How clever and unique is that? 🛕

[0:00]Using nothing but a pile of wood, you built a temple on a 60m cliff that has stood for a thousand years. How was this done? At first, you only wanted to build a small temple deep in the mountains to bless you and your brothers with promotion and wealth. But every rainy season, the river rose and washed the little temple away year after year. Then you cleverly realized water flows downward, so if you built the temple higher, it will be safe. Just then, you looked up and saw a natural rock ledge jutting out 60 meters above the ground, perfect for building a house. But once you started work, you found the ledge was too small to hold even a single room. Worse, above the ledge were loose rocks that could fall at the slightest disturbance. You didn't give up. Since the natural ledge wouldn't work, you decided to make your own. You found a relatively flat cliff face and used a chisel to carve a straight row of holes, each 2 to 3 meters deep. Then you hammered thick wooden beams hard into the holes, laid planks across them, and created a hanging platform. But soon after, the platform tilted and collapsed. Mountain vibrations and people walking on it kept the beams from rooting firmly in the rock cracks. Long exposure to wind and rain made the beams damp and rotten, and they finally snapped. To build a stronger platform, you first found the hardest local hemlock, then soaked the beams in tung oil for a full 60 days. After taking them out and drying them, the beams became waterproof, rot resistant, and tougher. Once the beams were ready, you reworked the old holes, chiseling them with a long-handled iron tool into a shape wider inside and narrower outside. Next came the key step. You brought the treated beams, carved a notch at one end, and inserted a special wooden wedge. Then you drove beam and wedge together into the hole. When the wedge reached the deepest part, it forced the beam to expand, like an expansion bolt, locking it tightly into the cliff, so it could never be pulled out. You vividly named it the cut off bamboo shoot. Finally, you laid planks across the beams again and got a very solid hanging platform. Now your small temple could stand firmly on it, no longer afraid of being washed away. Later, you felt the little temple was too simple and not grand enough. So you used the same method to extend two more levels upward, then used clever mortise and tenon joints to drive piles, erect columns, set beams, and lay floors, raising magnificent halls straight out of the cliff. Although the structure was already solid, you still felt it didn't look safe, so you had another idea. You added 27 pillars under the beams, letting them just lightly tiptoe on the ground. This reassured onlookers and during earthquakes, helped share the load on the beams, making the building even more stable. To keep out rain and slow the beams' decay, you also regularly brushed them with tung oil. In this way, without a single iron nail, you let this temple hang on the cliff for more than 1,500 years. Congratulations, you have invented the Hanging Temple of Datong in Shanxi.