Of course, a regular person wouldn't be able to do so, but Even a small pool like Bitminter, or Bitmaintech's AntPool, or KnC's "Testing Facility" could easily accomplish this without controlling 51% of the network. After they find that one block, which wouldn't take long, they would be able to start the cycle.
I think this deserves a bit more attention.
No, it doesn't deserve attention because you're misunderstanding how Bitcoin works. The length of the blockchain is not measured in
number-of-blocks, but in the amount of work done, i.e.
blocks multiplied by difficulty. If someone managed to set up the scheme you describe, the manipulated chain would not be accepted as the longest. Its higher block count multiplied with the fake low difficulty makes it shorter than the real one.