Gunpowder Empires --- Not

When You stop and think about it, it sounds rediculious.
You take a mixture of 15 parts Expensive Saltpeter, and three parts Sulfur, throw in 2 parts charcole,
add Water to make a paste. roll it out into this sheets, let dry, and grind into a fine powder.
Then you set it on fire to make a stinking smoke.

If fact it is so redicuilious, that it was only done once, in 600~800 AD, China.
Who or Why, is not known but by 200 years later it was in use in fireworks, and Fire Arrows.
100 years after that the first cannons appear in China.

It was discovered in the Laojun Mountain in southwestern China, which at the time was the centre of China's Saltpeter prodution.

So sometime between 600 ~800 AD a nameless Apprentice is given the task of grinding up and mixing a batch of ingrediances. while his Master & Family, work in a nearby room.
To lazy to go get the wooden motar and pestle, He uses the nearby metal one.
An hour later the House is gone up in Smoke, the Apprentice and the Master, along with the entire Family is dead.
Dead Along with them is the secrect of the mixture.

Now I don't expect Explosive never to be invented,
Nitro compounds will be developed eventually. but whe can delay them till the 19th century chemists get involved.

?What will be the result of no gunpower or explosives till the 1800's?
 
A retardation of engineering? Building high, strong walls is simple enough, but the concepts behind glacis and moats and embrasures and fields of fire and enfilading and trench warfare, etc., etc. wouldn't be necessary - at least not for warfare. So military engineering remains at the level of captapults and trebuchets, thereby lessening engineering development in general...?
 

Thande

Donor
Not everyone agrees that gunpowder was only invented once. Some historians think that the Arabs or possibly even Europeans invented it independently around 1100 rather than the conventional theory that the recipe was stolen or acquired from China.
 
Besides, what's to stop gunpowder from being invented later?

If it was just a matter of stumbling accross the right formula, someone was going to find it sooner or later...
 

Rockingham

Banned
When You stop and think about it, it sounds rediculious.
You take a mixture of 15 parts Expensive Saltpeter, and three parts Sulfur, throw in 2 parts charcole,
add Water to make a paste. roll it out into this sheets, let dry, and grind into a fine powder.
Then you set it on fire to make a stinking smoke.

If fact it is so redicuilious, that it was only done once, in 600~800 AD, China.
Who or Why, is not known but by 200 years later it was in use in fireworks, and Fire Arrows.
100 years after that the first cannons appear in China.

It was discovered in the Laojun Mountain in southwestern China, which at the time was the centre of China's Saltpeter prodution.

So sometime between 600 ~800 AD a nameless Apprentice is given the task of grinding up and mixing a batch of ingrediances. while his Master & Family, work in a nearby room.
To lazy to go get the wooden motar and pestle, He uses the nearby metal one.
An hour later the House is gone up in Smoke, the Apprentice and the Master, along with the entire Family is dead.
Dead Along with them is the secrect of the mixture.

Now I don't expect Explosive never to be invented,
Nitro compounds will be developed eventually. but whe can delay them till the 19th century chemists get involved.

?What will be the result of no gunpower or explosives till the 1800's?
If you are right, it makes me wonder....what other technnologies/compounds etc. might have been discovered and used, but haven't been due to chance?
 
If you really and truly delay the entire Gunpower revolution (though I agree with many of the previous posters who doubt the single invention approach), then you probably also delay the Renaissance or at least the Enlightenment.

Without cannon to knock through walls, castles in Europe remain the order of the day. Without the musket and infantry formations, the mass nature of warfare does begin to develop. This retards all forms of popular participation in government. Pikemen would still be effective as massed groups, but infantry would not gain pride of place as quickly or as definitively if armies are restricted to edge weapons. Without cannon, sailing vessels may never (or at least not as soon as OTL) venture beyond the controlled waters of North Europe; without firm protection, they are too vulnerable to local watercraft and pirates. India is not reached by the Portugese and Spain does not reach out to discover the Americas.

The High Middle Ages would last for a longer time. Martin Luther would still become active, but the wars of religion would take a far different shape. Even if protestantism carries the day, there's no guarantee that feudal kingdoms begin to more greatly resemble nation states without the kind of armies and organizations required by gunpowder.
 
I doubt it'll have quite the immediate effect that people make it out to. Remember that while we've had guns since the 14th century, we haven't had *effective* firearms for another two to three hundred years. Warfare was already becoming more and more infantry heavy, with some units gaining huge prestige even without, or in spite of, fire arms (swiss guards, Landsknecht, etc). While it would be cool for the High Middle ages to last another century, too many things were already in motion to sustain it in definitely.
 
Regarding naval warfare, you'd probably end up with the Dragon Hydra: a large(ish) ship mounting several flame throwers on each side. Much shorter ranged, but just as effective. Mangonels and onagers aren't really practical on ships, and ballistas don't do much damage.

Just as Analytical Engine said, it would've probably been invented anyway, only later than in OTL.
 
Top