Gunpowder Blues

Gunpowder Blues

Rockets Angry Glare - The History of Gunpowder and Explosives in Antarctica  G.K Jaywardene, University of Sri Lanka Press, 1977 (excerpted with permission) 

Gunpowder is a unique invention. In the entire history of the rest of the world, Gunpowder was discovered only once or twice.

In China, Gunpowder was discovered sometime in the period of the 800's or 900's CE, by Taoist Monks searching for an elixir of immortality. This seems counterintuitive. But the elements of gunpowder; sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter had a long history in chinese medicine.

Sulfur, for instance, was known in china from 600 years BCE, and a well established anti-bacterial and antifungal agent, it was also known for burning with a distinctive blue flame, a key test for purity. Charcoal was taken as a remedy for digestive problems including heartburn, flatulence, indigestion and even poisoning. Saltpeter, described in China around 500 CE relieved angina and was a remedy for blood pressure.

These were not the only substances found in chinese medicine, of course. Honey, mercury, cannabis and ‘dragon’s teeth’ were also part of the repertoire. A chinese encyclopedia described over medicinal properties in over 800 substances. The search for immortality involved systematic, if utterly misguided, mixings and blendings of different substances based on exotic theories of health and longevity. It was almost inevitable that eventually sulfurs, charcoals and saltpeters would be mixed together. The remarkable thing is that someone put a flame to it, rather than simply swallowing it. But here, the intent might be to test the purity of the sulfur component.

Early chinese gunpowders were closely tied to medicine or medicinal ideas. So often, in addition to the three main ingredients, such things as honey, mercury or arsenics. The early gunpowders were also relatively weak. The ideal mixture was roughly 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal and 10% sulfur. Chinese mixtures tended to range between 25 to 50% saltpeter with 20 to 25% sulfur. It would take the Chinese centuries of experimentation to work towards ideal ratios.

The conventional view of the old world is that gunpowder originates in China, and all other appearances of it derive from diffusion rather than separate inventions. According to this theory, gunpowder diffuses slowly out of China after its invention, spread by the mongols and others, reaching the Arabs by the 12th century, and the Europeans by the 13th or 14th.

There is a controversial argument for an independent invention of gunpowder by arabs in the 12th or 13th centuries. Saltpeter was known to the Arabs and used in metallurgy as early as the 8th or 9th century, with pot ash being used to purify it. Metallurgical processes employing saltpeter may have also experimented with charcoal and sulphur, producing explosive results. The Arabs appear to have refined gunpowder into its ideal ratios by the 12th century, roughly two centuries before either the Europeans or Chinese managed the same feat.

Apart from that, stories of independent European invention of gunpowders, such as by Francis Bacon, tend to be apocryphal, and its most likely that these were instances of cultural transmission, not true invention. The irony of gunpowder though, is that literally, it was an invention literally independent of time. In the old world of Europe, Africa and Asia, it could have been developed any time from 5000 years ago to the present. It could have been developed by the Pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas, or by Australian Aborigines. Or it might not have developed at all.

Under the circumstances, it is both unremarkable and surprising that the Tsalal developed gunpowder over 3000 years before the Chinese, and 3400 years before the Arabs.

Of the constituent elements, Charcoal goes back in Tsalal history an extremely long way. Charcoal is essentially carbonized wood or bone, wood or bone baked over low fires with low oxygen, producing a product 50 to 95% carbon, black or gray and lightweight, resembling coal and an effective burner. Charcoals appear to go back 30,000 years in Tsalal history, in occasional use.

Systematic large scale production of charcoal, however, begins in the Coal Age, roughly a thousand years after the emergence of the Coal Kingdoms. The so-called Charcoal Kingdoms are historically seen as tributary cultures to the Coal Kingdoms, essentially derivative in technology, organization and social structure.

This is perhaps an error, as Charcoal production required the development of different production and organization. Both coal and charcoal were extractive industries. But coal was generally concentrated in deposits, so technology and organization tended to be very specific. Charcoal consists of harvesting stands of trees, preparing the raw wood into bricks, and then baking or carbonizing them, either on site or more usually in special ovens at another location.

Charcoal production required more transportation and fluid transportation. Carts, wagons and draft animals were in extensive use, employing the same techniques as the coal kingdoms but more broadly. Many of the innovations in wheels and wagons seen tended to occur in charcoal. The charcoal ovens that were developed, with air and chimney venting were the predecessors of the sunken city forced air oven.

