I recently learned that when merging two branches in git, if there are changes on two adjacent lines git declares this a conflict. For example, if file test.txt has this content:

Line 1: A
Line 2: B
Line 3: C
Line 4: D

and in branch master we change this to

Line 1: A
Line 2: B1
Line 3: C
Line 4: D

while in branch testing we change this to

Line 1: A
Line 2: B
Line 3: C1
Line 4: D

and then attempt to merge testing into master, git declares a merge conflict. My naive expectation was that the merge would happen without conflict and yield this:

Line 1: A
Line 2: B1
Line 3: C1
Line 4: D

I am sure there is a good reason why git doesn't merge this way. Can some explain this reason?

I recently learned that when merging two branches in git, if there are changes on two adjacent lines git declares this a conflict. For example, if file test.txt has this content:

Line 1: A
Line 2: B
Line 3: C
Line 4: D

and in branch master we change this to

Line 1: A
Line 2: B1
Line 3: C
Line 4: D

while in branch testing we change this to

Line 1: A
Line 2: B
Line 3: C1
Line 4: D

and then attempt to merge testing into master, git declares a merge conflict. My naive expectation was that the merge would happen without conflict and yield this:

Line 1: A
Line 2: B1
Line 3: C1
Line 4: D

I am sure there is a good reason why git doesn't merge this way. Can someone explain this reason?