Who Invented Gunpowder

War is something that is fought for primarily the same reasons, but the ways we fight those wars have changed over the centuries. The invention of gunpowder is the main factor in the evolution of warfare. Gunpowder was not always meant to be a tool of destruction, but could be used for entertainment. Gunpowder has also had a huge effect on how people celebrate not just warfare. Gunpowder has many things about it; when, why, where, and how gunpowder was made and how it changed warfare.

The time that gunpowder was made is something that needs to be known first before anything else. The substance is mostly agreed on that it was made in ancient China. Gunpowder is mostly believed to be invented by the Chinese, it is “certainly more true to state

The Chinese alchemists of the time were making countless discoveries throughout the Chinese Empire. They have discovered things like mercury and many other things that were both positive or negative or just one or the other. As swrtohmore.edu has stated, “It is beleived that the discovery of gunpowder was a byproduct from centuries alchemical experiments that were aimed to finding the formula for the elixir of immortality…” (Culture). As you can see, the alchemists did have some rather far-fetched plans for the times, but they still were able to make some progress with things such as gunpowder even if it was only an accident. As spoken of by Cal State Fullerton, “a group of Daoist monks… mixed saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal… they discovered that it would burn and explode” (Orleans). This is a reasonable explanation to why gunpowder was created since the time it came from was full of inventing and discovering. Gunpowder also has some hints to its uses since the “Chinese word for gunpowder… literally means ‘Fire Medicine’” this goes to show that the Chinese somewhat knew what they were doing when naming it (Culture). The fire part of this terminology comes from the fact that gunpowder explodes, as you read earlier, from the mixture of substances it’s made from. It’s also related to fire because it takes a flame to light it and it produces smoke when it burns or explode. The medicine part comes from the very bizarre fact that gunpowder actually has medicinal properties when applied to a wound. This might seem rather untrue, but it happens that gunpowder has the strange ability to disinfect wounds that may occur from the wilderness, or other sources, just like how honey can do the same life saving action. In other words, if you were to be out away from civilization and were to sustain a wound you could disinfect it with either honey or