Chapter 26 Section 5 Pyrotechnics

The science and technology of gunpowder in the Song Dynasty were relatively developed.Zeng Gongliang, who was the prime minister of Song Renzong at the time, was an expert in gunpowder. He majored in the book "The General Essentials of Wu Jing" and made a scientific summary of the development of firearms.Artists in the Song Dynasty applied the achievements of gunpowder to acrobatic entertainment, which enriched and developed the ancient lantern art. Drinking fire with knives, escaping from people and changing into things, adds to its magical and blurred effect, which refreshes the eyes and ears of the audience. This is a great contribution of Song people's acrobatics.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, every Lantern Festival, a large-scale mass lantern festival was held. According to the record of "Lantern Festival" in Volume 6 of "Tokyo Menghualu", "People send court speeches to go out, and the lanterns are colorful on the mountain. "Jiaohui", in the "Caijie Shanxi (should be 'da'), all of which are painted with fairy stories", on the left and right sides of the Caijie mountain, the two venerables Manjusri and Samantabhadra are formed, each straddling a lion, a white elephant, and Five springs of water spew out from the middle of each finger, like small waterfalls.On the left and right gates of the capital gate, grass is tied into the shape of a dragon, and it is covered with a green curtain. Tens of thousands of lamps and candles are densely covered on the grass, "looking at it winding like two dragons flying away."From Dengshan to Xuandemenlouheng Street, it is about a hundred feet long, surrounded by thorns, and there are two long poles tens of feet long inside. Up, the wind moves like a flying fairy."

The medicine puppet is a pyrotechnic acrobatics invented by people in the Song Dynasty.It hides many folded paper characters and animals in the tightly packed pyrotechnic fireworks, and the gunpowder fuses are used to ignite the fireworks to shoot them high into the sky, and by the power of the gunpowder to explode and burn, it makes it shine colorfully. Rotating in the air, giving people a fresh and wonderful feeling.The technique of pyrotechnics is applied to illusion, which is called "pyrotechnic box".Tian Rucheng in the Ming Dynasty recorded "fireworks" and "hot meteors" in the Southern Song Dynasty in Volume 3 "Pian'an Yiyu" of "West Lake Tour Zhiyu".During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the content of the medicine puppet became more abundant, and it was able to ignite pictures such as "Kirin giving birth to a child" and "Eight Immortals Shangshou".In the opening of modern commercial houses or the celebration of the New Year, the grape racks that symbolize "a lot of money" are often set off.In contemporary firework cannons, the complex patterns ejected are also developed from the "firework boxes" of the Song Dynasty.