On the edge of the Azores near the European continent, there is a large island that was recently named Sao Miguel, which is one of the largest in the entire archipelago, and because of its rugged and complex coastline, it has formed many excellent natural harbors, and it has become the best haven for adventurers exploring the depths of the Atlantic Ocean on the European continent as soon as it was discovered.

At the southwestern end of the island of São Miguel there is a good bay, the whole bay is like a gentle girl, open arms to the tired traveler, the calm as a mirror of the harbor water surface blue bottom, the light yellow sand from a distance like a lively and pretty girl healthy skin, this place was named Ponta Delgada by the discoverer, and soon it became the most prosperous and lively harbor town on the island of São Miguel.

Some people once wanted to grow some crops on this island, but most preferred to use it as a transit point to the new colonies, so São Miguel Island soon flourished, more and more ships came and went, explorers from the European continent and the new colonies had to rest here, and soon a large port was built here, and some of the island's fruits became a precious delicacy for sailors who could not eat fresh fruits and melons at sea all year round. So much so that even the most deflated cook can fetch a good price for his hard-to-swallow meals.

There were not many people on the island of São Miguel, but the geographical location made each of them rich, but this good life was completely ruined by a naval war between Portugal and Castile.

The battle took place at sea not far from the island of San Miguel, after which some of the surviving crew members floated to the island with floating wreckage debris, but the Castilian people soon discovered in despair that the island of San Miguel, which was supposed to be occupied by Castile, had been seized by the Portuguese.

These crew members became captives, and what awaited them was a long time of captivity and heavy labor on the island.

Among these captives was the commander of the merchant fleet on Castile, a well-known Spanish explorer.

This naval battle was like a loud clarion call for war for the two countries, which were already tense, and from the sea to the land, the two countries instantly entered a state of war.

The port of Ponta Delgada quickly built forts, on which artillery purchased from France by the Free Trade Union was quickly installed, and the muzzles of the guns were aimed at the sea, and the Portuguese were vigilant against possible Castilian retaliation.

Only this time the Portuguese guessed wrong, and Queen Isabella did not once again order the captains of Castile to attack the Portuguese in the Azores, although the captains and the merchants who hired them were even angrier than the queen, since the Portuguese had completely severed their ties with the new colony.

Although the Atlantic Ocean is vast, it is extremely dangerous to sail on a sea without a reliable place to stay, not to mention the fact that the European continent is already a well-established route to the new colonies via the Azores, and the risks and failures of opening a new route in such times are too great and sometimes even outweigh the losses.

The Portuguese occupation of most of the islands of the Azores was tantamount to cutting off the Spanish road to the colonies, which was undoubtedly a fatal blow to many merchants who had already put their lives on the new colonies.

These merchants were inextricably linked with many nobles, so for a time the royal palace of Barriaridus was full of clamors to send troops to the Azores immediately.

However, Isabella did not respond to the demands of these nobles, insisting that the Portuguese should be defeated on land first, and at the same time that the French should be intimidated at any time that might intervene in Iberia.

Many nobles were puzzled by this, in their opinion, whether they were able to obtain the great wealth of the queen or the queen because of the discovery of the new colony, but now in the face of the threat of the Portuguese, the queen was not in a hurry to reopen the connection with the new colony, which was obviously neither in the interests of the queen herself nor their interests, so a group of people were unwilling to put forward the meaning.

But this time what awaited them was the queen's reprimand.

In desperation, these people turned their attention to Ferdinand, hoping that Ferdinand would intervene to dissuade the queen from changing her decision to land first, but in exchange for Ferdinand's silence.

Ferdinand knew very well what the meaning of Isabella's decision was, the Aragonese fleet transferred to the Mediterranean to exterminate the pirates, which obviously greatly reduced the strength of the United Kingdom's navy in the Atlantic, if it rashly started a war with the Portuguese at this time, even if it won the Castillians, it would have to pay a great price, so in the future development of new colonies, because of the disadvantage in strength, it would have to be dominated by the will of the Aragonese.

In addition, as Isabella's health became worse and worse, and the Council of Nobles of Toledo declared Juana's future regency without authorization, Isabella needed to make the situation of Castile develop in her favor as soon as possible, and the victory at sea obviously did not satisfy her needs, she wanted to appease the Andalusian nobles first, and then quickly defeat the Portuguese and French, she believed that at that time, the Council of Nobles of Toledo could only obediently submit to her again.

It was because of these considerations that Isabella insisted on solving the problems on land first, and then waited until the Aragonese fleet had eliminated the pirates, and then combined the forces of the two fleets to destroy the enemy in the Atlantic.

This was the right idea, and once the Queen's full plan was known, her ministers supported it, and previous meetings decided entirely with the Queen's intentions.

