The early part of the year 1488 they spent in Aragon, settling the affairs of that kingdom, and receiving the acknowledgment by the national Cortes of Prince John, now a boy of ten as heir to the Spanish throne. By June, however, Ferdinand arrived in Murcia and soon pushed southwards with a large army; but the campaign was not destined to follow the glorious lines of its predecessor. El Zagal, from his headquarters at Guadix, and his brother-in-law Cid Haya at Baeza knew the country well, and were on the watch for the least rash or mistaken move that their opponents might commit. Several of the smaller fortresses succumbed to Castilian lombards; but such gains were fully counterbalanced by a repulse from Almeria, and a well-planned ambush, from which the Marquis-Duke of Cadiz only extricated himself and his troops with considerable difficulty and loss. Ferdinand, despairing of further efforts at the moment, withdrew to winter at Valladolid; but in the next spring he and Queen Isabel appeared in Jaen, determined on the reduction of Baeza, the most important town in eastern Granada. The preparations were on a scale that surpassed all former efforts of the kind; for the neighbouring country with its thick orchards and easily flooded rivers was difficult and treacherous; while the inhabitants were even more hostile to the Christians than their western compatriots. The cornfields of Baeza had not ripened at the time of the enemy’s advance; but the grain was already cut and stored within the city lest the hated unbelievers should reap it for their own consumption. The supply of food was but one of the many pressing problems that the sovereigns were called on to solve; and, as the time passed, Ferdinand was almost tempted to raise his camp and retire until he should have made himself master of the surrounding district. To this policy he was urged by the majority of his generals, who contrasted the massive fortifications of Baeza, her hardy soldiers, and her stores of provisions, with the Christian lines, then threatened by inundations of water and decimated by disease. Don Gutierre de Cardenas, Commander of Leon, alone protested against a retreat that would represent the waste of so much labour and money; and he was to find a staunch supporter in the Queen, who from Jaen implored her husband not to listen to advice as cowardly as it was mistaken. If he would continue the campaign, she on her part pledged herself to keep a line of communication open, pouring daily into the camp all that it should require in the way of food or ammunition.