The so called charcoal kingdoms were generally much smaller, more egalitarian, but often short lived. More fluid in their harvesting and allocation activities, they often were unable to build up the degree of infrastructure and social organization that was seen in the Coal Kingdoms. These disadvantages, and inferior numbers, meant that charcoal kingdoms were often dominated or purged entirely by adjacent Coal Kingdoms, always ready to eliminate rivals.

In the later parts of the Coal Age, charcoal production moved from essentially ‘slash and burn’ to longer term forest management techniques, selectively harvesting trees, encouraging species, and defending territories from interlopers. By the end of the Coal Age and into the Copper Age, a variety of charcoal techniques had evolved and spread widely, from organized ongoing production complexes to small guerilla operations, extending through much of Tsalal.

Sulfur shows up very close to the beginning of the copper age, although some argue at least a thousand years earlier. In relatively pure form, sulfur deposits occur naturally near active or extinct volcanoes. Such areas tended to attract Tsalal settlement, making use of lingering geological heat or hot springs.

Sulfur was often found in association with other elements, copper, iron, lead, and zinc, and the sulfates of barium, calcium (commonly known as gypsum), magnesium, and sodium, and could be baked from pyrite. So sulfur starts to become prominent as copper smelting becomes widespread in Zhudan, Azul and the hill countries of Tsalmothua. While never plentiful, sulfur steadily became more common, and uses and production techniques refined.

The last element for the development of gunpowder in Antarctica was potassium nitrate, or saltpeter. This came about as a natural extension of Sunken City practices. Essentially, in the sunken cities, urination was done indoors. Traditionally, urine was voided into common receptacles in the low levels of the cities. The urine pits used ash, plant matter/sawdust, or sand or gravel to soak up the liquid. In larger or more sophisticated cities there were multiple urination receptacles or even personal litter boxes for urine.

The Tsalal distinguished urine from excrement in the Sunken Cities and generally voided and stored differently. Excrement was kept separate from urine, mixed with plant matter, and dried out to reduce smell. It was often recycled for burning or fertilizer, or re-mixed with food stuffs or medicines. Excrement was considered a useful commodity, urine was not, and allowing urine and excrement to mix was taboo.

Urine wastes were generally collected in the bottom or in a reserved chamber. These wastes accumulated over winter months, and sometimes accumulated over a period of years before being removed from the Sunken Cities and dumped, usually somewhere close, but somewhere that seepage was not likely. As a result, urea, would decompose through bacterial action, reducing to ammonia, and producing various nitrates. Where ash was used as a medium, pot ash produced potassium nitrate, or saltpeter.

Many of the sunken cities in this way built up nearby saltpeter deposits over decades or centuries. The steady evolution of thermal efficiency in the Sunken Cities, the decline of the Coal Kingdoms and the extended period of high energy costs lead to many cities experimenting with various sorts of burnables in order to meet their energy needs, often in combinations with other elements. Charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter were all identified burnables, going into ovens separately or together....

The combination of factors, produced a region, the hill country of Tsalmothua upstream of the sea of frost, charcoal country, adjacent to Zhudan’s emerging copper culture, and settled by increasingly complex sunken cities. The only real question was not how or where, but when...

---

Tslal with gunpowder....now that's nightmare material.

---

Notice that I stuck a bit of coprophagy, to go with all the incest, cannibalism, necrophilia, torture, genocide and other squick.

STOP BEING SO PROUD OF IT DAMN YOU!!!!!

Don't make them too powerfull or you will lose plausibility. I take the gunpowder is sort of missing chance, like the ancient printing press toys and was never used as common weapon?

Actually, at first, for most areas, gunpowder is a really really bad idea. The knowledge proliferates initially as "watch out for these combinations, they'll blow your oven to pieces."

Of course, people being people, and the Tsalal being the Tsalal, after a while, they're going to be coming up with nasty uses for it.

But gunpowder in the old world emerged in advanced Iron Age societies with relatively sophisticated metallurgy, and took roughly 500 to 700 to evolve into a fully nasty effectiveness.

The Tsalal cultures are sophisticated ceramic/early bronze age. Things are going to go differently.

--

This thread is so horribly good, i'm becoming addicted

Also I have a few random thoughts about Tsalal medieval-level melee weaponry. For one, their objective is quite different from old world weapons: lots of times, they don't aim to swiftly kill the enemy, much more to brutally maim and/or capture the enemy for later processing (hamstringed slaves or meat on the menu, after some good old torture). To achieve this, the Tsalal would likely develop a wide variety of capture (nets and bolas) and maiming (serrated and/or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karambit style curved blades in knives and shortswords, designed to damage joints and to inflict excrutiating pain) Blades like that are inspired by nature- in this case by giant sloth claws.

