Early Expeditions, Key Discoveries, and New Collaborations

Key Insight

During a 200-mile, three-day journey to Chengdu, the individual indulged his academic curiosity by visiting an alcohol factory, inspecting a brine works, lecturing at universities, and collecting nine rare old books on Chinese mathematics, astronomy, Daoism, and alchemy, which were sent back to Cambridge. In Chengdu, he also made a significant personal connection, meeting Huang Hsing-tsung, a 23-year-old chemist who had escaped the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong and was hired as his secretary and companion despite lacking typing or driving skills.

Traveling with Huang, he observed the Chinese capacity for wartime improvisation, noting how coal carbonization plants used old gasoline drums for piping, steel mills operated with salvaged river-steamer engines, and laboratories substituted gunborings for heater elements and mica for microscope cover-glasses. This adaptability underscored a pervasive resilience.

A pivotal visit to Lizhuang's Institute of History uncovered immense treasures, including Shang dynasty oracle-bones (1300-1100 BC), bamboo tablets from Confucius' time, and Imperial Archives. Crucially, he found evidence of gunpowder's invention in China, with firecrackers mentioned in the 2nd century AD and decrees forbidding gunpowder sales in 1076 AD, predating Berthold Schwartz's alleged Western discovery by two centuries. This visit also led to meeting chemist Wang Ling, who became a key collaborator for the first volumes of his great book, solidifying a partnership born from a chance encounter.