……

"In addition to these, the richest reserves in Spain are mercury mines......" Ferdinand couldn't help but be complacent after remembering Gijón and Bilbao, two rare coal and iron mines in Spain, so he began to search his memories again to see if he could recall some missing minerals.

However, it seems a pity that not much of value was found next. Spain is so rich in mercury that it can hold hundreds of thousands of 760 mm of mercury in a test tube, but it wasn't the most important mineral for the Industrial Revolution.

Lead-zinc ore is good, can provide spring steel raw materials, but this is a traditional business in Spain, Ferdinand just entered the city of Granada has already remembered, has already arranged for exploration teams to explore a lot of lead-zinc mines, plus Sardinia also has lead-zinc mines, is not lacking at present.

However, Ferdinand soon thought about Spain's precious metal deposits and was overjoyed.

When it comes to precious metals in Spain, you may feel that there is no need to discuss it at all, the use of gold and silver in the Spanish Empire was terrifying, but! It was not minerals from the Iberian Peninsula, it was extracted by Spain from the American colonies. For the time being, Spain will not be able to use the gold and silver mines of the Americas for two years.

On the mainland, however, Ferdinand drew two circles on the map – the provinces of Galicia and Asturias in northern Spain, which had previously mined gold before the Roman Empire and had long since ceased to exploit gold. However, in fact, there are still a lot of untapped gold mines here, so simply mine them together to fully tap the potential!

Ferdinand compared several maps of the provinces of Galicia and Asturias, combined with his own memory, to mark the approximate distribution of gold deposits in the two provinces, especially two specific mines, the Corcoesto gold mine in Galicia and the Salave gold mine in Asturias, which later had a total proven reserve of more than 2 million ounces.

Of course, now, there is no exploration, but not far away, Ferdinand clearly marked the specific latitude and longitude coordinates of these two gold mines, and with the distribution points and distribution zone maps, the speed of finding a batch of gold mines will be greatly accelerated, so you can include a batch of Ducat!

……

In addition to this, Ferdinand also thought of the later history of a large mining company with its Spanish origins.

The world's three iron ore giants refer to the three iron ore production, development and marketing groups of Brazil's Vale, Australia's BHP Billiton, and Britain's Rio Tinto Group.

Among them, the Rio Tinto Group (Rio Tinto Mining Company), originally founded in Spain in 1873, of course, later sold most of its Spanish operations. Today, it is a large Anglo-Australian mining group that has also acquired Alcoa.

The name "Rio Tinto", also known as Rio Tinto, is the name of a river in southwestern Spain.

The Riotinto River is a river with a unique environment, where you can find even extreme environments similar to those found on the Wild Lands of Earth and other planetary moons. The environment in its subterranean deposits resembles that of underground Mars with liquid water, or Jupiter's moon Europa, and is inhabited by anaerobic bacteria in extreme environments, making it a site of particular interest for astrobiologists.

Well, that's not what Ferdinand was concerned about. He knew that it was the largest copper mine in Spain, and it still is today. Of course, now that Riotinto's mining industry is restricted, the focus is on environmental protection, so astrobiologists can happily study the extreme environment here. Of course, this does not affect its status as the largest copper mine in Spain.

Ahem, then, how to solve the demand for copper ore in Spain?

I had to import it, who called it born in the Iberian Peninsula, a place with touching key resource reserves, Banya is already very conscious, in addition to resolutely suppressing some ill-intentioned scum in Catalonia, and sending back the Moroccan soldiers who landed on the islands of Spanish Moroccan territory to make trouble through Ceuta Customs, the others have long been resigned to their fate, and there is no way to rely on foreign countries for resources......

However, with the current situation of the first industrial revolution in the early modern period around 1500 after 300 years, it is still possible to meet a certain degree of resource self-sufficiency in the resources of the territory ruled by Ferdinand.

So, Ferdinand set his sights on Riotinto again, intending to dig and develop the copper mines here.

The mining history of Riotinto, like that of Bilbao, is a mineral deposit with a long history but which has not been fully exploited. The history of mining began around 3000 BC! Through the time of the Phoenicians and the Roman rule, until now, copper ore and some iron and manganese have been mined in a steady stream.

But it wasn't until the 19th century that the large deposits were discovered and large-scale mining began, and for at least 60 years, Riotinto's copper production continued to rise, reaching its peak in 1930.

Therefore, the copper mine production of Riotinto is completely free of pressure to invigorate General Secretary Ferdinand's cause of imperialist modernization with Spanish characteristics......

Even, Ferdinand once had the idea of burning money like this—wasn't he always having a headache with the corrosion of sailboats? Just take the historical route and wrap the Galen ships in copper......

Eventually, though, I thought of Europe's 15 to 1 silver-bronze ratio at this time......

Sure enough, let's find another way out (°ー°〃)! You can't burn so much money if you have money!

However, it's not that copper can't be used. In the future, some of the top sail battleships of the Spanish fleet can consider using luxurious equipment wrapped in copper, but it must be the main battleship with more than 80 guns! A small boat of the Pelican's class, or an ordinary Galen ship of five or six hundred tons, went aside.

All in all, Ferdinand himself was so excited about the promising results of the Iberian Peninsula's precious metals that he did a little mental work.

Of course, the happiest in this regard should be Queen Isabella. Because, unfortunately, most of the coal, iron and gold mines that can be tapped in the Iberian Peninsula are in Castile, so the Castilian treasury, which has just come out of the state of running horses, can be filled. No, it should be the royal family's coffers that are full.

This also meant that the Castilian royal family could further break away from its dependence on taxation through parliament.

If it were the King of England, he would certainly be very happy about it! King Ferdinand II of Aragon (although he also has the title of Co-Monarch of Castile) was also very happy! But for Queen Isabella, the monarch of Colora, this was less significant.

Because the Council of Castile sometimes caused trouble for the monarch, such as preventing Ferdinand's regent from Castile. But once the monarch established his rule, at least when it came to taxation, the parliament was very talkative. For the majority of the Castilian parliament consisted of the great nobles, the clergy, and the squires of the country—these men were exempt from most taxes, and the councillors were not required to pay taxes, no matter how the tax rate was raised......

Therefore, Castile's suffocating tax rate cannot be said to be just the king's pot, but the king and Parliament are responsible for it, because Parliament does not care much about taxation at all, at least compared to the House of Commons of England's "ask for the people's lives and fight for reason", it is really too dereliction of duty......

Although he complained about the Council of Castile, of course Ferdinand still had to praise it, because the ass decided the head. Although he didn't think he would fall into the same crazy tax hikes as Charles V and Philip II, but what if that happened? Having a parliament to take the blame together can alleviate a little public resentment......