Naturally there would be many variants, for people trying to figure out the best ways to kill other people... as one would expect from a people of killers and torturers like the Tsalal. Although in my opinion, they prefer the more wicked weapons, if they get a choice, so the result would be something like roman gladiator weaponry on steroids, with lots of serrated edges and curved blades thrown in the mix.

-

I like that a lot.

I'm currently percolating a bit. Gunpowder is pretty sexy stuff, so I'm thinking of maybe doing a few pieces covering the evolution of gunpowder in Tsalal society, with ongoing comparisons with the development of chinese and european stuff.

But I'm also tempted to spend some time covering the Bronze Age, and particularly the ascension of the Zhudan culture. I've got some thoughts for a wretchedly nasty religion. The Zhudan are kind of fun, they're evolving into a sort of Viking Jews with a wicked apocalyptic streak.

Fundamental to Zhudan culture is that their entire cosmology is centered around mortal terror of the Qys who drove them from their ancestral lands and onto the Path of Sorrow. Ironically, the Qys are long extinct, they themselves were supplanted by invaders with better technology for the coastal and inland environments. Essentially, a long period of frosts left the Qys agricultural package falling to pieces. Hunter gatherers moved nomadically through their territory and picked them to pieces. Meanwhile, the trauma of the path was passed down in tales from generation to generation, eventually becoming written into a holy book which was a sort of cross between the old testament and a viking saga.

In the book, all the various misfortunes of the Zhu are attributed to a malicious and malevolent monotheistic deity with a particular hate on for the Zhu, who are wayward creations who rebelled against suffering. The Zhu through strength and cleverness make their way through the world despite the machinations of the Malevolent. The Malevolent has created the demonic Qys to harry and task the Zhu into extinction. On the Path of Sorrow, the Zhu escaped the Qys, but they remain an ever present threat growing ever larger by absence. The Zhu are kind of schizophrenic on the subject - on the one hand, they're terrified, every stranger is a potential Qys and the coming of the Qys will mean the end of all. On the other hand, sometimes they're feeling their oats and spoiling for a fight.

The Zhu believe in an afterlife. Basically, instead of heaven and hell, they get hell and hell, with some other hells thrown in. However, if you are a good Zhu, die well, you may get to join the spirits of the ancestors, who have banded together in the afterlife for mutual protection and defense. Essentially, they've got a little armed insurrection going on in Hell.

Zhu theology pushes the Zhu in several different directions. On the one hand, it tends to make them utterly crazed xenophobes who see in any stranger the portent of an imminent demonic apocalypse.

Most Zhu conversations with foreigners tend to be rambling and somewhat scary monologues with frequent mention of Qys. Qys is actually the first Zhu word that most strangers learn, but it's not a good idea to repeat it back to them.

For much of their history, encounters with strangers have tended to erupt into orgies of genocide, mass murder, and torturing victims to death in order to determine their worth to be eaten.

Of course, if the strangers are able to put up a real fight, then the Zhu flip out like a giant nestfull of rabid hornets tweaked to the max at an epileptics convention.

On the other hand, Zhu theology also encourages the Zhu to be outgoing, curious, and inventive. Basically, it's important always to stay one step ahead of God. Tradition is all well and fine, but when the Qys come boiling over the hill, you're looking for anything and everything that will give you an edge. This lead to the Zhu taking early leads with sailing, copper and bronze. They were a consistently inventive culture.

And if you can somehow get past the whole psychotic xenophobia the Zhu could be remarkably outgoing and convivial. They were always looking for allies, or prospective cannon fodder against the Qys.

It also ordered Zhu society quite effectively. The rules for living, and for organizing and dealing with other Zhu were extensive and they worked on a practical basis. The Zhu found benefits to large scale cooperation. Such cooperation was theologically vital. The only respite from eternal suffering and torment were the friends you made and the ancestors you placated now. No matter what you did, sooner or later, you'd end up in the afterlife, and then you'd be in real trouble.

This could be interesting if the Zhu are the first to encounter europeans.

On the other hand I can't help but feel mildly sympathitic towards them. For one thing they have a fascinating religion. I can't think of any other belief system in which the primary deity is evil and wants to hurt followers of their religion.