"Blow up the mountain?!"
"What's a tunnel?"
She Xin and You Fu were both thoroughly stunned by Luo Chong's words. They had never expected the Chieftain to suggest such a method.
"A tunnel is a man-made cave dug through a mountain, bored straight from one side to the other, opening up a passage through the mountain. Isn't there a saying that goes, 'When you meet a mountain, cut a road through it; when you meet water, build a bridge across it'? Digging tunnels is another way of opening a road." Seeing their astonished, confused expressions, Luo Chong explained it to them.
'When you meet a mountain, cut a road through it; when you meet water, build a bridge across it?'
She Xin and You Fu both said they had never heard that saying at all. They did not know who the Chieftain had heard it from, either. Still, it made perfect sense: if there was no road, they could simply open one. But drilling through a mountain? The scale of that project was far too huge.
So You Fu spoke again.
"Chieftain, digging a tunnel isn't impossible, but to open the entire railway line, we don't even know how many tunnels we'll have to dig. The scale would be enormous, the difficulty high, and it would take a long time. Building the road this way could indeed shorten the total length, but it might multiply the construction time several times over."
"No, it won't. Didn't I just explain? We'll use explosives directly. First, send people to survey the terrain and find the most suitable location. Then we'll dig toward the center from both ends at once.
"When digging the tunnel, use air hammers to bore holes into the rock walls first. Then fill those holes with explosives, attach fuses, and