The journey of gunpowder began in ancient china when the alchemist Taoist discovered a powder that would explode with great force when brought to spark It then traveled along the silk road back to medieval europe. The technology was adopted straight away by the most powerful kingdoms to crush their rivals at the time Europe was deep into the dark ages at the time and gunpowder spelled the end of it and so began the age of Imperial Europe. Because only the richest of countries could afford the new technology so it wasnt long before Europe was controlled by only a few very powerful countries instead of many small squabaling rebel settlements