Empress Kung Sheng, mother to Emperor Lizong, fifth of his line, exploded with the righteous rage familiar to generations of children from Diwali pranks gone wrong: A ‘ground rat’, a simple bamboo-tube firework, had escaped the fireworks display in the Chinese imperial garden, bounced across the room, and blown up under throne of the silk-swaddled dowager queen. The court historian Zhou Mi, military historian Stephen Haw tells us, didn’t record how many children were scolded on that festive evening, in the summer of 1224 CE.

The generals in the court would have known what the empress might not have: The ground rat was powering changes in war-fighting that would shape the fate of her kingdom.

Although Diwali isn’t a good time for a debate on the historicity of the lightning-rod and thunderbolt weapons that suffuse popular accounts of Ramayana-era warfare, accounts from around the world tell us the impact of the firework was profound and savage. The millions of children lighting fireworks—and adults who never left their adolescence behind—will, among other things, be celebrating an ancient revolution in military technology.

The rise of fire wars

Early in the second millennium, more than a thousand years ago, the city of Kaifeng rose on the south bank of China’s Yellow River. Linked to the Grand Canal, stretching almost 1,800 kilometres to the sea, Kaifeng became a great centre of trade, arts and sciences. The clocktower built by astronomer Su Song in 1087 CE, China expert Joseph Needham has recorded, included an escapement and chain-drive, technologies that would not become known in the West for centuries.

The Taoist monks patronised by this thriving civilisation had long conducted experiments to manipulate nature and control time—among other things by heating sulphur, arsenic sulphide and potassium nitrate in honey. These experiments, Needham has noted, didn’t always end well for the monks. Time wasn’t controlled, either—but the firework that so upset Empress Kung Sheng was born.

Estimates by historians suggest gunpowder weapons were in use by around 1000 CE. The technology had evolved enough to play an important role…..

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https://theprint.in/opinion/security-code/your-diwali-firework-set-off-a-lethal-revolution-in-military-tech-in-china-centuries-ago/1177540/