(TFT) Gunpowder

["Jay Carlisle" <Maou_Tsaou@charter.net>]

Technological progression.
Nitrates are the result of biological activity and are highly soluable 
making it very unusual to find a

nitrate mineral, although Chile Saltpetre, NaNO3, is found in large 
quantities in Chile and Peru and

Nitre, KNO3, is much more rarely found in areas like Kentucky. In places 
where nitrates are present in the

soil, dissolved nitrates may appear as efflorescences on rocks in caves and 
similar places where the

nitrate waters have seeped through. Deposits of saltpeter were known in the 
valley of the Ganges, and at

certain locations in China, Tibet, Kashmir, Russia, Sumatra and Mindanao.
It seems that by the 1st century A.D. in locations in western China 
saltpeter was used as a substitute for

salt, and it is speculated that this use (sprinkeled over foods on a cook 
fire) led to the notice of its

reactive properties.

Sulfur, "the stone that burns," was crucial to alchemy. It was known from 
prehistoric times in native

deposits and was also given off in metallurgic processes (the "roasting" of 
sulfide ores).
Mercury, known before 300 B.C., united with most of the other metals, and 
the amalgam formed colored

powders (the sulfides) when treated with sulfur. Mercury itself occurs in 
nature in a red sulfide,

cinnabar, which can also be made artificially. All of these, except possibly 
the last, were operations

known to the metallurgist and were adopted by the alchemist.

The alchemist added the action on metals of a number of corrosive salts, 
mainly the vitriols (copper and

iron sulfates), alums (the aluminum sulfates of potassium and ammonium), and 
the chlorides of sodium and

ammonium. And he made much of arsenic's property of colouring metals. All of 
these materials, except the

chloride of ammonia, were known in ancient times.

100 A.D. Start of production (resource appears on map) of saltpetre begins 
in west China.
(Also the Flame Mountain (Huo-yen Shan) near T'u-lu-p'an (Turfan), in 
Central Asia starts production of

ammonia chloride and is likely the worlds only source until the 900 A.D.'s)

The first Roman embassy to China reached there by ship in AD 166 marking the 
start of the silk road

contact.

The chloride of ammonia first became known to the West in the Chou-i ts'an 
t'ung ch'i, a Chinese treatise

of the 2nd century AD.

Distillation, necessary to make petroleum naphtha, had been developed in 
Alexandria sometime in the 1st to

3rd centuries, notably by one Maria the Jewess.

166 A.D. First contact with Rome. [ 6 years into the 4th generation from 
start ]

The first Chinese alchemist who is reasonably well known was Ko Hung (AD 
283-343)

The most famous Chinese alchemical book is the Tan chin yao ch8eh ("Great 
Secrets of Alchemy"), probably

by Sun Ssu-miao (AD 581-after 673). It is a practical treatise on creating 
elixirs (mercury, sulfur, and

the salts of mercury and arsenic are prominent) for the attainment of 
immortality, plus a few for specific

cures for disease and such other purposes as the fabrication of precious 
stones.

By around 900 A.D. Chinese alchemists seem to have isolated and described 
saltpetre as a white,

crystalline powder that cooled water when dissolved in it, and deflagrated 
vigorously when thrown on a

fire. The driving force behind this discovery seems to have had much to do 
with alchemey and more

specificly the search for the potion of imortality, one component of which 
was sodium carbonate a white,

crystalline powder that effervesces in acids like vinegar. The Latin term 
for sodium carbonate is nitron

thus saltpetre was caled nitrate or false nitron becaused it lacks such 
effervescence.

900 A.D. Chemical discovery of saltpetre in China [ 40 generations from 
start ]

The first Arabic reference to saltpetre dates from 1225 and by 1248 (one 
generation later) it is mentioned

by the Iberian Al-Baytar as "snow of China." This implies that the Chineese 
alchemists had already learned

to use sulfur to perserve the saltpetre from moisture. By the 13th century 
Roger Bacon (Franciscan 1257,

described in Epistolae de Secretis Operibus) and Albertus Magnus (Dominican) 
were writing about early

forms of gunpowder used for noise and sound. These observations pretty soon 
led to cannon.
In 1304, Edward I made no use of cannon at Stirling, although he ordered 
saltpetre for Greek Fire, but by

1341 the castle was defended by the Scots with guns.
The manipulation of these materials was to lead to the discovery of the 
mineral acids, the history of

which began in Europe in the 13th century. The first was probably nitric 
acid, made by distilling together

saltpetre (potassium nitrate) and vitriol or alum (alum itself is a white 
crystaline powder confused with

sodium carbonate, etc.)

1341 Sterling Castle defended with cannon. [ 1 year into the 63rd generation 
from start of production ]


Note that in the same generation that Al-Baytar calls saltpetre Chineese 
snow in Iberia, Bacon describes

it in Britan. Two generations after that the stuff is being ordered as war 
goods at Sterling and 2

generations after that they've got guns.

As to speculation, because saltpetre and sulphur must be finely distributed 
the more micropores in the

charcol used the better. Traditionally willow is considered the best wood to 
use but I know from art that

human bones make the best black for pigments sooooo I guess the Dark Lord 
may have found a use for all the

corpses he creates, and no wonder he burns whole villages to the ground... 
I'll bet he makes a lot of soap

from rendering the fat and leaching the wood ash for lie... hummmmmmmmmm 
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