<P> The splintering of territory and states over generations meant that by the 1790s in the German - speaking Holy Roman Empire in Central Europe, there were approximately 1800 customs barriers . Even within the Prussian state itself, there were, at the beginning of the 19th century, more than 67 local customs and tariffs, with as many customs borders . To travel from Königsberg in East Prussia to Cologne, for example, a shipment was inspected and taxed 18 times . Each customs inspection at each border slowed the shipment's progress from source to destination, and each assessment on the shipment reduced profit and increased the price of goods, dramatically stifling trade . </P> <P> When France defeated the Second Coalition, made up of Russian, Austrian and German forces, and annexed territories up to the Rhine, there was a general consolidation of the myriad of tiny states in Germany in the Mediatization of 1803 . This was also called the Principal Conclusion of the Extraordinary Imperial Delegation (or, in German, Hauptschluss der außerordentlichen Reichsdeputation, usually called the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss). This last piece of major legislation enacted by the Holy Roman Empire re-arranged the map of Central Europe, especially in the southwestern territories . The Reichshauptschluss resulted in the secularization of many ecclesiastical territories, and the so - called mediatization, i.e. the annexation to larger neighboring territories, of many of the formerly free imperial territories, including most of the imperial cities . Considerable portions of the Habsburg family territories in southwestern Central Europe were "mediatized", or given as compensation, to the princes and dukes who had lost territories in the French expansion . Most of the imperial cities, imperial abbeys, and ecclesiastical states and cities were mediatized or secularized in 1803 . With the final dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, most of the remaining tiny principalities were annexed by larger neighbors . </P> <P> Historians have analyzed three Prussian goals in the development of the Zollverein: first, as a political tool to eliminate Austrian influence in Germany; second, as a way to improve the economies; and third, to strengthen Germany against potential French aggression while reducing the economic independence of smaller states . The Zollverein created a larger market for German - made farm and handicraft products and promoted commercial unification under fiscally sound economic parameters . While the Union sought to limit trade and commercial barriers between and among member states, it continued to uphold the protectionist barriers against outsiders . </P> <P> During the Napoleonic Era, efforts in the Rhineland toward economic unity had mixed success . The Confederation of the Rhine, and the other satellite creations of Napoleonic France, sought to establish economic autarky in European trade . By 1806, as Napoleon I sought to secure his hegemony in Europe, the Continental System offered a semblance of unified effort toward a widespread domestic market for European goods . However, the main purpose of the Continental System was military, not economic . Napoleon wanted a trade embargo against Britain, through which he hoped to wreck the British economy . The combination of war and isolation from Britain's trading system destroyed markets for external raw materials and for manufactured goods, resulting in the near ruin of the Central European economy . Especially hard hit were the trading economies of the Lowlands and Rhineland states, which had relied heavily upon imports of raw materials from throughout the world, and on the export of finished products . The domestic markets in Central Europe were not large enough to sustain consumption of their own production . These problems were dramatically exacerbated by the numerous excise taxes and tolls which were the main source of state income . Reduction in trade meant the near bankruptcy of the smaller states . </P>

What did the zollverein economic union do for prussia
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