It was a rainy spring morning, and mist still clung to the low-slung hills that fringed this corner of the country. The view from the car window unfolded like any other semi-rural stretch of inland China. Farmland spread out in patches, interspersed with agglomerations of concrete buildings; some relatively flashy, adorned in the bathroom-style exteriors considered haute chic in small towns; others only half-formed structures of exposed brick and cement.

But the hoardings that punctuated the highway with rhythmic regularity revealed the explosive goings-on behind the surface calm. Arrows pointed in every direction for factories ranging from small workshops to export-oriented behemoths: "Ouda Fireworks," "Qingtai Fireworks," "Pyro Liuyang." A red banner, splashed across with large characters, stated, "Number 1 town of fireworks in the world."

This was not hyperbole. Liuyang - a 5,000-square-kilometre area along the eastern border of Hunan province - accounts for about 60% of China's domestic firework market and 70% of its fireworks exports. China in turn supplies close to 90% of the world's pyrotechnics.

The county is emblematic in many ways of China beyond the big cities: places with populations of over a million that almost no one outside the country has ever heard of and that even most Chinese would struggle to locate on a map. Yet, for the last three decades, they have functioned as hubs of world-dominating manufacturing, accounting for huge proportions of global supplies - from buttons to sex toys. These centers once thrived on large pools of low-cost labour and economies of scale. In their contemporary iterations, they are busy climbing the high-tech value chain: innovating materials, deploying drones and embracing the ruling authority's obsession du jour - Artificial Intelligence.

But Liuyang's dominance is not just industrial - it is civilisational. There is one figure who quite literally towers over everything else in the town: Li Tian, the local son and semi-mythical ancestor to whom the invention of the firecracker is credited. In Dayao, the Liuyang Fireworks Museum is located across the road from an enormous bronze statue of this legendary character. Flowing Mandarin robes, hair gathered in a topknot - Li Tian has the look of a celestial demi-god who has just handed humanity the magic of the stars themselves.

Wei, a guide at the museum enthusiastically recounted the most common version of the origin story of firecrackers according to which Li Tian helped cure a Tang-dynasty emperor of a mysterious malady by scaring away the evil spirits that plagued him. He did this by stuffing bamboo husks with saltpeter and sulphur - a rudimentary gunpowder stumbled upon by Daoist alchemists in their quest for the elixir of immortality - and tossing them into a fire. They exploded with thunderous bangs, sending the malevolent beings fleeing and restoring the emperor to health.

The truth behind legends might be dubious, but what is certain is that gunpowder, the key ingredient of firecrackers, was invented in China. A plaque in the museum noted how the technology travelled along the Silk Road: to India, on to West Asia, eventually reaching Europe by the 13th century.

Liuyang's current dominance of global fireworks owes much to this heritage, here, gunpowder was first put to work not on battlefields but for play and ritual. Baozhu, literally, "exploding bamboo," the earliest kind of firecrackers evolved into the aerial spectacle of fireworks, or yanhua, literally "smoke flowers."

With Liuyang, as the dominant production centre, the use of firecrackers gradually spread across China to become a widespread cultural practice. They were used both to drive away evil spirits and welcome good fortune. Major life milestones like weddings, births and funerals involved bursting firecrackers as did the celebrations around Chinese New Year.

The 20th-century fortunes of Liuyang's firework industry were a roller-coaster, mirroring the violent swings of fortune that China endured more broadly. By the early decades of the century, some 300,000 people in the area were involved in firecracker production. Mid-century wars, however, put a damper on the industry. And the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) dealt an even harsher blow. Mao Zedong's campaign to eradicate the "Four Olds" - Old Customs, Old Habits, Old Ideas and Old Culture - banned the bursting of firecrackers, given their association with superstition, ritual and traditions.

Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening up policy allowed the industry to once again sputter into life from the 1980s on. By the early years of the new millennium, Liuyang County had coalesced into a fully integrated industrial cluster - production, logistics, operations and R&D all under one roof. This was a model replicated in scores of towns across China, as the country cemented its status as the world's factory not just of fireworks, but of the entire gamut of light manufacturing.

Today, Liuyang lights up celebrations in more than 100 countries. The statistics are staggering: 99% of the fireworks that explode across the United States, for example, originate in China. During the 2019 US-China trade war, President Trump, even in the midst of his first-term tariff battles, exempted Chinese fireworks from punitive duties. Without them, the Fourth of July would have fizzled.

