"Well, lemon juice is delicious." Juana tried the drink and appreciated it.

"Drink as much as you want, here's it."

……

Well? Is there something missing?

Remember the salt pools on the shores of Barcelona? At that time, for the sake of secrecy, Ferdinand withdrew after drying the salt once. However, Ferdinand had already chosen the right place - Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

With the exception of Palma, the rest of the Canary Islands have a drier climate, and although there is precipitation from the warm and humid air currents of the Atlantic Ocean, it is mostly sunny, hot and dry, making it an ideal place to bask in salt.

Tenerife is the largest island in the Canary Islands, with an area of 2,034 square kilometers, and the Teide volcano on the island was the highest point in what was later Spain, but it is not yet under Spanish rule. In 1494, the Spanish fleet discovered the island and sent troops to attack, destroying the Guana kingdom established by the local Guana people, forcing it to surrender on December 25, 1495 (the date of surrender may have been deliberately arranged).

In September 1492, shortly after Columbus left the Canary Islands, Ferdinand ordered the Canary Islands magistrate to immediately send a fleet to search the waters around the archipelago for a large island with tall peaks. The administrator did not dare to slack off, and the fleet of the islands soon discovered Tenerife and launched an attack on the night of 18 September.

Due to the strict orders of His Majesty the King, the Castilians did not fish for three days and dry their nets for two days, nor did they deliberately choose any significant date for surrender, but launched an attack with all their might, and the natives were also unlucky, and their weapons were backward, and at the same time, the plague broke out on the island at this time, and they were unable to resist at all, and they were defeated and retreated. But the battle lasted a long time, and the final date of victory is interesting - April 1, 1493.

After the occupation of Tenerife, some of the workers in charge of drying salt, their families, and soldiers of the army, were stationed in Tenerife. The island is densely populated, has a large number of people, and has a certain level of literacy, otherwise it would not be possible to fight a regular war with Castile for even a small period of more than a year. Of course, it's only six and a half months now. As a result, there was no need to send too many salt-drying laborers, and it was very inexpensive to drive the conquered natives. Soon the salt drying was a great success.

Due to the heavy use of indigenous captives as labor, Tenerife did not need to replenish much fresh water, and self-sufficiency was almost guaranteed. Due to confidentiality considerations, the sea salt in Tenerife was temporarily disposed of by two channels, one was that the Sardinian salt ships set sail from the Sardinian ports of Cagliari and Bossa, and transported the salt to Sardinia at the newly built Tenerife wharf to supply Sardinian farmers, soldiers, and workers for consumption, and the rest was only used by Tenerife itself, and the remaining large amount of sea salt was temporarily hoarded until Ferdinand returned from the Americas, and then sold on a large scale. Tenerife is the largest island in size, with sea salt hoarded in warehouses and in the foothills and caves of the Teyd volcano, and the island is temporarily militarized, with foreign ships not allowed to anchor and personnel to land without permission, making it difficult for outsiders to detect the secrets.

The Canary Islands have a large number of volcanoes, volcanic ash and volcanic ash land is abundant, Ferdinand stationed 1,000 soldiers in Tenerife, incorporated them into a part of the cantonment corps, organized the indigenous cantonment on the island, and established military fortresses and granaries on the island, he is also successively sending additional troops to the Canary Islands, organizing cantonment, and building the Canary Islands into a powerful logistics supply base to Central and South America. Of course, except for the volcanic zone of Lanzarote, in 1730 there were more than 100 volcanic craters erupting on a small scale but without interruption for 6 years, forming a beautiful volcanic landscape, Ferdinand did not want to destroy the tourism resources - that is, the tourism resources, anyway, there are still more than 200 years, and he is not afraid of anything to happen to the islanders.

Although the price revolution has not begun, but Europe itself is still using the method of boiling salt to obtain salt, the output is small and the cost is high, so the price of salt has been relatively high, especially in Eastern Europe and Northern Europe, the poor often only have a few grains of salt or no salt at all, the high price of salt can be imagined, and this situation will continue for more than 100 years, although Spain has obtained natural salt deposits in the Americas, such as the salt lakes of the Yucatan Peninsula can directly scrape salt, but at the same time the inflow of gold and silver caused a price revolution, the price of salt is still high, until the introduction of the Oriental salt method. Therefore, Ferdinand imported sea salt from the Canary Islands and sold it at a high price, with a profit margin of more than 200%. After the price revolution, the price of salt rose sharply, the price of salt in Britain rose from 4 shillings per quart to 12 shillings per quart, and even higher in other countries, at this time the price revolution did not start, so the profit and other maritime trade did not have much advantage, but the production of sea salt is large, the demand is large, and the profit margin can also avoid excessive impact on the market, as long as the secrecy is appropriate, the price revolution will begin in the future, and the profit margin can remain unchanged or even rise. No other country in Europe competes with Spain for maritime trade, and Spain can trade salt to Northern and Eastern Europe for high profits.

However, drying salt in the Canary Islands, people come and go, after all, it is not a secret, the cost of drying salt in the Americas is too high, even if it supplies immigrants, there are natural salt mines in the local area, it is not worth it. Ferdinand had chosen a place, the Dakhla Peninsula, the southernmost tip of Western Sahara, with a source of water, and secluded enough to be unruled.

But Spain had already ceded all its African interests to Portugal in the Treaty of Alcasovas, and now that the New World had just discovered that the negotiations with Portugal were at a critical juncture, Ferdinand had to show his righteousness and solemnity and trustworthiness, and did not want to break his credit, because he was prepared to rely on the help of the Pope and take a strong stance on the division of the Papal meridian according to the original version of the papal meridian 100 leagues west of Cape Verde, instead of 370 leagues west of Cape Verde, and cede Brazil. At this time, you can't be grabbed by someone. As for the future, if Portugal is swallowed, then there is nowhere on earth that it will not be able to go.

You don't have to wait until Portugal is annexed, until João II dies - you don't have to wait, he dies before he comes back from the New World, his younger brother, the weak and mediocre Manuel I, comes to power, and he can start secretly, even if he is discovered, can Portugal still go to war with him? I am not afraid of it, now is not a good opportunity to attack Portugal, but if I really fight, I will sacrifice the Spanish phalanx, three-stage shooting, Galen boats, flying clippers and even line up to shoot, and absolutely swallow Portugal in one go.