Chapter 494: First Volume, Chapter 494: Transforming the Camp

First Volume, Chapter 494: Transforming the Camp

But this hilltop must be modified; otherwise, its bare, exposed surface offers no cover—first, it leaves us vulnerable to enemy arrows, and second, the Enemy Army will surely surround this position, at which point even the blazing midday sun alone will be enough to make Qin Feng suffer.

Moreover, although the terrain is steep, it is not an impassable abyss—in fact, the mountain can be ascended from all four sides, and being surrounded from all directions is already a foregone conclusion.

Qin Feng took a deep breath, his resolve firm: "Cut the mountain. Modify it!"

"Turn this hilltop into a three-sided dead end with one side for Beidi War Response—build fortifications on the mountain and wage a Prolonged Warfare against the Enemy Army!"

Upon hearing "cut the mountain and modify," Ning Hu froze in shock, taking a long while to recover.

"Brother Qin, did I hear you right? Cut the mountain? We don't even have proper tools—how are we supposed to cut a mountain? And… this is definitely a massive project; it would take at least ten days or half a month to finish, but the Enemy Army won't give us that much time for Preparation—they'll likely encircle Qingyu Mountain no later than two days from now, maybe even within one day."

Ning Hu's doubts were not without merit.

But who said you need tools to cut a mountain? Who said cutting a mountain requires slow, deliberate chiseling?

This massive stone mountain—any single boulder weighs tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of catties; relying on manpower to chisel it would take until the Year of the Monkey or the Horse?

Qin Feng didn't know how to explain it to Ning Hu, so he simply didn't explain—he told Ning Hu to go to the camp, gather a few guards, and bring back long spears and captured halberds.

Qin Feng picked up one halberd and scanned the hilltop, finally selecting a Massive Rock on the western side.

This huge stone was part of the mountain itself—two-thirds embedded in the mountain, with only one-third protruding outward, just right for gripping and climbing.

As long as this Massive Rock remained, enemy troops approaching from the west could use it as a springboard to easily scale the MountainTop.

Under the confused stares of Ning Hu and the guards, Qin Feng raised the halberd and began chiseling into the rock.

The halberd's shape resembled a crane-beak hoe, only less bulky—after all, its primary function was to break armor.

Amid a series of clinking sounds, Qin Feng exerted little effort and carved out a depression the size of a tiger's mouth; he then had the guards insert the spear shafts into the hole. He repeated the process along a line, carving nine such holes in the Massive Rock.

Each hole received a spear shaft.

Then he gathered small wooden sticks, sharpened one end of each, and jammed them into the gaps between the spear shafts and the holes. If that didn't work, he used stones to hammer the sticks in forcefully.

When the first hole could no longer accept any more sticks, Qin Feng moved to the second and repeated the exact same actions.

After filling eight holes, he went to the ninth, inserted a stick, noticed remaining gaps, found a slightly thicker stick, wedged its pointed end into the gap, raised a stone, and slammed it hard against the other end of the stick.

Crack!

The Massive Rock suddenly emitted a clear, terrifying sound.

Ning Hu, standing nearby in utter confusion, shifted from bewilderment to shock, then to ecstatic joy—he pointed at the massive fissure running through all nine holes, wildly excited.

"It split! It actually split!"

The other guards present also stared in astonishment—they never imagined Qin Feng, using nothing but tiny wooden sticks, could actually pry apart a Massive Rock weighing tens of thousands of catties!

To the onlookers, this was nothing short of a miracle!

But Qin Feng showed no hesitation—he raised the stone and slammed it again hard against the stick. As the stick sank deeper into the hole, slightly widening it, that tiny expansion became the final straw.

As the saying goes: a thousand-li dike collapses from an ant's hole. The seemingly indestructible Massive Rock split completely along the nine holes, cleaving cleanly in two.

The pried-off half of the Massive Rock slid down the mountainside, crashing against the rock face below, producing deafening roars.

The guards on the MountainWaist, bewildered by the noise, rushed up, faces blank with confusion.

"Commandant Ning, what just happened?"

"Thunder?"

"Whoa, so much dust!"

The arriving guards were all baffled; those already present stood dumbfounded. After a long moment, they finally came to their senses.

Ning Hu swallowed hard, stammering: "J-just now, Brother Qin… smashed open that Massive Rock weighing tens of thousands of catties."

As soon as he spoke, silence fell, then erupted into chaos.

The arriving guards stared in utter disbelief.

"What? Smashed open that tens-of-thousands-of-catties Massive Rock? How is that possible? Brother Qin didn't even have a proper chiseling tool!"

"The loud crash was definitely the rock falling and striking the ground—but how long has Brother Qin been up here? How could he have pried it open? Even with a crane-beak hoe, pounding for hours wouldn't do it!"

The guards who had witnessed the entire process still couldn't believe their eyes, mumbling weakly:

"The Young Master… he only used a halberd and sticks to pry open the rock."

The uninformed guards were already awestruck.

When they learned Qin Feng's tools were nothing but common wooden sticks, they were utterly stunned.

If anyone showed indifference toward this feat, it was Qin Feng himself.

Under the hot, bewildered stares of the crowd, Qin Feng casually tossed the rock aside, clasped his hands behind his back, and wore an expression of serene calm.

"This simple wooden stick technique is called 'Explosive Wedge Technique'—a single stick's force is negligible, but when nine Explosive Wedge holes work together, they can forcibly burst the rock open. The harder the stone, the fewer Explosive Wedge holes you need; the looser the stone, the more you need. In short, it relies on the rock's own rigidity to make it split itself."

Explosive Wedge Technique was an ancient method, but this era had yet to master it. According to Qin Feng's knowledge, stone-quarrying in this age involved chiseling small stones directly, while for large stones, they first heated them with fire, then doused them with cold water to exploit thermal expansion and contraction.

But for the guards encountering Explosive Wedge Technique for the first time, this spectacle was still profoundly shocking.

Ning Hu stared blankly at Qin Feng, unable to help but marvel: "Brother Qin, what's inside your head? You're proficient in everything—from military strategy to commerce—and now you can split Massive Rocks as if guided by heaven—what is there you can't do?"

Nearby, the brocade-clad guards silently recorded the Explosive Wedge Technique in their small notebooks, whispering in awe: "It's not a matter of whether you can or cannot—it's that… Young Master Qin always achieves feats beyond ordinary comprehension. Had we not seen it with our own eyes, who could believe a rock could be quarried this way? It's simply unimaginable…"