Land first and then sea became the final decision of the Castilian people to solve the current situation.

So even though she heard that the Portuguese in Ponta Delgada had hurried to build strong shore forts and equipped with powerful artillery, Isabella was not worried, because as long as the Portuguese fleet was defeated at sea, those islands would be within easy reach.

At this time, neither Isabella nor her ministers, even Ferdinand, thought that this extermination of pirates would not take much time, perhaps three months, or half a year, at most more than a year, that is, the war in the Mediterranean would be over by October 1502, and then the Aragonese fleet would return to the Atlantic, and then it would be time for the Portuguese to be unlucky.

In late October, the Aragonese fleet, which had been on the road for many days, finally came back with the news that they had found signs of piracy in the waters of the Mediterranean near the African side, and happily, they had encountered the fleet of the Knights Hospitaller from Rhodes, and the two sides with a common interest in the fight against the infidels soon formed an alliance, and with the Knights Hospitaller's familiarity with this area, the Aragonese fleet quickly eliminated a small group of pirates.

This good start pleased the fleet and the Sicilian governor in the rear, Flamensa, the sudden rampant piracy caused huge losses to Sicily, although there were also merchants who suffered heavy losses from robbery and accused the free trade alliance and those pirates of possible collusion, but all this was unfounded, and the influence of the free trade alliance in Sicily has penetrated into almost every corner.

This made it impossible for Flomenza to take action, and he didn't want to do so, since his own pockets were also bulging from the Free Trade Federation.

However, Hayreddin's attack on the Sicily-Aragon route annoyed Flomenza, especially the attack on the tax fleet, which forced him to ask Ferdinand to send a fleet to suppress the bandits.

At the end of October, the Sicilians were a little dismayed by the not-so-good news, and the Ottomans launched another attack on Rhodes, this time on a small scale, but the Knights Hospitaller still had to temporarily leave the African coast and return to Rhodes for reinforcements.

The Sicilians didn't really care much about Rhodes, although many of them had been generous to the Knights either out of faith or in order to keep Rhodes off the Ottomans, but as long as the Ottoman fleet did not appear near Sicily, it was not a big problem, but in this way, without the familiar Knights Hospitaller, the extermination of pirates might not be so smooth.

However, the Aragonese fleet was still confident, believing that even without the help of the Knights Hospitaller, it would only be a slight delay, and that the fate of the pirates would not change in the end.

From late autumn to early winter, the temperature in the Mediterranean slowly drops, but the temperature of the war rises suddenly.

Ordered to command the battle against the Portuguese, Gonzalo did not disappoint Isabella, and although the terrain caused by the Pyrenees to the north and its numerous branches prevented Gonzalo from fully displaying the power of his revolutionary phalanx as he wished, he continued to strike at the Portuguese with his superb command skills.

To the surprise of Isabella and Gonzalo on the front, the French, who had thought they would not heed the warning, behaved very well this time, and although they did not retreat from the border between the two countries as Isabella had warned, the French army retreated nearly 20 fats into the interior of Navarre.

This move made Isabella a little puzzled, she was ready to go to war with the two countries at the same time, but the "obedience" of the French made her a little suspicious for a while.

However, Isabella still mobilized the troops deployed on the border between the two countries to the battlefield in the direction of the Portuguese as much as possible, hoping to defeat Manuel the Portuguese as soon as possible and force Manuel to negotiate.

After all this was arranged, Isabella, who was finally too tired to hold on, entrusted the affairs of state to her palace minister, and she had to start recuperating according to the doctor's instructions.

But even so, the queen is still concerned about the war with Portugal, and she can't rest assured of Juana.

Although she had to announce that Juana was ordered to go to Toledo in order to cover up the truth, Isabella knew that this lie would not last long, not to mention that many people actually knew what was going on, and more importantly, the aggressiveness of the noble council also doomed the two sides to a fierce conflict.

Now Isabella's only hope is that the negotiations with Don Bavi will have a good result as soon as possible, as long as the Andalusian nobles can be appeased and not used by the noble council, once the Andalusian rebellion is resolved, she can free up her hands to deal with the old nobles of Toledo who have always been against her.

Although the Iberian Peninsula is not very large, the climate on the peninsula is noticeably different in November.

In the south, Malaga is still sunny, but in some parts of the north, it is already cold.

Further north, on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees, the climate is dry and cold because there is no sea breeze from the Atlantic and Mediterranean Seas.

A shepherd drives his flock of sheep up the hillside, and although the grass has gradually withered, some of the fruits that come out of autumn happen to be the goats' favorite, and they will eat all the time to survive the winter, so the sheep at this time are also fattened.

Several horsemen galloped down the hillside, and they seemed to be in a hurry, and they did not slow down when they rushed to the shepherd, and for a time frightened the sheep and ran in all directions.

