The advent of gunpowder weapons, in turn, gave impetus to the research and mass production of gunpowder. In the military work "Wujing General Essentials" (A.D.), written by Zeng Gongliang, the prime minister of the Northern Song Dynasty, who was known for his familiarity with laws and allusions, not only described a variety of gunpowder weapons, but also recorded three gunpowder formulas at that time: 30 taels of flame nitrate, 15 taels of sulfur, 5 taels of charcoal, plus croton, illegal words, wolf poison, grass aconitum, yellow wax, bamboo ru, maru, small oil, tung oil, asphalt, etc.; Forty taels of flame nitrate, twenty taels of sulfur, five taels of charcoal, plus bamboo ru, hemp ru, small oil, tung oil, asphalt, yellow wax, dry paint, etc.; Forty taels of flame nitrate, fourteen taels of sulfur, fourteen taels of charcoal, plus bamboo ru, hemp ru, clear oil, tung oil, yellow wax, dry paint, arsenic, yellow dan, fixed powder, thick oil, etc.

From these three formulas of gunpowder, we can see that the main ingredients are nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal. And the specific gravity of nitrate has increased considerably, it is much more than sulfur and carbon combined. This is close to the later recipe of 75 percent nitrate in black powder. The content of other ingredients is very small, respectively, it plays the role of explosion, poisoning and creating smoke screens. It can be seen that the formula of gunpowder was already very complicated at that time.

The artillery mentioned above is a large powder pack. Tribulus fireballs are also gunpowder packs, which contain thorny thistles in addition to gunpowder, and as soon as the gunpowder packs explode, the thistles will fly out, blocking the road and preventing the cavalry from advancing. The poison smoke ball is a bit like a rudimentary poison gas bomb, which contains poisons such as illegal words and croton, which can be poisoned by the enemy and weakened its combat effectiveness.

In the Song Dynasty, national and class contradictions were very acute, and wars continued one after another, which promoted the faster development of gunpowder and gunpowder weapons. According to records, the Ordnance Superintendent at that time was large-scale and had a relatively detailed division of labor, employing more than 40,000 workers. Under the prison, there are 11 large workshops, such as gunpowder production, green kiln production, fierce fire oil production, and fire production (production of rockets, artillery, thistles, etc.). The production of gunpowder is put in the first place, which shows the status of gunpowder and firearms in weapons. Historical records also record that "7,000 crossbow gunpowder arrows, one bow gunpowder arrow, 3,000 thistle cannons, and 20,000 leather cannons were recorded in the same day," which clearly shows the scale of firearms production at that time.

Gunpowder weapons at this stage mainly made use of the properties of gunpowder. With the refining of nitrate, the processing of sulfur, the improvement of the quality of gunpowder, the development of gunpowder weapons was promoted, and the gradual transition to the use of explosive properties of gunpowder was promoted. Although the Tribulus Fireball can explode, the explosion nine is still very small. At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, people created weapons with strong explosive power, such as "thunderbolt cannon" and "earth-shattering thunder". As soon as the thunderbolt exploded, the sound was like a thunderbolt, and the lethality was relatively large. In the first year of Jingkang of Song Qinzong (1126 AD), Li Gang (1083-1140) repelled the siege of Kaifeng by Jin soldiers with thunderbolts. The Heaven-Shaking Thunder is a kind of iron artillery, and it is relatively advanced because its shell is no longer a grade or cloth shell, or a leather shell, but an iron shell. The strength of the iron shell is much greater than that of paper, cloth, and skin. When the gunpowder is ignited, the pressure of the gas accumulated in the cannon is high, and the explosion is powerful. The "History of Gold" describes: "The gunpowder attacked, the sound was like thunder, and the heat reached more than half an acre. The human and cowhide are shattered into no trace, and the armor and iron are all transparent. "The transformation of the utilization of gunpowder properties marks the arrival of the maturity stage of gunpowder.

The large-scale peasant uprisings that broke out several times in the Song Dynasty also directly promoted the development of gunpowder weapons. Many of the rebels made their own weapons, there were a lot of creations.

During the Song and Yuan dynasties, there was a gunpowder arrow that used the reaction force generated by the gunpowder jet gas to shoot the arrow at the enemy, which is consistent with the launch principle of modern rockets. Due to a variety of reasons, it was not able to develop vigorously at that time, and in the Ming Dynasty, there were more such gunpowder arrows. In the famous military work of the Ming Dynasty, "Wubei Zhi", there are many such rocket diagrams. Such as flying knife arrows, flying spear arrows, swallowtail arrows, etc., these are no longer ordinary arrows. Another example is the "Fire Bend Meteor Arrow" that fires 10 arrows at the same time, the "Swarm of Bees" that fires 32 arrows, the "49 Arrows Feilian Arrow" that fires 49 arrows, the "100 Arrows Arc Arrow" that fires 100 arrows, and the "Hundred Tigers Rushing Arrows". Most of them put arrows in barrels, connect the medicine wires on a bus, ignite the bus, transmit to each arrow, and shoot out in one salvo.

In the "Wubei Zhi", the principle is also recorded, just like the firecrackers we set off during the festival "two kicks" and "light cannons", the prototype missiles with a certain explosive or destructive power, such as "flying in the air, thieves, earth-shaking thunder cannons", "divine fire flying crows" and so on.

……

"Your Majesty, this time we have taken out the country's black powder reserves, is the price a little too great?" Ling Junfei asked.

"If we can defeat the Black Country this time, our Xiliang Army will go all the way south, directly defeat Beichen, expand the territory, and then move west to win the two Western countries, and then become the third largest country in the Central Plains Continent, and what Ju State, Black Country, and even Dou Country will have to look at us with admiration."

"Your Majesty, Yin Shenglin's troops are already ready to attack in the southern border of Dou State, if we defeat the Black Country this time, do we still need to continue to cooperate with Dou Country?"

"The Dou Kingdom is in a strong state, and we can't easily provoke them. Besides, if we want to become the third most powerful country in the Central Plains Continent, we must ask Dou Guo to help. ”

"I'm afraid that Dou Guo won't want us to become too strong, right?"

King Xiliang said: "There are no eternal friends, but there are friends at that time." Dou Guo will definitely not let us become the next black country to oppose his team, but the opportunities are all grasped by ourselves, and now we can only fight the black country first. ”