Fireworks Then and Now
The human capacity for oohs and aahs
In the second century B.C., Emperor Wu Di (156-87 BCE) of the Han dynasty wanted to extend his life and his power forever, so he financed Taoist alchemists efforts to learn the secrets of eternal life. The alchemists experimented with sulfur dioxide and saltpeter, heating these compounds to transform them into fire medicine. Perhaps the Taoists, students of the life forces, thought maybe food preservatives could preserve humans. Eventually they added another preservative, charcoal, and mixed them all in proper proportions to create a pleasant surprise, black powder, which when ignited produced a white smoke and a gas, which when pressurized could be used as a propellant. The popping and smoking that would become fireworks had just begun.
Another factor in the creation of fireworks is that ancient Chinese liked to throw bamboo into the fire because bamboo’s air pockets made small explosions to scare away evil spirits or, at least, add a little fun to a party.
If you pack gunpowder into bamboo, the fun really begins. What if you could shoot gun powder packed bamboo with a burning arrow? What if you could use the force of the explosives inside the bamboo to send missiles flying through the air? What if you could blow things up real good. It didn’t take long to go from the study of fire medicine to the study of fireworks and then to the study of fire arms. In a few centuries humans went from experimenting with black-powder-to-extend-life to learning how to use black powder to rain down mayhem, terror, debilitation, and death.
Part of the drama of fireworks can be attributed to their unpredictability. The creators and users of gunpowder are sometimes themselves the victims of gunpowder. You can lose a finger, lose a hand, or put out an eye using fireworks. On one particular Fourth of July in my hometown — perhaps it was the Third of July, since that’s when the volunteer firemen put on the fireworks show — one of the Clarion, Pennsylvania, V.F.D. explosive experts lost the use of his left hand. This unfortunate event reminds me of the sublime Graham Greene’s performance on the Red Green Show as the half-charred fireman Edgar Montrose about the need for fireworks safety.
But back to the 13th century, the expanding Mongol Empire became quite expert at harming others, and not themselves, with gunpowder. A combination of siege weapons, flaming arrows, exploding bombs, and rockets in fighting the neighboring Jurchen Jin Dynasty, who were masters of black powder. In fact, the Mongols adopted many Jurchen techniques by way of adopting disaffected Jurchen (of whom, three fictional versions show up in my story). The Jurchen-assisted Mongols conquered the Jin Dynasty in 1234. Soon after that, a large portion of Mongols left their homelands to begin their invasion of Europe, and shortly after that, my hero, Lazar, joins them.
In the first 20 chapters, the prospects of Lazar are precarious but sometimes aren’t as hair raising as they should be. In my latest chapter I hope to change that by adding fireworks. My Persian polymath, Dr. Abu, is creating a fireworks show in a wooden stadium holding 10,000 people (I was thinking 20,000, but I had to keep production costs down).
Fireworks as a concept provides a compelling schema for my characters who are figuratively, if not literally, sitting on a powder keg. I even might burn the whole show to the ground and not have to write beyond this chapter, but it’s only just a possibility, and perhaps just as complicated to execute as the one I planned.
Although there is some chain of causality to someone needing to use fireworks for dramatic effect and then, because not everyone wants the fireworks show to come off as planned, the fireworks behaving unpredictably. I begin this revision of Chapter 21, knowing full well of fireworks capacity to disappoint, disturb, even bore. The fireworks might be part of the background of my story and not part of the plot. But, like the ancient Chinese, I like a little fun. I probably won’t burn the story down, but for at least one chapter, I’d like words to explode, blaze across the sky, transcend the bounds of earth, illuminate in a multi-colored brass mandala, and then break apart and rain down to the ground in darkening cinders.
To paraphrase Peter Cook, that’s the wonderful thing about being an author, you can put in as many nude ladies fireworks as you’d like.
Happy Independence Day!