The shepherd hurried to greet his flock, while staring at the uninvited guests with unspeakable hatred.

The horsemen, apparently unconcerned about the frightened sheep, kept whipping their mounts and galloping forward, a few puffs of smoke and dust rising from behind them, and when the smoke cleared, the figures of the cavalry were gone.

The shepherd angrily spat at the men's backs, and then used his wooden staff to drive away the frightened sheep.

But before he could gather the sheep again, there was a louder rumbling of hooves from down the hillside.

The shepherd looked up at a group of cavalrymen rushing on fast horses, he reluctantly slumped his shoulders, watching the cavalry pass by quickly, and the huge hooves of some of the horses directly kicked the goats in front of him and flew out, and the shepherd could only let out a roar that did not know whether to cry or curse.

A richly dressed knight passed by him and suddenly raised his hand and threw two shiny things, and the shepherd was stunned for a moment and immediately bent down to look for it, which made the cavalryman who almost ran into him curse.

When the cavalry was finally gone, the shepherds managed to find the two coins buried under the dirt from the crumbled ground.

Looking at the glittering coins, the shepherd cracked his mouth and laughed, and he raised his hand as if to greet the back of the cavalrymen who were no longer visible, and then shouted "God bless your generous lord", and carefully put the money in his pocket.

The cavalry had been hurrying along the mountain road, even at rest, and though they were cursing the abominable Moors along the way, after a long and arduous march for most of the month, the army from the interior of France finally crossed the Pyrenees and quietly arrived at the small town of Ollet, in the southeast of the kingdom of Navarre, in early November.

When they reached their destination, the French cavalry realized that they were not the only ones who had to suffer, and that the French troops from other places had also come to Ollett after such a hard march.

It's just that they all came here according to orders, broken into pieces, and led by their respective lords or subordinate noble knights.

Shortly before that, the French army, which had already reached the Ebro River, had just retreated on their own initiative, and these French troops were originally not large in number and did not pose much of a threat to the Castilians.

Unbeknownst to the Castilians, however, when the French army first arrived on the Ebolo River, a steady stream of troops from mainland France and the Kingdom of Navarre was quietly massing on the border for more than a month.

This cavalry from the interior of France was only a small part of it, and during this time such troops arrived almost every day in the small city of Aulet, some of them in the hundreds, and some of them perhaps only a few dozen, but the number of French troops on the border between the two countries was far greater than the Castilian estimates.

After several successive battles in early November, Gonzalo, who was in command of the battle against the Portuguese, wrote a letter to Isabella, in which Gonzalo, who had always been arrogant and bold, expressed caution for the first time, and found that the Portuguese did not seem to show an unusually strong desire to attack as they had originally thought, and when the Casdirians counterattacked, the Portuguese immediately retreated to their forts on the side of the border, and by taking advantage of the strong terrain, they firmly held Gonzalo's army back, This made Gonzalo, who was quite excited by the victory, realize a hint of something unusual.

While writing to the generals who were monitoring the French forces on the Navarre side, warning them to be careful of the movements of the French, he quickly sent a letter to Barriedot, hoping to get the queen's attention.

Gonzalo's messenger entered the city on the night of November 12, and after learning that everyone had already gone to bed, the messenger found an inn for dinner, and then slept soundly.

On the morning of the second day, the messenger came to the palace to ask for an audience with the queen, and after being told that the affairs of the state were now presided over by the minister, the messenger again asked for a new meeting.

The Prime Minister of Castile had only seen Gonzalo's messenger in the afternoon of the same day, but before the Prime Minister could open the letter, a man who was also covered in mud had already broken into the minister's office, led by several equally panicked guards.

"French!" The man, having rushed in, shouted loudly "The French broke through the Ebro, they fought with the Navarres!" ”

Gong Xiang's face turned blue when he heard the news, but he still tried to calm himself down, and then cut Gonzalo's letter with a silver knife that trembled slightly.

It's just that the content of the letter made Gong Xiang silent.

"My army is completely held here, which makes me very worried that the French may take advantage of the opportunity to send troops, and if it were me, I would not have let go of such a good opportunity, and now we have a pitiful number of troops on the south bank of the Ebro, and it is entirely possible to have a conjecture as long as there is a reliable army and a bold commander, so Your Majesty I beg you to strengthen the defense of the Ebro River, for I fear that the French may attack at any moment, not in months, weeks, but in days, Perhaps the French were prepared by the time I write this letter, so I ask you to be prepared for everything......"

On 7 November, the French attacked from the assembled city of Ollet, crossing the Ebot River and setting foot on Castilian soil in just one day.

It was also in November that the Neapolitan fleet, which had been preparing for more than half a month, set sail from the port of Naples.

Their destination is Sicily!