Many thought that the gunpowder had been made by arms experts in the laboratory, but that it had been first blown up by the furnace. A piece of nitro, a handful of charcoal powder, and a few sulfur, which is slightly less than that, is completely different in power and colour. It's a lot more intuitive than a bunch of chemical equations。
Accidents in the furnace
In the latter part of tang dynamite, the qinnam and sichuan purifiers, while cooking so-called volt gunpowder, combined nitro, sulfur and charcoal to heat proportionately, resulting in the bursting of containers and the recording of formulations in the literature. The first clear text is available in the notes quoted in the 903, when the formulation was mainly made of cedars and asphalt as adhesives, leaving a clear gap with the system of three subsequent pure ingredients。
General song began loading the gunpowder into a bamboo barrel and arrow, turning it into a rocket and a fireball. In 1044, the decree-law was completed, containing a variety of gunpowder prescriptions, with more than 70 per cent of the total weight of nitro. From that point on, the powder was no longer a game in the mills, but rather a well-established supply of military supplies, with the dynamite directorate in charge of production and distribution。
What about the three kinds of sulfur
The pharmacist's mouth-to-mouth passercorate is a sulfur of three charcoals, weighing approximately one to two to three. The nitro is responsible for providing oxygen to sustain the combustion, carbon is the fuel, sulphur is the point of combustion and speed of reaction is accelerated. The three casks, usually mixed with crumbs and a small amount of pine, are more stable than pure carbon powder, do not burn out overnight and can sustain a sustained thrust。
At least a dozen gunpowder formulas, some musk and yellow, and some shellfish-proofing with tarp. The proportions vary from war to war, with 80% of the gunpowder nitro and a high push, to pyrotechnics with lower nitro, more sulfur and metal powder, with more bright colours and a less powerful sound, and a small crack after the blast。
The grinding sift is not half equal
After the three feedstocks have been prorated, the key is to grind this process. The ancients are repeatedly crushed with quarries or iron sands, grinding over and over and over again, typically through a six- to eight-storey sift with a final particle control of around 0. 3 mm. It's so thick that it doesn't ring, it's so thin that it's too easy to rub a fire while grinding, and each sift has to be turned over。
The sifting must be done for hours in the cool air so that the tides in the particles can spread slowly. The gunpowder cartridges should be filled with no hand-strength, with wood squirming from the top to the bottom, so that the fire is stabilized when the blast occurs. The ministry of social welfare and works has a special plan for filling steps, ranging from terminologies, mixing, grinding, sifting to a total of seven processes, with closed doors, and possibly a few of them。
From rocket to red cannon
The first form of gunpowder on the battlefield was a small kit tied to the tail of an arrow, which was fired out and pushed by the kit. The pyrotechnics of the generation fed the powder directly into the cylinders, lit it with fuses and could be fired at an effective range of 120 metres. In the ming dynasty's army, a warship is equipped with 20 flanges, with shells weighing between two and eight pounds, with a single dose of about 80 grams, and can shoot more than 100 guns a day。
In 1558, the red cannon was introduced from spain, weighing up to three tons on a single door, and the amount of medicines loaded has increased severalfold. However, steel cylinders are over-pressed, the purity of the nitro is higher, and the purity of the nitrite is more than 13 per cent nitrogen. It's not enough to be pure, it's boring to get out, and the shells can't fly。
We'll rely on it for the rest of the year
In the northern song qiang, the street was stunned by a street-soldier with a low percentage of nitro and sulfur in his canister, with a loud but low impact. After dawn, the pyrotechnic formula will be filled with iron powder, copper powder, chlorate, colour changed from white to red and green, and the city of beijing will burn hundreds of thousands of kilograms of powder raw every year。
The greatest difference between civilian and military uses is in particle size and ratio. The firecrackers are thick, about a millimetre, and are fast-fried; mining explosives require high density and long-term stability, with particles pressing below point five. After coming out of the nineteenth century, the black powder gradually retreated militarily, but the old formula was still being used by civilians with guns and fireworks。
A gunpowder has changed things
The gunpowder didn't just change the battlefield. The attack on the city went from a cloud ladder crash to artillery and infantry fire, and the wall was no longer an absolute barrier. On the european side, othman opened constantinople with artillery and immediately ended byzantine. In china, the extraction of nitrates requires repeated heating and filtration, drawing on the process of salt ironing, resulting in the first set of chemical operating codes and safety records。
Culturally, gunpowder is embedded in everyday life. China's practice of setting fire on new year's eve dates back to tang dynasty's firecrackers, which are basically lit together by a bunch of small pharmacies. The black powder formulation is still the basis of the annual pyrotechnic formulation produced globally, except for a round of purity. From the furnace to the opening of the olympic games, this grey-white powder came nearly 1,200 years ago。
You know what the difference is between nitrate and sulfur? The comment section talks about the smell of your old gunfight, and it's interesting to help, to send it to friends who are curious。
