, gunpowder was sure to be found one day. If its first formulae did not appear in print until +1044
- Needham J., Ho Ping-Yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, Wang Ling. «Science and Civilisation in China», vol. 5, pt. 7: «Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic», Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 7 (1986), 7
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The fire lance: gunpowder in a tube
prerequisite for · Confidence: high
The fire lance appeared when someone thought of enclosing the already invented mixture of saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal in a tube and directing it at the enemy.
Link sources
- Needham J., Ho Ping-Yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, Wang Ling. «Science and Civilisation in China», vol. 5, pt. 7: «Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic», Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 221 (1986), 221
At some moment after the first invention of the deflagrative, ultimately explosive and detonative, mixture of saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal, it occurred to someone to enclose the low-nitrate powder in a tube, and make it play upon the enemy.
- Needham J., Ho Ping-Yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, Wang Ling. «Science and Civilisation in China», vol. 5, pt. 7: «Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic», Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 221 (1986), 221
Links under review
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The dispute over Bacon's gunpowder recipe
influenced · Confidence: medium
A tradition-level link under decision 053. Quotes 1 and 2 (Needham, p. xxxi) state that gunpowder reached Bacon from China and do not name our node. Quote 3 (Needham, p. 99) states that the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe is the first surviving record of the mixture flaring up, that is, the witness of this tradition.
The gunpowder that Bacon knew around 1260 as a firecracker came from China, where every stage from incendiary mixture to barrel had been passed before Europe knew the mixture itself. The Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe stands here for that Chinese tradition: according to Needham, it is the first surviving record of the mixture flaring up.
Dispute: The Chinese origin of gunpowder is generally accepted today; the specific route to Bacon (Franciscan brothers who travelled to the Mongols) is Needham's conjecture, and his 'doubtless' rests on no document.
Link sources
- Needham J., Ho Ping-Yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, Wang Ling. «Science and Civilisation in China», vol. 5, pt. 7: «Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic», Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. xxxi (1986), xxxi
were passed through in China, before Europeans knew of the mixture itself. Probably there were three comings.
- Needham J., Ho Ping-Yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, Wang Ling. «Science and Civilisation in China», vol. 5, pt. 7: «Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic», Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. xxxi (1986), xxxi
Roger Bacon by +1260 or so was able to study fire-crackers, doubtless brought west by some of his brother friars
- Needham J., Ho Ping-Yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, Wang Ling. «Science and Civilisation in China», vol. 5, pt. 7: «Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic», Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 99 (1986), 99
the first actual record of such ‘calamities’ is in the Chen Yuan Miao Tao Yao Lueh
- Needham J., Ho Ping-Yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, Wang Ling. «Science and Civilisation in China», vol. 5, pt. 7: «Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic», Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. xxxi (1986), xxxi
Node sources
- Needham J., Ho Ping-Yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, Wang Ling. «Science and Civilisation in China», vol. 5, pt. 7: «Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic», Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 112 (1986), 112
Perhaps therefore the best date for our passage would be c. +850, and this we shall retain.
- Needham J., Ho Ping-Yü, Lu Gwei-Djen, Wang Ling. «Science and Civilisation in China», vol. 5, pt. 7: «Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic», Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 98 (1986), 98
the first actual record of such ‘calamities’ is in the Chen Yuan Miao Tao Yao Lueh