Frederick transformed Prussia from a European backwater into an economically strong and politically reformed state. His conquest of Silesia, which provided Prussia's new industries with raw materials, helped boost industrial production and development, and he protected these industries with high tariffs and a minimum of restrictions on internal domestic trade. The modernizing mechanisms and technology of the state also enabled Frederick, in 1747, to undertake a massive six-year drainage and "reclamation" program in the country's northern marsh-land. This rationalist-mided program, which Frederick saw as the "taming" and "conquering" of "useless" and "barbarous" nature, created roughly 150,000 acres of arable farmland, but also eliminated vast swaths of natural habitat, destroyed the region's biodiversity, and displaced numerous indigenous communities. With the help of French experts, Frederick also reorganized Prussia's taxation policy, implementing a system of indirect taxation, which was more lucrative than the previous policy of direct taxation. Frederick also commissioned the eminent Prussian merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky to help promote trade. Gotzkowsky directed Frederick to reform the Prussian system of toll levies and import restrictions, and to construct a major a silk factory in an effort to compete with the French silk trade. In 1763, when Gotzkowsky went bankrupt during an Amsterdam-based financial crisis, Frederick took over a porcelain factory of his.