Wen Jing, an official with the Liuyang Fireworks Service Centre, a local government bureau, reeled off a series of startling statistics. The county is home to 430 fireworks manufacturers. Some 60% of the 1.45 million strong population in the area is involved in the industry. In 2025, Liuyang exported 6.29 billion RMB (880 million USD) worth of firecrackers. Its domestic sales were worth an eye-watering 22.86 billion RMB (3.2 billion USD).

China's Great Pivot: From Scale to Substance

She stressed that the industry is now entering a new epoch in its development, a far cry from the days that firecrackers were assembled in the back rooms of family homes. The government is now supporting innovation by encouraging manufacturers to adopt new technologies like digital ignition systems and smokeless launching techniques. In October last year, a massive firework display in Liuyang set two Guinness World Records that underline Wen's point: the most fireworks carried by a drone formation in flight and the largest number of drones simultaneously launched and controlled by a single computer. The spectacle saw 7,496 drones igniting fireworks in perfect synchronicity, while nearly twice that number traced the shapes of flowering trees in shifting constellations of light.

It was a blending of the ancient grammar of celebration with a new syntax of code and circuitry - the direction that Liuyang, in step with central government diktats, is steadily embracing. Fireworks in Liuyang today have moved well beyond the high-volume, low-cost export of crackers. An entire tourism economy is taking shape around them, transforming what was once a backcountry-hardscrabble - one that people left in search of better prospects - into a destination drawing millions of visitors. The statistically minded Wen informed us that since 2023, 146 large-scale firework displays have been held in Liuyang, attracting 7 million visitors and generating 20 billion RMB (2.8 billion USD) in revenue.

It was still raining when we pulled up at the display store for Liuyi Toy Fireworks Company, part of a cluster of identikit firecracker showrooms located in and around the Dayao International Firework Trade Mall. Colourful packages of catherine wheels, sparklers and rockets lined the shelves. The company's founder, Wang Xian Feng, is a serial entrepreneur and former director of the Liuyang Fireworks Industry Development Centre. He talked about how far safety regulations in firecracker production have come within a relatively short period of time.

Explosions and fires in the early 2010s used to cause scores of deaths annually. But in the intervening years the authorities restricted production to designated counties, formalised licensing and cracked down on illegal workshops. Regulatory oversight now stretches across the supply chain - from production and storage to transport and retail - banning excessive stockpiling, limiting sales in unauthorised areas and tightening inspection at sales outlets. While occasional accidents still happen, the top-down tightening of rules has shifted the industry from dispersed, informal production towards a more centralised, surveilled and risk-averse mode.

Wang is now focused on exporting low-smoke, sulphur-free firecrackers using a patented technology. "India is the perfect market," he said enthusiastically, elaborating his vision for pollution-free Diwali celebrations. Until a decade ago, the air in Chinese cities was as contaminated, if not worse, than Indian cities are today. As part of the campaign against urban air pollution, many city governments imposed comprehensive bans on the sale and bursting of fireworks within core urban areas, even though this went against cultural traditions of celebration, especially during Chinese New Year.

In India too firecracker bans have been attempted, although they have often proved ineffective in the face of popular backlash. Wang said his technology could help ameliorate the tension between "fun" and environment by significantly reducing cracker-pollution. Using single-base powder, plant-fiber materials and specially designed catalysts, Chinese-developed technology can reduce the post-combustion residue of firecrackers by as much as 80%. Sulphur dioxide emissions, one of the main pollutants, is close to zero.

As elsewhere in China, talk of AI was inescapable. Local governments are channeling subsidies toward firms experimenting with open-source automation systems and AI-driven production tools. Wang told me he had recently signed an agreement with the Liuyang authorities that would partially underwrite his use of "OpenClaw" technology - an emerging platform he is deploying to collect production data and refine product design. This push is not unique to fireworks.

Across China, artificial intelligence has become a central priority of the current Five-Year Plan, with local officials now evaluated less on the volume of foreign investment they attract and more on their ability to cultivate homegrown tech ecosystems. The result: even an industry built on gunpowder is being rewired by algorithms.

Yet for all the circuitry shaping its future, Liuyang's essence remains elemental. Fireworks still draw on the same alchemy that once drove off the spirits tormenting a Tang emperor: the visceral jolt of light and sound. The scale, precision and ambition of the industry is certainly evolving, but ask the average Chinese and they will still equate the crackle of a simple string of firecrackers with joy. Fireworks endure because they momentarily rupture order - even in a regulation-heavy society like China's, because they are loud, exuberant and just a little out of control.

Journalist and writer Pallavi Aiyar brings the Indian perspective to understanding China. With 'Writing on the Great Wall', she places her eye on China's economy, its culture, its government and its people. Aiyar has spent more than two decades studying China, having lived there from 2002 to 2009, and again from August 2025.