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Gunpowder

• Taoist monks or alchemists in China
• combined sulfur and charcoal as a medicine.
• Searching for the elixer of immortality,
• they added saltpeter, creating gunpowder,
• the first chemical explosive and propellant.
• They used gunpowder at first
• for its incendiary effects, and were
• gradually able to increase the saltpeter
• to make it more explosive
• and more useful in weaponry.

Devices

• Simple incendiary sticks
• threw out a purple flame.
• Flamethrower tubes
• emitting burning gas and embers.
• Fire lances lighted
• and thrown at the enemy.
• Fire grenades.
• Fire birds.
• Thunder-clap bombs.
• Ceramic-shelled grenades
• thrown by hand to explode among enemy soldiers.
• Bombs that blind, burn, and poison;
• bombs that kill with shrapnel.
• Land mines with a long fuse
• lit by ambushers at a distance.
• A string of land mines
• triggered by a trip wire.
• Naval mines with delayed fuses
• and fancy trigger mechanisms.
• Fire and explosive bombs
• launched by trebuchet.
• A proto cannon, the Eruptor,
• that fired cast-iron shells filled with gunpowder.
• Fire arrows
• launched from bows and crossbows
• Fire arrows partially propelled
• by their own exhaust.

Mortality

• If the powder scared away evil spirits
• and brought good luck at first,
• it also scared away human spirits
• and brought death.
• An elixer of immortality
• also a mortal poison.

State secrets

• An advantage that depends on secrecy
• is only temporary.
• If you use it then everyone knows about it.
• Because many people have to know
• something about it,
• “state secret” is an oxymoron.
• Suppose a nation abolished secrecy.
• It would not only need to give up concealing
• but behave so they have nothing to conceal.
• Suppose a nation declared
• it would have no secrecy. Suppose
• true democracy were possible.