18. Keeping a Major Gunpowder Factory in the Middle of a Capital City Turned Out to be a Bad Idea
Producing adequate stocks of gunpowder was vital to the security of Ming Dynasty China in the seventeenth century. So investing in major gunpowder works was a good idea on the part of the Ming government. However, building a major gunpowder work in a major city – especially in the Ming capital city – turned out to be a bad idea. That became clear on May 30, 1626, in the aftermath of what became known as the Great Tianqi Explosion, after the Ming Dynasty Tianqi Emperor during whose reign it occurred.
Also known as the Beijing Explosive Incident in Late Ming, the Wanggongchang Calamity, or the Wanggongchang Explosion, it was one of history’s worst industrial accidents. It occurred at the Wanggongchang Armory, about two miles from Beijing’s Forbidden Palace in Beijing – home of the Ming emperors and the seat of their government. The blast was so loud that it was heard beyond the Great Wall, about 100 miles away, and produced a “mushroom-shaped” cloud that hung over southwest Beijing. When the dust settled, half of the city was wrecked, and around 20,000 people were dead.
